Page 30 of Savage Surrender

“At this point, I count your stabby ways as foreplay.”

Tristan catches her chin and kisses her. His tongue slips between her lips, and the kiss keeps going until her breath breaks and she pushes against his chest.

Before I realize it, I’ve moved my chair closer.

I need proximity. The need is not dignified.

Her head turns, and bright blue eyes - dark now at the edges - settle on me.

“Why are you hovering, Weller?”

“I am not hovering.”

“Looming, then.”

“I’m wondering why Tristan is taunting the alphas in this room, like we don’t have enough problems.”

She lifts my hand from the table and turns it palm-up. One pink nail traces the lines there, and my pulse gallops.

“You’ve been fidgeting with your cufflinks all night,” she says. “It’s distracting.”

“I do not fidget.”

“No?”

Holding my gaze, she draws my index finger into her mouth.

Warm. Wet. The slow stroke of her tongue along the underside. Her cheeks hollow, and the whole architecture of my discipline illuminates like a city grid at midnight.

She releases me slowly, lips dragging softly over my knuckle. The small sound at the end would be inaudible to everyone else, but not to us.

“There.” Her smile is pure mischief. “Now you have something to fidget over.”

“Bianca.”

My voice comes out husky.

“Yes, Alpha?”

Innocent as arson.

Across the table, Freddie’s second toothpick snaps cleanly in half. He does not look away from her mouth.

“Baby,” he says, his easy demeanor gone dark, “you are playing a dangerous game in a room where none of us can do anything about it.”

She smiles at him, radiant and merciless. “That’s what makes the game fun.”

Owen has flattened both hands against the tablecloth, either anchoring the table or himself. His nostrils flare with every wave of her scent. Vanilla and burnt sugar have saturated our section and begun drawing attention from six neighboring tables. His gaze shifts between her mouth and Tristan’s hand beneath her hem.

“Owen.” A warning. Slight pressure on the valve.

“I’m fine.”

He doesn’t sound fine.

“He’s fine,” Bianca agrees.

She stretches against Tristan like a cat in sunlight, holding Owen’s stare as she blows him a kiss.