Under His Spell by Kelly Favor

look,
honey?”
    Kennedy’s heart was suddenly racing, as
she put her phone down and searched frantically for her car keys.   Why had she so stupidly put them in her
purse instead of leaving them in the ignition?
    From the corner of her eye, she could see
the bald man walking towards her car, talking as he approached.   “Don’t drive off, now, I haven’t even
gotten your name.   Wait a second,
baby!” he called.   There was an edge
to his voice, and he started moving faster.
    She was searching through her bag, and he
was getting closer, and the panic was intensifying.   “Goddammit,” she muttered.   Finally, she found her keys and stuffed
them in the ignition.   But just as
she got the keys in, the man arrived at her car, putting his giant hands inside
the passenger door as he leaned through, invading her space.
    “What’cha doing, baby?   Where you running off to now?”
    “Leave me alone,” Kennedy said, turning
the key in the ignition.
    “You’re taking pictures on private
property.   I didn’t give you my
permission, doll.   I didn’t sign no
release.   So who sent you, huh?”
    Kennedy put the gearshift into reverse,
her hands shaking.   She couldn’t
look at him, although she could smell him and feel him and see him out of the
corner of her eye.   He was even
bigger than he’d seemed at a distance, and every cell in her body screamed that
she was in the presence of real danger—a true psychopath.
    “Leave me alone!” she screamed.
    Suddenly, the man’s smile and phony
affable demeanor disappeared, and he grit his teeth, reaching in and grabbing
her arm.   “Give me that camera, you
stupid bitch, before I knock your fucking teeth into the back of your head.”
    Kennedy hit the gas and the car lurched
backwards.
    The big man stumbled, his hand grabbed
for purchase and he tore the sleeve off her shirt.  
    “Fuck you!” she yelled at him, putting
the car into drive and speeding out of the lot as he ran after her, yelling
insults and threats.
    Kennedy was shaking for a long time
afterward, driving back to the city to meet with Easton, knowing that she’d
screwed up badly.
    A
man like that would make note of her license plate.
    A
man like that wouldn’t forget her face .
    She had a feeling, a terrible awful
feeling that she would be seeing him again.

 
    ***

 
    By the time Kennedy arrived at the hotel,
she’d changed into her “sexy” outfit, handpicked just for this occasion.  
    She wore a pink blazer over a white lacy
camisole and baby blue highwaisted shorts.   Beneath that, she had on her special lingerie bought earlier that day.
    The outfit was enticing, she hoped, but
not so brash as some fuck me heels and a short skirt that revealed everything
all at once.
    Was this what Easton wanted?
    Her goal was to read his mind, anticipate
his needs and deliver herself to him as he would have ordered her to do it.
    And yet it was a big risk, because the
truth was, she didn’t know a damn thing about what he wanted her to wear or how
he truly expected her to behave.
    Kennedy texted him that she’d arrived in
the hotel lobby.   Easton responded
with the room number and nothing else.
    She took a deep breath, then went to the
elevator and made her way up, not knowing what would come next.   Her thoughts were racing as she wondered
whether or not to tell him that she’d seen his brother at the bar getting into
a fight with a strange and frightening man.
    As the elevator pinged, going up and up,
she realized that there was no way in hell she intended to reveal the events of
the day to Easton just yet.   If she
told him now, there’d be no chance of intimacy, he would immediately want to
know every detail of everything that had led her to go to that bar.
    And once she told him the truth, he would
very likely be angry at her, and rightfully so.
    But
aren’t you going to tell him?   If
his brother’s in trouble, he’ll want to know.
    That much was true.   And she did intend to