Page 8 of A Love So Deadly (Kissed by Darkness #1)

Chapter

Seven

Elliot

F or the next week, I’m so busy that I don’t have time to snoop. I’m in the front office at the desk, working on a pile of files for Lucian. Every now and then I rub my finger. I think I cut it, and Lucian helped, but it’s hazy. All I know is the pull to him is powerful.

He makes me tumble inside, like there’s no anchor to the world. But I don’t feel different, act different and Lucian doesn’t touch me or do anything. There are chunks of the day where I don’t see him. He works late into the night, often starting at five or six, but the place is a hive at all hours.

Last night… I don’t even know what it was. I think I drank too much? The RSVP was for an avantgarde gallery in the gritty depths of the city where every person who showed up was clearly beyond rich. The hidden depths of the real wealth in Tenebris.

I’m not sure what I expected, but an art show wasn’t it. The only thing is that the more I try to focus in on the events, the conversations, the more it all slides away.

All I really remember is somehow winding up two blocks away from the party and walking the rest of the way home.

Slowly, I release a breath.

That was mid-week. It’s Friday now, and already this place is seeping into my life, into my dreams.

No. Not the place.

Him.

I pick up the next file and sort through the receipts, putting some into the VMR pile and others into the one labeled LV.

This is okay for surface snooping, for looking for links and a place to start, but that’s it. What I need is a block of time to search, to?—

“Elliot, can you go down to the file room and get me this.”

I bite down on the scream as he appears suddenly, holding a piece of paper out with a word on it. Silent as always, which is strange because his presence now is so strong it threatens to steal the air.

It makes me cranky. “There’s a thing called a computer.”

“Some things aren’t logged online,” he says sharply.“And you do what I ask.”

“Because you’re my boss.”

He waits a second, holding that piece of paper out until I take it, and then he flickers his cool, burning gaze over me. I’m not sure how it can be both, but it is. “Yes.”

I’m not exactly sure from that ‘ yes ’ that we both hold the same definitions of the word ‘ boss. ’

“I’ll get it done as soon as I’m finished here,” I say. “Sir.”

“No, you’ll do it now. It might be hard to find, but it’s not outside your skillset. Take all night if you need to. Come in tomorrow. I need it by eight p.m. Saturday night.”

What did he say when I had the interview? He wanted me available twenty-four/seven.

I nod.

“I’m going out. Consider this priority.”

Then it hits me. This is him handing me the opportunity to snoop on a platter.

My heart skips a beat as I take a look at him in his impeccable suit.

It slams harder because this tall, dark-haired man with the beautiful face and pale skin, the mouth that melts ice caps and exudes sexuality.

No… He’s sensual, sexy, but that’s not what I mean. There’s power leashed inside him. A storm of chaos. Two powers, actually. The first? The power of who and what he is in his everyday life, a power I’ve never experienced. The second? Pure, unadulterated sexual power.

And it makes my breath catch and pussy wet.

Whatever weird sex thing he’s into—and it’s going to be weird—it has to be a power thing.

The thought makes me shiver.

His eyes turn intense blue.

I struggle for a breath.

If he’s going out, then yes, this is my chance to snoop.

“You know where the file room is?” he asks.

“Yes, Emily?—”

“Not that one,” he murmurs. “The older one. I rarely use it. So I’m not sure how often Emily went there. It’s the level below.”

His words hold unwhispered promises and unspoken threats.

At first taste, it’s like the whisper of sin, an offering of a dark path to his special dungeon where he plays.

Second taste is the threat. He doesn’t want me off that straight path down, and he doesn’t want me to explore his private space unless I’m a guest.

I shake the thoughts off. The weirdness of them sticks. And just when I’m about to convince myself I’m seeing things that aren’t there, he steps up to me and those cool fingers capture my chin.

He lifts my face to him, and once more that scent surrounds me.

“You like to push boundaries. I can see that,” he says, searching my eyes. “With me? Don’t. It’s dangerous.”

“Are you trying to say I’m a Pandora?”

“And here I thought you were a na?ve fairy tale princess all the way through.”

Pandora was alive, curious, na?ve. She knew that box was trouble, but she opened it anyway. Just like the princess steps into the lair of the beast. Both are compelling. “Are you a box or a beast?”

“I think you know.”

His soft words paint against my skin like he’s there, curled, inside my mind.

Lucian holds my gaze, and I can’t move. I’m frozen like his eyes contain some kind of spell. His mouth lowers and his lips touch mine, sending a ripple of pleasure radiating out beneath my surface.

This is a kiss with power, one that puts every other to shame. It’s lips on lips, and I’m shaking. Then his lips part, and his tongue tip touches my bottom lip and the world surges and sparks. He’s a furnace that seduces, his mouth and tongue and then…oh…and then he sucks in my bottom lip.

It throbs. I throb. My pussy rushes with energy and untapped need. Everything buzzes.

He bites down. My senses go haywire, leaping off the chart. And that bite electrifies and shoots hot pleasure right to my clit.

I want more.

He lets me go.

I reel back, heat pounding, and I stagger to keep my footing.

Without a word, a look, a sign that anything happened, he walks past me out his door.

I stand, trying to breathe, trying to settle and get myself under control with one hand at my heart the other at my mouth. Lips, clit, and finger all throb with the pounding of my blood.

“Did I just imagine that?” My whisper’s barely above breath, but it seems too loud. I take wobbling steps and sit at my desk, pretending to work.

There is work, a few emails, the usual things I have to do, but I can’t concentrate, so I pretend until the focus returns and my heart stops hammering. The tingling fades.

What I really should do is search his office. But I’m still that little bit too scared to. I still need to know if there’s a camera. After what happened… maybe not. But he’s also not going to leave a file on Kayla there, is he?

And while he’s CEO, VMR is a giant, a giant conglomerate. And the top floors are corporate. The others below hold the news rooms, the ones where the exines are ran and managed, then right below, sprawling the block are all the studios for their shows.

If there’s anything to be found, it’ll be on one of the corporate floors. Or down in that basement.

I take the note and the other files I need to put away as I walk to the elevator. The other files are easy, they belong in the basement, not the sub-basement.

This place is never empty, but it has a different feeling being here without Lucian in the building. It feels…empty. Like a vital element’s missing.

Inside the elevator, I study the buttons. It says this is the top floor. But it isn’t. There are more. I’ve counted from the street. And there is a button above this one. I push it, but then I notice the slot for a key. So, with a sigh, I press three floors below.

When the doors open again, the floor appears completely empty.

Good. I hurry down the hall and try every door I come across.

Some are locked, some open to big offices with glass petitions and meeting tables.

There are closets with cleaning supplies and bathrooms. All normal seeming.

All what you’d expect from a corporate building.

But again, there’s something with this floor that pricks at my senses.

It strokes the back of my neck, and panic floods me out of nowhere.

I clutch the files, rush back into the elevator, and press the button for the door to close over and over, as if it’ll make the doors slide shut faster.

Right before hall is cut off from sight, I swear something moves fast in a blur toward me.

I yelp, heart thumping, but once the doors fully close and I’m alone, I make myself laugh. I’m seeing things, that’s all. I’m scaring myself because office buildings are weird places after dark, especially mostly empty ones.

I cling to that and press the button above the basement where the elevator stops. I see a couple of people on this floor. These are the dogsbodies, people like me. Accounting is on this floor. Advertising, too.

I only know because there’s a skeleton map of the floors posted on the wall. Some of the things have names but some are just letters. Like VLVHBB… Whatever that is. But that’s on a different floor. In fact, if memory serves me, the tenth floor which has a key slot next to it.

But at least the one I’m on I can walk through without fear snakes up my spine. The air isn’t as heavy here.

I find the door I’m looking for easily. It’s for the fire escape that leads up through the building, and ends on Lucian’s floor—yes, I checked—and also all the way to the basement. The stairs seem to go on forever.

The sooner I find what happened to Kayla and get out of here, the better.

When I reach the basement, down in the lowest levels of the fortress, I stop. I really should try to get to the forbidden sub-basement, but first, I put some of the files away, like I was instructed to. Then I stare at the huge room with rows and rows of cabinets.

Might as well look for any record of Kayla. Kayla Evans. I find her file under employees, alphabetically, as expected, and the information is so boring I can’t help thinking it’s a front. There must be more. In his office? Somewhere else?

The sub-basement?

A shiver runs through me, and I go out the door I came in and stop. The stairs end halfway down to the next level. There’s no door.

Does that mean something? I go in again, clutching the work I need to do with the other few files that I didn’t put away… I can do another search when I finish this…. I look around.

I almost miss it. A wooden door, some kind of ancient elevator.

Creeping closer, I find that there are only two floors noted on it. Up and down. Up has a lock. Down doesn’t. So I press it.

The ride is bumpy and gears whine. When I step out, I’m faced with several aisles of old cabinets covered in dust. I pick the closest one and start sifting through the papers inside. Quick glances at them reveal that most of them are labeled V and L. The closer I get to the back, I find a W.

Ripping open more cabinets, I search for any signs of Kayla’s name, and there’s absolutely nothing. I sigh.

“Kayla, where the fuck are you, girl?”

Even in a whispered tone, my voice carries through the room, echoing slightly. Suddenly, at the back of the space, a light flicks on, casting an ominous glow on three more cabinets made of wood.

What…?

I stride over and put my hand on a handle. Pulling the draw, I eagerly race through the files before grabbing one and scanning it.

It’s just a list of bank statements from years ago.

My heart sinks. I could’ve sworn… But then something shiny catches my eye at the bottom of the cabinet. It seems like someone had placed the papers purposefully to cover up the true treasures underneath.

It’s full of beautiful objects all wrapped in silk handkerchiefs. I pick up a picture frame, the woman in it gorgeous and the man the spitting image of Lucian. All except he looks like a Victorian gentleman in this. He…

“It’s not him,” I mutter. I’m about to put it back when something glints.

A diamond necklace. It matches the one around the woman in the photo’s neck. I’m about to pick it up when I hear a sound.

I close the cabinet and peer down to see a pair of polished black shoes on the other side.

Then I look up… and up.

Lucian.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”