Page 45 of Pride: Kneel Before None

Too far? Maybe.

Worth it to see her cheeks turn crimson and her eyes light up with enough fury to feed an army of wrath demons.

At that exact moment, the car rolled to a stop at the back entrance to Sevenfold. I swung the door open, ignoring Eve’s screeching behind me as I stepped out. Before me was a door designated solely for staff to enter the backstage areas of the building, areas where patrons never visited and the casino’s magical ambiance remained where it belonged.

Stepping to the door, my fingers curled around the vertical handle as my ace of spades flashed before a small reader to the left.

A crystalline crack to my right snapped my head in its direction just in time to witness glass and champagne explode against the wall. Frothing bubbles trailed down the brick exterior in a decadent mess of shards and spilled foam.

“Cheers,” I muttered with all the dryness of the Superbian desert, pulling the building’s heavy steel door open as Eve came tumbling out of the back of the SUV.

If the narrowed glare she shot me as she passed by was any indication, tonight was going to be quite fun.

Entering behind her, I watched her try to navigate the unfamiliar halls, providing me with both exasperation and amusement.

After the third wrong turn, I grabbed her hand tight enough to prevent escape but not to hurt. Trying to keep up with my longer strides, her heels hurriedly clacked against the epoxy floors as I cut through the secondary kitchen.

By the time we reached my penthouse, I released my hold on her. She distanced herself several steps, chest heaving slightly from whatever emotions were raging beneath the surface.

“You’re keeping something from me, and I want to know what it is.” Both a demand and an accusation rolled into one sharp statement from her clever tongue.

I shrugged off my suit jacket, neatly folding it over the back of a chair at the breakfast table.

“Eve, believe it or not, not everything revolves around you.” A half-truth. There were only a handful of matters that were unrelated to her in my life. Everything else echoed back to keeping her here with me. Keeping her safe and desired. Keeping her mine.

Loosening my tie, I glanced at her sidelong. Her defensive stance told me she wasn’t going to let this go anytime soon. After resting the black silk over my jacket, I approached the wet bar, undoing the top couple of buttons of my shirt on the way.

“Don’t bullshit me.” She followed me, grabbing the bottle of my favorite whiskey before I could reach for it.

“You going to throw that one at the wall too?” I raised a brow, with half curiosity and the lilt of a tease.

Her hand grabbed a glass and poured enough of the amber liquid to knock out a small rhino.

“Come hell or high water, I will find out what your play is. You hear me?”

She raised the glass to her lips, looking determined to knock it back in one go.

Protective instincts flared, my hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, halting her movement.

“Easy. Don’t want you passing out on me just yet.” I winked as I guided the glass to my mouth, her hand still wrapped around it. Tilting the glassware, I swallowed a mouthful of it down, leaving just enough behind for her.

Her eyes studied me, watching the flick of my tongue over my lips as I collected the last remnants of the oaky booze from them.

At first, I mistook the heavy gaze for fascination and maybe a hint of infatuation. Then came the warmth that bled through our hands where they joined around the glass. Her lips parted, a short but sharp inhale preceded her pulling away. Her pulse visibly jumped in her throat.

Shit.

The precognitive shields I had lowered at the Forked Tongue never fully locked back in place. An oversight I would pay for. I erected the metaphysical boundaries, but it was too little too late.

Don’t panic.

Panic wouldn’t help whatever she saw happening between us.

I set the whiskey down, keeping my hands where she could see them. But there was no hiding the tension in my shoulders, ready to react at a moment’s notice if she tried to bolt.

In a voice gentle enough to soothe, I said, “Whatever you think you saw…”

That was the problem. She could have seen any number of things I wanted to do to her tonight. Most of them had to do with my dick, but not all. But I knew whatever she had seen had her spooked.