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“Come here,” Hale repeats when I pause at the threshold, his gaze burning into mine. When I hesitate, a smile slides across his face. “Don’t be shy.”
He watches me like a predator watching its prey, lazy and alert. Like he holds a chain that’s tied to me, I cross the distance between us, my bare feet padding across the cool floor. Flicking that chain closer, he doesn’t let me stop until our knees touch and I’m staring down into his eyes.
“Eavesdropping will get you into a shitload of trouble, Grace.” He cocks his head to one side, his blue eyes glinting in the warm light. His dark hair is tousled, like he’s been running his hands through it, and it makes him look sexy as fuck. “Should I punish you?”
A shock of awareness travels through my body, a jolt so strong it makes my clit throb.
Just from four little words.
“No.”
My voice is breathy, and as he watches me bite my lip, his answering smirk tells me that he knows exactly what he just did to me.
I open my mouth to say something else, but before I can, Hale sets his glass on the small table beside his chair with a clink. His hands find my hips and roughly tug me down to his lap without warning, positioning me sideways on his legs and pulling me against his body.
I let out a little yelp, taken off guard by both the sudden movement and the possessiveness of the gesture.
It’s a touch that says, mine.
My clit throbs again, arousal dampening my panties. Everything that passed between us a few nights ago is fresh in my mind as Hale’s large hands settle on my waist, his fingertips brushing my ribs before one hand slides down over my ass.
I can’t avoid making eye contact with Zaid and Lucas from where I sit. They’re on the couch across from us, and as Hale palms my ass, Zaid’s gaze tracks the movement. My heart breaks into a gallop. I’m acutely aware of every place that my body touches Hale’s, and I’m torn between conflicting impulses to run away and to arch into his touch, grinding my body against his.
A flicker of movement near the door catches my eye, and I realize I was wrong earlier. Ciro is here. He’s leaning against the wall near the doorway, almost completely still, which is why I didn’t notice him when I first walked in.
He stays where he is, although his gaze locks on me, and the intensity of his gray eyes makes me burn.
And it’s not just him. Three sets of eyes watch me as Hale drags his nose through my hair, inhaling me. It’s almost too much to have ev
ery single one of these men focused on me, and I shiver a little as Hale presses a kiss to my temple. The other three don’t look jealous, exactly. Or at least, they don’t look angry. But they look like they want what Hale has.
Like they want me on their laps too.
I fight the sudden urge to try to make that happen—to somehow crawl into Zaid’s lap, and Lucas’s too. To pull Ciro over to the couch and curl up in his arms. To touch all of them at once.
To be with all of them at once.
The heat simmering in my belly from Hale’s touch pulses, burning even hotter, and I try to hide my reaction to that thought.
Clearing my throat, I twist a little to meet Hale’s gaze. “I didn’t mean to overhear anything. I just wanted to get out of my room for a little while. I can leave if you guys are going to talk busine—”
He tightens his grip on me, and I can feel the hot press of his cock against my thigh. He’s not fully hard, but the feel of it is enough to make my breath catch.
“You don’t have to sneak around, Grace,” he murmurs. “You can go wherever you like in the house. We’ve got nothing to hide from you.”
I snort softly, because they’ve got plenty to hide from me. I already know more about Novak business than I should—that’s part of why Damian couldn’t just let me go. They’re not going to discuss their business in front of me, which is why I was eavesdropping.
But Hale surprises the fuck out of me when he shifts his gaze back to Lucas. His arms are still wrapped tightly around me, and his breath stirs a few loose tendrils of blonde hair as he speaks. “What were you saying? It’s a small operation?”
“Yeah,” Lucas says slowly, not taking his gaze off me. Then he shakes his head a little, as if trying to summon an earlier thought. “Yeah, they’re small. But despite their size, if we get them on our side, it’s a solid trade deal. They have what we need and we have what they want. It could be a good alliance for both of our syndicates.”
“They also have intel on the Rook syndicate,” Zaid adds, leaning back on the couch a little. “Damian has been up my ass about them. They’re some new upstart organization, but no one seems to know a lot about them. They’re hungry for the power and pushing hard to get a toehold here.”
My eyebrows practically shoot up to my hairline.
What… what are they talking about?
I know what they’re talking about, I just can’t believe they’re talking about it in front of me. To my shock, they continue on with their conversation as if I’m one of them, not changing the topic or getting quiet around me like they usually do. And as much as I want to believe that this means they trust me, I know the truth. And the truth scares the shit out of me.
