by Angel Payne
“Neither, ma’am. I hail from something better. Scottish Highlanders.”
“Whoa.” I issue the reaction soon as his quiet brogue registers. “No shit.”
“Thanks, Gregor.” Reece taps his head back toward the shadows. “As you were.”
“Affirmative.” The guy returns to near-invisible status on steps more stealthy than his first approach.
“Wow,” I finally manage to stammer.
“You okay?” Reece tugs me tighter, his mouth flattening and his brows hunkering.
“Yeah.” I nod. “That’s just…intense. If I didn’t know he was there…”
“Exactly the point.” His expression relaxes, turning even sexier as the DJ throws on a sultry warm-up song. Reece takes advantage of the moment by using his hold, still on my waist, to pull me into a full dancing position. Still, I dart a couple of glances around his shoulders just to make sure my eyes aren’t really deceiving me.
“Incredible,” I mutter. “And how long have they all been here?”
“Since they turned down the lights and made it easy for us. When you and Lydia were back in the kitchen.”
“Not that we would have noticed, even if we were out here.”
“Ahhhh.” Now his lips lift into a devastating smirk. “Honorable mistress of the party begins to comprehend the ninja way.”
When he steps away enough to give me a brief bow, hands pressed in prayer pose in front of him, I spurt out an enchanted laugh. The mirth, along with the knowledge that fifty men under his command are literally watching every square inch of the room, succeeds in disintegrating my tension—at least for one moment.
Well, most of the tension.
There’s still plenty of pressure building between my legs, adding to the ache that hasn’t gone away for the last two days, now rising in direct proportion to his masterful nearness. And his smoky cologne. And his touch, rubbing at the valley of awareness at the small of my back, as he pulls me close again. And, oh yes, even the confident grace with which he leads our romantic back-and-forth to Lana Del Rey’s hypnotic croon.
To ensure I keep my own balance, I raise my hands to his shoulders, where my probing fingers find the distinct ridges of his leathers. Holy shit. Now I’m really done in. He’s like a multi-layered man candy bar—a meaty center of Deadpool dipped in a delicious coating of James Bond. But the truth it leads me to is shaded by a thousand shades of mortification. Realizing he’s come prepared like this, to face danger head-on for me, is the headiest part of my custom Reece aphrodisiac. It turns my voice into a dreamy murmur as I force words to my throat, attempting to balance the dizzying effect of his stare on every hormone I possess.
“Are there any girl ninjas on your bitchin’ Bolt squad, mister?”
That unsettles his gaze for a couple of seconds. “Not tonight, if that’s what you mean,” he says carefully.
“You should consider it. In the future.”
“Perhaps I will.” His voice stays steady. He holds me tighter. “In the future.”
“Yeah. You should. I mean, I could even be—”
“No.”
“What?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He kisses me into silence. Firmly. Ferociously. And for another incredible moment, the world drops away. In spite of the man’s no-girl-ninjas rule, he’s the only thing on the planet, in the cosmos, that matters. As our mouths mesh and mold, I bask in his passion and power and desire…in the bond that makes all the insanity worth it. That makes him worth it. The truth that finally, fully, feels right in my spirit…that, ironically and maybe even stupidly, I came all the way across the country to try to “find” here, in my solitude…
Only to realize that solitude wasn’t the answer.
That what I was running from…wasn’t him. That what I’d thought was a slip in our trust…wasn’t.
That the only thing we’d lost…was this.
The compulsion that bound us to each other in the first place.
The pull, dictated by fate itself, that we’re both beyond controlling.
The need beyond mere attraction. The connection beyond lust. The energies that fuse our spirits and our souls, turning us into something pretty damn incredible. Yes, even beyond EmRee—though when naming us something that sounds like a ring from the land of fairies and wizards, maybe the press saw what we hadn’t yet.
Our magic.
Why did it take me until now to see it? To realize that when the universe gives out something as amazing as this, a girl doesn’t kick it in the teeth by running away from it, damn it.
She grabs on.
She holds tight.
Just like Reece and I do now, twining both hands into each other’s.
She beholds it. And she’s grateful.
Just like this amazing man does with me now, refusing to rip his stare from me.
And yeah…she would also make sure fate hears her gratitude—just like I do, with a throat clogged in thick emotion. “Thank God for you, Reece Richards.”
A smile blooms on his lips. Its warmth is clearly born from places deep inside him. I’m given a good hint about those places as the broad plane of his chest heavily rises and then falls. Though the action doesn’t produce words from his lips, they’re already there for me—in his eyes. The silver-gray depths are fortified by the same determination and adoration they possessed two nights ago, giving me the safe emotional space in which to share the ick-factor stuff about Dad and Mom and the country club’s version of “member initiation.” In return, he’d given me exactly what I needed: his own honesty, despite its supreme difficulty. The disclosure about Angelique’s intel regarding the Consortium—more importantly, about their plans for wreaking havoc somewhere in New York tonight. Well, their supposed plans. Which may or may not include this event…
Who the hell am I kidding? It’s Sunday. Even in the Village, there aren’t a lot of bumpin’ New York parties begging for a group of batshit Dr. Moreaus to crash. If the Consortium is really going to “play” somewhere in the city tonight, they’ll fuck with Reece in the doing.
And that means fucking with me.
Though I try to hide how I suddenly feel like an ant caught beneath a magnifying glass, the man sees right through my ruse. He releases my hands in order to band a stronger grip around me, despite how his voice is the textural opposite. He caresses me in verbal silk as he murmurs, “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Emmalina.”
Well, what do you know. Ants can blush too.
I drop my head, encouraged that my silver shoes aren’t shiny enough to capture all the blood rushing to my face. “Very nice job, Mr. Richards. Using flattery to deflect stress.” I add a wry tsk to the crack. “Just wish I could tell you that it actually works.”
“That so?” His dark slice of a tone is surpassed only by his decisive grasp beneath my chin. He uses it to compel my whole face up, to confront the blades of determination now defining every square inch of his beautiful face. Holy shit. It’s moments like this, when he’s nothing but raw man and concentrated lust, that, unbelievably, make me most afraid of him…and of what he can do to me. If the lightning fizzled from his blood tomorrow, this would still be how things are between us. Potent. Powerful. Terrible. Incredible. “Because I wouldn’t know.”
“Wouldn’t know…what?” I’m lost in the pull of him, struggling to remember even my own name at the moment.
“About flattery.” The edges of his own words are frayed, like pesky afterthoughts to what he’s feeling. “Because this isn’t that,” he utters. “This is my truth, sweetheart. My soul. The core of me, Emma…that you rule. That you will always rule.” His eyes hone tighter on me. The gorgeous twists of his mouth compress into a strange line. “What is it?” he finally utters. “You don’t believe me?”
“I do believe you.” And with that whispered confession, it’s impossible to keep all the clichés of my reaction at bay. My gown’s bodice isn’t just glowing anymore but a victim
of my heaving breasts. I moisten my lips. Stab my teeth into my lower lip. “Can’t you tell?” I rasp. “I’m a walking cheesy romance chapter here, and that’s only the stuff you can see from the outside. You think I’m doing all this on purpose, mister?”
From my periphery, I’m acutely conscious of him watching all the reactions I just mentioned, plus the “surfacy” greetings I now wave to some of the party’s early arrivals. He waits, with nearly eerie silence, until I’m able to turn fully toward him again—and then moves in, with deftly sensual skill, and tucks his lips against the curve of my ear.
“Only the stuff I can see from the outside?” His hands, now framing my waist, tug me closer toward the formidable frame of his. More of his perfect aromas surround me. The starch in his shirt. The luxury pomade in his hair. The crispness of his soap. “That implies lots of…stuff…on the inside,” he prompts. “Like what, little bunny? The pulse of your sweet, tight tunnel? The clench of your willing pussy? The wild race of your incredible mind, as your body surges to catch up with your fantasies?”
I slide my hand farther up his shoulder until my fingers collide with his neck—into which I dig my fingertips. It’s only fair play, since I’m now biting my lip so hard, I’m shocked there’s no blood. “You, Mr. Richards, are a wicked, wanton, evil man.”
“Guilty as charged, Miss Crist.” He lets a hiss erupt from his teeth as I make deeper scores into his neck below his collar line.
I make sure he continues to feel my touch as I work more fingers inside, over the neckline of his leathers. “Oh, yes. Very wicked. And very, very naughty.”
I deliberately stamp the last of it with more serious accusation. In return, his posture stiffens. “So you expected me to show up tonight without being prepared to protect you?”
“Of course not.” I thread my fingertips up to play with the silky ends of his hair. I want to paw a lot more—and would dare any red-blooded woman to resist doing otherwise. “I just expected you to show up in leathers that weren’t my favorites.”
Now he gets a turn at looking like the verbal shock paddles have hit. “You have…favorites?”
“Yeah.” My tone implies the duh. “And this is the set.”
He’s still dazed. “I didn’t know you had favorites.”
I seesaw my head. “Yeah. I have favorites.”
“But you hate all my leathers.”
“I don’t hate any of your leathers, Reece.”
He huffs. Pretty loud. “But—”
“I don’t hate your leathers. It’s kind of hard to hate head-to-toe black leather, especially when it’s custom-fitted for this body, okay?”
He preens. Just a little. Clears his throat before shooting back, “So why—”
“I don’t hate your leathers,” I reiterate. “I simply hate what you’ve had to do in those things, and I really hate it that you’ve come prepared to do the same thing tonight, but I don’t hate the damn leathers.”
His smirk is immediate. And sexy as hell. “You even have favorites.”
Soft laugh. “Yeah. I even have favorites.”
He doesn’t surrender the smile. Or his hold. “Does that mean you have favorites of other things too?”
“Other things?” I wish my puzzlement came off as more authentic—but his seductive tone doesn’t make that possible. The best I can do is a wide stare with batting lashes and getting out on a giggle, “Why, what ‘other things’ do you mean, Mr. Richards?”
“Hmmm.” He vibrates it into my neck while nuzzling the sensitive valley beneath my ear. “Maybe you need a demonstration, Miss Crist.”
“Maybe you’re right.” My sigh accompanies that one, feeling just as right as the words themselves…
Until it’s cut short by a quip from an all-too-familiar source.
“Sheez Louise. Cute took some crack tonight and pooped these two out.”
My fuming groan is mixed with Reece’s laughing snort, meaning he earns the first jab of my glare. “You know you’re just encouraging her, right? And that as my big sister she knows a thousand more ways to torment me?”
His laugh gains a lusty edge. “Bet they’re not as interesting as my ways.”
As I debate whether to shut him down or let him prove that, hopefully shutting Lydia down, she dares to let out another long giggle—that’s joined by a heartier laugh. And once more, a recognizable sound.
All too recognizable.
Shit, shit, shit.
In horror, I realize that part spilled out of me too—while attempting to untangle myself from Reece’s arms, keep my bodice respectably in place, and plaster on a respectable smile for his father. Nothing like a multitasking fail. Fortunately, the man from whom Reece gets his arresting gaze and proud stance is already chuckling at my profanity dump and slanting a lopsided grin he probably called his “Billy Idol sneer” in his younger days. The man’s still attempting to pull off the Idol spikes with his cropped light-brown hair, buzzed short on the sides but pomaded on top with something probably called The Stiff Stuff or Hold Me Tight, Baby. I have to admit, the ’do was an eye-popper when I first met him, but with his take-charge personality and his prominent features, the hair is a natural fit for him.
“Cute took some crack.” He wags a finger at Lydia, smirking wider. “That’s a good one, little Lydia. May have to steal that for the next time this one shows up at the front nine in her newest designer togs.” With a telling snicker, he ushers forward a woman with hair more closely matching Reece’s color, her trim figure outfitted in a dark-violet evening gown that perfectly brings out her sea-green eyes.
“Mr. Richards.” I step forward, leaning in to exchange light air kisses with the man in his trendy, shawl-collar tux. “Thank you for coming tonight. It means the world that you’re here.”
“Well, it means the world that you included us.” Though he continues to smile, his gaze narrows with meaning. “But if you don’t start calling me Lawson, lectures will be in order.”
The second that’s out—actually, for the ten seconds before that—I can physically feel the rise of Reece’s tension behind me. But the human nuclear reactor isn’t going to sway me, especially with his dad trying this hard at familial détente. “Well, I happen to enjoy your lectures”—and it’s the truth, because the man is smart and I’ve actually learned a few things from them—“but tonight is for fun, so you win, Lawson.” I turn to the woman who’s been filling the time by keenly studying me. “And you must be the woman I’ve heard so much about.” I extend a hand. “It’s so nice to meet you at last, Mrs. Richards.”
“Theresa,” she insists, returning my smile with a gracious one of her own and resembling Reece even more in the doing. “But please, call me Trixie. All my friends do.”
“Of course, Trixie.” On any other woman, the name might teeter dangerously close to being paired with a roller derby queen, but Trixie Richards’s refined style would turn even the word shnozzle into something regal and gorgeous.
And as long as we’re on the subject of regal, the sound of a pair of steps behind me brings on the royal resonance, despite the nuclear cloud that’s towed along for the journey. With his hands at my waist and his jaw in my hair, Reece intones, “Mom…and Dad.” I feel his courtly nod against the top of my head. “You’re both looking well.”
“Thank you, Reece Andrew.” Lawson dips an equally respectful nod. “As are you.” With the rise of his head, there’s a discernible difference to his chiseled face…factors I’ve certainly never seen there before. Deeper crinkles at the edges of his eyes. And an energy inside those eyes, full of emotions I can’t interpret. I only know that beholding them adds a layer of emotion to my chest and throat and makes me want to grab Reece and force-fling him at the man. A fast glance to Trixie ensures she’s on the same page. Even Lydia finally picks up how Reece is vibing the man and swoops back in with her can-we-fix-it-yes-we-can gusto.
“Heeeyyy. Why don’t we all grab a drink before the masses converge on those poor bartenders?”
“I’d love a drink,” I pipe in, meaning every word.
“Oh, me too,” Trixie adds.
Reece doesn’t give up an inch of his tension. “I don’t think—”
“That’s an excellent idea.” Lawson, taking his lip tilt to full “Rebel Yell” status, even nods a few times as if the song plays in his head, spurring him on. I join Trixie in a laugh at the behavior, since we both recognize it as normal, but it’s not her or me for whom he reaches as we all walk to the nearest bar, themed for the night in a wraparound material of gold prismatic shapes, backlighted so it glows. It’s a perfect descriptor, since I feel like personally glowing—beyond the gown—when Lawson wraps an arm around Reece’s shoulder, saying something too quiet for us to hear. Whatever it is, I approve, since it elicits an instant laugh from his son.
“Emmalina?” Trixie’s query yanks me out of my musing. “Everything okay? Is the dress zapping places it shouldn’t?”
Lydia leans in to quip, “Or where Reece should be?”
“Oh, my goodness.” Trixie covers her titter with her gloved hand.
“You’re being kind.” I smile at Reece’s mother and stab a glower at my sister. “But fortunately, I don’t have to be—especially when it seems my sister left her filter behind in California.”
By this point, I’ve dug into my clutch and pulled out my phone, turning it into a perfect spanking paddle for Lydia’s toned backside. As she yelps from the smack, Trixie succumbs to another giggle. “It’s all right,” she tells us with a carefree wave of a hand. “Really. I have two sisters, and to this day we’d never dream of kidding with each other like that.” Her mirth ebbs into a wistful sigh. “If video killed the radio star, then country clubs killed the humanity of every trust fund kid in the eighties.”
Instinct prompts me to find Lydia with my gaze—where, in the ocean-blue depths of her own, I confront a surprise that wasn’t one of the twists for which I’ve tried to prepare tonight. The bond to what Trixie’s just said. At least the important parts. The stuff not really requiring a trust fund or an eighties adolescence to know. The murder of a kid’s soul, country club style.