Chapter 10
She danced for me. She kissed me. She looked me in the eyes with hunger while I felt the rise of her perfect little breast beneath my palm. And now she invades my every thought.
Tonight, La Sirena thrums with its usual crowd, and I'm back on duty, pretending the world hasn't tilted off its axis.
Bass pulses through the floor. Crystal chandeliers cast dancing shadows across burgundy leather booths. The expensive whiskey behind the bar glows amber in the low light.
A drunk at the back door swings wild.
All fury and no finesse. His haymaker catches my left ribs as I duck back, and my temple clips the door frame. Not hard, but enough to split skin above my right eyebrow. Blood wells immediately, warm and metallic.
I catch his wrist, twist, and he's eating concrete before his next breath. My guys are already moving. They know the drill. Within seconds, they're hauling him out while the floor manager apologizes, wringing his hands like this is somehow his fault.
I touch the cut. Small, but bleeding more than it should. My ribs throb. Bruised, not broken. I could clean this downstairs in the security office bathroom.
I climb the back service stairs instead.
The bare bulb on the second landing flickers. Still needs replacing. Two flights up, down the hallway where the sounds of La Sirena's revelry fade to a distant thrum. I push open the apartment door.
Daphne looks up from the desk where she's been reading. Her face changes when she sees the blood at my temple. Not fear, but something sharper. Purpose. She's already moving before I'm fully inside, crossing to the bathroom alcove.
She returns with the first-aid kit. Sets it on the kitchen counter. Studies my temple.
"Sit."
Her voice carries that dry command I've been hearing since she stopped performing politeness. No uplift. No question.
I pull the wooden stool from against the kitchen wall and sit. The geometry puts me slightly below her eye line when she stands in front of me.
She opens the kit efficiently. Alcohol swabs, gauze, butterfly closures.
She steps between my knees, and her scent hits me. I can't identify it, but it is clean and feminine, purely her. She's wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, dark hair swept back in a low knot. Her left hand finds my right shoulder for balance. The alcohol swab stings against the cut.
She danced for me last night, almost naked. Pressed her palm to my heart. This morning, she kissed me. And now her small hand on my shoulder is enough to make my cock stir. I fight to keep my breathing steady.
She works methodically. She cleans the cut with precision, then steps back. Her eyes track down my body, registering how I am sitting at an odd angle. The assessment makes my skin burn, makes me wonder what she sees when she looks at me.
"Take your shirt off."
"It's nothing."
"Shirt. Off." Each word lands separate, final.
I pull the black cotton over my head.
Her breath catches. Barely audible, but I hear it.
She goes completely still, eyes darkening as they move across my torso.
The full sleeve tattoos on both arms. Scars across my chest and shoulders from nine years of Delgado work.
The fresh bruise blooming purple across my left ribs.
I'm monstrous, I know, people have told me that my whole life.
But she doesn't flinch or look away. In fact, her gaze is hungry, lingering on the V of muscle at my hips, and I watch her throat work as she swallows.
My cock hardens further. Christ, just her looking at me like that makes me ache. Like she wants to touch every scar, trace every line of ink.
She moves to my left side. Fingers press gently along the bruise, checking for fracture. Her touch burns hotter than the injury. Each point of contact sends electricity straight to my groin. I breathe through it, trying not to let her see how affected I am. She nods. Bruised, not broken.
The mini-fridge opens. She wraps ice in a clean dish towel and hands it to me. Our fingers brush in the exchange, and her pupils dilate slightly.
"Hold this against your ribs."
I hold it. The cold burns, then numbs, but does nothing for the heat pooling low in my gut.
She steps between my knees again with a fresh swab.
Closer now. Her body fills the space between my thighs, and I'm hyperaware of every inch of her.
The soft swell of her breasts at my eye level.
The way her hips are perfectly aligned for me to pull her against me.
Her face hovers six inches from mine as she works on the temple cut.
The concentration line appears between her brows.
Her tongue touches her upper lip when she's being careful.
Fuck. That small pink tongue. I imagine it on my cock, imagine those careful movements applied elsewhere. My hands clench on my thighs to keep from grabbing her.
I haven't ever been this close to a woman's face without paying for it.
My peripheral vision tracks everything except her eyes.
The angle of her jaw. The curve where her neck meets her shoulder.
The spot I want to bite until she moans.
The wisps escaping her hair knot that I want to pull free.
Below us, muffled through the floor, La Sirena's music throbs.
All that life and noise while we exist in this bubble of charged silence.
Her left hand shifts from my shoulder, slides down to my upper arm.
The trail of fire her fingers leave makes me suppress a groan.
Her fingers hesitate for a heartbeat, trembling slightly, before moving lower.
Her thumb finds the tattoo on my right forearm.
The swab in her right hand pauses at my temple.
"Who is this?" Her thumb traces the armored figure's wings, and my cock jumps at the innocent touch.
"Saint Michael."
"And he's the patron of…?"
"Warriors."
"That's all?"
The question cuts deeper than she knows. Nobody ever asks a follow-up, they just look at my face, my body, my job, and assume I'm nothing more than a warrior.
"Justice," I admit. "Patron saint of justice."
Her thumb stays on the tattoo. Three weeks after my dishonorable discharge, I had this inked. Nine years carrying it as my only protest against what they named me. The warrior who fights dragons, not the dragon itself.
She doesn't respond with words. Just keeps her thumb on the saint while her right hand resumes cleaning. Slower now. No hurry. Deliberately drawing this out.
And she looks at my face.
Not the clinical assessment of wound care. Not sliding past like everyone else's gaze does. She looks at me. Exact. Sustained. No flinching, no fear, no agenda except the cut she's tending. Her eyes are dark, almost black in this light, and I see desire there. Raw want that mirrors my own.
The looking continues. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
Our breathing synchronizes without either of us meaning it to.
The space between us charges with something electric, dangerous.
I can smell her arousal now. Sweet and musky beneath her clean scent.
Can see her nipples hardening through her t-shirt.
My cock strains against my jeans, and I know she can see it, this close.
My discipline starts to crack. Heat floods through me. Not just physical, but something deeper, more primal. The gaze I've been refused lands full force. A woman between my knees, thumb on my patron saint, looking without fear at the face that makes mothers pull their children close.
She shifts slightly, and her thigh brushes against my knee. The contact is electric. I see her breath hitch, watch her pulse flutter at her throat.
I cannot bear it.
Cannot look away either. The not-looking discipline reverses completely. Now I'm staring at her, memorizing every detail of her face while she memorizes mine. My pulse hammers in my throat, in my chest, in my cock that's so hard it hurts.
The weight of being seen crushes the last of my control.
My hands close around her wrists. Right wrist with the swab, left with thumb still on the saint. The grip is firm, not bruising, but I feel her pulse racing under my fingers.
I stand. She's forced to look up now. My body towers over hers in the narrow kitchen alcove. My erection presses against her stomach through our clothes, and she gasps softly.
"Stop looking at me like that." My voice cracks on the last word. The first time it's betrayed me in years. "I can't… fuck, Daphne, you don't know what you're doing to me."
She doesn't stop. Holds my gaze steady, unflinching. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and I nearly lose it right there.
"Maybe I do," she whispers, so quiet I almost miss it.
The dam breaks.
I turn her, walk her three feet to the wall opposite the counter. Press her back against it. My body pins hers, my cock grinding against her hip. The alcohol swab stays clutched in her right hand.
My mouth finds her throat. Not her lips. We've already had that. This is different. Teeth graze the spot where neck meets shoulder. She tastes like salt and something clean, tastes the way she smells. I bite down gently, and she moans. A sound that goes straight to my cock.
"Fuck," I growl against her skin. "The sounds you make…"
My left hand braces against the wall by her head. My right hand moves between her legs, cupping her through her jeans. Even through the denim, I can feel the heat of her pussy. She's already wet. I can feel the dampness seeping through.
"You're soaked," I murmur against her throat, pressing harder with my palm. "Been thinking about this? About my hands on you?"
She doesn't say no.
She doesn't say yes either.
But her body answers for her. Her hips roll against my hand, seeking friction. Her free hand comes up to grip my hair at the skull. Fists hard, pulling me closer. The hand that touched the saint moments ago.