Page 5 of Tower

“It’s starting to come down hard.” Sam left the door open to Peter’s black Challenger to let him slide into the driver’s seat.

“I’ll be fine,” Peter assured him with a grin. He could handle any car in any weather. The rain would make traffic more annoying not more dangerous.

“See you tomorrow, then.” Sam waved and headed back to his post at the gates.

Pulling out, Peter threw on the wipers and made his way through traffic to Main Street. The rain messed up the already-overcrowded streets, and quickly brought him to a standstill. As he leaned back in his seat, sighing again at the exhaustion he felt in his muscles, he turned to watch the people on the sidewalk. He’d built as far from The Titon clubs as he could. Unfortunately, that meant a less exclusive part of the city. Although street crime was well managed around his club, he saw to that, he didn’t like the surrounding neighborhood.

A flash of white caught his eye, and he inched forward, ducking his head to get a better view. The dark hood flew off a woman running toward his car, and all of the blond hair hiding beneath tumbled out. She grabbed for the hood while trying to jog through the crowd, but wasn’t finding much success.

“What the hell is she doing?” He was already several blocks away from Tower, far from the reach of any of the security guards or the extra police presence he demanded. The wind whipped her hair in front of her, and she swiped it away, still stuck behind a group of people not getting the idea she seemed to be in a hurry.

Peter found an alley entrance and blew his horn while merging through traffic to get to it. He pulled into the alleyway, cutting off the group from crossing. A few men in the crowd flicked him off and cursed, but once he stepped out of the car, they backed off, walked around the back of the Challenger, and moved on.

Azalea still struggled with her coat and the whipping wind and acknowledged seeing him. Peter approached her and grabbed her arms.

She shrieked and looked up at him, wild fear dancing in her eyes.

“It’s me, Peter—from Tower,” he said, pulling her closer to his car. “You don’t have a ride?”

She blinked a few times, her hair so wet it stuck to her forehead.

“No—I was going to take the bus, but—”

He shook his head. “I’ll drive you. Get in.”

She looked to the car then back to the road. “The bus—”

“Stopped running five minutes ago. Didn’t you check the schedule?” One of the many things he hated about public transportation. With all the new taxi and car services, the busses stopped running before most of the clubs even slowed down in the evening.

A clap of thunder cut her response off, and he shook his head. “Tell me in the car. You’re not walking, or rather running, in this.” Her cloak opened up a bit, and her already-too-tight dress clung to her as a second skin, and water droplets glistened off her exposed cleavage. Fuck, his cock reacted too quickly to her.

She opened her mouth, probably to try and protest again, but snapped it shut as a bolt of lightning illuminated the night sky. With a nod, she pushed forward and let him lead her to the passenger side.

Once back in the car, he resituated himself. Soaked through, he looked over at her. “Buckle up,” he reminded her when she hadn’t moved to grab the belt.

“Is that time correct?” she asked pointing at the digital clock on the dash, which showed 11:45 p.m.

“Yeah, why?”

She snagged the belt and secured it. “I live four miles down Main Street. Corner of Main and 3rd.” She pointed at the alleyway. “I think if you go through here and take back roads, it will be faster than turning around on Main.” She looked behind her, out the rear window. “Traffic looks bad.”

He listened to her rambling and suspected it wasn’t from fear of him, but panic about time. Her response to his invitation had been,If I have time.

“Do you have a curfew or something?” he asked, throwing the car into drive and getting them moving.

“What? No. I just—I really need to get home.”

Even with her innocent aura, she didn’t appear underage. And his doorman wouldn’t have let her inside Tower if she wasn’t at least drinking age. Since he’d already jumped to the conclusion she was a working girl in his club uninvited, he wasn’t looking to offend her again by demanding to see her ID.

Peter knew the city well enough to stay off the overcrowded streets.

“You weren’t at Tower very long,” he said, increasing the speed of the wipers. The rain pelted the car as he made his way toward her house.

“I underestimated how long it would take to get there.” She glanced his way then turned to stare out her window. “I saw enough, I think.”

“Cassandra. She’s the woman I was working with on stage. She’s all right. She’s not hurt.” He never explained his sort of play with anyone, but then again, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d encountered someone who didn’t understand.

“I know.” Azalea pulled her hair from behind her and ran her fingers through the long tresses. “She looked—happy.”

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