The Walls of Jericho

Tour

“Oh, well this is—workish,” I comment drily as the lift doors open on the fifty-seventh floor, directly into an obvious office space. There’s an open waiting area furnished with several plush chairs to one side of a reception desk behind which is a wall featuring the KDS logo. “I suppose it’s got a nice view,” I admit begrudgingly, admiring the seamless floor to ceiling windows that are part and parcel of every space along an outside wall of the KDS building.

Drake laughs. “My God, Jericho, you have no patience. We’re not there yet. This is the office space. That’s why it’s ‘workish’.” Tugging me by the hand, he circles the reception desk to the opposite side of the waiting area. He badges us through a secured door, then leads the way down a long hallway without giving me any opportunity to do more than glimpse into the rooms we pass.

Close to the reception area there’s a full kitchen breakroom with a few small bistro tables, so I assume more than just his dad and a receptionist works on the floor even though I don’t see any other offices. We pass separate men’s and women’s bathrooms, then enter another furnished waiting area with several tall bookshelves lined with all sorts of resource texts on coding languages, various types of analytics, database administration and general information technology subjects. Along the opposite side, there’s a long conference room with movable walls so it can be subdivided, and finally we come to the big man’s office.

The electrochromic windows here are darkened so it looks as abandoned as the rest of the spaces on this floor, but when Drake badges us in, I realize the windows are just set that way for privacy.

“Whoa.”

“Better?” he says smugly.

“Well, not really,” I comment, looking around since he’s given me the opportunity. “It’s still a workspace, even if it’s a pretty seriously impressive workspace.”

His father’s office must occupy a full quarter of the building on this floor. Situated on a corner, it offers an incredible view of the ocean and looks out over the nicest areas of north Crossroads, almost as if he didn’t want to see that the city is seriously divided.

Like everything else about the KDS building, the office is furnished and decorated in a modern and swish style inside, but there are also surprisingly personal South African touches which add bundles of character that I wouldn’t have expected for a man who keeps himself rather private.

“Well,” Drake says impatiently, “go on. Look your fill.”

I give him an arch look, then wander through slowly. Obviously, since it’s a private office, there’s a private full-service kitchen and bathroom complete with a separate shower and jetted tub. Accessible only from the bathroom is a huge walk-in closet still lined with expensive suits, shirts, ties, and shoes, and I assume the rest of the clothing a man might need tucked into drawers that I don’t open.

I run my fingers along the neatly hung clothing as I work my way to the odd mirrored door at the back of the closet and find myself in a sort of tiny private bedroom furnished with only a single bed, a bedside table and a lamp. For a reason I can’t explain, my heart starts to pound.

“It’s for power naps, I guess,” Drake explains from somewhere behind me, and for the first time in a couple weeks, SOFie voices her opinion and sends one of her nasty yellowish flares washing over me.

I know it’s not the truth,> I reply and she settles. I don’t think Drake knows that though.> Suspicious, I take a step into the room and pivot slowly, allowing my eyes to skim the door, specifically the handle. There’s a pretty sturdy lock on the knob, one that requires a key to exit from the inside of the room. I swallow hard as I hurry out. Amber, show me.>

The image that hits me sends me crashing to my hands and knees in the middle of the closet. I see my bloodied hands, fingernails broken and bleeding from clawing and pounding on the locked door, trapped in that prison room. As with the images I saw of the dragon’s ritual site inside that massive cave, my hands are old and frail the knuckles gnarled and the flesh over them thin and wrinkly, covered in age spots and bruises.

“Jericho!” Drake rushes forward, kneeling in front of me with his hands on my shoulders and gently lifting. “What happened? Is there something on the floor that tripped you?”

Fighting my revulsion, I sputter, “It’s—the stupid heels. I can’t figure out for the life of me why anyone wants women to wear shoes like this.” Slowly, the nightmare begins to recede and the present re-exerts itself.

Once he has me on my feet, he brushes off imagined dust from my clothes and runs his warm hands over my legs from my knees to my ankles, looking for injuries. “Well, speaking as a man, they’re sexy as hell. They make a woman’s body arch to show off her figure and make her legs look really long,” he admits, getting to his feet. He gazes into my eyes. “You’ve already got an arse and legs a man would die to possess, so you can take them off if you want.”

I hurry around him towards the bathroom. “So this is where your dad lives? I had kind of expected something more impressive.”

Behind me, Drake laughs. “No. This is just his office.”

I can feel him draw closer with each step until he’s directly behind me as I leave the kitchen and step back into the corner office space where the windows and yawning views wash away the last of the nightmare SOFie and Amber helped restore to me. His heat radiates through my clothes as he comes up behind me, then alongside.

He grins broadly as my only warning and bends, scooping me into his arms, cradling me against his both literally and figuratively hot body. With long strides, he carries me across the office space to an elevator I hadn’t seen when we’d first entered.

“Push the button for me, Jericho,” he orders, refusing to set me on my feet. “Aside from the helipad on the rooftop, and a staircase between the private garage on this level and the auto entrance at the base of the tower, this is the only way to get in here.”

It takes only a few seconds for the elevator to take us up to the next floor. As the doors open, I can’t help but gasp.

“This,” Drake says, setting me on my feet and grinning like a madman, “is where he lives.”

The penthouse on this level is a predominantly open floorplan and between the floor to ceiling windows and the mostly three-hundred-sixty degree views, it feels like you’re standing on the rooftop. Besides each space being open to flow into the next, continuous ceiling beams connect each area too and for some reason I can’t define, it almost feels as if I’m floating between them, not walking.

“What are the beams?” I ask, pointing upward to the pale grayish to light brown timbers with a faintly dark reddish purple hue in an intriguing curly grain pattern.   

“Tzalam. Comes from the jungles. You like it?” He walks alongside me, stuffing his hands in the back pockets of his jeans.

“It’s gorgeous, especially against all the mahogany in the furniture,” I reply. Without thinking, I brace myself with one hand on his huge bicep then lift each knee to remove my shoes. Juggling them by the tall, spike heels with my book and purse, I pad quietly on bare feet into the next room and over the cream-colored stone floors. “What’s the finish on the walls? Or, you know, the almost walls. And the fireplaces?”

“God, you’re brutal. What’s a man got to do to impress you?” he asks, but it’s jokingly.

It still reminds me of Channing, and that sends a hot stab of guilt through me. All you're doing is taking a tour. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing improper.

“It’s chukum. A limestone-based stucco mixed with the chukum tree’s resin. It’s the tree resin gives it that earthy pinkish color, if that’s what you’re wondering. It also makes it naturally water-resistant and helps isolate temperatures in the various spaces. Maybe more important in the bedrooms on the next floor, since all of those have individual temperature control.”

Walking the connecting hallway, I list each room. “So this level is the living rooms, dining room and kitchen. What else is here?”

“A refrigerated wine cellar and tasting area—.”

“Huh, fancy that.”

“It’s not as cool as that in-wall one I could see from the foyer in your place,” he comments, trailing behind me. “There’s also a soundproofed cinema and ballroom. And because it’s my dad, a panic room. Camilla has a small room here, plus there’s some storage and a laundry.”

That makes me stop. “Who’s Camilla?”

“My dad’s all-in-one housekeeper-chef-masseuse.” When I arch a brow, he adds. “She’s real antisocial, so he doesn’t worry about his privacy. Frankly, she makes my skin crawl.”

I huff a laugh. “Big ol’ guy like you afraid of a girl?”

He tips his head back and rakes me with half-lidded eyes. “Some more than others.”

I ignore his flirting again, determined to keep this thing between he and I friendly, but not intimate, I ask, “What’s on the second floor?”

“Ready to see it?” He arches his brows, then tips his head towards the elevator again.

I nod, keeping enough distance between us that he doesn’t try to touch me.

The second floor is split roughly in half and has more of the chukum-covered walls. Along the city-facing side of the building, it has five decent sized bedrooms, each one with its own private bathroom. Like the living areas below, each is a place of charm, with original art and sculptures, potted plants, crystal chandeliers and natural architectural touches like the exposed beams and gorgeously carved, warm, heavy furniture.

The secret jewel of this floor is the spacious master bedroom, which really oozes Drake’s dad’s character in both its furnishings and style. Besides the beamed ceilings and the magnificent floor to ceiling windows that look out over the ocean and the nicer parts of north Crossroads like his office below, there are some art niches and architectural cutouts that add visual interest.

In an open sort of sitting area around a chukum fireplace, opposite a framed woven tapestry of some sort, there are a bunch of framed photos, and I move closer to take a look. One’s a cityscape at night, and I assume it must be someplace in South Africa where he once lived, but there are others here that interest me more.

“Who’s this?” I ask, tapping the edge of the frame around one photo of a beautiful dark-skinned woman with the same golden-orange jaguar eyes like Drake has. She’s featured in several of the pictures, many of which are printed in sepia which adds to the natural feeling of the room and gives it a sense of antiquity at the same time.

“My mum.”

There’s no mistaking the choked up sound of his voice and I turn to face him where he stands several feet behind me.

“God, I miss her.”

“She doesn’t look that old. What happened to her?”

He heaves a deep sigh. “When my dad came stateside to build the company, she wouldn’t come here. My dad wanted to leave that all behind, but she had this huge heart and she was always doing humanitarian work all over South Africa, but especially in the most dangerous areas where people were hardest hit. She was distributing food and clean water in a village when fighting broke out between warring groups. They were all caught in the crossfire. Everyone in the village was killed, including her.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No changing it now. You remind me a little of her—your soft hair, the deep behind your eyes.” He looks away for a minute, remembering her. “That’s why my dad sent for me. He doesn’t do it on the ground, but he carries on her work trying to negotiate peaceful ends to the violence there.”

“I didn’t know that about him.” I shrug. “I was kind of surprised just seeing the stuff in the KDS lobby—the massage parlor, the healthy restaurant offerings. I even thought I saw something about in-building childcare and medical providers available. He cares about the people who work for him.”

“Yeah, all that stuff’s here. He cares,” Drake shrugs. “More or less. He’s always kind of thought people were petty. Mean. But he does think if you give them what they need—healthy food and clean water, medical care and enough money to take care of their families and live safely—then they behave better. Then, they’re not so greedy. They don’t fight over resources.”

I have a strong suspicion that Drake’s father has some connection to the dragon, but this story doesn’t sound like the dragon that Channing led me to believe exists, and it doesn’t match what I remember of him. SOFie?> I ask, curious about the truth of his story. Is that true about his dad?>

Immediately, there’s a bright twinkling.

And his mom?>

This time, the answer’s muddled, vacillating between the sort of uplifting twinkling tingle and the sickening bile-like nausea. So some is true, but some isn’t. Again, I wonder what Drake doesn’t know.

“Your dad’s a complex man. He didn’t build all this by not being that way.” Thinking it best to avoid any further emotionally distressing questions, I leave the photos and walk along the windows through a study-type space, admiring the perfect synergy here of the man-made and nature, the public and intimately private.

He snorts. “You can say that again.”

The next section is the actual bedroom, situated in a corner of the building so it has two glass walls and an expansive view. Beyond it, the sprawling private bath and dual walk-in closets round out the amenities. Here the chukum walls offer a backdrop of soft neutral tones, contrasting light against the darker hues of the ceiling beams, and old and new in the glass viewing walls that face both the hungry churning ocean and the chaotic city. Pausing, I pivot, taking in the privileged, gated Tassler Heights valley and the abundant green bluffs above, then the private trails amid the visible rooftops that span out to the sea.

The place is a style triumph and I have to hand it to the interior designer. If I had to imagine a blend of modern and royal, this would be it.

“What’s on the upper floor?” I ask, moseying towards the gigantic bed as Drake becomes visible in my periphery.

He leans against the doorframe, watching me. “Um, third level is a rooftop terrace. Has a private pool, spa and temazcal with an outdoor shower. There’s a gym and yoga palapa, solarium with a bunch of citrus trees. Oh, and the helipad.”

“Hmmm.” I’ve barely heard what he’s said. Instead, I’m studying the intricate carvings on the four-poster bed’s headboard and along the arching posts that meet at top, centered over the mattress. They’re incredibly detailed images of twisting foliage and wild animals of every type—exotic birds, elephants, giraffes, lions, jaguars, hyenas, monkeys, various fish and sea creatures, and even crawling and flying insects—that spiral along the posts, moving upward to meet at the center where it bursts into a floral pattern at the crown.

“You like it?”

Fascinated with the exquisite carvings, I miss that he’s come closer. “What do these mean?”

Abruptly, I become aware of his supernatural heat radiating into me from directly behind and dart around the bed to one of the paired bedside tables where an enormous bouquet of hundreds of fragrant flowers in and oversized vase is perched on each. Sticking my face into them, I inhale the sweet fragrance, watching him watching me and crossing his arms over his chest.

“They’re a story of my homeland. Like a description of it.”

Before I can comment, my phone vibrates in my purse and I startle violently. Dropping everything in a mess on the floor, I scramble for my purse, praying it’s not Channing. The caller’s number isn’t identified and I don’t recognize it. Suddenly worried it might be Rebecca, I answer it quickly and stick the phone to my ear. “Hello?” I stare at Drake’s sexy silhouette against the sun-bright windows as I answer.

“Hello, this is Martha from KDS. Is this Jericho?”

“Hi, yes, it is.” I don’t recognize her name, even now that she’s told me, but knowing that she’s from KDS, I wonder if she’s not another manager that got my resume because of Drake. God, I owe him a lot.

“Wonderful! I’m with Human Resources and I wanted to let you know I’m forwarding an employment agreement from Bridget Doss to your email. If you would, please, review it, let me know if you have any questions or concerns, and if not, if you’ll sign and return it, we’ll get you started on the onboarding process to get you to work.”

“Okay. I’ll take a look at it as soon as I get home. Thank you for calling.”

“Welcome to KDS, Ms. Stark.” With that Martha ends the call.

“Everything okay?” Drake asks.

I drop the phone on the floor with my other belongings. Stunned, I reply flatly. “I got the job.”

His face morphs into one of excitement as he fist-pumps with both hands over his head. “Yes!”

As we both burst into enthused laughter, I bound towards him and into the great bear hug he offers me. 

“Didn’t I tell you you were going to do great!?” he demands, stuffing his face into the crook of my neck and shoulder. He bends his knees, cupping my bottom and lifts me up his body, like a carried child.

Instinctively, I wrap my legs around his narrow waist, squealing and laughing with delight as he twirls us in dizzying circles in celebration.

With my heart hammering wildly as his turning slows, I become aware of the warmth of his body penetrating deeply into mine. How terribly intimate and s****l this is, with my skirt hiked up my thighs and his huge hands gripping my posterior. The woodsy rich fire and sweet warm smoke scent of him is suddenly strong.

Tipping his head back, his hands tighten, holding me closer, and a soft groan escapes him as he meets my eyes.

I lift my face and in the next instant, my mouth finds his warm moist lips. The wooly stubble of his goatee is rough against my face as immediately, bruisingly, he responds to my kiss.