Love the Way You Lie (Stripped #1) (13 page)

You’ll never get free.

A knot forms in my throat. I couldn’t speak even if I knew what to say.

Lola’s face falls. “Shit. I didn’t—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, my voice rough. And I push past her before she can stop me.

I
enter the
dressing room the next day and immediately know I’m in huge trouble. The room is empty. No Candy, no Lola, no other girls. Just Ivan, sitting on my stool.

He’s waiting for me.

I can see that from the stillness of his body, the watchfulness despite his casual pose. He looks huge on that stool where I sit, huge next to the vanity I use. It’s a reminder of how much power he has—both physically and otherwise—and I’m guessing he planned for that.

“Honor.”

I flinch, and I’m not even sure why. No one else is here, but it hurts to hear him say my real name. I’m not really Honey—that’s just a facade. But I’m not Honor either, that locked-up girl back home. I’m someone else, someone without a name. “Is something wrong?”

“Apparently.” He pauses, watching me. Like he wants me to confess.

“Did you find something about my mother?”

“I’m not sure why I’d be expected to hold up my agreement when you aren’t holding up yours.”

Fear grips my chest. “I’m dancing for you. That was our agreement.”

“And as one of my dancers, you do what I tell you. So if I tell you to stay away from Kip, you stay away.”

I flinch. “How did you—”

“Does it matter? I find out about everything that happens in this club eventually. And you’ve been spending too much time with him for it to go unnoticed. Private dances are one thing. But outside the club? You deliberately disobeyed me.”

I bite my lip against all the apologies and pleas that want to slip out. I’ve lived my life under a powerful man’s thumb. I know what it is to beg and scrabble for the smallest freedom. But I left to get away from that. It’s a hard thing, being used by every man I meet, placating their demands to earn a little more time. Sometimes I feel like I’m buying freedom with freedom, debt piling on debt, until I’ll owe the whole world just to die.

But he has something I want. Something I need. Information.

I can see the gleam in his eyes. He wouldn’t have come to a bargaining table without the upper hand.

“I’m sorry,” I finally say, although too late and insincere to be useful.

His eyes darken. He stands up and approaches me. I shrink back from the dark look in his eyes. He doesn’t stop until I’m backed up against the wall.

“Did he fuck you that well?” he whispers, mouth an inch from my cheek. “You couldn’t say no?”

He’s just trying to scare me. I know that. I can recognize that fact, but it doesn’t stop it from working.

“All this time he never comes into my club. Now suddenly he’s a regular customer.” Ivan runs a finger down my cheek. “Although I guess we can’t really call him a customer.”

“I just…” My voice wavers. “I didn’t think it would hurt anyone.”

“So worried about other people. When really it’s you that’ll end up hurt.”

“No, he wouldn’t—”

“Maybe you should get down on your knees again. I can see what you’ve been giving him.”

My heart pounds. I offered him this in his office, but it’s different out here in the dressing room. And maybe it’s different because of Kip too. He’s changing me. He’s making me stronger, and in my life that’s not really a good thing.

“No,” I whisper.

“What did you say?”

“She said no.” The voice comes from the doorway. Both Ivan and I look over.
Kip.

Oh Jesus. He’s never come to the dressing room. Why is he here now?

That’s answered for me when I get a glimpse of Candy behind him. She must have known Ivan was going to talk to me, must have known I was in trouble. And she called Kip to protect me. But it will only make it worse. Ivan and I are tinder, brittle and dry. Kip is the match.

He looks seriously pissed, brows furrowed and mouth set in a grim line. “Honey.”

Just that one word and somehow I’m going to him, obeying his tacit command, choosing him over Ivan before I can process what a monumentally awful idea that is. Kip is just a customer.
Not even that.
But Ivan is my boss. He’s also a man holding the key to my past. I need him to like me. I need to be on my knees in front of him right now, but instead I’m behind Kip as he steps in front of me—protecting me with his body.

Ivan raises an eyebrow at Kip. “Sticking your nose in my business?”

Kip is like some kind of avenging angel, standing in front of me, fearless. “She said no.”

Ivan laughs, incredulous. “She’s one of my girls. She does what I say, when I say. If I want her to fuck half of Tanglewood, she’ll spread her fucking legs.”

Kip doesn’t immediately react, but I feel his anger spread like wildfire, forming around the three of us, locking us in this battle. When he speaks, it is quiet, barely above the roar in my ears. “She belongs to me now.”

The words ring through me like a bell, echoing inside me. What? Ivan sounds surprised too. “She’s a stripper.”

“Not anymore.”

I can’t catch my breath. What the hell is he talking about?
She belongs to me now.
It’s barbaric. And considering I need Ivan, a really inconvenient time to be getting possessive. So why does pleasure spread from the inside out, warming me, raising goose bumps on my skin?

Then I can’t hold it in anymore—I peek around Kip’s arm to see Ivan looking calculating. I expect him to say something sharp or threatening. His power around here is well known. The men who come to visit him are scary characters in their own right, but they are always deferential to Ivan. If this were a high school yearbook, he’d get voted
most likely to terrify
, and I’m terrified for Kip.

But then something strange happens.

Ivan’s gaze turns considering. He sizes Kip up. His gaze flicks to me. Acknowledgement turns his eyes cool. “Yours?”

“You have something to say to her, go through me.”

And just like that, he backs down. Ivan’s gaze flicks to me, then back to Kip. “You can tell your girlfriend that what she’s looking for isn’t here. It never was.”

My mother. He means she never arrived in Tanglewood. It’s hard to breathe. I always knew she never left Las Vegas, but hearing it confirmed still hurts. I guess when you see that gleaming closed casket, there’s always a part of you that hopes. Some small part of me that imagined her finding some other way, driving off into the sunset. Alive. Safe. Betrayed by both her husband and lover.

Ivan strides from the room, leaving us alone.

I swallow hard. Kip may have won this round over Ivan, but I can’t trust that. And no wonder, considering what happened to my mother. I have issues. But I can’t leave Kip either. Can’t do anything but stand beside him. He defended me from Ivan. He’s protected me all along.

And now he’s claimed me.

*     *     *

There’s a motorcycle
waiting a few yards away. Kip walks over and picks up the helmet.

He holds it out. “Let’s go.”

It doesn’t even occur to me to walk away. He came for me; I’m going with him. I can’t offer him any kind of relationship or commitment. At some point I’ll have to explain that, but not now—not so soon after he stalked into the Grand and shielded me with his own body. Not right after he said I was his. He’s won this. He’s earned me. It’s a fantasy we can live together for one night, an hourglass with each kernel of sand bringing my enemies closer to me, one more breath facing the open mouth of a gun.

“Where?” I ask, already taking the helmet anyway, because it doesn’t matter where we go.
Anywhere.
“I need to be back by sunrise.”

The corner of his lips lifts, and I’m riveted by the scruff that frames them. The whiskers that are sharp against my skin, leaving red marks. The mouth so soft and talented. “Already planning to get rid of me?”

The truth is we were always bound to end. The truth is we should never have started. “I want every second I can get with you,” I tell him honestly. To prove my point, I put the helmet on.

Take me away.

And though I can’t voice my desire, he seems to know. He grabs my hand and steadies me as I hook my leg over the bike. It’s bigger than I expected—taller and wider. I’ve never been on a motorcycle before. I was more likely to ride in the back of my father’s Rolls. At least when I was allowed to leave the house. My feet come off the ground. Between the helmet and his broad back, I can’t see anything. I’m completely at his mercy like this.

“Hold on.” The words are more a rumble through his body—and into mine—than a sound.

I wrap my arms around his waist, soaking up his solidity like a cat in the sun. It’s been missing from my life, only coming in my dreams: safety. Stability. I take it all into my body, store it deep, hoarding the feeling for the time when I’m on the run again.

He’s wrong for me. Dangerous.

Desire doesn’t ask questions. Neither does love.

The roar of the engine is deafening—almost blinding, like the lights onstage. There’s a moment. There’s a shiver down my spine. There’s a doorway into a new place. But this isn’t a stage. These aren’t hands to grope me. This place is the rush of air over my skin as we take off. It’s the steady rumble of the machine beneath my legs, the hard body of the man I’m holding.

I don’t know how long we ride, but I never want it to end. When it stops, the clock will start ticking again. Ticking down the time I have with him, another grain of sand dropped. But while we’re on the bike, racing down a street I don’t even recognize, headed nowhere and everywhere, I feel the freedom I’ve been searching for.

I look to the side, but the buildings are gone. In their place are streaks of rust and gray. Brushstrokes in every drab color, made mysterious by night. This is the way he sees the world every day, I realize. As art.

The painting turns to green and brown, and I know we’ve left the city.

Anxiety shivers through me. What if he’s taking me out here for some darker purpose? What if he doesn’t bring me back? I almost laugh, though it’s a macabre amusement. What if I’ve escaped one monster only to find another?

But then I realize Clara will run if I don’t come back. She promised.

She’ll be safe. Alive. Not like my mother.

Not like me.

And I let my worries go. I paint them on the canvas we make, like bread crumbs I could use to find my way home.

T
he sky has
turned a muted blue by the time we arrive. I look around. There are only trees and grass and a winding road that led us here. I don’t know why he’s brought me to this place. There is a reason, though. I read the secret in the tension of his body. He’s got a little half smile too, the kind that hides a surprise. It makes my heart thump a little too hard, that smile—sexy and impossibly sweet.

“Where are we?” I ask, musing. I don’t think he’ll tell me.

And he doesn’t. “Nowhere that’s on a map.”

He’s really too pleased with himself. I think of Peter Pan flying off into Neverland, taking Wendy with him. I think of sword fights and fairies. That’s how it feels in the clearing—like magic.

Only magic isn’t real. Flying isn’t real either, even if it felt like that on the back of his bike.

“You know, if I were another girl, I might be worried about all this secrecy. You might have dug a ditch out here for all I know.”

His smile slips away, and I regret my words. Why can’t I just accept this moment for what it is? Why can’t I trust anyone? My insides churn, faster and harder. How did I get so broken?

His hand takes mine, warm and dry and comforting. “If that’s what you think, why did you come with me?”

His words are soft, more curious than accusing.

“I’m not some other girl,” I tell him. I’ve looked death in the face my whole life. My father is a murderer. My fiancé is a monster. “I’m afraid of dying, but I’m more afraid of never living.”

Understanding flickers in his eyes. He knows I mean more than just drawing breath. More than just running. I dream of the day I can be safe enough to really enjoy life. To do more than survive.

It’s why I came with him. He’s a breath of life.

“It’s nothing scary,” he assures me. “It’s…like a present.”

My heart skips. “A present? Because your presents have a tendency to be scary.”

That makes him laugh. “Not this one.”

“What is it?” I tease him. “A battle ax? A sword?”

He just smiles mysteriously and leads me into the grass.

There is no path here. We follow the tree line, walking through lush grass already damp with dew. Then the trees break, revealing a structure standing at the top of a hill. Is it a house? But no, it is made entirely of windows. Or at least, there used to be windows. Now there are tall empty spaces where glass would go. It could almost pass for an old greenhouse except for the elaborate dome on the top.

And the turrets.

It reminds me of a woman. An old stately woman with gray hair and a serenity that only comes from experience. I don’t look at her and think,
she once was beautiful.
I think,
she
is
beautiful.
Every wrinkle in her skin, every crack in the stone, stands for a secret she kept.

“What is this place?” I breathe.

He is quiet a moment. I look over to find him studying me, an uncertain light in his eyes.
He’s studying me,
I realize, and that both unnerves and charms me, that he would be that interested in me, that he wants to see beneath the smooth, waxed surface of my skin.

“I’m not sure. The house is two klicks south of here. Or what’s left of it. This was… a detached ballroom? An observatory? Maybe both.”

A ballroom. That sounds right.

I’m too excited now. I let go of his hand and run ahead, finding the door even though every window is open. There is no actual door either, just an empty frame. I step inside and look up. The ceiling is faded, scrubbed from the inside each time a storm rages. But I can still see the painting of cherubic angels.