Chapter 2 #4
He didn’t look down. He was too controlled for that. He didn’t dare address the contact. She ran the tip of her shoe up his calf, applying just enough pressure so he could feel it through his boots.
“That I can make you slip.”
Despite the cold of the carriage, tension and heat simmered between them. She could feel it. He had to feel it, his body had reacted when the mood turned electric. It was subtle, but it was there…or she could be entirely wrong. Infernal blast it, she hated not being sure.
Her last word seemed to catch him by surprise and a single eyebrow shot up. “Slip?”
“Lose control. Give in.” She narrowed her eyes and playfully twirled a strand of her hair around her finger.
“Succumb to desires so intense that even your considerable..” her eyes dipped with her tone, below the belt and hopefully feeding his ego while exciting him at the same time, “resolve shatters completely to ecstasy.”
He stared at her, face considerate. Like she had just asked him which sort of tea he preferred. “My willpower is quite practiced, Miss Blair—”
“Sera.”
An argument looked to start on his lips, but with her Game hovering between them he conceded. “Very well, Sera. This is not a bet you will win.”
“Are you sure?” Her foot reached his knee and then she settled her leg, fully extended, into his lap. Her heel came dangerously close to indisputable evidence that her tactics were working. Either she was wrong or Kieran North was a savant of control. “I can always check, if you like.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, but otherwise did not acknowledge her invasive leg. Or the tiny rubbing motions of her ankle.
“What do you hope to gain?” he asked, with a tick of his head.
“Some fun, I guess.” She shrugged. And a way to make your willpower crumble so, when I need to, I can grab Seth and run. “You’re attractive. I’m turned on. What more do two adults need? If you’re so confident of my chances, you lose nothing by agreeing.”
“I lose plenty by agreeing. You constantly throwing yourself at me would be an incessant annoyance.”
He was so clinical. But she was not about to lose this leverage. “Fine, we can work on some ground rules. Do you accept?”
“Since you will not succeed, I will consider accepting once we’ve established rules.
” He settled a hand under her calf over her stockings, letting his fingers run down the delicate curve to rest at her ankle.
Tiny fissures of pleasure erupted over her skin.
She’d underestimated the proficiency of his hands.
“Of course, I assume I’m allowed to play? ”
“I… what?” She blinked, breathless and entirely focused on the slow glide of his hand.
North shrugged as the carriage drew to a stop, but his fingers continued their languid dance over her skin.
“In fairness,” he started, as his hand closed around her ankle, drawing her leg up his chest. The move forced her position to arch downward, setting him at a more intimate, dominating angle.
Her breath was gone. Stopped. Anticipation and desire pooled between her thighs as he stared down her leg and into her eyes like nothing but her existed.
“I should be allowed my chance to rattle you, Seraphina.”
No one called her Seraphina. No one. And fuck if the smooth, liquid timbre of his voice didn’t make her own name erotic.
Oh shit. This was not how the Game was supposed to work.
He shifted her leg away from his chest. And dropped it on the seat beside him.
“I believe we have arrived,” he said, entirely at ease.
Her body was humming. Vibrating even as his words had doused her as efficiently as ice. Well, that cleared up one thing. He was no fucking innocent in any form of the word.
She breathed through clenched teeth. As her heart settled into a less frantic rhythm, Sera seethed while he remained the picture of unassailable. Shuffling toward the door, Sera balled up the blanket and threw it into his face.
“Great. I’ll be right back." Her voice strained with forced good-humor.
North freed himself of the blanket, lips a firm line. Static mussed the ends of his snowy hair and his eyes narrowed to almost a glare. He smoothed his hair back into place before rising to follow her. Sera set a hand on his chest.
“No, you stay.”
“I am not a dog.” He snatched her wrist with two fingers, like he wanted to use as little contact as possible and, fuck, his skin was not cold. It was warm. So warm. Impossibly warm. Cole’s skin was cool to the touch. She assumed it was a Winter Fae thing, but apparently not.
They stood for several seconds and, if he were any other person in the world, she might have assumed his silence suggested he was equally thrown by contact with her. But this was not a normal man, so his silence might mean anything.
“It’s more prudent to assume Cole would have your lodging watched. He might be waiting for you," he said, though his jaw seemed more tense than before.
Sera shook away the dizzy spin of her thoughts. “Do you see any death on me?”
His mouth snapped shut, eyes narrowing a fraction. “No.”
“Perfect. Then that means I should be at least okay for the right now, correct?”
He eased his thumb and forefinger apart, releasing her wrist. “It’s your life. Be assured, I am perfectly content with my efforts to prevent your demise, should the worst happen.”
Sera rolled her eyes, resting a hand on her hip. “Divine above, you’re unbelievably dramatic. I just don’t want you in my home, okay?”
“Rather bold assertion when you broke into mine.”
“Yes, but you’re going to have to get past that, darling.” She lightly tapped the tip of his nose. “I’ll write a formal apology later. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
The look that entered his eyes at what had been meant as a playful tap was close to scathing. “As I said, it’s your life.”
Sera blew a strand of hair from her eyes as she hopped down from the carriage. North may have spoken with a casual air of indifference, but there were depths of drama in his words. Still, she didn’t plan on taking long.
The carriage was parked across the street from her building and, thankfully, didn’t stand out too painfully among the rabble of the street.
North’s more modest taste meant the carriage lacked embellishments or sigils that would have acted like a beacon to those in search of rich prey.
As it was, no one gave the otherwise plain black carriage a second look.
Sera raced the cracked cement to the cobbled together building of her apartment.
There was no one, uniform type of material used in Demon Row.
Repairs and attempts to hold structures together called for whatever was cheapest, on hand, or recycled.
Demon Row proper—closer to the outer borders of Unity and deeper into demon territory—was better maintained.
Repairs in the inner boroughs were properly integrated and solid.
Here the doors were lopsided or didn’t fit in the frames.
No slab matched another in color, material, or state of decay.
The stairs weren’t entirely uniform. Sera had walked them enough times to learn their particular cadence, but others usually tripped.
Demons and grimm were the main inhabitants here.
Demons had started the famed war all those years ago, but those were Greater Demons, as residents were quick to correct.
The demons that thrived in the city were Lesser, less powerful and less favored by their creator, the Infernal.
The distinction was rarely used by others, who saw all demons as evil, dangerous creatures because of their ability to sense a person’s desires and potentially use it to their advantage.
Previously, Sera had not feared her neighbors since she had been under Cole’s protection.
That protection was not likely to still be enforced. She didn’t doubt that anyone might be waiting to turn her over for showing her face here. She unlocked her door faster than she’d ever done and slammed it behind her.
“Sera?” Seth rubbed sleep from his eyes, sitting up to cross his legs in the middle of the bed. He was always so quick to rise in the morning, waking from sleep with grace and ease. Sera had to be dragged from the covers hissing and clawing. “You’re back! Thank the gods, I was so worried.”
His entire half of the apartment was covered in vines sprouting purple flowers.
The vines wrapped around Seth’s arms and shoulders, the green a perfect complement to the earthy, copper undertones in his brown skin.
Auburn hair was shaved on one side, while the rest of his head was covered in soft, swooping tufts.
Radiant, orange eyes twinkled with cheer at the sight of her.
He was a Summer Fae and was about to be very unhappy about their change of address.
“We don’t have time,” Sera said, out of breath. “Get your things.”
Seth didn’t question. He simply nodded and did as instructed.
“I failed,” Sera said. It was explanation enough.
Sera stuffed clothes into a tattered bag.
Most of her things fit inside, but her dresses were too bulky.
She hated to lose any, they were gorgeous dresses.
The thing about sketchy contracts with powerful figures is that, despite squalor accommodations, lavish gifts were not uncommon.
It hadn’t always been a shit apartment way out near the Fells, either.
When Sera was shiny and new, she had a room in Cole’s house deep in Demon Row where things weren’t held together with glue and prayers.
Until the next shiny new thing took her place and Sera was demoted to ‘falling apart shithole.’
“We’re not safe here,” Sera continued, “I have a temporary solution. It’s a long story, but I think it’ll keep us safe until I can think of something better.”
Sera stacked as many dresses over her arm as she could carry. Nearly ten minutes had passed. She had to hurry. There was no telling how fast news would reach Cole.