Page 15 of Taming Scarlet

Fuck.

I needed to focus.

“What is this?” I asked as she thrust something rectangular at me. As I took it, it was heavy in my hand.

“A battery bank,” she said. “I don’t have anywhere to hold it. You have pockets.”

“And by that you meanDo you mind carrying this for me, right?” I asked as I shoved it into my pocket.

“Whatever,” she said, then turned to her dog again. “You be a good boy and I’ll give you a yummy you-know-what when I get home, okay?” she asked, rubbing his head, and then making her way toward the door without another word to me.

When she passed, I got a whiff of her perfume.

That was good, too.

Unexpected.

Not cloyingly sweet.

But almost smoky. Rich. Intoxicating.

I could barely hold myself back from leaning in closer and taking a deep breath.

Lucky enough for me, we were in an enclosed elevator not long after, and I got as much of it as I could want.

On the way down, Scarlet pulled out her phone, then held it up high as she threw up a peace sign and did a fake smile so big that her eyes closed.

Then snapped a picture.

I made a mental note to find her social media in my downtime, finding myself interested in what she was saying online, how she was projecting herself.

Because that picture was a complete facade as the smile immediately fell and she tapped away at her phone to, I imagine, type up a caption for the image.

“What?” she asked, making me realize she’d finished and noticed I was looking at her.

“Where are we heading?” I asked, not wanting her to think I’d been eye-fucking her.

“A bunch of places,” she said with a shrug, then moved out of the elevator car and through the lobby of her building. “Don’t wait up for me,” she called to the doorman, a different one from the morning. “Where is… oh, hey,” she said, giving a small smile to the man standing beside the town car parked a few yards away from the door.

“Miss Chandelier,” he greeted her with a much more genuine smile.

He was an old man to be pulling a night shift like this. But he seemed unbothered by the situation as he waited there in his black slacks, white shirt, and black suit jacket—I was almost surprised he didn’t have to wear the stereotypical little hat—and waited for Scarlet to slip inside.

She did so with a grace I hadn’t expected, her wristlet pressed to her chest, so she didn’t show too much tit, her ass hitting the seat first, then swinging her legs in, knees pressed together tight.

No up-skirt pantyless paparazzo shots like I’d assumed, then.

Or, perhaps, she’d simply learned from past mistakes.

“No,” she snapped at me as I approached the door. “You sit up front.”

Her driver, whose name I knew was Eric from the paperwork Marcus had provided me, gave me an apologetic smile as he slammed her door.

You sit up front.

That phrase had so much snobbery in it, I was actually frozen there on the sidewalk for a second, looking at the car, staring daggers at her through the heavily tinted window. I couldn’t see her. But I knew she was looking. And some part of me needed her to know she was dangerously close to overstepping a line.

“Best be getting a move on,” Eric called, clamping a hand on my shoulder as he passed. “It is going to be a long night.

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