21. Eva #2
Across the table, Luna sits near Cillian.
Not next to him, but close. Close enough that they’d have to acknowledge each other at some point.
I watch them not do it for the first twenty minutes.
He doesn’t try to talk to her. She doesn’t look his way.
But every time he reaches for his glass, her eyes flick toward his hand and then away so fast you’d miss it if you weren’t looking.
I’m looking. Because I know that move. I invented that move.
Halfway through the main course, I excuse myself for the restroom. Wolfe gives my leg a squeeze. I take my borrowed clutch bag and head for a narrow hallway off the dining room. It is dimly lit and quiet, away from the noise of the main space.
A man steps from the shadows near the kitchen and into my direct path.
My heart jumps. He wasn’t there a second ago. But he is now, right in my airspace Tall, in an expensive suit, and exhibiting the kind of calm that chills my bones.
“Ms. Moreno,” he says. “Are you enjoying the evening?”
My hand stills on the clutch, my fingers twitching to unzip the top and pull out the blade.
“Dmitri sends his regards,” the man says. “He wanted you to know he’s impressed with the company you’re keeping tonight. The Molloys and the DiMichelis. Together. Out in the open.” He pauses, his eyes so dark they look black. Soulless. “It makes for a beautiful target.”
My pulse pounds between my ears but I keep my face like stone. I don’t give this man a goddamn thing.
“He also wanted to mention that your brother’s restaurant looks lovely these days. The new awning. The red one. Very festive.”
A breath catches in my throat. Sal’s new awning. He put it up last week. And they know it. Of course they fucking do. Every detail of my brother’s life is being tracked and this smiling piece of shit is standing in front of me is reciting all the details just to make sure I know it too.
“You should get back to dinner,” he says. “The second course—”
“She’s done talking to you.”
Wolfe’s hand presses into my back. His voice is low and menacing and the hallway, as well as my blood, goes cold.
The man looks past me. Whatever he sees in Wolfe’s face makes him take a step back. The fake smile flickers.
Wolfe steps forward. One step. Not fast. Not aggressive.
He puts himself between me and the man and my chest tightens.
He doesn’t change his posture or raise his voice.
But something shifts in the space between us.
The walls close in, shrinking the hallway and making it very dangerous for one of the three people standing in it.
“You delivered your message,” Wolfe says. “Now leave. And tell Dmitri that the next person he sends to talk to her won’t walk back out.”
He says it the same way he says everything. With the kind of certainty that makes this guy stumble as he backs away from us.
He holds Wolfe’s gaze for a long second. It’s pretty ballsy of him, if you ask me. Then he buttons his jacket, nods once, and disappears down the hallway.
Wolfe turns to me. His face is composed but his jaw is locked and his hands ball into tight fists at his sides. His eyes blaze with something I’ve never seen from him at this level of intensity. It scares and excites me at the same time.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.” My voice shakes and I hate myself for it. “How did you know there was a problem?”
“You were gone for five minutes. You usually take three.”
He’s been timing my bathroom breaks? Sweet Jesus. Under any other circumstances I’d tell him that’s insane, borderline stalker behavior. But right now, it’s the safest I’ve ever felt in my life.
He puts his hand on the small of my back, walks me to the restroom, and waits outside. When I come out, he walks me back to the table. His hand doesn’t leave my skin until I’m seated.
Under the table, his fingers find mine again. His grip is tighter this time. He’s not holding my hand. He’s holding on. And I don’t pull away because right now I need him as much as he needs me.
The rest of dinner passes in a fog. I eat food I don’t taste. I hear conversations I don’t process. All I can think about is the man in the hallway, the knife burning a hole in my bag, Wolfe’s voice, and the way the entire threat evaporated the second he stepped between us.
I’ve seen his knuckles raw from hitting the heavy bag at his gym. I’ve felt his strong arms pin me to a mattress. But watching him stand in that hallway in a suit and speak in that voice—the one that says she belongs to me and you just made a very big fucking mistake—is something else entirely.
I want him. Not the gentle version. Not the careful version that learned my body the first time we slept together.
I want the version that just told a man he wouldn’t leave a building if he came near me again.
The version his brothers trained, and his father tried to break, and the world underestimates because he wears glasses and eats kiddie cereal.
We barely say goodbye to everyone when the cars arrive from the valet. The ride back to the estate is silent. His hand is hot on my thigh and my pulse pounds fast and furious and the air between us could catch fire, it’s so charged.
We make it through the front door, up the stairs, down the hallway, and into his room. He kicks the door closed and turns the lock. The second it clicks, I’m on him.
My mouth finds his. His hands grip my hips.
My back hits the door and his body presses against mine, his cock so hard, I let out a needy moan.
I yank his shirt out of his pants while his fingers find the zipper on my dress.
He pulls it down in one slow, deliberate stroke that makes my body shudder and my pussy quiver.
The dress pools at my feet. I slide his shirt off his broad shoulders. He looks at me in the dim light streaming in from the window and his brain does the crash thing again.
But this time there’s nothing careful about what’s coming.
“Eva,” he says. His voice is wrecked. “What you did to me tonight. Coming down those stairs in that dress…”
“What did I do?” I grab him by the belt buckle and pull him close.
“You broke me. Completely and totally broke me.”
I pull his face down to mine, bite down on his lower lip, and whisper against his mouth.
“Good. Now do something about it.”