OVERPROTECTED by Jennifer Laurens Page B

He wore sleek black pants that hugged his toned legs, a fitted periwinkle shirt.

    He was slipping into a black leather jacket Mother had picked out for him as his feet hit the marble floor.

    “You didn’t have to dress up,” I said around a thickening throat.

    He shrugged and crossed to the front door. He tapped the security code into the panel and the dead bolts slid in their casters.

    He opened the front door and held it for me.

    “Charles and Fiona have Eddy for the night. You want to walk or catch a cab?”

    I checked my cell phone for the time. Almost nine o’clock. I couldn’t show up at Ninety-Nine too early. A chilly January wind brushed my cheeks as we took the stoop stairs down to the sidewalk. I didn’t want to get windblown before the party but I only had cash for a two cab rides, not three.

    “You have cash, right?” I asked.

    He nodded. “Let’s catch a cab.”

    I waited under the protection of our small vestibule while he stepped out into the street, his hand raised to his lips. He blew out a piercing whistle. Four cabs whizzed by before one pulled over.

    Colin opened the back door and gestured for me to get in.

    “Barnes and Noble on Sixty Sixth and Broadway,” he told the driver. We were whisked into traffic at a speedy pulse along Park Avenue.

    Casually, he glanced over. My hands gripped each other in my lap.

    Surely he couldn’t see that this was all a fake.

    We didn’t speak on the short drive. At the bookstore he hopped out, rounded the car and opened my door. Guilt pinched me. He was so gentlemanly. Conscientious. My plan to leave and come back after being at Ninety-Nine for only a half hour was going to ensure that neither he nor Mother and Daddy know about my spree into freedom.

    Colin paid the cabby and we entered the bookstore. He stopped.

    “So,” he said.

    “So.” My voice warbled. Control, control . “I’ll be in the young adult section,” I said, then turned and headed up the escalator to the next floor. I didn’t dare look to see if he was following me. There was no rush. I’d sneak out soon enough.

    Giddy chills tingled through my arms and legs. After fifteen long minutes of wandering around the store, I went back down the escalator, my scan of the first floor not finding Colin’s tall form anywhere.

    I left the building. The bitter wind seared my cheeks. I hailed a cab, told the driver where to take me and we took off. I checked over my shoulder, amazed, thrilled and shocked I was on my way.

    And Colin was still back at the bookstore.

    Ninety-Nine vibrated from a block away. The stainless steel looking building gleamed against the city lights. Lines of partiers waited out front on a purple and red carpet that stretched down the block. Strings of giant bulb lights swayed slightly in the icy breeze, lighting the gaudy red carpet leading to the entrance.

    “To the front of the line, please,” I told the cab driver, my stomach a bouquet of popping bubbles.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    Shapes moved in shadows colored by streaming lights from the dance floor. I’d never been to a club, only seen them in films or read about them in my romance novels. Raucous music shook the dark, purple and red mirrored walls. Sweaty, thick air forced itself into my lungs, nearly causing my gag reflex to start. The combination of perfumes, smoke and bodies overwhelmed me. I had to remind myself why I wanted to do this.

    Carlos told me to follow him, but I walked into a fog bank of cologne and sweat. A wall of gyrating bodies suddenly seemed to converge on me. I felt suffocated. Couldn’t move. Heads turned.

    Some stares lingered. One guy came up and started rubbing himself against me. Panicked, I stepped away, only to smack into some girl dressed in see-through netting. She smiled and swung her hips my direction in a dance that caused my blood to shiver.

    Carlos must have figured he’d lost me, for suddenly he was there, scowling. He jerked his head as if for me to hurry and