emery
The mystery woman stands before me, looking fierce in a black leather jacket and combat boots.
I hear myself gasp. She smirks and bends down to grab my phone. Her eyes flit over the screen.
"Hey!" I reach out to snatch my phone back but she lifts it out of reach.
My face drops into a scowl. Tall people have used their long ass arms to dangle things out of my reach for my entire life.
Her eyes are dark as they meet mine, the sea blue now a turbulent black ocean. "I thought I told you to stay away from her," she growls.
This time I'm not completely dazed by her as I was in the bathroom. There's no wall out here for her to pin me against and feel naughty things.
"Give it back," I demand.
"No." She crosses her arms, tucking my phone between her taut forearms. "You said you understood. Now you're intentionally disobeying."
"You said she couldn't touch me, not that I had to stay away." I glare as hard as I can. "And anyway, I don't know you. You can't just boss me around."
"You know me now," she says.
I scoff but she sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose as if I'm trying her patience. Her patience! What about mine?
"I know you don't understand and you don't trust me," she continues. "I know. But I'm trying to protect you."
"Protect me from what? Having fun?"
Her pink lips quirk back in a sneer. The sinful intent gleaming in her eyes steals my breath. When she says nothing, I groan and throw my hands in the air.
"Keep my damn phone then!" I snap and spin around, marching off toward my car.
I blink and she's somehow in front of me. But I'm too slow to redirect my feet and plow into her again. This time she catches my waist.
She smells like fresh laundry and chocolate, but it's her sultry eyes that force me to be still.
"Emery," she says, "you're not going to that party. That girl wants you. If you go over there, she's going to touch you. You're too curious and meek to tell her 'no.'"
"You don't know me," I mutter. Even though I know she's probably right.
"I do. You are a gentle, kind person. But if you're misguided, you'll be kind to the wrong people."
She was clearly trying to tell me I was a pushover without being mean. My hands clenched into fists.
Who does this woman think she is?
"And you're the right person then?" I mutter.
She nods. "Exactly. The only one who deserves you."
My skin is buzzing from her closeness and her words set a bomb of butterflies off in my stomach.
The only one? I don't even know how to take that but it's making my heart hammer.
"And if it's fun you're looking for . . ." she drawls, a smirk curling at her plump pink lips. "I can promise you the best entertainment of your life."
Oh my God! My face burns like a lit match.
How can she flirt so shamelessly? I'm pretty sure that's what this is. I mean, I'm not an expert but that sounds like flirting to me.
To divert her attention from my absolute mortification, I cross my arms and think of something else to talk about.
"How did you find me anyway?" I say.
She smiles and taps the tip of her nose. "This."
Uh, what? I frown.
"Your nose? I don't get it."
"I tracked your scent from the diner."
"Okay . . ."
What the fuck?
I clear my throat. "And what's your name again?"
"Lenora."
"That's beautiful," I admit, forgetting myself for a moment.
"So is Emery." She grins, which makes me blush harder. "Now, I know you have a lot of questions. Come with me and I will answer them."
"I can't." I sigh. "My friends are expecting me—"
A growl tears through the air between us. My muscles go rigid.
Her lips hardly even parted but I know without doubt that the noise came from her.
How? What the fuck is going on?
"Those people are not your friends," she mutters, her grip tightening on my waist. "They want to use you."
"Why would they want to use me?" I shoot back. "I'm poor and new in town. I have literally nothing to offer them but friendship." My eyes narrow on her. "For all I know, you just want to use me. You assaulted one of them! I shouldn't even be talking to you right now."
Her eyes blaze into mine like two streaking asteroids rocketing toward me.
Impact will be certain and catastrophic.
"Emery," she speaks with thinly-veiled composure, her voice is deep and satiny. "I would never do anything to hurt you. I know you don't know me, yet. But you will. You just have to trust me."
As genuine as she sounds and as much as I ache to believe this beautiful stranger, I can't help but curb my feelings. Just because she says she won't hurt me doesn't mean it's true. People say whatever they have to all the time just to get their way.
For some reason, I still want to believe her. Although I don't have a single bit of evidence to prove her word is worth anything, I feel a compulsion to trust her.
I wouldn't even entertain this conversation with any other rando—especially one who hurt a friend of mine.
It was absolutely insane but I couldn't resist this woman. Steeling myself, I tried to regain some sense of rationale.
"Why are you so interested in me? I don't get it. I could be a psychopath."
She snorts but quickly tries to mask it.
"What? I could be!" I insist, pouting a little.
"You could be," she indulges me. Her arms pull me to her chest as she kisses the top of my head."But you're not."
I melt against her despite my efforts to stay strong. With my head against the base of her throat, I can hear the strong, steady throb of her heart. She smells like a freshly picked flower, sweet and a little earthy.
My eyelids flicker shut as I feel my protests wither away. She utters a noise of satisfaction that sends vibrations through my body.
"Come with me," she whispers.
In my daze, I nod.
She takes my hand and leads me to a jacked Jeep with muddy tires. I move to climb into the cab but her hands grab my hips and effortlessly lift me onto the seat. A bolt of shock races down my spine at the unexpected contact.
I look back at her to see her smirk. She grabs the door to close it but I hold a hand out first.
"Wait," I say. "I need my phone. I need to tell them I'm not coming."
She sighs but shrugs. "Your phone is in your back pocket."
I feel for it and breathe with surprise when I feel it lodged in said location. How did she get it in there without my notice?
After I've texted Calla and Deja, telling them something has come up, I realize the position I've put myself in. I'm in the car with a stranger who hurt one of my friends and banished another.
Brian's warning sounds through my head.
Get out of here. She isn't going to let you go.
I glance at Lenora. Her eyes are fixed on the road but the corner of her mouth twitches.
"Staring isn't polite," she teases.
I look away, biting my lip. Am I insane?
"What's wrong?"
Swallowing, I looked down at my fidgeting fingers. "Nothing . . . I was just wondering—why did you make Brian leave?"
Her silence draws my attention back to her face. The tendon in her jaw ticks and she looks away from the road to pierce my heart with those cold eyes.
"What?" she says, sounding a bit surprised.
Part of me knows I should stop talking and drop the subject. I've seen what this woman can do.
Do I want to risk her turning those powerful hands onto me? The image of her hands on my skin only distracts me from the conversation.
The mental visual of her hands wrapped around my throat leaves my core throbbing. I clench my thighs to relieve some of the pressure.
Bad! Bad imagination!
I have to take a deep breath to cleanse my mind of all dirty thoughts.
"You told him he had twelve hours to leave," I remind her. "Why did he have to leave?"
She growls lowly while glowering out the windshield. "I don't put up with his kind of shit."
"Okay . . . what's his kind of shit? He seemed pretty average to me."
"He's dangerous. I can't have him loitering around, bothering you hum—you people." She exhales forcefully. "And anyway, it's none of your concern. That was between me and him, and he's gone now."
Brian was dangerous? I can't imagine. Like as a criminal or sexual predator or something else? How could that not be my concern?
I already know she'll just deflect my questions. Rather than push the subject, I look out the window and see a wall of dense forest on either side of the car.
I have absolutely no idea where we are. I don't even recognize this road.
"Where are we going?" I ask.
"My house."
"Your house?" I squeak. My fingers wrap around the seatbelt while I try to ground myself.
"Mhm."
"Are you going to chain me up in your basement and cut me up into little pieces?"
She rolls her eyes. "I don't have a basement."
Fuck. The attic then.
"No attic," she mutters.
My eyes widen. The woods?
"Take a deep breath," she chuckles. "I'm not going to murder you. I mean it when I say I could never hurt you. Believe me, baby."
Her assuring voice combs out some of the tangles in my anxiety. But not all of them.
"Why are we going to your house?" I ask, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
"I want to show you around and show you a little bit about me. At least at my house I know we won't bump into your fan club."
"I don't have a fan club," I scoff. "They're friends."
She shrugs.
"So . . . do you live alone?" I say.
Her cool grey irises snap to me out of the corner of her eye, her lips pressing into a line. "You'll see."
Well, that doesn't sound promising.
She hasn't convinced me she isn't in the mafia yet. She probably lives with her mafia family full of killers and drug dealers. I'm going to get traded into sex slavery for a bag of crack.
Wonderful. Fucking terrific.
I discreetly force a few breaths through my nose and try to get a grip. Even with my wild mafia theory, I can't explain how she tracked me by scent or how she does the growling thing, or the inhuman strength with which she nearly killed Deja. Those seem a little too animalistic for my taste.
Steroids? I wonder. McDonald's chicken nuggets?
My eyes flicker up at her through my lashes so she doesn't notice.
Her profile is angular and feminine. She has a high cheekbones, a narrow nose, full rose-colored mouth, dainty chin, and thick black eyebrows. Her almond-shaped eyes glow against the bronze palette of her complexion.
The curtain of her thick, dark hair tumbles off her jacketed shoulders, shining like wet ink. Her sweet smell fills the car, despite the mud and grime.
"We're here," Lenora says as she thrusts the gear shift into park and looks at me.
I straighten and snap my gaze to the window, pretending I wasn't just gawking. A three-story white wooden house rises from a lush lawn. Every level has a massive wrap-around porch with lights wrapped around the railings. There's a figure sprawled out in the yard on a blanket with a book, though surely it's too dark now to be reading outside.
The door is thrown open and I jump, finding Lenora beside me. Her eyes assess me carefully. Extending a hand to me, she says, "Let's go, Emery."