Chapter 3
Sadie’s first thought upon seeing him was that she was not looking at a flesh and blood creature, but that somehow it was an Egyptian pharaoh that stood before her. With his striking eyes, chiseled cheekbones and full lips, Sadie felt certain that no one could mistake him for anything else.
And then he smiled and the illusion ended and Sadie was looking at only a man and not a modern-day Amon Ra. Not that the smile made him any less beautiful; it merely made him more accessible. He reminded her of someone…the breadth of his shoulders, his light eyes, the smile…Mike Sanderson came reluctantly to mind.
“Hi. You must be Sarah. I’m Tyson.”
“Sarah?” Sadie said in confusion. “Oh, that’s not . . . I must be in the wrong room . . . ”
The man’s brilliant smile faltered by a degree. “Can I see the key?”
Sadie held it out in her palm and watched as the smile returned with a vengeance. “That’s my key. You’re in the right room.”
“But my name’s Sadie.”
“Hmm. Maybe your friends were trying to protect your identity.” Tyson shrugged. “Happens a lot around here.”
“Oh, ok,” Sadie said, inwardly wincing at how inarticulate this place seemed to be making her.
“So . . . should I call you Sarah or Sadie?” Tyson asked with a hint of tease in his voice.
“Sadie,” she said, replying a little too quickly. Then with forced calm, she added, “Call me Sadie.”
“Well, Sadie . . . I’m Tyson. I’ll be your companion for the evening,” he said as he took a few graceful steps back.
Watching Tyson move, Sadie had to hand it to her friends. They had picked a stunner, but one who was so different from Maury that it wouldn’t be painful just to look at him. Where Maury had been fair, this man was dark. Where Maury had been tall and lanky, this man was wide about the chest and shoulders. Maury had always worn his hair military short, but this man sported a curly ponytail caught in a bun at the back of his head, differing from Mike’s only because his hair wasn’t loc’d.
“Well, come on in. Don’t be shy.”
Sadie, startled out of her thoughts, did just that, stepping further into the room than she’d ever intended.
Before she knew it, Tyson was standing in front of her. And looking even better now that he was only an arm’s length away.
Tyson stared down at her from pretty, dark lashes and breathed out, “So. How can I please you tonight, Sadie?”
A heat which she hadn’t felt since Maury had been killed flared up through her body. Sadie stumbled away from the words and the sinful voice that produced them. How she managed to keep her balance and not fall flat on her face, she would never know.
She looked toward the door, knowing that she should leave. Hell, she never should have come here in the first place. She turned back to Tyson, ready to give an excuse as to why she had to go, but instead, what came out of her mouth was, “Oh, umm . . . how about a tour?”
She could have kicked herself for saying something so stupid. A tour? And hadn’t she just a moment ago been trying to figure out how to get out of here?
Tyson looked taken aback at the request, but to his credit, he quickly recovered. “Sure. A tour.” He stepped back and held out one arm as if to encompass the room. “This is the bedroom, obviously,” he said with a small wink before pointing to one corner. “That’s the bar, fully stocked.”
“Fully?”
“Oh yeah. I make a pretty mean Cosmo if you’re up for it.”
The sentence came with another wink and a sly grin and Sadie couldn’t help but chuckle, relaxing by degrees despite herself. “Impressive,” she said.
And then she turned away, not so much because she wanted to, but because she had too. Because Tyson was suddenly too close again and she could see that his eyes were a light gray so beautiful it hurt to look at them. The resemblance to Mike Sanderson was even more overt up close. Were they brothers by any chance? That could get awkward.
So she turned toward the wall, where a panel caught her eye. “What are . . . ?” The question died on her lips when she realized what she was looking at. It was a hanging assortment of sex toys – ranging from the mundane to the sinister. Her eyes lingered the longest on the worst of them – whips, knives, cuffs . . .
“Those are toys. We can play with them if you’d like.”
The words were spoken seductively enough, but Sadie had caught the cold, dead undertone in Tyson’s voice.
She backed away from the implements with a shiver of disgust. “No, that’s ok.” And then, because she felt she needed something, anything, to distract them both, she asked, “Umm . . . what’s over there?”
“Ah that . . . that is the bathroom. Come take a look.”
The bathroom, decorated in blue, gray and gold, was just as impressive as the bedroom had been.
“As you can see – the shower and the tub fit two,” Tyson said as he motioned to them with his hand.
Sadie could only nod blankly.
“Do you feel up to getting wet?” Tyson asked as he took a couple of steps toward her.
Sadie inadvertently stumbled back, her eyes searching wildly for another distraction. If she could just get a moment to get her bearings . . .
Then she spotted the door at the other end of the bathroom. “What’s in there?” she asked.
Quicker than lightning, the breathy voice and the glint of mischief in Tyson’s eyes disappeared. “Oh, you don’t want to go in there.”
“Well, why not?”
“It’s just . . . my living quarters. They’re small. They’re not that nice.”
But instead of putting Sadie off, Tyson’s words only served to intrigue her.“I’d like to go in,” she said, curious as to how far she could push it. She supposed that if Tyson refused, she would just have to accept his answer and make her excuses and leave.