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He puts the bacon on the plate and wipes his hand on the napkin before rubbing his chin with two fingers in a mockery of deep thought. “I don’t know if this is the best conversation for a crowded place.”
I steal a look around. Only two other tables on the patio are occupied, and they’re spaced out. The sound of crashing waves on the marina is louder than any conversation. It’s one of the reasons I like this place for breakfast — even when I’m not technically alone, it’s just me and the ocean here.
“The place is hardly crowded. And even if it were, here is where we’ll have this conversation, or not at all. Your pick.”
He squares me with an up-and-down glance, eyebrows raised, then smiles. It’s not the mocking, superior grin I’ve come to recognize; there’s something vulnerable in the way his lips quirk, crinkling the corner of his eyes. Something raw.
“I didn’t make you for a fighter,” he says, and I’m about to jump in and argue his jab when I realize it wasn’t one. He’s being serious. “But it turns out I was wrong. You’ve got a wild fire in you.”
I roll my eyes, desperate to convince myself the simple compliment doesn’t affect me, despite the warmth creeping up my neck. “Let me guess, you’re going to make it your life mission to put it out?”
He leans closer, pressing his forearms on the table for leverage, muscles straining and veins snaking underneath paper-thin skin. His eyes glow amber once again. This time, the surprise factor behind me, I’m not afraid of the sight. It’s mesmerizing, actually, the way glowing embers dance around his dark as night pupil.
“Absolutely not.” His voice is quiet, but loaded with forceful conviction. “I want to coax it out. Stroke it higher. Dance in it until the flames swallow me whole. You’re already a raw gem, Esmeralda, but that fire will mold you into a jewel.”
My heart thrums so loud in my chest its echo reverberates against my eardrums. I swallow, desperate to smother this feeling down; Teizel is a monster, and everything he says, everything he does, is calculated to achieve a specific outcome. I can’t afford to think of him as the man who held me together through a panic attack, though a part of me can’t let go of that image no matter how hard I try to shatter it.
I push my chair backward to put space between us, forcing my features into a scowl. Teizel gets the hint, sinking back in his seat, but although his eyes don’t glow anymore, there’s still a grin on his lips, like he can smell the bullshit of my facade a mile away. It’s not my fault my body latches onto fond memories of him; my mind knows he’s untrustworthy, and that’s what I need to focus on.
“Tell me what you want in exchange for my mother’s life.”
He takes his time answering, taking another bite of bacon first. I mark each passing second with a tap of my foot. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.
After wiping his hands clean again, he crosses his arms over his chest. “I want you to play a game.”
That’s it? It can’t be the whole story. “So I play your stupid game, and in exchange you bring my mother back.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “You have to win the game first.”
I wave a hand in the air. “Okay, so, win the game and I get my wish, lose it and I don’t.”
He’s quiet a second too long, his chest expanding with a long inhale. “Lose it, and you die.”
And there’s the catch I was waiting for. “That sounds like an awful lot to wager.”
He’s leaning back casually, legs extended toward my chair and arms crossed, but a wrinkle running between his brows marrows the otherwise porcelain-smooth skin of his forehead. “Believe it or not, I didn’t make the rules to this game.”
“What’s in it for you, then?”
A flash of a frown destroys his mask of indifference, but he returns to statuesque mode within seconds. “Does it matter? You get what you want.”
“I’m not playing if I don’t understand what my opponent is wagering. You know my motivations, and I want the field to be level.”
“I’m not going to die if you win, if that’s what you want to know.”
Annoyance fills my gut like a swarm of flies. I lean forward and scowl. “You’re intelligent enough to know that is not what I asked. If I wanted to know about your survival, I would’ve asked. As it stands, I don’t give a damn.”
Embers light in his eyes for a moment. He leans forward as well, bringing our faces inches apart. When he catches a flyaway strand of my hair between his fingers, I shiver.
“That fire, Esmeralda, is hotter than anything else about you. I’d let it burn me alive.”
His hand travels from my hair to my face, and his fingers are hot as coals as they grip my jaw. He slants his head so his mouth is lined with mine. For a moment, my body takes over, and I part my lips for him. He flicks his tongue against my bottom one.
Then I remember myself.
In a single beat, I swat at his hand and push to my feet. “Don’t you dare ever do that again,” I growl. “You don’t get to touch me, got that?”
There’s a challenge in his grin. “Got it. I will not touch you unless you ask.”
