Darkness & Lies: A Brotherhood Novel (#1) (8 page)

Stopping in her tracks, Cheyenne noted the alien black gym tote on the floor at the foot of the bed along with an extremely large pair of black lace–up boots that definit
e
ly didn’t belong to her size nine
feet.

“Wow,” a male voice said from behind her before clearing his throat.

Chey
enne whipped around, coming face-
to
-
face with an extremely handsome, utterly delectable male spe
c
imen. Relaxing on the
queen-sized bed
that should be em
p
ty, the man was all legs and
potent
sexuality as his deeply
brilliant blue eyes
seared her naked flesh. And with that thought…

Horrified, Cheyenne stumbled back in her haste to retrieve her robe
,
hitting her heel on his overly large boots
,
and went careening backward toward the floor. She braced for the impact that never came.

Puzzled as to why her derrière wasn’t bruised and
battered; Cheyenne
eked her eyes open  a
nd found herself staring into eyes the color
of
the bluest skies
set into a chi
s
eled face of perfection and the most kissable full lips she had ever laid eyes
on.

He should have just let her fall but when he’d seen her tumbling back
,
Erias had panicked, and without thin
k
ing he’d leapt from the bed to catch her. He was regretting that decision now.

With his arm wrapped securely around her bare waist and her naked breasts pressed against him
,
he could hardly breathe. The way she was staring at him, her smoky eyes hooded and
obviously,
longing for him
,
was nearly his
undoing.

Before he could catch himself, Erias dipped his head and took possession of her mouth. It was the most i
n
credible kiss he’d had in ages. Her lips were soft and gentle as they moved against his. Erias pulled her closer so he could feel every inch of her delectable body against his.

Cheyenne wasn’t sure what had happened. One moment she was falling to her death and the next she was wrapped in a wealth of hard muscle.
Al
though she was tr
u
ly digging the way they rippled under her fingers as he moved against her, this was a total stranger with his mouth all over
her,
and she was
butt-
ass naked in his arms. With a forceful shove, Cheyenne twisted out of his hold and fell the rest of the way to the
floor.

“What the hell do you think you are doing!” she screeched. He stared at her with glassy eyes. If she didn’t know any better
,
she would say he was drunk. “Who are you? Why are you in my room? Get out!” Scrambling to her feet, she snatched her robe and covered herself.

“Slow down, lady. I’m not here to hurt you.” Erias rose unsteadily to his feet as he tried to work the fog out of his head from
that searing kiss
.
He noticed s
had covered
herself,
but the fire snapping in her eyes and the way she clutched the robe to her body warned him that she was a woman on
the edge.
He needed to find a way to calm her b
e
fore she went over the edge and had him arrested. Not that any bars could hold him, but it would put a wrench in his plans of which he couldn’t afford right
now.

“Don’t try to placate me, pal.” She inched closer to the phone
resting
on the night stand. “I want to know how you got in here.”

Raking a hand through his hair, Erias offered her the lie he had thrown together on the way there and hoped she wasn’t smart enough to see through it.

“All the rooms we
re booked so they doubled us up.” H
e shrugged
,
walking back to his side of the room and flopping down on the bed.

Cheyenne glared at the man’s nonchalant demeanor as he lay there with his arms folded behind his head and his legs stretched across the mattress, his socked feet crossed at the ankles. He was the epitome of calm while she was seething with anger at her room being all but given away.

Stiffening her stance, she eyed him speculatively. “You’re lying,” she spat.

Erias wasn’t fooled. She had a good poker
face; he'd
give her that, but at the end of the day he could read people like no one’s
business.

“Am I?” he smirked. “Call Ranga, he’ll confirm it.” Lucky for him, he knew everyone and their grandmother around these parts. He could rattle off names all day, not that any one of them had an inkling of knowledge about him. He’d have to play it cool and hope he could call her bluff.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she appeared to be sizing him up. To land another blow to his manhood? He wasn’t sure, but Erias continued to smile and wait to see how it all panned out.

“Where’s your key?” Cheyenne jutted her chin out defiantly; sure she had called his bluff until he held out his hand and produced a small copper key with a worn, brown leather tag complete with the room number stitched in.

Still not fully convinced, she went to the closet and dug in her purse. “You could have stolen mine.”

Erias just grinned at her flustered state. Little did she know he was the master of illusion. So long as she didn’t want to inspect it up
close; he
was
golden.

Cheyenne was severely disappointed
,
not to me
n
tion highly pissed off
,
when she found her copy right where she had left it. Peeking over her shoulder, she saw her new roommate dangling his own key out in front of him while wearing a huge
shit-eating grin
on his insanely handsome
face.

It took everything in her to fight the urge not to round his bed and slap the smug smile from his face.

“
Done in the bathroom, roomie?” h
e taunted.

“I’m taking this up with management,” Cheyenne gritted, crossing the room to get to the phone.

“Go ahead, but take it from me, you’ll just be was
t
ing your time.”

Ignoring him, Cheyenne picked up the phone and pressed the star to connect her with the front desk. When nothing happened, she felt like screaming. Slamming the handset back onto its base, Cheyenne cut a hot path to the door determined to get someone to listen to her and get this obvious mistake straightened out.

Before she could reach the door, the man blocked her way. “Move,” she demanded, “before I make you.”

He laughed at her determination. “Make me,” he challenged.

Cheyenne looked up, way up, and met his gleaming eyes without fear. “Don’t push me, buddy. It’s been a long day. I lack the patience to deal with this shit. Right now the only thing I want to do is climb into bed and get a good night’s sleep. The last thing I want to do is share
my
room that
I
paid for with someone else. Now, please move out of my
way,
so I can get this issue
resolved,
and we can all rest easy.”  She tried to move past him only to have him move in front of her again.

She gave him a peeved glare
,
and the way her brows furrowed making little creases in her forehead made Erias want to scoop her up and take her back to his bed.

“Trust me on this one, lady. The only thing you’ll find down there is an empty desk. There isn’t a soul around that’s going to help you tonight. We’ll have to wait ‘til morning before anything can get straightened out.” Damn, he hoped she bought that.

Cheyenne narrowed her eyes on him. She wasn’t sure she bought that. For all she knew, he could just be a really good
liar, but
then, she had tried to call the front desk herself and hadn’t gotten a response. Maybe he was telling the
truth, but
then he could have broken into her room while she was in the shower, fabricated this huge st
o
ry
to
wheedle his way in just so he could murder her in her sleep. Stranger things had
happened.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll check it out for m
y
self, thanks.” Surprisingly, he stepped out of her way and allowed her to leave.

Erias shook his head in mild amusement as the door sealed shut behind him with a soft snick. He had hoped that this mission would be
easy,
and he would have been able to sway the woman to see his reasoning.
Even so,
as
Erias had learned early on, thing
s
in life were rarely easy. No matter, he would just have to put forth a little more
effort.

With a heavy sigh, Erias closed his eyes and pr
o
jected his thoughts to the floor below. People milled about chatting idly and drinking heavily. The staff was busily t
i
dying up for the night.

Reaching out to them
,
he projected his thoughts o
n
to
their feeble minds
, bending them to his will. In a matter of moments
,
everybody in the room was sound asleep. Sensing the female
’
s approach, he snapped his fingers and the room emptied. Total silence pervaded.

Having made that small accomplishment, he headed for the bathroom for a quick shower.

Cheyenne could have sworn that she had heard laughter and people conversing, but as she entered the large banquet
hall,
there wasn’t a soul in
sight.
How
puzzling.

Rounding the thick stone columns she made her
way over to the
make-shift 
sign-
in counter and rang the li
t
tle bell for
service.

While she
waited,
she allowed her sites to roam about
,
taking in the little details of the old, withered stru
c
ture. Cracks and small fissures ran nearly every inch of the roughly stuccoed walls. Thick, rough cut beams held the high ceiling in place and hand crafted iron candelabras hung from the ceilings casting an eerie glow about the
place.

A slight chill to the air caused her to
shiver,
and Cheyenne wrapped her arms around herself. Where was everyone? Ringing the bell again
,
she waited impatiently for someone to
answer.

Erias was just
entering the room when the red-
faced female burst through the door and stormed over to her bed. She threw back the duvet and climbed in.

“How’d it go?” h
e asked bemusedly.

Cheyenne was more than peeved at not being able to find anyone to help solve her problem. A man in her room was not how she had planned on spending her vac
a
tion. Was he even paying for his half? She’d be damned if she were going to foot the bill for a room that had been i
n
vaded by someone else.

“I think you already know the answer to that one,” she grumbled. When she heard the slight
chuckle,
she flipped over
,
prepared to give him a piece of her mind when all
arguments
failed to get past her
lips.

With his back facing her, he was the picture of pe
r
fection. With just a towel wrapped around his waist, there wasn’t much to be left
to
the imagination. His shoulders were broad and finely muscled. Deep grooves of thick, corded muscle lined his
arms,
and his skin was a deeply tanned bronze coated in rivulets of moister from his recent
showering.

Oh, what she wouldn’t give to run her tongue across those muscles
,
catch
ing each of those droplets one b
y one. And when he turned around to face her, she had to catch her breath and fight the urge to pant at the slick perfection of his bulging biceps, perfectly formed pecks
and stone
cut abs
. Damn, if the man wasn’t a g
od.... She had never seen another being made of such perfection.

And his face…

Cheyenne wanted to inhale it. To nibble on those delectable lips for hours, wrestle his tongue for world do
m
ination and tangle her fingers in his deeply black
shoulder-length hair
that hung enticingly around his face in thick, wet
locks.