Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) (4 page)

But how did I know what
travertine was? How did I know to be impressed by this house? How
could I know these things, but I didn’t know my name?

When I stood up, a
slight chill of awareness rippled over my skin. I stood frozen in
place with my arms at my sides. If Drex was behind me -- and I knew
he was -- he’d seen me bend over. I’d almost gotten used to
wearing so little, but now I felt self-conscious and flustered. The
t-shirt covered only half my backside. The one bit of good luck was
that the panties weren’t sheer, though they sure didn’t cover
much.

“Chimayo doesn’t
look so bad from a distance, does it?” he said, coming up beside
me.

I turned my face so he
wouldn’t see me flushing. “The lights are beautiful.”

“They’re even
better with nothing in front of them.”

He pressed a button on
the wall and the glass slid open, letting in the warm evening air.
The breeze felt like velvet against my scraped and aching legs. Drawn
to the view, I walked toward the terrace, careful not to touch the
furniture with my dirty fingers.

“What’s a house
like this doing out here?” I asked, stepping onto the patio.

“It belongs to an old
friend of mine,” Drex said, following me outside. “There are
eighteen gun shops in Chimayo and he owns all but two of them. In
this part of the country, that’s a damn good living.”

“You don’t mind
being so far away from the city?”

“I like it. There’s
no phone, TV, or internet. It forces me to relax, which is hard to do
in this town.”

No TV and no internet.
How was I going to find out who I was when I was cut off from the
world in the middle of the desert?

“The security could
be better,” he continued. “This is a pretty lawless area, if you
haven’t noticed. That’s why I got out of my truck when I saw you.
I could tell you weren’t a local.”

“It must have been
the tourist outfit,” I said.

One corner of his mouth
turned up. “Yeah. Dead giveaway.”

I felt his eyes on me,
examining my face and dirty bare skin. I shivered as if he’d
touched me with cold hands. Why hadn’t I asked him for something to
wear as soon as I walked in the door?

“You must be hungry,”
he said. “When’s the last time you ate?”

My stomach ached at the
thought of food. For three days I’d tried to master the art of
ignoring hunger pangs, but had failed every time. “This morning,”
I said.

“How did you eat if
you had no money?”

“Drex…” It was
the first time I’d said his name, and it felt sensual and forbidden
on my tongue.

He gave me a warning
glare. “Spit it out,” he said. “As long as you’re here,
you’re going to be straight with me.”

I was too proud to tell
him, but too exhausted to lie. “I stole a muffin from a convenience
store, all right?” I said with a sigh. “Is that straight enough
for you?”

He stared at me before
giving me a smile that made his eyes crinkle. “Now that we’ve
established you’re not a hardened criminal, I feel safe letting you
stay the night.”

A filched muffin was
just the start of the story, but there was a warm bed hanging in the
balance. “You won’t regret it,” I said.

“I hope not,” he
said. “Ready to see your room?”

My
room.
I’d never heard two more wonderful words. “Yes,
thank you.”

After the last hour in
Drex’s company – or was it custody? – I desperately needed time
alone. If I didn’t look at him for a little while, maybe I could
gather my wits again.

“While you rest and
take a bath, I’ll make you a real meal. We’ll get you some
clothes tomorrow. Tonight, you can make do with some of mine.”

I followed him down a
long hallway lined with windows on one side and abstract art on the
other. The house was so quiet after days on the road, I could hear a
hum in my ears.

“Here we are,” he
said, stopping at an open door.

When I stepped into the
guest room after him, all of the tears I’d suppressed swelled into
my throat. I forced them down and put on the widest smile I could.

I’d gone from
shoplifting to splendor in twelve short hours. There was a big
four-poster bed piled high with thick pillows and draped with filmy
white netting. In front of the kiva fireplace was a sitting area
furnished with an olive-green velvet sofa and chair. Outside the
French doors was a lovely rock garden filled with big ceramic pots of
flowering cacti, and beyond that, the gleaming lights of the city.

“It’s very nice.
Actually, better than nice. It’s perfect.”

“Are you sure?”
Drex asked. “There’s a larger room but it doesn’t have a view.”

“Okay?” I almost
laughed. If he knew what I’d done, where I’d slept, the kind of
person I was, he wouldn’t have let me in the front door.

“It couldn’t be
better,” I said. “Really.”

I reached out to touch
his arm but retracted my hand at the last instant. Tension sparked
between us, a connection like crossed wires in a lightning storm.
God, I was pathetic. Pathetic and apparently, very deprived of human
contact.

“Good,” he said.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Wait, Drex?”
Drawing a breath, I forced confidence into my voice. “I hope you
meant what you said about a housekeeper. I’ll earn everything
you’re doing for me.” Down and out though I was, I could not –
would
not – take
charity. I had nothing left but my pride, and I wasn’t about to
give it up.

“I meant it,” he
said. “In fact, I saw a uniform hanging in the maid’s quarters. I
think it’ll fit you perfectly.”

There was no sign that
he was joking, only his gleaming eyes burning into my mine. The
humiliation of the last three days was about to get worse, and a lot
more personal.

“A maid’s uniform,”
I repeated, trying very hard to be humble.

“Yes. You’ll need
something to wear while you’re cooking and cleaning, won’t you?”

I bit back a retort.
Hungry girls without pants could not be choosers. “I guess I will.”

Uneasiness shivered
through me at his smile, along with a sizzling heat that settled
between my legs.

Who was this guy? One
minute he was kind and considerate, the next he was an arrogant ass.
My physical response made no sense, unless I took into account how
lost and alone I felt. It didn’t hurt that he was the sexiest man
I’d seen in seventy-two hours, and probably a lot longer than that.

“I’ll leave a shirt
and running shorts outside the door,” he said. “They’re the
only things that won’t fall off you, and they probably will anyway.
You’re so slim, and…tiny.”

I couldn’t look away.
We stared at each other as if he’d said something forbidden he
could never take back.

“Thank you,” I
managed to say. “For everything.”

“Enjoy your bath,”
he said, turning suddenly as if he couldn’t wait to leave. “If
you need anything, just ask.”

He walked out and shut
the door behind him.

I stood in the middle
of the room, torn by relief and the deepest loneliness I could
imagine. As soon as his footsteps faded away, I sat on the bed and
cried for what felt like the first time.

I’d thought I was
done making huge, irreversible mistakes. Clearly, I was just saving
all of my fuck-ups for one day. Today.

It was bad enough that
I’d shown up at The Dead End after five years and been recognized.
Maybe the guy was so drunk my face wouldn’t stick in what was left
of his feeble brain. Or maybe, with a little digging, he’d figure
out the stunning number of people I’d relieved of their savings
before reinventing myself half the state away. The gambling addicts
I’d ruined, the college boys I’d trounced without a second
thought.

Life savings – gone.
Pension fund – ditto. I’d been a one-man Wall Street, marauding
my way through every pool hall in the state. Too cocky to fail.

The scary thing was how
easy it had been. A few years of bar brawls and lucky breaks and I’d
funded an empire, mostly on the backs of fools who couldn’t afford
it. And all because I was competitive as hell and knew how to use a
cue. It wasn’t the drug runners or parolees that bothered me, it
was the ordinary guys, the single dads.

There was one in
particular who still popped into my mind when I couldn’t sleep.
Poor bastard.

That’s what rescuing
Diesel had been about. I didn’t need a psychiatrist to spell it
out. I was proving to myself that I still had a heart. I’d had a
Malamute with one eye until a few months ago, when he’d crushed my
heart by dying after eight years by my side.

Yeah, adopting a
down-and-out dog usually made me feel better, until it didn’t
anymore. But rescuing a dog was one thing. A woman was a mistake of
monumental proportions.

As if I didn’t have
enough to worry about, and enough trouble keeping myself in line.
Maid’s uniform.
Jesus Christ. I’d meant it, too. It had been a fantasy of mine for
years, and now the uniform and the perfect woman just happened to be
in the same very remote house. Serendipity. Or stupidity. Probably
both.

I stood outside her
door and listened as she ran a bath. Right about now she was peeling
off that ragged t-shirt and stepping out of her panties. Maybe she
was standing in front of the full-length mirror, looking at what I’d
give my entire bank account to lay eyes on.

When it got quiet I
kept listening, imagining the water covering her naked curves,
flowing between her legs, over her breasts, getting her ready for me.

No,
Drex.
Not for you.

That was the kind of
thinking that helped me churn through dozens of women every year. Now
that I was done plundering bank accounts, I was blowing through beds.
One would think I’d be satisfied with all the money and pussy I’d
acquired, but I wasn’t. Not even close. It was like throwing
aspirin at an incurable disease and expecting a cure. The wrong
medicine for the wrong man.

And tonight I was worse
off than ever. It didn’t help that I was out in the middle of
to-hell-and-gone with a woman who was a very beautiful clean slate.

Of course, she might be
married, though that had never stopped me before. It didn’t matter
who the woman was. If I wanted her I took her, morality be damned.

And there was something
about this woman I wanted. Bad. She had a combination of defiance and
vulnerability that nailed me where it counted. This was a woman who
could walk around half-naked, casually start a conversation with
drunk bikers, and then go all modest on me when I looked at her too
long.

Not just unheard of for
Chimayo. Unheard of period. Anywhere on the planet.

I went out to the
fenced garden and called Diesel. Either she didn’t know her name
yet or she didn’t care that I was calling her. She was too busy
tearing up flowers and tossing the dirt onto a nice new patch of sod.

But that was okay. Kurt
would understand. He had two little kids who turned my apartment into
a natural disaster whenever they came to visit.

“Time to get in your
kennel,” I said, taking Diesel firmly by the collar.

She growled and dug in
her heels, but I’d made an awfully inviting bed out of thick wool
blankets that eventually lured her in. “We’re making progress,”
I said, latching the door. “Good girl.”

I listened for Blue
Eyes, but all was quiet on the bath front. I wouldn’t think about
what part of that sunbaked body she was scrubbing now.

I went to the kitchen
and dunked some raw chicken in mustard and olive oil. I could throw
fresh spinach into a pan and sauté it, maybe grill some corn on the
cob. Hopefully Blue Eyes would be too hungry to notice that I wasn’t
exactly a Michelin-starred chef. That was why I had somebody cook for
me whenever I was home in Houston.

I poured a whiskey and
went onto the terrace to wait for her. I hoped to God the shirt and
shorts disguised those boner-inducing curves. I drank and paced, but
another whisky later, she still hadn’t come out of her room.

Damn. What was taking
her so long? I shouldn’t have let her take a bath behind closed
doors, not knowing what might be wrong with her.

Leaving the glass in
the kitchen, I went down the hall to the guest suite. All I heard was
the wind blowing in off the desert. More than an hour had passed
since I’d left her alone.

I rapped lightly on the
door. No answer. I knocked again and waited. After a minute I tried
the door, hoping she hadn’t locked it. It opened without a sound.

Though the room was
dark, the garden lights glowed through the windows. I saw the end of
the bed, and on the floor, her rumpled shirt and panties. My stomach
muscles clenched and my cock stiffened. The response was pure
impulse.

She had no idea. I
looked like a savior but I was nothing but danger. The kind of man
her mother had warned her about.

“Hey,” I said
softly. I even sounded like a savior, a nice, regular guy who just
wanted to make sure she was still breathing.

There was no reply.
“Can I come in?” I asked, and opened the door wider.

The hall light poured
over the Mexican rug and illuminated the bed. She was stretched out
on the duvet, asleep.

Naked. And so fucking
beautiful.

Something twisted like
hot steel in my chest. She was facing me, her long, damp hair fanned
out across a pillow. Her knees were slightly bent, one tucked behind
the other. Between her legs was a narrow strip of pale brown hair,
soft and sweet. One arm covered all but the lower curve of her
breasts. Her hand dangled off the mattress, as if she’d been
reaching for something when she fell asleep.

Her eyelids trembled
and her fingers twitched as if trying to make a fist. A brief frown
knitted her brows, and her lips parted to draw in a quick breath. She
was dreaming.