7. Aeris
Aeris
Shit.
“You sound a little jealous, Prince,” I said, hoping to use the nickname he hated as a way to regain control. “But that’s not me.”
“Cut the shit, sweetheart.” His head dipped closer, close enough that I felt his breath brush my lips, forcing me to tilt my head back almost obscenely. I hated when men towered over me, especially since I wasn’t even short. Even more so when it was him.
I contemplated lying again but decided against it. Instead I twisted, placing my hands on the wall and arching my back. “Unzip me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You have no appointment and I have to get ready, so if you’re not going to—”
The invisible zipper eased down my spine, and I froze when his knuckles accidentally grazed my skin.
The fabric of my bodysuit sagged, and holding the front to my breasts I turned back to face him.
He was one of the few men who didn’t react to my seduction, but that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy teasing him.
If anything, his indifference only made it more tempting.
With a raised brow I waited, only for him to stare down at me with those blue eyes, so pale they were like shards of ice.
“Isaac took me up to his room, I grew bored and left.” With a shrug I eased past him, crossing the room until I was hidden behind my opaque divider screen.
The paper was hand painted, the artist creating a stormy sea in shades of grey and blue that had been slightly ripped.
I had found it thrown out and damaged down a back alley not far from my home.
Those rips of the paper and my attempted repairs made it even more unique, more beautiful.
“You fuck him?” It came as a grunt, and I smiled as I wiggled out of the wet bodysuit.
“And if I did?” I peered around the corner of the screen, finding Caden watching me with an intensity that should have been unsettling.
But it never was. He’d always looked at me that way, even when we first met years ago.
I got it—he had a reputation. He was the Beast’s enforcer, his right-hand man, and someone meant to be feared.
His calm persona was the perfect counterweight to Langdon’s chaotic energy.
Caden treated everyone like a mild inconvenience that wasn’t worth his time, so I took great pleasure in getting under his skin every time our paths crossed.
Unfortunately for him, we moved in the same circles; mine by vocation, his by obligation; enforced by his cousin’s influence and his own standing within the Underworld.
Which meant I’d been teasing him for years, pushing him a little more each time just to get a reaction and feed this strange game we seemed to be playing.
We had first met through mutual contacts, and from the moment our eyes collided across a room full of dangerous men, there had been …
not a spark, exactly. More like a sharp, electric awareness.
He hadn’t reacted to my advances even then, which had made trying to infiltrate and steal secrets from the Beast’s empire that much harder.
Honestly, what was a girl to do?
Disappearing back behind the screen, I tugged on a matching lingerie set and dress that hugged every single one of my curves.
“Was he alive when you left him?” he asked, his voice cold.
Slipping on a pair of heels, I found him leaning against the wall with his arms folded, straining the shoulders of his jacket.
Black, of course. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him in any other colour.
There was a tease of dark-blue ink coming up from his collar, just where his top button opened to reveal a wide chest. He always looked so put together, his suits tailored to his tall frame perfectly.
It made me want to rile him up, to fracture the callous facade he wore so convincingly.
“Are you asking me whether I killed him?” I reached for a pair of drop earrings on my vanity, placing them in my ears. Looking back over my shoulder, I found him still staring. “Because that’s more your expertise than mine.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Aeris.” He straightened to his full height, his hand brushing through his dark hair that was perfectly styled. Very much the prince he hated to be called.
“Am I?” Enjoying the way a muscle feathered in his jaw, I closed our distance, noting how those eyes of ice had hardened.
Before I took control of my body, there were those that wanted to use me. Hurt me. Rather than hide I decided to embrace it, and that confidence alone pissed off a lot of insecure men. But Caden had never given me the impression of being insecure.
“Tell me, how would one get an audience with the Beast?” I asked, curious. Sebastian Devereaux had come to me before when he needed information, but I hadn’t yet worked out how to turn that familiarity to my advantage.
“You don’t. Unlike you, Bas doesn’t offer any services.”
“Services?” I laughed, and for once it was genuine. “And what services would those be?”
“Aeris …” he warned, his hand coming up to encircle my throat. Not hard, just a warning.
I blinked up at him innocently, my heels making our height difference not so ridiculous. “If we’re done with this little interrogation, I have an appointment.”
When he smiled it carried no warmth, only calculation, a thin and deliberate curve that never reached his eyes. And yet, annoyingly, it did something to me. It stirred a flicker of interest in that cool restraint, in the promise of control that drew my curiosity.
“I’ll assume you’ve heard the rumours about what happened to those who crossed Bas lately,” he said, his voice low and even, stripped of anything resembling emotion even as his thumb seemed to stroke over my pulse. “So I’m going to say this only once.”
Caden cocked his head, and my gaze betrayed me, tracing the severe line of his throat and the perfectly angled cut of his jaw. He was handsome in a cruel way, like a blade designed to be admired just before it cut.
“Stay out of our way, sweetheart.”
“Or what?” I said, unable to stop myself.
His upper lip twitched, possibly the sign of an actual emotion as his fingers tightened just a little. “I’d hate for you to find out.”