Page 13 of Chad's Chase

Reaching for my drink, I took a sip. “So, what are you doing here with me, then?”

Clasping his hands, he answered, “To ask you that same question. What areyoudoinghere?”

My heart ricocheted in my chest. What did he mean by that? Did he know? Oh shit.

For six years, I trained myself to blot out fear. Rid myself of the emotion. Trained myself to fear nothing or no one. But this feeling right here, this galloping of my heart, this twisting in my stomach, felt very much like fear.

Right then, I accepted it. I had to let myself accept the truth: I, Jhay Byrd, was terribly afraid of Chadrick Niiveux.

That was the reason six months had gone by and he still wasn’t dead. Because I’d been playing it too safe. I was being a milksop.

A waitress came just then and set a drink down before him. “Your screwdriver, sir.”

When she left, Chad took up the drink, sipped it, and then looked over at me with expectancy in his stare.

I sipped my own drink, cool and unperturbed, just as he was. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking me.”

Lips pulled up into a lopsided smile this time, he just stared at me for several long, agonizing minutes. I had no idea what that smile meant.

It had been years since I’d been this uncertain, this fucking petrified. Why the hell was I even afraid? Death would be a good thing for me right now. If he found out who I was and why I was here, I should be happy, because it meant I would be dead. Freed from bondage.

Quietly setting his drink down on the table, he said, “I’m told that the customers are complaining that the best girl in the club isn’t working the floor. You don’t do lap dances, you don’t do private shows, and you’re not friendly to customers. But you are with the girls, though. So what are you doing here? Are you a stripper or a customer?”

Inwardly I released a huge, and I meanhuge, sigh of relief. “A stripper.”

“If you’re a stripper, be a stripper. If you’re a customer, be a customer. You can’t be both in here.”

Fuck you, asshole. I’m not a stripper or a customer. I’m your fucking death angel.

Licking my lips teasingly, I flicked the silver ring around my middle finger one, two, three times. Just enough to partially unscrew the little opening beneath it. And as I did before, I seductively moved my hand across the table and walked my fingers up the back of his hand, inching closer to his drink. “I think whoever made that report about me is full of shit.”

Eyebrows raised, he watched my face, which was exactly where I needed his eyes to be. “Are they?”

I slid one finger up the side of his glass, scooping up the droplets of water. “You be the judge, boss.” My finger was on the rim of his glass now, circling it. “Just now, when you came to this booth, was my attitude anything at all like they reported? Was I not…accommodating? Were you not the one to enlighten me of who you are?”

Wetting my lips again to distract him, I flicked the ring around my finger one last time and inconspicuously angled my hand so the poison stored inside the ring seeped out into his drink.

Completely distracted and unaware, his eyes dropped to my freshly licked lips, lingered for a minute, then drifted back up to my face. But the warmth and amicableness were completely obliterated from them now.

Now they were…something. Something unreadable. Something lethal.

“You’re right,” he said in that irritably smooth fucking voice of his. “They’re full of shit.”

Reading his expression was damn near impossible, so I smiled and slowly, sexily, retreated my hand from his glass, and went back to tracing the back of his hand. “I want you to ‘mess around’ with me. What would it take for you to make me an exception?”

“Why would I do that?” he questioned, watching me closely. “What’ssospecial about you, Blood?”

With my free hand, I reached up and pinched one of my nipples under the silky material of my costume top. “Because I’m so fucking good, I make menscream, not growl.”

Head tipped to the side, he asked, “And what do these men scream for, Blood?”

Keeping my eyes locked with his, I sultrily whispered the honest truth: “Their lives.”

At this, he smiled and picked up his drink. “Tempting…I’ll think about it.”

With bated breath, I watched as he brought the glass to his mouth. Holy fuck. It couldn’t possibly be this easy.

“No rush. I’m patient,” I responded, trying to look at his eyes and not at the drink in his hand.