You Called Me-ARE and Apple epub (3 page)

His brash tone made her tense under her coat, but she wouldn't let him see it bothered her. “If I had anything in my stomach I’d throw up on you again.”

“I told you to eat something, even made you a plate. Not everyone wants to hurt you, Kenya.”

“There’s nothing I can do for you, Mr…”

“Blakemore, Jonathan Blakemore.”

“Mr. Blakemore, you know I work at a bank. I’m not some hooker or call girl or escort. You’re propositioning the wrong woman.”

He laughed, making her body stiffen. “You’re so far from an escort; I wouldn’t think you knew what one was.”

“Don’t worry about what I know. Just forget you ever met me and get off the elevator.” She paused tucking her body tighter to the corner, his expression changing to tired almost exhausted. “What are you doing?”

Jonathan reached past her his stare trained on her mouth and eased a key from the control panel. “We’ll sit here until you agree to help me.” He squat low to the floor, running a hand through his thick, bronze hair. Obscene the way it feathered back into place as if each hair laid down in numerical order. Kenya hurried her stare away and eyed the ceiling. She couldn't let her kidnapper see her checking him out. The niggling between her shoulder blades returned that he belonged to a mafia family somewhere. Irish Mafia's pretty boy, front man, King Pin—whatever they’re called. No pinky ring, but something intense flowed one layer beneath the surface of his closed off personality. 

She didn’t care, just wanted him to stop staring at her like a cobra ready to strike. The tilt of his head and tension riding his muscled body gave her serious pause. Darting her attention to the security cameras, or where one should have been, she found nothing. Pacing her tight corner careful not to go in a circle making herself dizzy, Kenya kept him in her peripheral.

His weird colored eyes pierced her in place, inching over her skin leaving behind a trail of heat to torture her body later once she got out of there. Kenya popped a hip against the metal bar. 

“You realize kidnapping’s illegal, right?” She dropped her gaze to the floor, and made no intention of moving as his thumb brushed over her ankle. This close he could drag her to the floor.

“Sit down before you fall, Kenya. I’m tired of staring at your blue panties. You have a beautiful ass by the way.”

She slapped a hand over the hem of her skirt. “Stop looking under my skirt, pervert.”

He made a sound low in his throat. “I undressed you, remember? I’ve seen more than that scrap of material covering
some
of your pretty ass, Kenya. You women kill me…concerned a man saw you naked, when it’s those damned legs of yours that’s got my boy down here in a chokehold, drooling,” Jonathan said, patting the floor. “What does a prim banker know about being an escort anyway?”

Kenya tipped her attention to the lint in the corner avoiding the sexy vibe oozing from this man because at this rate her four-inch heels wouldn’t be high enough to keep it from brushing her panties. Finally gaining her composure, she answered his question. “I don’t, Mr. Blakemore. I don’t live that lifestyle; you’ll need to look somewhere else for your perverted kicks.” Shoving the purse up her shoulder she peered down at her host and probably shouldn’t have said perverted. He looked like the handcuffs and whips kind of guy.

“You have a backbone, I’ll give you that much, Kenya,” he complimented, and said in a business tone, “I need your help. Give me four days of your time, that’s all I’m looking for.”

She hesitated piecing together the best way to answer him that didn't involve the pointy end of her heels. “You expect me to give you my four days—a week’s vacation with my shift, to spend it doing who knows what with you, a stranger, holding me hostage in an elevator?”

“I’ll pay you.”

She gulped. “Pay me?” she repeated certain she'd heard him wrong. Walking a tight circle in her little corner, she abruptly stopped, feeling light headed and fisted a hand to her hip, “Listen,” this couldn't be real
,
she thought. “I don't know and I don't wanna know what all you got going up here, but get it through your head, I’m not helping you.”

Jonathan laughed aloud, a deep pre-recorded sound a ringing vibration in the tiny area. Had she not seen it come from his mouth, she'd had sworn it bounced from speakers in the ceiling and up through the floor. 

He said, “Only four days, Kenya.”

She popped out her hip resting her shoulder along the wall and shook her head. “I’ve already missed work today. Can’t you ask one of your neighbors? They know you.”

“We won’t be alone.”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “And I don’t do ménages.”

He choked. “You know what a ménage is? I’m surprised.”

Arrogant, self-centered prick.

Her nostrils flared under his cocky and condescending tone. The fact that she didn't swing on a pole for a living, didn't mean she lived under a rock either. “You’re losing points by the minute, Mr. Blakemore. What is it you need?” Agitated, she rotated her ankles one at a time in the high heels.

“You'd feel better if you sat down,” he urged, and she gave a quick no thank you head shake. He pulled a knee to his chest, reached out and drug a finger lightly around her ankle. “I need a woman to accompany me on a business trip in a week. I sponsor kids going away to camp and the parent who agreed to help had to cancel.”

“And this was the best you could do, kidnap a sick stranger?” She raised her eyes to the ceiling,
Calm down he could still kill or maim you
. “All the women you must know, none of them would help you?”

He eyed his watch then her. “Why do you think I know so many women?”

Because your eyes hint that making stroganoff is not the only thing you do well
. “Okay, all the men you must know and you kidnap me.”

Jonathan bolted up from the floor and came at her faster than she could see him move, grabbing her fisted hands between them knocking her purse to the floor.  

His big body pinned her into the corner crushing her against his pounding chest. She fought against him pulling her arms down to hold alongside her body. Her blood pumped so hard through her veins she swore her left ventricle popped loose from her heart. The room wavered, his hands locked onto her forearms, his face inches from her mouth. His thighs trapped her legs from kicking him.

“It’s just me and you in here. I’m not gonna hurt you and that’s why you’re cocky as hell. Stop pretending I make you uncomfortable and just listen,” Jonathan complained.

She snapped. “Why do you want my help?”

“Because you’re cocky as hell and I like you.” He paused and Kenya felt every hard muscle cording under his heavy chest pressed to her body. “I’m accustomed to getting what I want, and you're short thirty volunteer hours at work.” His breath wafted across her face his mouth a blink away. She broke a nail gripping the metal bar at her back, because he’d read her like an open book. Loosening her grip on the bar Kenya calmed her erratic breathing and the urge to punch him in the throat for diming her out.

She asked, “How do you know about my volunteer hours at work?”

“The Internet is a valuable resource. I do a background check on every woman I let in my house. You’re very well respected at work, but you need more volunteer hours to get that promotion. We both win by you helping me.”

Kenya flipped through all the self-defense positions she could conjure, knee to the groin quick and easy. Jerking her knee up, she caught it against his thigh, the hard jolt did nothing to help her headache. Jonathan twisted and pinned her to the wall, his hands locked on her shoulders.

“I asked you to be a chaperone.” Stronger than he appeared, he held her to the wall, his nose brushing over hers. Moving around to her ear, the warmth of his breath became a puff of sin down her neck, Now she felt bi-polar, getting turned on by his touch. “If I wanted this…Kenya, not that I'm not tempted, but you’d be on your third orgasm before the elevator hit the next floor,” he warned backing away. Kenya rubbed a hand over her shoulder were he’d held her. He shoved the key in the elevator lock. “I don’t take what’s not mine.” The elevator slowly began to move toward the main floor. “Your keys are in your purse.”

Jonathan Blakemore concealed a lighter side under the brashness. He’d refused to hurt her even as they volleyed words back and forth. By the time the elevator reached the main floor, every reason not to help him paled in contrast to those thirty hours of volunteer time standing between her and the accounts manager position, and getting off the night shift. She'd wanted to get off that shift for two years. It left her social life obsolete. But she didn’t know this guy and he was…hot, that’s what he was. Freaking hot. Now she’s going to wonder about those kids all day. She didn’t have any kids. Let somebody who spends time specializing in childcare help him. 

“Who are you calling?” she asked, eyeing him on his cell a hand shoved in his pocket, and had no clue why.

“The parking garage is to your left. Tell them you were my guest and they’ll let you through.”

When the doors opened, she nearly fell out, glaring at his back to her him speaking into his phone. His conversation halted her steps.

“Just find somebody. The kids can’t go again till next fall. Ski camp isn’t open year round and they already have eight inches of snow...get back to me.”

Kenya blew out a breath, crossed to the garage door, and spotted her car in the corner.

Still a bit light-headed, she sat in her car and waited for the dizziness to go away when someone knocked on the window.

“Miss, you okay?” the parking attendant asked through the glass.

“Fine,” pressing the button for her window to go down. “Do you mind if I sit here for a minute. I’m feeling a bit dizzy?”

“Let me call you a cab,” he said then ran back to his glass enclosure, the space echoed from slamming doors and engines being started.

Closing her eyes, she laid her head back.
Please garage stop spinning
. She wasn’t up to watching a group of kids anywhere and making the pity call in front of her didn’t tip the scale in his favor.

“Excuse me,” another voice crossed through her window. “Hi. I’m Dr. Weaver. Jack says you’re not feeling well,” he said indicating the young man in the glass box.

“Just an ear infection or the flu…I’ll be all right.”

“I can’t let you drive around knowing you could cause an accident in your state. You live here?”

“No, just ah…visiting someone.”

“Then let’s get you back up to their apartment. I doubt a friend would want you driving around like this. I can get you some antibiotics, but you need to see your doctor. Ear infections can get nasty left untreated and the flu could easily become pneumonia.”

“Is there perhaps a lounge I can just sit in for a minute,” she breathed out.

“Who were you here to see?” the man asked, coming around to her driver’s door. “Come on, I’ll help you inside. The concierge will ring your friend.”

“Acquaintance, we just met.” She took a calming breath and leaned along her car. “Mr. Blakemore.”

“Jonathan let you leave in this state?” the doctor asked, eyes narrowed, and she let him help her inside the lobby. Hadn’t felt this bad yesterday morning when she got home from work. Cold and Flu medicine must’ve dulled the pain, because now she felt like crap.

He led her into a lounge room behind the concierge desk where she sank into the sofa. The scent of fresh cleanser, where housekeeping had started to clean, made her nauseated.

As she slipped into the darkness she had one thought, what really happened to her stockings?

Kenya sensed light blinking behind her lashes and the subtle familiar murmur of someone talking on the TV. News. The scent of clean linen filled her nostrils as she took in a breath. Home. Forcing herself to turn over, she cracked open an eye, expecting to see her mother had come over and made tea and soup. The familiar comfortable sofa she loved to sink into in her living room came into view. A pair of long tailored trousers stretched out under her coffee table. Jonathan Blakemore sat across from her on the chair. The burgundy sweater caressed his large torso a perfect complement to the chocolate-brown wool trousers. He could be a walking advertisement for the art of well-groomed dressing.

“Before you say anything, I undressed you to make you comfortable. Doctor Weaver says you have an inner ear infection. It's why you were dizzy and passing out, your equilibrium is off and a spiking fever kept you unstable.”

She didn't like he knew so much about her and her health. Kenya straightened her shoulders.

“Thank you, but concern over what you've seen or not seen on me takes energy I don't have an abundance of right now,” Kenya said, easing her feet to the floor to sit up straight. Adjusting herself on the sofa cushions, she tucked a foot beneath her hips. He'd put her favorite, thick, fuzzy socks on while she slept. That also meant he went through her lingerie drawer...no thongs. Did that surprise him? Must not have since he hung around after confirming her a prude.

“I'll have to trust in your humanity, that you're true to your word and I won't turn up with some communicable disease in a few weeks that I'll need a bag of prescriptions just to live a comfortable life,” she admitted suspicious of his chivalry. She hadn't had a long track record of kindness to gauge his actions by. Most people abused her caring nature figuring they needed to point out everything they would change about her when she liked who and what she had become...Kenya.

Jonathan gave her a halted bemused stare, filled with a quiet sadness she couldn't entertain, not without the help of an experienced psychiatrist. “You paint an ugly picture of me, Kenya. I'll have to work on my image...for you.” 

Now that her head stopped ringing, his comment made her heart lurch in her chest. 

“Mr. Blakemore, don't mind me right now.” Grabbing a mint from the candy dish in the center of the table, popping the red and white swirl in her mouth, she continued, “It's disarming not knowing what went on while I slept, so you'll have to forgive me if my PR skills are less than gracious.”