No, it won’t. He’s an evil mastermind. He wouldn’t?—
She sighed. Moriarty was evil. And Vile was the reason they were in this mess to begin with. She couldn’t allow herself to get involved with them. Him. Whatever. She couldn’t. Shecouldn’t.But a strange, eager excitement wouldn’t let go of her as she changed into the black and white street dress she would wear on the carriage and to the flat she was renting. Again, all of it she knew how to act out simply because she wassupposedto.
Her hair that she did up in a style that she couldn’t have done in a thousand years otherwise. Her makeup. The dress that she wore without a problem. The heels. It was all coming to her comfortably—if she let it.Was that it? She was adapting to the fiction and it was adapting to her.
Maybe because she wasn’t fighting it anymore and starting to “let it in,” it was starting to make itself available to her. There was no other explanation for how she knew precisely how to get home to the flat she was renting. How hailing the carriage was a practiced event. How she knew the address without flinching. How she paid the driver the right amount without thinking about it.
It was when she got up the stairs to the door of her flat that she paused, her key in her hand.
The door was open. Someone had broken in—picked the lock, most likely—and left it sitting just so the latch sat on the striker. Anyone walking by likely wouldn’t even notice it was open.
Tucked into the crack was a single red rose.
Moriarty.
It was an invitation.
It was a promise.
And it was a threat.
Come inside.
You know you want to.
Come inside.
You’re already mine.
Her silk-gloved hand hesitated over the doorknob. Her heart was pounding in her ears, deafeningly loud. Drowning out all other sound. She had the money to walk away and stay in a hotel. To turn away from this scheme and find another. To politely turn down Moriarty and simply tell him that their plan was to go forward as business partners only.
But there was something raging inside of her.
An inferno that demanded to be fed.
A desire—aneed—to feel what it would be like.
He was a villain. A monster. He wasevil.The dastardly mastermind, Professor James Moriarty.Moriarty!Just for one night. Just once. She could taste the darkness. Sidney was going to have her way with Virtue, anyway.
This wouldn’t mean anything.
It wouldn’t mean anything to him.
Moriarty had no heart to give. So neither would she.
This was about one thing, and one thing only.
The feeling of the wolf’s teeth at her throat.
Lifting her chin, she took the rose from the door, and tucked it into her hair. Grasping the knob, she stepped inside.
“This feels…wrong.”Sidney cringed. If her sister was stupid enough to get involved withMoriarty—which she really hoped she wasn’t—lurking in a room across the street with a pair of binoculars to spy on her felt disgusting.
It was an invasion of privacy.
And it was also the last thing Sidney wanted to see if it turned out that she was wrong and her sister was going to fuck the bad guy.She’ll do it for a good reason, though. Because it’ll give her leverage. Or because she has to, or because…
Because the villain was hot as sin itself. Sidney saw him. And saw the way he looked at her, with eyes the color of coal and with anexpression like a starving animal. Moriartywantedher, and Sasha wasn’t used to beingwanted.Oh, sure, her sister had plenty of guys who found her attractive over the years—but Sasha shut herself off from them andhid.
