Chapter 4

• Amira
• A few sweet words that I thought might pull him in and he’s already doing more with me and he has with all of the dumb hussies that have been trailing after him all night, I understand why they would, if he wasn’t my target I would be insanely attracted to him but I refuse to admit that to myself and let lust and attraction get in the way of my goal. I don’t say anything to him regarding his question but I put my drink down on the bar counter and extend my hand up to him, his face stays the same as he puts his drink down and takes my hand and leads us to the dance floor where the music for the Spanish Malagueña where a Paso Doble style dance is traditional is getting ready to start.
• It has been about a year since I have danced but I haven’t forgotten the steps, his status makes the crowd part like Moses did for the sea and I can feel all eyes on him or us and I’m sure that I am the center of a lot of hateful female eyes so it boosts my ego as he leads us to the middle of the dance floor. He’s a lot taller than I thought he would be, I’m five foot six and in my heels am almost five foot nine but he still dwarfs me, I see there are other couples that are on the dance floor as well but we are the only ones in the center. He turns to stand in front of me and I want to see what kind of demeanor he has with a small test so I position my hand in top lead position but he snaps my wrist back to what would be the following hand position and raises an eyebrow at me.
• “I lead little bird.”
• His tone was deep and demanding and I feel it fighting my own and I have to remind myself that I cannot break character and push too hard otherwise he will sense something is up because I know he is not dumb in the least. This song I think will be perfect however, it is a dance that is a battle for dominance and I can feel his dominating energy radiating off him but mine refuses to back down. I smirk at him as we ready ourselves for the music to begin and once it does we move gracefully together and completely in sync, sharp and crisp movements, I would not have made the assumption that a man like him could dance like this. It’s the part of the song where he would need to spin me controlled and then back into him and the way he held my hand made the multiple spins flawless and when he pulled me back into him and my leg came up to rest against his side as he simultaneously grabs my thigh and dips me down and my head mechanically falls backwards as my eyes close until he brings me back up.
• We are so incredibly in sync that it’s making all the dance partners I had in the past seem incompetent, I hear the music coming to end and I move to his dominant lead hand and he spins me out and twirls me again and then pulls me back in and just as the music comes to its end my leg comes higher up on his midsection and he grabs my thigh just under my butt, then my right hand comes up to the side of his face and my left hand releases his right hand and extends behind me and I feel his right hand press firmly against my lower back and pull me harder into him and then the music stops. Our faces are centimeters apart and we are breathing heavily and being so close to him makes his cologne fill my senses and it makes my head spin, fuck…why do I love it?
• I hear clapping around us and he lets my leg go so I back away from him slightly while he’s still holding my hand and I see that we had a full audience, he gestures his hand towards me so I bend a knee slightly behind my leg. I stand up straight as he leads us off the dance floor and I hate that I enjoyed that, I’m cursing myself as we get back to the bar and the bartender gets us both fresh drinks.
• “Where did you learn to dance like that?”
• I look up at him and I feel his hazel eyes trying to pull me in but I refuse to let the space between my legs cave into him, “I spent time in Spain for my internship and took up the hobby, and you?”
• Dammit Amira…don’t get too personal, “My mother insisted that it would come in handy one day and my younger sister teased me into it.”
• I nod my head slightly at him and I think I need to reset myself, keep him interested but don’t get too personal, “So how come you aren’t pulling anyone else onto the dance floor?”
• I lean my back against the bar and he does the same, “Every year is a new crop of annoying women who crave attention and I don’t have the energy for that shit. If I wanted something needy I’d get a cat.”
• I chuckle slightly, I didn’t mean for it to sound so sincere to my ears but it was kind of funny, “So I take it you don’t dance very often?”
• I feel him look at me but I don’t look at him, “That was the first time I have ever danced at these events since I’ve been sponsoring them.”
• I need to figure out a way to get him out of here, a conversation topic to put the idea into his head- “You want to get out of here?”
• I snap my eyes up to him, hoping that my thoughts were legitimately just in my head and that I didn’t accidentally say it out loud and his eyes say that it really was his suggestion so I smirk at him and I don’t want to make it that easy for him, “What kind of girl do you think I am?”
• He smirks and raises his eyebrow at me and leans down on his elbow to get closer to my face, “I think…that you are the kind of woman that demands to be in control based on your intentional misplacement of the lead hand and I am curious just how far that demanding persona goes with you?”
• He's not vanilla…I can tell that much and that side of me craves the roughness but my mind is telling me to not fall too far down the rabbit hole and I refuse to let him get an edge on me in any sort of way so I move slightly closer to his face and raise my eyebrow, “Let’s just say…that no one has been able to make me break.”
• He keeps his look focused on me, “I think you may have just met your match…little bird.”
• I don’t waiver and I refuse to let him get the last word, “Your hubristic assumption may have met it’s match.”
• He lets a small airy sound out of his nose and grabs my hand and pulls me along with him as we walk to the back part of the building, hopefully he’ll be calling for his car to come to the back. I see Alexis around the corner so I pull my phone out and as we pass by her I carefully put my phone in her purse with a note I left on my phone. I don’t want my dad or anyone to follow me, I need to be alone and undistracted with him, we keep walking through the crowd that is mostly drunk, and I wonder how much I can push him tonight and what type of person is hiding behind all what he presents to the world.
• I mentally shake my head…that’s not what I need to find out, Carter Slade is a ruthless killer along with the rest of his family and the only reason he is letting me tag along with him is because he doesn’t know who I am, nobody does. We finally get to the back of the building and when he opens the door I see a metallic black McLaren, not a bad choice of sports cars, we walk up to the car and he opens the car door for me and smirks as he gestures for me to get in. I have a brief thought that crosses my brain as I sit down and he closes the door, does he know something about me? All of this is working smoothly, almost too smoothly to the point where I’m the one being played as the fool and I ditched my phone so I can’t be tracked or call for help. Stop it, you are better than this, smarter than this, I know for a fact that he has no idea who I am and I was sure to make sure that I didn’t leave any clues as to my identity with that fat asshole earlier this week.
• I’m brought out of my thoughts when I hear the driver side door open and gracefully gets in and I look at him out of the corner of my eye and I take a small breath, “What’s your name little bird?”
• I let an airy sound out of my nose, “You don’t want to just keep calling me little bird?”
• I wasn’t able to bring my knife with me to the event because they did security checks at the door so I don’t have anything on me that I would find enjoyable to kill him right now but I’m sure there will be something I can use for where he’s taking me, “Think what you may of a man like me but I do enjoy personal connection with who I involve myself with.”
• I raise an eyebrow at him and I’m having to work harder to keep my guard up with him since it’s hard to see the man he really is when he speaks like this so I take a small breath to reset myself, “Amira.”
• He smirks slightly and reaches over and gently grabs my hand and I have to resist every urge to yank it out of his and brings it just in front of his mouth and stops and glances at me, “Carter.”
• Then kisses the back of my hand and I have to force my face to not grimace with disgust, “So what brought you to the event tonight Amira?”
• He lets go of my hand and he said my name so gently and I can tell how he hooks women with his soft voice luckily for me that’s not the kind of verbal tone’s I prefer, “One of my close friends father had insisted she attend with her boyfriend however he cheated on her and broke up with him last week and felt discouraged about going by herself so I offered to accompany her.”
• I see him raise an eyebrow slightly, “So you ditched your friend?”
• I chuckle slightly, “Of course not, we passed her on our way out and I could see she was well taken care of.”
• He keeps driving so effortlessly towards the outer part of the city, “So what do you do for work?”
• The conversation is so casual he can’t possibly know who I am or how we’re connected because he wouldn’t let the atmosphere seem so relaxed, “Well that same friend I was referring to is the assistant DA for the city and I helped her boss with the financial funding for the law firm.”
• “So that doesn’t really answer my question, are you an investor or a lender?”
• I let a small laugh out of my nose, “Not really, I double majored in econ and interpersonal communications and I knew what stocks I wanted to invest in by the time I was twenty so by the time I graduated I had a pretty good fortune and privately lend with an eight to ten perfect return on each investment.”
• He lets a small chuckle out of his nose as we get further out of town, “You’re a smart cookie by the sounds of it, where did you go to college?”
• The further away from the city we get the longer I think it will take to get back home, shit…how am I getting back home whatever I’ll figure it out, “I went to Cornell.”
• He nods his head slightly, “Definitely a smart cookie then if you double majored there, it’s not an easy school to get through.”
• I smile slightly, “It was hard, but I got in there for a reason and I was going to see it through to the end no matter what.”
• One of the many things I will see through, like seeing the light drain from your eyes, he pulls down a long dark paved road with a large brick wall to the left of us and I think we might be getting closer to hopefully where he lives. Conversation stopped as he pulls up to the large gate and puts in the code and they open shortly after and he drives through and I can tell that he probably has multiple buildings on the property based on the paved roads that lead off in different directions from the main house. There is a large water fountain in the front of the house and I am a little surprised how homey it looks here and not what I would have expected from a man like him.
• He pulls the car into the garage and turns it off and gets out and I am going to bet that based off how he handled himself on the dance floor and how effortlessly chivalrous he was he will want to open my own door so I stay put as I see him walk around the car and sure enough he opens the door and extends his hand to me so I gently grab it as he assists me out of the car. He doesn’t let go of my hand as he closes the car door and then leads us through the large garage with multiple cars and motorcycles and when we walk through the door into the main house I don’t know if my mind was envisioning something dark a dreary but I see it’s actually rather bright and welcoming so I mentally shake my head again to focus just as we come into what looks like the main entryway of the house.
• Just as I see the large staircase come into view he stops dead in his tracks and holds my hand tighter and pivots on his heels and then I see his other hand splay across my collar bone and push me hard against the wall and it takes every single muscle in my body to not fight him as he brings his face closer to mine.
• “So tell me…Amira. Why has no one been able to break you?”
• If I were a weaker woman I would have already handed myself over to him and I fucking hate how wet I am because of his fucking words and roughness but I need to see this through so I take a small breath and raise an eyebrow at him which causes the muscle in his jaw to twitch, “My needs and desires are so carnal…that everyone simply falls short.”
• He lets an airy sound out of his nose, “Challenge accepted then.”
• Sleeping…no, fucking the enemy wasn’t exactly part of the plan but I knew it could be a possibility and it’s a chance to get him completely vulnerable so I move slightly closer to his face and grab the top of his pants and belt and give it a tug, “Words have no sway over me.”
• He raises an eyebrow at me and lets go of my hand and then both of them simultaneously grab my thighs and pick me up effortlessly, “You’re so right about that, so let’s just see what it’ll take to break you.”