AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Tristan, I…”
“It’s good news for you that you’re in the mood to be chased,” I whisper. I jog down a wrap-around staircase, my expensive shoes slapping against the historic marble tiles.
I arrive at a three-point crossroad, faced with multiple hallways. Left, right, or straight ahead.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asks and I hear her actual voice in the distance.
I pause, waiting to see if she’ll say anything else. The marble creates an echo and the sound of her voice bounces off the walls making it hard to tell where she is.
She waits for me to speak so I do.
“Why aren’t you in the event room dancing with everybody else?”
“I was,” she says, and I take off to my left. “But then I had to help Thayer with Carter. He’s drunk and passed out so I’m getting him some water for when he wakes up.”
I come to a door with glass windows leading down a semi darkened hallway. The only lights are the ones at either end indicating the exits, and one just above Nera’s head spotlighting her like some kind of halo around a deity.
She’s resting against the wall on one shoulder and facing away from me, holding the phone up to her ear with her free hand.
“Who’s Carter?” I ask, opening the door. She doesn’t spot or hear me, distracted by my question, and I head down the corridor towards her.
“Thayer’s boyfriend.”
“I thought she was dating Rhys,” I say from behind her but speaking into the phone at the same time.
She startles and whips around, her hand dropping to her side, the call forgotten. Our heated gazes clash as I slowly bring down the phone and tuck it into my jacket pocket. The reflection from the light shines in her eyes as she looks up into mine. I find myself wishing I could take a candid picture of her.
She gives an amused smile and now my hand really itches with the need to lift my phone and immortalize this moment.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
I’ve never spoken with Rhys or Thayer one-on-one, but based on my third-party observations, I thought it was obvious they were dating. He can’t seem to stay away and he makes sure no other guys ever hover around her, so it comes as a shock to learn she’s dating someone else.
Nera shakes her head, but the small smile is still there.
“Nothing,” she says.
My eyes flick down her body and finally drink in a close up of her in the dress. I take a step back and rake my gaze luxuriously slowly down her form, taking in every illegal inch of her body wrapped in silk, and back up to settle on those eyes of hers. They manage to communicate so much and yet nothing at all.
“What I wouldn’t give to crawl inside that dark little mind of yours,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen, startled and suspicious. Something comes down behind them, obfuscating any vulnerability in them if I thought I’d seen any.
“Weird way to tell me I look pretty tonight,” she says, deflecting with the same fake laugh I’d seen her give those three guys at the bar. I hate that she uses it with me now.
She jumps ever so slightly when I place my hand on her waist. I tighten my hold until my fingers dig firmly into her flesh and pull her closer to me.
I’m doing it again. Gambling recklessly with my future because of the pull between us. We’re in the middle of a hallway with a literal light shining down on us and my hand inappropriately on her body and all I can focus on is the fact that I’m about to do many more unprofessional and immoral things to her.
I bend my head and watch her skin pebble as my breaths fall against the column of her neck. Her face is turned away from me. With a touch of my index under her chin, I guide her to look back at me, our faces now inches from each other’s. The silence grows heavy as her eyes fall to my parted lips, her pupils dilating more with every one of my passing breaths.
I dip my head and nudge my nose against hers. She inhales a soft gasp and my lips brush against hers.
“You’re the most beautiful woman in any room you walk into, ballgown or not.” My lips move as I speak, touching hers. Her eyelids flutter to half mast, her breaths turning shallow. She leans in and my mouth captures hers in a fiery kiss. I push her into an alcove, my one semi-rational thought of self-preservation as my hands find her tits over the fabric of her dress. I growl in frustration at the lack of access and pull back. She pants as she hangs on to my shoulders for dear life. “But I’m equally as interested in breaking into the fortress that is your mind and taking a look at all the secrets you’re keeping in there.”
She lowers herself back down from her toes, her eyes shadowed and guarded when they find mine.
“That’s off limits.”
