Page 22 of Cruel Demands

Only then do I look down at the drink. It is not a shot. Something amber fills a heavy glass, a curl of citrus resting against the rim. One thick, circular piece of ice sits in the center instead of the cloudy little cubes served with everything else.

It looks expensive. Adult. Not a drink poured from a plastic bottle in a student apartment. Not something you force down your throat to prove you can.

My stomach draws tight as his gaze moves over my face, pauses briefly at my mouth, and returns to my eyes with deliberate calm. Heat rises along my neck. He is not merely looking at me. He is studying me. As though he has been watching for longer than I realized. Maybe all night.

I should look away. I don’t. I can’t. His face is handsome, but not in an easy way. Not like Petyr’s. There is nothing open or inviting about it. He looks severe. Controlled. Beautiful in a way that makes the word feel too soft.

Hard.

I blush at my own thought and reach for the glass.

“No,” Petyr says.

I turn toward him. “No?”

“No.”

The word is sharp enough to lift my eyebrows. His jaw is tight. The playful flush across his cheeks has darkened into something less charming.

“Petyr,” Anya warns.

He ignores her. “You should not accept that.”

“Why?”

“Because men like him only send drinks when they want something.”

I look back at the stranger. He is still watching, his eyes steady, although now he has raised his own drink to his lips.

I wrap my fingers around the glass. “Maybe I want something too.”

Petyr’s hand closes around my wrist. Harder than before. It doesn’t hurt, but there’s nothing playful about it. My gaze drops to his fingers. Then I look up at his face. Something closes inside me. A small door. The one that shuts whenever a man reminds me that nice does not always mean safe. That wanting can sour quickly when it is denied.

Anya leans forward. “Petyr. Go smoke.”

He releases me as though burned. “I don’t smoke.”

“Then go start.”

He looks from her to me, then across the room at the stranger. The stranger’s expression has not changed. Still, I have the eerie feeling he understood everything that just happened.

Petyr stands abruptly. His chair screeches across the floor, and he snatches his coat from the back hard enough to make the chair rock on two legs. Then he stalks toward the door.

Anya exhales. “He is drunk.”

“I know.”

“He likes you.”

“I know that too.”

“He is not bad.”

I stare at the drink in my hand.

Petyr is right that I shouldn’t accept the drink, even if I hate the way he said it. Men who send drinks want something. Men who sit alone in dark booths wearing suits that probably cost more than my rent definitely want something.

And I have rules while I’m here. Things to keep me focused.