Control (10 page)

He had
the look of a man obsessed but he let me go when I softly pushed at him. 
Daemon’s chest moved up and down with his heavy breathing and I could tell that
his pants had tightened from our encounter.  I took a moment to contain
myself and looked up at him.

“What
was that for?”  That had to have been the most unintelligent question
ever, but my mind was still trying to reboot after that kiss.

Daemon
gave me a wicked grin and he started rubbing his hands over the goose bumps
along my arms. “I noticed your
boyfriend
has moved on to someone else, giving
me the perfect opportunity to claim what’s mine.”

I
closed my eyes in an attempt to calm my heart rate.  Never before have I
been this affected by another person and I felt like a fish out of water. 
My body wanted to jump him here in the alley, but my mind wouldn’t stop
screaming out that this was a bad idea.

“You
saw that?”

His
smile grew wider. “Yeah, I saw that.  Care to share with me why your
boyfriend is kissing another woman while he is out with you?”

I tried
to play it off but I had a feeling Daemon wasn’t buying anything I was selling
at the moment.  “Would you believe me if I told you that Alex is certified
in CPR and he was giving her mouth to mouth?”

Daemon
remained quiet while he shook his head.   We stood looking at each
other while he rubbed his hands softly up and down my arms.  The continued
contact wasn’t helping calm me and I threw my hands up in defeat. 
“Fine.  He’s not my boyfriend.  We just pretend that we’re together
so that I can avoid being hit on by other guys.”  I gave him a pointed
look. “Apparently, it’s not working when it comes to you.”

Daemon’s
grin widened.  “Apparently.”  He reached his arms around me and
started rubbing his hands along my lower back.  My body arched
involuntarily to his touch.

“Tell
me where I can find you, Paige.  I want to see you again and I want it to
be outside this club.”

 An
inner battle began playing out within me about whether or not I should agree to
seeing him again.  Daemon is one of the most arrogant men I know and I was
concerned that I could be falling prey to the game he was playing.  I knew
I should walk out of there and avoid him for as long as possible, but my heart
clenched at the thought of not seeing him.  I considered my options before
answering his question.

“I’m
not ready to tell you where I live.  I’ll give you my phone number and we
can see where it goes from there, but I have to warn you, Daemon, if you are
looking for a girl you can order around, you are looking in the wrong place.”

Daemon
continued to look at me with an expression I couldn’t figure out.  “I’ll
take what I can get with you, Damsel.  If you can only offer me your
number at this point, then I’ll be happy for having that.”

I shook
my head in agreement and pulled out my phone.  We exchanged numbers and
once I had put my phone back in my pocket, his mouth was on me again. 
This kiss was soft and slow and it felt like he was worshipping my mouth. 
His arms reached around me and he pushed on my lower back causing me to arch my
body against him.  Another growl came from within him and it vibrated my
body where it was touching his.  My head was swimming in desire and I
didn’t think I could take much more of this without losing control.  Just
when I was about to lose it for good, he nipped at my lip and pulled
away.  He appeared to be shaking off whatever reaction his body was having
and his eyes held me in the most seductive stare.  We didn’t speak for a
few seconds and then he reached for my hand to lead me back inside.

Once we
entered the club, Daemon bent down to whisper in my ear. “I’ve got to get back
to work, Damsel, so you should find that
ex
-boyfriend of yours and start
getting home.  You WILL be hearing from me soon enough.”  He nipped
at my ear and then walked away.  I stood where he left me attempting to
balance myself from that experience.  Once I felt that I could move
without falling over I went back out in search of Alex.

I
finally located Alex still attached to his brunette. 
Geez, get a room
guys
.  I tapped on his shoulder and gave him a pointed glare when he
broke free of her face and turned in my direction.  Alex wasn’t surprised
by my presence and understood that I was ready to go home.  He turned back
to his friend and kissed her quickly on the lips.  Turning back to me, he
introduced the brunette.

“Uh,
hey Paige, this is Jill and Jill, this is my good friend, Paige.”  Jill
and I exchanged waves and I motioned Alex to the front entrance.  I
started walking away while he said his goodbyes and then followed after
me.  We walked in silence to the car and climbed in.  Alex started
pulling away when I remembered David’s texts from earlier in the evening.

“Hey
Alex, you might want to hurry home.”  He glanced at me in question and I
explained. “David texted me earlier needing the cavalry to come riding
in.  Apparently Annie’s newest guy isn’t one of David’s favorite people.”

Alex
laughed. “Well I’m not surprised.  I’ll get there as fast as I can.” 
And with that, we were off to the rescue.

Alex
and I arrived at the apartment in no time.  We jumped out the car and flew
up the three flights of stairs.  Alex went inside first and we heard Annie
giggling loudly.  I walked in behind Alex and caught sight of David
standing in the kitchen.  I immediately turned and walked over to where he
was standing.

David
turned to look at me and his face was a mixture of disgust and
apprehension.  I raised my eyebrows at him in question and he used his
head to indicate in the direction of the living room.  I heard Alex
introducing himself to Annie’s boyfriend and Annie giggled again.  Alex
came into the kitchen to join David and me.

Using
his thumb to point back in the direction of the living room, Alex asked, “What
the hell is that?”

David
turned to Alex with a scorned look.  “
That
is Annie’s new boyfriend
Chris.  He’s a 36 year old loser who works at the local flea market as a
janitor.  He’s not going to be able to work for the next four to six weeks
because of his injury and he’s already convinced Annie that she should loan him
some money to help with his bills.  Annie thinks he’s gorgeous and
believes she is in love with him.  They’ve know each other for a little
over twenty-four hours and he’s convinced her to give him four thousand
dollars!  Have I done a good job in explaining what
that
is?”

Alex’s
eyebrows shot up and I dropped my face into my palm and groaned.  I began
shaking my head in silent protest.  I looked back up at David and he
looked like he was about to explode.  I turned to Alex to ask his opinion.

“So, is
he a bad looking guy?”

David
let out an insulted gasp. “Well, if any man in this room should be judging the
beauty contest, it should be me.  He’s not a bad looking guy, it’s just
that his personality is obnoxious and he is an obvious mooch.  Poor Annie
is completely smitten with this guy and she has no clue that he’s using
her.  I mean, what kind of person asks another person to borrow money
within twenty-four hours of meeting them?”

I
thought that over for a moment and then voiced my guess. “A bank customer?”

Alex laughed
and David gave him a pointed glare. “Oh sure, chuckle it up, Chuckles, but
while you’re busy finding this amusing, we’ve got a serious problem in there.
What are we going to do about this?!”

I
crossed my arms over my chest and huffed out a breath. “Unfortunately, Annie is
a grown woman.  If she wants to give her money to some guy, the only thing
we can do is suggest against it.  She’s ultimately the one who will make
that decision and there’s nothing we can do to prevent her from making that
mistake.”

David
shot his head towards me. “Nothing you can do?  Are you kidding me?! 
We can lock her in her room, take shifts watching her, deny her outside
communication and internet access, and install a two way key lock and not give
her the key.  There’s
plenty
we can do.  My question is, just
how far are we willing to go to keep her from doing this?”

Alex
patted David on the back. “How will Annie go to work if we have her locked up?”

David
put his finger to his mouth to think about what Alex said and then responded.
“I’ll tell them she’s ill.  I’ll take over her cases until she comes to
her senses and then she can have them back when she gets over this idiot.” He
gave Alex a thumbs up. “Good attention to detail.” He turned to me. “Paige you
should take some notes from Alex’s good thinking.  It might help you out
in that career of yours.”

I
uncrossed my arms and pushed myself up from the counter.  “I guess I need
to go in there to see what we are dealing with.  Maybe if I can find
enough issues with the way he looks I can appeal to Annie’s superficial side.”

David
pointed to the living room.  “Go.”

I
sighed and turned toward the living room. “No problem.  I’ll just go in
there and take control of this situation.”

I took
a few steps towards the room when I heard a low moan and a high pitched sigh.

Ew.

I
turned around.  “Um, no.  I’m not going in there.”

Alex
tried to suppress a grin while David acted like he was dry-heaving over the
sink; well, at least I think he was acting.  I walked back over to where
they were standing and hopped up to sit on the counter.  “Guess we’ll be
here for a while.”

David
finished hacking up his hairball, looked up from the sink and stamped his
foot.  “Oh no, I am not getting stuck in the kitchen while she gets her
dirty going on the living room couch!”  David marched into the living room
and cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me!  Could you two possibly stop
licking, and tugging and touching all over the
community
seating
area?  There are other people here; although I can understand how it would
be difficult to know that with your eyes closed and your tongues shoved down
each other’s throats.”  David crossed his arms and   forcefully
nodded his head. “Now have some decorum people and stop pretending like you are
horny teenagers in the living room.”

“Get
the fuck out of here faggot!”

OH
HELL NO!  I did not just hear that.

David’s
body tensed and his jaw dropped at what Chris had said.

My
fists started to clench as Alex and I ran into the living room. Annie started
yelling at Chris, finally coming to her senses.  As I rounded the corner,
I saw Annie pushing Chris away by shoving a pillow in his face.  I ran
around to stand next to Annie while Alex moved over to stand next to
Chris.   Annie pulled the pillow from Chris’ face and I gasped.

I was
staring at the drunken idiot from the bar.

I
looked down to see that the hand that I broke was in a splint.  Why didn’t
I pick up on that when Annie told me how she met him?!   I looked
over at David, pointed at Chris’ splint and shouted, “It’s the guy from the
club!  The one that left with a broken finger!”

David’s
eyes widened when he remembered my story about Tomb. I looked over to find that
Annie and Alex were clueless because I had never given them the full story of
Saturday night.  I realized that the fastest approach to dealing with this
would be to quickly tell Alex.

“He was
one of the pigs from Tomb.  He grabbed my ass and I broke his finger
trying to pull his hands off of me.” 

Alex
put Chris into a headlock and started lifting him from the couch.

“What
the fuck man!  Let go of me!”  Chris shot me an evil glare and then
pointed in my direction.  “That whore was shaking her ass for everyone to
see and then broke my finger when I touched her. 
She
was coming on
to
me
and then she went all psycho bitch when I tried to dance with
her!”

I’m not
sure what shade of red my face must have turned after hearing Chris’s versions
of the events from that night at Tomb.  I was already absolutely disgusted
by what he called David, but then to add those lies?  It was apparent that
Chris needed a good ass kicking.  “Alex, you know me well enough to know
that this fucktard is lying through his teeth. Get him out of my sight before I
rip his fucking head off.”

Alex
nodded and then jerked Chris off the couch and tightened his hold.  Chris
grunted when Alex intentionally pushed his legs into the coffee table as he
turned Chris towards the front door. Alex was yelling at Chris as he walked him
out. “Get the fuck OUT of this apartment and don’t you dare show your bigoted
face around here again!”

Alex
continued to drag Chris to the stairs and I ran out the front door to see where
Alex was taking him.  Alex walked as far as the stairs and then released
Chris, slightly shoving him down the first step. Chris turned in my direction
and his face was purple from rage.  Veins stuck out of his neck and his
nostrils were flared as he screamed at me. “You are going to pay for this
bitch!  I’m going to fucking kill you for this!”

Alex
shoved Chris farther down the stairs and then crossed his arms over his chest
while he glared at Chris in challenge.  Chris stared Alex down for a
couple of seconds and then turned around and stalked down the three flights of
stairs.  Alex and I waited on the landing until we saw that Chris got in
his car and drove away.

 Alex
and I walked back into the apartment to find a pissed off David attempting to
console a crying Annie.  We all sat down in the living room waiting for
Annie to calm down.  Alex was still breathing heavy from having to drag
Chris’ large form out to the stairwells and I kept alternating between sitting
down and jumping back up to pace the room.  Annie calmed down after
another ten minutes and David was the first of us to be able to speak.

“Well,
that was fun. Annie, you should invite your boyfriends over more often.  I
rather enjoy being called filthy names in my own home by assholes who like to
grope women in bars.”

Annie
started bawling again and I glared at David for being insensitive.  He
shrugged his shoulders at me. “What?! We’ve been warning Annie about these
kinds of guys since we’ve met her and she refuses to listen.  Maybe it’s
time for us to be a little more blunt to drive the message home.”

Annie
sniffled loudly and then wiped at the tears falling down her face. “How was I
supposed to know that Chris was like that?!”  She pointed at David.
“Everything was fine until you decided to play penis patrol and yell at us like
we were children.”

My jaw
dropped. “You have to be kidding us Annie.  That guy was a major
creep!  And what the hell were you thinking agreeing to loan him so much
money?  I was heading in here to talk some sense into you before David
said what he did, and the situation wouldn’t have ended any differently once I
saw who you were making out with in our apartment.  So stop blaming
David!  If anything, you should be apologizing for bringing an ignorant
bigot into our home for us to deal with! Seriously Annie, your choice in men is
insanely bad and this crap has got to end.  Open your freaking eyes once
in a while and take a hard look at what you are doing to yourself…”

Alex
touched my shoulder to stop me from my tirade. I opened my mouth to continue
but closed it again when I realized that Alex was right.  Now was not the time
for this discussion and we were all exhausted and angry.  I took a deep
breath and let it out slowly.

“Annie,
I’m sorry for screaming at you.  I know you didn’t know that Chris was
like that.  Maybe we should all just call it a night and resume this conversation
tomorrow.”

David
hugged onto Annie and then helped her back to her room.  Alex and I were
left in the living room staring at each other.  We were quiet for a couple
of minutes before Alex finally started speaking.

“Why
didn’t you tell me about what happened at Tomb Saturday night?”

I
shrugged my shoulders and took a moment before answering. “I was tired when I
got back that night.  I didn’t think it was necessary to give you a play
by play when the situation was handled.”

Alex
shot me an angry look. “You didn’t think it was necessary?!  Paige, that
guy threatened to kill you.”

I waved
off Alex’s concern. “He threatened to kill me at Tomb too.  I’m not
worried about it.  Chris is obviously in need of psychological help and
he’s a loser.  I’ve run into plenty of men like him in my life Alex and
I’ll run into plenty more.  It’s not worth recanting the tales every time
something like that happens.”

Alex
moved from the chair he was sitting in to sit by me on the couch. “Paige, trust
me when I tell you, I know that you have a special gift for pissing people
off.  But you have got to start telling people when things like that
happen.  What if that guy had followed you home from the club?  He
could have seriously hurt you, or worse.”

I
sighed and hung my head down.  I felt like a five year old child getting
scolded and I wasn’t in the mood to hear it. “Alex, I understand your concern,
but I wasn’t that worried about him.  He left the club nursing a broken
finger and Daemon walked me out to my bike.  I wasn’t in any danger.”

When I
looked up, Alex had a strange look on his face. “Daemon?  As in the
bouncer who couldn’t take his eyes off you the entire time we were there
tonight?”  Alex turned his body to look more directly into my eyes. 
He lightly placed his hands on either side of my face to make sure I was
listening to what he was about to say. “Beautiful, I don’t know if I trust that
Daemon guy much either.  He appeared to have an unhealthy interest in you
and it might be a good idea to stay away from Tomb for a while.”

I
removed Alex’s hands from my face and placed them in his lap.  Why was
everyone jumping on the “Paige is a wimp” bandwagon? “First off, I’m not sure
how you were able to monitor where Daemon’s eyes were all evening, considering
you were stuck to Jill’s face for the majority of the night…”

Alex
flinched.

“…Second,
I can handle myself.  I’m not going to avoid Tomb or anywhere else in fear
of what could happen to me.  Daemon is an arrogant ass, yes.  But I
doubt he is obsessed with me, unnatural or otherwise.  He’s just another
guy trying to get in my pants.  There’s nothing unnatural or abnormal
about that!  I wish you guys would finally realize that I’m not some
helpless person that can’t take care of herself.  It’s starting to
seriously irritate me.”