Exposed Exposed (Dom Nation #1) - E. Davies Page 0,99
cab driver sighed, cracking his gum as the light turned to green. He let the other taxi have space and cruised down the street after him while my heart thudded.
Yes. Just as I’d thought, the taxi pulled to a halt outside Slate’s house.
“Here,” I urged him, keeping a few driveways between us. But it was too late for him not to notice me if he were looking to see if he was followed. The street was too quiet at this time of night to try any super-secret spy bullshit.
A minute passed. Seconds dragging by in the darkness, each an eternity long and laced with the deadly potential.
What was Isaac doing in the other taxi?
“Meter’s running.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I’ll pay. No problem.”
“Sure.” The guy turned the phone stuck to his windshield on its side and switched from a street map to a sports channel. The glare was hard to ignore as I peered across the phone and out the front window.
Finally, there was movement. Isaac—unmistakably him—in a dark suit, some obnoxious name-brand bag on his shoulder. He stepped out and faced Slate’s house.
Thankfully this ride was on my account, so I didn’t have to waste a moment paying. “Thanks!” I whispered and jumped out of the taxi, shouldering my bag.
The closing car door made Isaac turn my way, and under the streetlight, I suddenly realized he wasn’t empty-handed. In the hand not holding his bag, he held a bullwhip, the coils loose and large in his fingers.
Fuck, I thought, steeling myself. Those things were dangerous—a skilled sadist like Isaac could take an eye out, break a bone, or knock me unconscious.
Both taxis pulled away from the curb as we stood facing one another, forty feet apart or so. When we were alone, Isaac slowly set down his bag. “Should have known you’d come crawling here,” he greeted me. “I saw you hurt him back there. Did you like it?” A slow, unpleasant smile crept over his face as he licked his lips.
Just like he knew how to win over people, he knew how to go for the jugular. It took all my strength not to launch myself blindly at him, because he’d struck a nerve.
I had liked it—until I’d realized that something had happened. A line had been crossed, and I still didn’t know where or how.
“Guilty conscience bring you here?” I retorted. “Or looking for an easy mark tonight? Cut the crap. You aren’t here to defend his honor. Not with that.”
“Oh, this?” Isaac lazily swished it in circles around his hand. “I find he needs to hurt to remember a lesson. I’m sure you’ve discovered this, too.”
I gritted my teeth, trying not to imagine Slate on his knees for this psycho. “What do you want?”
“Nobody imagines for a moment you’re really interested in a dried-up, untrained old thing like him.”
Fuck you! Heat flushed my cheeks as my gut clenched. I lurched forward onto my toes but stopped myself before I sprinted close. I couldn’t let him see he was getting to me. Instead, I put down my bag like I wasn’t planning the best way to turn his face to pulp.
“You’re loaded, so he’s not paying you. So what is it? A guilty conscience or an easy mark?” Isaac flung my words back in my face almost effortlessly, like a man who was used to talking his way through the cracks in anyone’s armor.
But I wasn’t some vulnerable boy in need of his approval, or even his enmity. As far as I was concerned, Isaac was standing between me and Slate—and our future together. So his fucking mind games wouldn’t work on me.
“If you think so little of him, why are you here?” I asked, my gaze fixed on the whip as he whirled it around. Estimating its length. I’d seen him use it in the club, on rare occasion. Playing with whips that long required a lot of space to do safely.
I knew the answer, so I was just stalling for time. He was obsessed—he thought he owned him. He thought every boy belonged to him on sight. I’d bet my eyeteeth he was one of those assholes who thought any sub should submit to him.
“Some call it love.” Isaac smirked, making it perfectly clear that he wasn’t one of those people. Instead, he was willing to use the word—defile it—to get what he wanted.
I laughed. “You wouldn’t understand love if it spat in your face and called you a gutter worm.”