2. Daisy
TWO
daisy
Take it?
Could I just take control of my life? There was an idea. Instead, I’d just been hiding in one corner and trying to avoid this arrangement. Power grabs. Alliances. Daughters being good for one thing and one thing only. Making alliances thicker than paper and ink.
The man in front of me? He smelled like cologne, of course, but it was trying to hide something gritty beneath. Metallic and dirty. Nothing like the men in my world.
I never said what I wanted. I was meant to be seen and not heard. But this man? The way his eyes focused on my lips, like he couldn’t quite decide what he was supposed to do with them. The warmth spreading through my belly though? It knew what I wanted without consciously even realizing it.
I wanted choices. But more than that, I wanted whatever came with him. The warmth of his hand around my neck should have been a power play, one that was meant to scare me. Instead, the way his fingers seemed to press closely over where I could feel my own heart beating was like he was trying to read me. Like there was something the pulsing of my blood could tell him.
I met his eyes, only for him to look back down at my lips, and then, without another word, he abruptly turned, taking that warmth with him.
“Wait,” I called after him, reaching for his suit coat, my fingers sliding over the smooth, expensive fabric before I caught the hem and pulled. “Wait. Please.”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder.
The man had a poker face. A darkness swirled through eyes that never seemed to actually meet mine, but somehow it felt like he still saw me.
I wanted to be seen.
“Wherever you’re going, take me with you.”
He smirked as he repeated my words. “Take you with me?”
I nodded and let go of his jacket and stood up, the fine organza of my dress reminding me how thin it was and how warm his hand had been. How warm that body had been against me a moment ago.
“Yes. Take me with you. You said to take control of my own life. So I choose to go wherever you’re going.”
For a man that I couldn’t read for anything, that little smirk his lips pulled into sent a shiver of thrill down my spine.
“Little dove, what exactly makes you think I want to take you with me?”
My hope sank.
“Nothing, I guess. But something tells me that you don’t live by the rules up here either,” I said with a fake confidence I didn’t really feel.
He slowly turned.
“I like rules but not rules made for people who seem to respect no one else’s. Follow me.”
Without another word he pulled me to him, pressing my body against his.
“Stay close.”
I nodded before he turned and yanked me forward.
“Where exactly are we going?”
My impractical heels with their slick bottoms slipped as he pulled me along the fancy tiles of a pretentious hall. But before I could fall, he pulled my hand and I was falling against his other arm, missing the ground.
“We are going where there are no cameras. This would work much better if you could refrain from making a scene.”
My mouth gaped. He did not just say that.
“I… what? I was not making a scene; I slipped.”
The man in front of me was as annoying as he was handsome, but his hands had no problem fitting around my waist and righting me.
“Well, then refrain from slipping. This way. There are no cameras this way.”
He was already pulling me with him as he seemed to be talking to no one, but at the same time he was talking to me.
“Okay. How do you even know that?”
No one was paying us much attention as he pulled me into an unmarked door that went into the kitchens for catering. I let him guide me as I looked around. How had I never known this was here? I’d been dragged to this stupid auction thing for the better part of six years. Paraded around as Mommy and Daddy’s doting daughter. But now I saw it for what it was. Advertisement.
There were plenty of people in and out of the kitchen, both with empty and filled trays. The place was busy and noisy, and not a single person cared that I was being dragged through there.
Something metal clanged against more metal, making me jump.
“Please keep up. Something tells me that whoever was looking for you isn’t going to be happy when you aren’t in the bathroom,” he said over his shoulder, pulling me a little closer, and this time he was nearly pushing me as he spun me in front of him.
“I can walk, thank you very much.”
I said that, but damn did this man’s touch do something entirely foreign to my body. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be running back into my corner and praying no one noticed me, not running away with a guy that very clearly wasn’t cut from the same cloth as the rest of these pretty flowers with hidden thorns. The thing was, I wouldn’t call him the weed here.
Why did that touch send a strange sense of life through the nerves that his hand caressed?
And why did this all feel wrong and yet oh so right?
I nearly toppled as my heel slid out from under me, but my masked stranger grabbed me around my hips and those fingers bit into my skin, but instead of wincing, a heat shot straight between my legs.
I let a giggle escape my lips for no good reason.
“Princess, what’s so funny?”
The whisper of his breath over the shell of my ear sent a fire raging through me and I forgot how to breathe.
“This.” I couldn’t seem to form any thoughts and I didn’t need to, because his arm slid around my waist and, before I could protest, he tossed me over his shoulder.
“You are slowing me down, little dove. So excuse me, but if you want to come with me, I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”
His hand grabbed my ass. I’d missed just how large his hands were, or maybe it was just how it felt through the thin fabric of my dress, but fucking hell if I didn’t almost moan against the way he squeezed and kept walking.
It wasn’t long before a ding and the swish of elevator doors broke me from my girly fantasy.
“Last chance, princess. Once I get into the elevator, we aren’t going back.”
I briefly glanced back through the hair that had fallen over my face as he manhandled me.
What was back there? An empty marriage at best. An abusive relationship? Probably. Meaningless life? That was certain.
“Take me away, my dark prince.”
I felt the rumble of his chuckle under where my hips dropped over his shoulder. Well shit. That was a new feeling, and I wanted more.
The doors closed behind us and only then did he pull me off his shoulder.
“No one will know where you’ve gone. There will be no trace of you.”
I sucked in a breath when he stepped closer, his hand still around my hip, still holding me right where he wanted me.
“How do you know that?” My eyes searched his face, still partially obscured by the masks that made this event anonymous, mostly. It wasn’t like my parents didn’t know exactly what I’d been wearing.
“It’s my business to know everything. I am very good at watching those who think they are the ones with the power, but ,princess,” he paused, his fingers brushing over my cheek, pushing aside a loose lock of hair, “it’s all a facade. Isn’t it?”
Lord help me, but I pressed my cheek into his palm, craving touch. No, craving his touch.
“I don’t know who you are and I don’t pretend to know how anything in this city works, but my father might be the worst of the demons here and I’m afraid I just put a target on your back.”
I closed my eyes as I let that warmth of his seep inside me, giving me a peace I didn’t even know existed.
“Oh, little dove, you have no idea how dark my demons are. Care to find out?”
The sounds of the party were gone when the floor indicator dinged and the doors swished open again.
“Better your demons than his, right?”
What the hell was I even asking for?