Chapter 12 #2
“It doesn’t have a name and it’s not on any map. From what I was told, it was modeled on the first speakeasy in Boston back during Prohibition.”
Even though the tiled ceiling is low, Electra cranes her neck to take it all in. “How did you find out about it?”
“One of my regulars told me about it.”
Annoyance flashes across her face. “Do you often go places with your regulars?”
“I didn’t go with her. I went with my fellow instructors, the ones you met at my gym. No need to be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.” Yet she looks it. And sounds it.
I can’t help myself from leaning over to murmur. “Just because you want to fuck me, Miss Serran, doesn’t mean anyone else does.”
Even though the crooner on stage is singing loudly, I don’t miss the hitch in Electra’s breathing, along with her predictable retort. “You wish.”
“I do wish.”
If only she’d turn her head and meet my eyes, she’d see just how much I wish it. But she keeps her stare firmly on the stage.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“I don’t drink around strangers, remem—” The last syllable cuts off in an oomph when a pair of lively dancers crash into Electra’s back, knocking her straight into my chest.
I catch her, clasping my arms around her. Even after she’s recovered her balance, I hold on, enjoying the feel and scent of her—crisp and clean, devoid of those sugary fragrances that smell like tropical cocktails.
She tilts her face up to mine. My gaze can’t decide where to land. I start at her lips, which flutter around hollow breaths, before moving to her eyes, to the gold burning around one pupil and the silver wheeling around the other.
I brace for her to tell me to let go, but she just breathes, her chest brushing against mine with each cadenced inhale.
My face drifts a fraction lower. When she still doesn’t speak, I drop another inch, my pulse ramping up, redirecting the flow in my veins to a part of me that’s as rusty as my Volvo.
The awareness that Electra’s an Atlantean—my enemy…the world’s enemy—doesn’t faze my dick, which gladly hardens and digs into her lower belly.
“You fit so well inside my arms, Miss Serran,” I rasp.
It’s a line, one meant to seduce and entrap. It helps that she does fit well against me, that all those sharp edges that make up her lean, muscled frame slot against mine as though carved out of the same block of concrete.
I splay my palm on the small of her back and shift my hips, not for my dick’s sake, but because the music is sinking into my blood, making me want to move, making me want to move her. I bet she’d move really well.
She curls her fingers around my forearms, then glides them down to my wrists. Before she can break my hold, I skim her hip and twirl her, then plant my hand on her midriff.
The muscles in her stomach bunch against my palm as her tight shirt lifts, giving me access to her soft, hot skin.
I sway, grinding my erection against the base of her spine. I try to remember the last time I was so turned on. The only occasion that springs to mind is my shower, my fist, and my phone propped against my shampoo bottle with a headshot of Electra filling the frame.
I’d called it an experiment back then—a test to make sure my body would cooperate if I picked her. I’d come so fast and hard that I’d walked out of there both satisfied and more than ready for the job ahead. Eager, even.
I float my nails along the side of her body in an unhurried caress. I expect her to stiffen and toss my hand away, but instead, her body relaxes into mine.
My shock is so great I almost let go and spin her back around to make sure I’m holding her and not some other girl, but one glance at the foreign words carved into her nape, one hit of her sharp scent confirms her identity.
Could I have succeeded at taming the willful creature in my arms?
I rest my fingers on her hip, applying just enough pressure to guide her. When her body follows, melting into my touch, my breath snags. I try my luck again. Again, her body responds with little force.
I curve my neck to reach her ear. “Look at you, dancing with me, Miss Serran.”
“Is that what we’re doing? Because it feels a lot more like you’re dry-humping my ass.”
God knows why, her comeback shoots me so full of frustration that I stop swaying and release her.
She turns, head cocked to the side. “Did I hurt your feelings, Lowry?”
Anger staples my lips together.
“Don’t take it badly.” She reaches up and flicks a piece of hair off the frame of my glasses.
I suddenly don’t want her to touch me. “How am I supposed to take it?”
“In stride.”
I grunt.
“You know the rules. You agreed to the rules.”
“I never agreed to stop wanting you.”
Her throat dips over a slow swallow.
I follow it with my eyes before tracing it with my thumb. “You might act nonchalant but you’re not.” I gently wrap my hand around her jaw. And then I lean over, vibrating with irritation and lust. So much fucking lust.
Though I close most of the distance, I leave some space for her to make the final move. My injured pride demands that she give me something.
Whatever song was playing ends, and another begins. None of its lyrics register, only its rhythm—a drumbeat that matches the thumping in my chest.
“Kiss me,” I rasp.
“You’ll regret it.”
Fucking stubborn woman. “You’re projecting.”
“Cillian—”
“Just kiss me, Electra. Take a chance on me—the man who sees you.”
Her breath snags, leaving me to wonder if drawing a parallel between Malachi and me in such a raw moment will backfire.
Her eyes drop to my Adam’s apple. I’ve never wished for magical powers before—not even as a kid, not after witnessing how it corrupts people. But right now, I’d give anything for the ability to compel the unfiltered truth of how she feels about me.
I tilt her chin up in a last-ditch attempt to pull her focus back to me. But her eyes don’t find mine. They drift past me instead.
The frustration that hits is ridiculous, foreign. Like some part of me actually wants her to see me, even though I know that’s impossible.
I let go but force myself to stand still.
Reeve would step back.
Reeve would leave.
But Cillian…Cillian can’t afford to walk away.
I squint at the doodles on my toecaps, picturing Quinn hunched over my shoes with her indelible markers. I trace her initials, then mine, then the bleeding heart in between that encompasses so much of our past.
I want that heart to be whole again. Whole and unencumbered.
No more blood.
No more scars.
No more damn strings.
Something splashes on the floor, spilling down my leg—someone’s drink.