Page 15 of Resist Me Not (Bloody Desires #4)

Chapter nine

TREY

T here is something else, some other reason for Walker’s early arrival, but whatever it was that had him so on edge when I opened the door, the surprise I have waiting for him eases away his tension.

“Come in.” I gesture him over the threshold. “I have the evening catered so we don’t even need to leave the room.”

“That’s presumptuous.” Walker chuckles as he enters.

“I thought it was a promise.”

He laughs again with the usual flush to his cheeks. They already were a little flush, like he’d been out of breath the entire way here.

My camera isn’t set up in front of the window anymore.

Walker glances there like he’s relieved.

Curtis’s absence must have been noticed by now.

Perhaps that is why he arrived jumpy. He is smart to be wary of me, to wonder about my involvement, but I’m glad my charm and our connection seem to have banished his doubts enough to keep him here.

Although, punctuality would have been better, considering I barely had enough time to clean up, change, and hide Mr. Wayfair’s body in the closet.

“I called room service to move up our dinner.” I pull out Walker’s chair for him at the quaint café dining set.

Mother has been wanting something similar for her porch, so it will go to good use after this, but Walker’s reaction to my decorating is worth the expense all on its own.

Already being at Saks while stalking Wayfair inspired me.

“I’m afraid it might still take a few minutes to arrive. ”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disrupt your plans so much.”

“Don’t worry about it. It just means we get to toast with an early glass of wine.”

Walker sits and I uncork the wine to pour us both a glass of chilled Chardonnay.

I’ll need to move hotels after this. I hadn’t wanted to kill Wayfair here, but his routine, his constant company, whether from subordinates, his mistress, or his wife, made killing him at home or work impossible, and anywhere nondescript or secluded might have raised too much suspicion when I invited him.

Sending an anonymous message with some of the photos I’d taken the other day, however, with an address for us to meet at which he could research was not a seedy hotel, made him assume a wealthy associate was trying to blackmail him.

He came alone on foot to avoid any driver or rideshare trail, helping ensure I could erase him and any evidence of me being involved with his disappearance in one fell swoop.

Disposing of the body will have to wait.

I hate to have to kick Walker out later, but stalling until morning if he tries to stay the night would be even riskier than having a dinner date ten feet from a recent murder scene.

If things progress as planned tonight and Walker wants to stay, I will unfortunately have to play the “I have an early morning tomorrow” card and promise to make it up to him.

“What should we toast to?” Walker asks, once I have sat to join him and we raise our glasses.

“How about… making it to date four?”

He smiles, fully relaxed now, and thinking whatever anxiety he had been feeling utterly foolish. “To date four,” he says, and we clink to seal out toast.

Being captive to our schedules and professions is one of many things we have in common.

While Walker isn’t the overly refined type, he appreciates a good meal.

Given his profession, he is just as likely to survive on fast food and peanut butter sandwiches as to indulging in fine dining, but I can’t always indulge either when I need to make a quick getaway, whether from a centralized location or even a whole city.

Our meal arrives just in time for our second glasses of wine.

A simple three courses of roasted beetroot salad, chicken masala, and plain New York cheesecake, no compote to “ruin it,” as Walker once told me.

It’s all some of his favorite foods and well balanced with the wine.

I even have a small bottle of masala to pair with dessert.

We finish it and are ready for a second bottle of Chardonnay once we are done eating, buzzed but not too tipsy after a filling meal.

And not so filling of a meal that we’ll need to wait too long before moving on to other things.

Despite the body in the closet no doubt well on its way through rigor mortis, I feel no need to rush.

I enjoy Walker’s company and believe I still would even without the promise of what’s to come.

“I love Van Morrison,” Walker says with a hazy smile. We have moved to the sofa, and he tips closer beside me to rest his head on my shoulder.

Loving Van Morrison was not one of the tidbits about Walker I picked up before.

Purely coincidence. Kismet. “I find his love songs to be sorely underappreciated. Better on vinyl than on a laptop though.” I nod at how I set up my laptop to accommodate a little background music, currently in front of us on the coffee table.

“Did you have a record player growing up?” Walker asks.

“We did. My mother still has it. I can remember her dancing with me on her feet.”

“Yet you never managed to learn how to do it well, huh?” He chuckles.

I turn my head to speak into the soft tresses of his sandy-colored hair. “I thought I slow-danced rather adequately.”

He nuzzles upward like a pet asking for a kiss. I give him one above his temple. “I’m surprised you’d settle for adequate anything.” Walker lifts his head to look at me, gray eyes alive with the fairy lights twinkling in them.

“I don’t have much opportunity to practice dancing.”

“We have the opportunity now.” He sits up, takes another sip of wine, then takes my glass from me to set both on the coffee table. After a clearly purposely and overly elegant roll to his feet, he extends a hand to me to lift me to mine.

Walker leads me out into the middle of the room.

The table setup is more central, but we have enough space for a slow dance.

He pulls me in close, adjusting his hold on me so he is leading.

They say a good dancer feels the music with their heart and soul and the body follows.

Perhaps I have never excelled at it because I have no heart or soul.

It feels a little like I might be wrong about that when Walker begins to sway us.

“Just don’t stand on my feet,” he teases, nudging mine with his to get me to follow his steps.

It’s still mostly just swaying, but I can manage a slow box step to “I Forgot That Love Existed.”

I haven’t even fully tasted him yet, but I have never known this sensation before, this absolute certainty that Walker is mine, no one else’s, never anyone else’s ever again, and I am never going to let him go.

“Now you’re getting it,” Walker says, soft beneath the music. He shifts his hold on me to wrap both arms around my neck. “There’s hope for you yet.”

I grip his waist and run my hands upward, fingers tracing his spine. I am so very eager to finally see his full tattoo. “You look even more radiant than usual under twinkling lights.”

Walker grins. “I feel underdressed.”

“Oh? We can remedy that.” I pull my hands between us and run them up his chest like I might undo his tie. But I am the one over dressed in a classic black tux, so I tug my bowtie loose instead.

“Not a clip-on. I’m impressed.”

“I am offended you would expect otherwise.”

He laughs and drags his hands down from around my neck to pull the tie from my collar and drops it to the floor. After I undo my top shirt button, and only the top, Walker fans his fingers there, feeling my bared collarbone. Our feet are scarcely moving anymore but we are still slightly swaying.

I want to suck his pouty lower lip into my mouth and oh so gently bite .

I start with a tender tracing of the scar left from the day we met.

It’s still healing. It might vanish completely someday, but I secretly hope it does not.

I hope some faint line is always there as a reminder of the first time I tended to my good boy and claimed him from the clutches of someone so undeserving.

I lean forward to lick the scar’s length, and Walker shudders. Every time he does that I want to cause the reaction again and again. I move to his ear, lick it, and then gently suck and bite the lobe like I wanted to his lip.

Walker moans and bares his neck to me.

I take the invitation and bite there too, leaving faint indents that I lick afterward like a healing salve. Walker is so heavy-lidded and flush from wine and arousal that it is all I can do to not devour his lips right off his face when I finally kiss him.

He clings to the lapels of my tux jacket like he could devour me too. But I don’t want this over quickly. I don’t want an explosion of clothes and rutting over the coffee table. I want to take my time and meticulously unravel Walker beneath me.

He wants that too. I know by the hesitation in his hands when he lowers them to my hips and almost reaches between my legs to learn if I am as hard as I can feel of him against my thigh. He clutches my pant leg instead.

Such a good, good boy, waiting for direction.

“Would you like for me to take charge, doctor?” I ask against his lips. “Tell you exactly how this is going to go, and all you need to do is follow my lead?”

“Yes, please.”

“Yes, please…?” I nose up his jawline.

“ Daddy .”

I breathe on the shell of Walker’s ear, finally pulling loose the knot of his tie.

“Good boy.” The tie is not going on the floor, however.

I have use for it. “Then that is my permission to set the pace, but should you ever wish to disobey me, there are no safe words. A simple no or stop is all I need to hear. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes. I like the sound of that.” Walker leans back, and though he is larger than me if not taller, he makes himself seem practically demure with a hunch of his shoulders and bat of his eyes. “Tell me what to do.”

“First…” I slowly wind his tie around my fingers as I pull it from his neck. “Undress the rest of the way while I refill our wine.”