Free Desire the Night by Amanda Ashley

happened? Where are we?”
    “My lair in the Big Apple.”
    “New York?” She glanced around, her eyes widening as she took in her surroundings.
    If his place in Phoenix had been sparse, this one was magnificent—from the polished parquet floors to the luxurious velvet draperies at the barred windows. A pair of deep burgundy sofas faced each other across a glass-topped coffee table in front of a large white marble fireplace. Abstract paintings adorned two of the walls, a flat-screen TV took up most of the third. A narrow curio cabinet held an assortment of antique weapons.
    “This place is amazing.”
    “It should be, for what I paid for it.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Wanna see the rest?”
    “Sure.”
    Setting her on her feet, he led the way into a room paneled in dark oak. A forest-green carpet covered the floor, matching drapes hung at the barred, single window. A pair of floor-to-ceiling bookcases stood on either side of the window. Brass figurines of mounted knights and dragons were scattered among the numerous volumes on the shelves. A life-sized wooden Indian, complete with warbonnet and lance, stood in the far corner. A large desk, which held only a laptop computer, dominated the room. She noted the small white refrigerator located beside the desk. No need to ask what that was for.
    “I take it you read a lot,” Kay remarked, glancing at the bookcases.
    Gideon nodded. “You could say that.”
    “And the wooden Indian?”
    “I picked it up cheap at an antique store that was going out of business. Are you offended by it?”
    “No, just curious.”
    “Guess I’ve always had a thing for Indians,” he said with a wink.
    “You’re just saying that.”
    “No. I spent a couple of months with a small tribe of Cherokee back in the late 1700s. Nice people.”
    “Hmm.” Her gaze drifted back to the bookcases. His taste was eclectic, she thought as she perused the titles. There were several plays by Shakespeare, poetry by Blake and Yeats, novels by Tolstoy and Kipling, King and Koontz and Clancy, and, to her amusement, the works of Stephenie Meyer.
    Grinning inwardly, she followed him down a carpeted hallway that ended in a bedroom that would have held her entire apartment. The walls were a clean, crisp white, the bedspread and drapes a deep wine red. Carpet that must have been two inches thick muffled her footsteps as she moved around the room. The biggest bed she had ever seen stood against the far wall, flanked by a pair of ebony nightstands. A matching entertainment center held a TV and dozens of DVDs. Most of the wall across from the bed was taken up by a fireplace with a raised marble hearth.
    A bathroom appointed in marble and gold-veined tile adjoined the bedroom.
    Kay shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Did you decorate the place yourself?”
    He snorted. “Hardly. I hired a fancy decorator who charged me a ridiculous amount of money for this layout.”
    “Well, it was worth it.”
    Coming up behind her, Gideon slid his arms around Kay’s waist and nuzzled the side of her neck. “How would you like to try out the bed?”
    “Not on our first date,” she answered primly. “I’d like to be romanced first.”
    “Romanced, huh?” He nipped the tender skin just beneath her earlobe. “I’ll see what I can do.”

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    Chapter 12
    Later that night, after Kay had gone to bed, Gideon left the house to go hunting. New York City was one of his favorite hunting grounds. No matter the time of night, prey was never hard to find, whether it was some drunken bum down on his luck, a world-weary hooker trolling for one last trick before calling it a night, or some small-town tourist foolish enough to go out alone after midnight.
    Gideon strolled along Broadway, past Times Square. In the early sixties and seventies, this part of the city had been a red light district, but these days it was more family-oriented. Moving on, he came to that part of Broadway known as the Great White