CHAPTER SIX #3
She shifts our positions, her hand sailing up the lapel of my tux, her lips brushing my ear. “Never, if you don’t stop making a possessive spectacle.”
“You are my date,” I counter, but whether the facade fits or not, I understand where she’s coming from because he won’t take his eyes off her.
Finishing my drink, I set the glass on a coaster on the coffee table, weave our fingers together, and pull her up. “C’mon.”
Peter clocks our every move, but a few of the couples are in a deep and heated discussion about climate change and the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels, so now is not the time for him to interrupt. He has to at least feign a vested interest since it’s his business being debated.
Using the opening to our advantage, I tow Sylvie to the other side of the room, not quite to the thermostat control panel, but closer.
There are a few paintings we can pretend to analyze, so while she’s lost in the brushstrokes, I bury my face in her hair, soak in her sexy scent of spiked vanilla, and whisper an idea to move things along.
“Let me use the iris contact. You can go to the bathroom. I’ll wait one minute and text you when it’s unlocked. ”
She stiffens, her breaths growing shallow at the mere thought of putting her faith—or his eye—in my hands.
“I promise I’ve got this, Palmer,” I assure her with a kiss on her jaw that has her breath catching. “Sylvie and Cash, remember?”
“Okay,” she exhales, reaching into her purse and passing me the lens before she sets sixty seconds on her phone.
Her movements are so fast and fluid that anyone else would assume she’s engrossed in a text thread.
When her ambers rise to mine, they’re fucking terrifying. “One minute. Don’t fuck this up.”
She sweeps her fingers across my forehead, dusting a wayward hair aside like a girlfriend might, before she excuses herself to the group.
Peter’s gaze zeroes in on the door shutting behind her as if he could reach through it to yank her back to him.
After indulging a brief vision of choking him out, I seize the opportunity of his distraction, stick the contact in, blinking several times to get it settled, and pull out my trick deck.
The intense debate prospers, and the reality-show couple chuckles as I start to flip my cards around, spreading them from hand to hand in an elongated dribble.
They’re bored out of their minds and grateful for something interesting to focus on, so I stage a performance.
Nonchalantly, of course, as if I’m simply biding my time until my radiant girl returns.
Partly true.
One of the guys grunts, though I’m not certain what he’s responding to, but his irate retort catches my attention. “Senator Paulke is in bed with Kratos.”
“Kratos?” another guy parrots.
That’s interesting. Senator Paulke is one of our members.
And last fall, my brothers and I all helped Axel track down a guy who’d done Zara dirty a decade ago.
Part of his explanation was that he needed to get out from under a secret society named Kratos.
He had Zara kill most of their members. But it sounds as though they’re thriving now if they’ve got politicians in their pockets.
That’s generally reserved for KORT, a cabal with unmatched influence across the globe that my family has some personal connections with.
“None of that here,” Peter snipes, setting his glass on a side table with enough dramatic flair that it serves as a sundering gavel.
There isn’t time to jump into that rabbit hole.
Tucking it away for another time, I keep wandering around the room, shuffling my deck and scrutinizing relics as the crickets following Peter’s edict slowly morph into a tentative discussion about baseball—one of the couples owns a team.
At the one-minute mark, I blow past the thermostat with a waterfall that extends far beyond my head.
That small diversion enables me to tap the access button without detection and scan my iris.
I cough in case it beeps and keep to my blasé exploration while removing the contact.
Exchanging my cards for my phone, I send off a quick text.
Me: Done.
And just as it shows it’s delivered, Peter rises and heads for the door.
“Hold up, Peter. I’ve been meaning to ask you about something.”
“It can wait,” he calls over his shoulder.
“It definitely can’t because when Sylvie comes back from the bathroom, our party will be moving to my private jet. The waiting portion of my night is officially over.”
The chatter stalls to a grinding halt. Not a word or breath resounds, only the quiet hum of the thumping music from the festivities on the lower level.
Peter spins, and, fuck, the man is down bad for her. I don’t blame him. Who wouldn’t be? But I also won’t sugarcoat his loss.
And while he’s leering at me for stealing her from him, Sylvie has her open window.
A thrill rushes through my veins. There is undoubtedly a shift in the climate. A heat storm is in the forecast.
Sly and Noire.