Iron Princess

by Meghan March

  “That’s the plan, then? Wait and see? Why not hunt them down?”

  I don’t answer, and she somehow works it out in her head.

  “Oh, wait. That’s not the job you’re getting paid to do.”

  “I’m not getting paid for this job. Mount owes me a favor now.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  We both go quiet, sipping our drinks and no doubt considering similar things.

  “I can’t make you any promises, except I’ll do what I can, and at the end of the day—you will be safe.”

  She studies me for long moments. She must realize that’s all she’s going to get from me, so she nods. “Okay.”

  Now I have to change the subject before she twists herself up about this anymore. There’s nothing either of us can do tonight. I’ve put out the word I need carried, and now I wait.

  “How did you start making metal sculptures?” I ask.

  The question has been hovering in my subconscious since she confessed to being the artist of the piece I bought. I would have made the donation to Mary’s House regardless, but the piece hooked me. Once I saw it, I had to own it. Knowing Temperance made it . . . that made both it and her even more incredible.

  Temperance’s gaze drops to the liquor in her glass as if it’s the most fascinating thing in the entire world. “When you grew up how I did, there weren’t a lot of options to keep a kid busy. Rafe loved to hunt and fish and explore the swamp. He told me a story about an eighteen-foot gator he saw and scared the hell out of me one summer. I wouldn’t get in a boat for months, no matter how much my dad yelled at me. Instead, I hung around his workshop and collected scrap metal, and started to put it together to make stuff. Eventually, when I got older, I learned to solder and then weld, and it kind of took on a life of its own. I never intended to sell it. It didn’t occur to me that people would pay, especially that kind of money, for things like that.”

  I think about how much all the other bidders had been willing to pay. Temperance’s work has a market. There’s no doubt about that.

  “And now that you have? What does that mean for your job at Seven Sinners?”

  She looks up at me from beneath long, dark eyelashes. “I’m pretty sure this is a case of don’t quit your day job.” She smiles, but it looks more like a grimace.

  “But you don’t sound like you love your day job.” To myself, I add, and you don’t light up when you talk about it like you do your art.

  “Parts of it,” she says, correcting me.

  “So even if you make enough to live on from your sculptures, you’re going to keep working at the distillery?”

  She pauses like she hasn’t even considered the possibility. “It’s not a reliable source of income. Plus, it’s not as respectable as being a COO.”

  Her response surprises me. “Respectable? Really? You give a shit about that?”

  Her eyes narrow on me. “You try being bayou trash and tell me how it feels.”

  Ahhh. And another piece of the puzzle that is the fascinating Temperance Ransom falls into place. “So you’d keep a job you don’t like over quitting to do what you love, just because of what other people think?”

  “You don’t get it.” She takes another sip.

  “No, I guess I don’t. After all, I’m pretty sure I don’t have what you’d call a respectable job, and it doesn’t bother me a damn bit. Actually, fuck respectability and what anyone else thinks. It doesn’t matter. Having a respectable job doesn’t make someone a good person.”

  11

  Temperance

  Kane’s answer is mind-blowing. He’s a hit man. He kills people for a living. How can he not care what people would think of that? Then again, it’s not something he probably tells many people, but still.

  “You do have a point, I guess.”

  To that, he says nothing, just drinks contemplatively. I take a cue from him and do the same.

  When my glass is empty, the heat from the bourbon is flowing in my veins and I feel a lot more mellow. Maybe this is why people drink. It takes away all the bad shit.

  Normally I’m only good for one or two glasses of wine, so multiple shots of hard liquor go straight to my head.

  “You should have an Alfred,” I blurt.

  A burst of rusty laughter gets away from him. “What’s your obsession with Batman?”

  “I really don’t have one. I just find this whole thing to be surreal, and if you had a butler with a British accent, I’d truly believe I was dreaming.”

  He plucks the glass out of my hand. “I think you’ve had enough.”

  “That stuff didn’t even taste that bad.”

  He laughs. “If you knew how much it cost, you probably would’ve choked on it.”

  “Or felt really bad when I spit it out on your nice rug. Who decorated this place, anyway?”

  I scan the cavernous room—which manages to be masculine, inviting, and functional at the same time—with its exposed ductwork, metal and wood beams, expensive contemporary furniture, and mahogany-and-cream color scheme.

  “I did.”

  “Wow.” Although, I probably shouldn’t be surprised, considering he probably couldn’t go hire an interior designer to decorate his secret hideout of a warehouse. Bat cave still sounds cooler. Especially now that I’m tipsy.

  “One more drink,” I say, not wanting to lose this feeling. In the warmth of my buzz, I’m able to let go of the worry about everything I can’t control, even if only for an hour or two. Reality will descend soon enough.

  “I thought you didn’t drink.”

  I roll my eyes. “You really think my name holds true?”

  “No, but you never went to the bar in the club to get a drink.”

  “Because I didn’t know about it until Magnolia showed me. Besides, it seemed like there were some creepers there.”

  His brows dive together. “Who?”

  “Some guy named Giles. Sounded pretentious as hell. I thought names weren’t allowed there anyway, so it was weird that Magnolia let it slip.”

  Something flashes across Kane’s expression, but it’s gone before I can attempt to interpret its meaning. Not that I’m in top form, or really good at reading the tiny things his expression gives away at all.

  But I want to be.

  That thought rocks my foundation. I’m already grappling with the fact that I still have a serious case of lust for a hit man, and now I’m threatened with maybe liking the guy. I shouldn’t want to know him better.

  My rational brain intrudes with a counterargument. Your brother is a criminal who apparently ripped off some very bad people. Does that make you love him less?

  Touché, brain. Touché.

  “If I could read minds . . .” His deep voice interrupts my train of thought.

  “What?”

  “I was thinking I would learn a hell of a lot of interesting stuff if I could read yours.”

  I shake my head but the realization stays stuck. I could like a hit man. That’s not happening.

  So I lie, which is something I seem to do all too often around him tonight. “Not really. It’s mostly boring in there.”

  “Not with as often as you must think about me naked,” he says with a wicked grin.

  Images of him flashing the same wicked grin as he stalked toward me at the club dominate my mind, and I mumble, “Well, I am now.”

  Both his eyebrows go up, and I fall further and further down the rabbit hole. He’s too attractive for his own good. And when I think about what’s beneath that placket of buttons and those perfectly tailored pants . . .

  No. I need to stop thinking about that. I need to stop thinking about all of it. How devastating he was with his hands, his mouth, his . . .

  I tip back the drink and down it all in a final gulp.

  “Easy there.”

  I ignore him and help myself to another measure of booze. I’ve never been the sort to find my oblivion in a bottle, but I’m starting to understand why it’s such a popular solu
tion.

  Have a problem? Add alcohol, and the edges go fuzzy and your brain slows down. Still bothering you? Obviously, have a little more, or just get black-out drunk and you won’t remember anything.

  My better judgment pipes up to remind me that I’m in the company of a killer. A killer with the most incredible eyes I’ve ever seen and the best taste in art.

  I wander away from his piercing stare and stand in front of a totem pole in the corner with an eagle’s beak and wings extending from the top.

  “Tell me about the rest of your art. It’s a pretty eclectic collection.” My tongue threatens to stumble over the last syllables, but I manage. Just barely.

  “I’m a man of eclectic tastes.” His tone carries a hint of suggestion, like we’re not only talking about his taste in art.

  “Meaning you were banging a brunette, a blonde, and a redhead all at the same time?” The question pops out, and I don’t want to take it back. It’s been bugging me since the night he stood me up. Was he with another woman?

  Now I realize it’s more likely that he wasn’t, but I have no proof. Is it strange that I’d prefer he was out killing someone rather than having sex with another woman?

  There’s something seriously wrong with me.

  Another laugh spills free, and this one sounds less rusty than the first. “Just one delicious brunette.” His voice curls around my ear as the heat of his body penetrates the back of my blouse.

  I spin around. “How do you move so freaking quietly? It’s creepy. Like Edward Cullen’s crazy speed.” I pause, my bookish imagination going wild. “Are you a vampire?”

  His entire expression softens as he throws his head back and fills the wide-open space with laughter.

  “You’re one of a kind, Temperance. Truly,” he says, and I soak up the compliment like sunshine after a hurricane. “Any other questions?”

  I open my mouth to rattle off one of the many I have, but he presses a finger to my lips.

  “Never mind. I know what the answer is to that. I’ll give you the answers I can. In time.” He pauses, his icy blue eyes flashing like dry lightning. “But I like that you were jealous.”

  “I wasn’t jealous.”

  “Liar.”

  He drags his finger across my bottom lip, and my tongue darts out to lick it.

  “You’re playing a very dangerous game, Temperance.”

  I like that he says my name. For some reason, it makes me feel more certain. We aren’t two complete strangers anymore. He knows who I am and where I come from, and he still looks at me the same way he did before—like he wants to devour me.

  “Haven’t you heard? My life’s a dangerous game.” I don’t know where that sultry, sexy voice came from as my eyelids flutter closed and I lean toward him, my lips anticipating the brush of his.

  But it doesn’t come.

  I blink and stare at him. His features have lost their heat, turning to stone.

  “It shouldn’t be. You should be safe. Fuck your brother for dragging you into this. Fuck me for ever touching you. Both of us should be shot.”

  All my good feelings from a few moments ago dissolve, and it pisses me off. I liked those feelings.

  I poke him in the chest with a finger. “Get off your high horse. I know what you are now, and you don’t see me running in the other direction because . . . You. Don’t. Scare. Me.” I punctuate each of the last four words with another poke.

  Lightning flashes through his gaze again, and his jaw flexes. “So be it.”

  Before I can truly comprehend what’s happening, he sweeps me into his arms and we’re moving toward the stairs. The world spins, and I wrap my arms around his neck. Kane is a rock in the world of chaos swirling around me.

  The upper level of his place is dark, but he moves with confidence. If he can see in the dark, I wouldn’t be surprised. When he lowers me to my feet, I expect to be in a bedroom, but there are walls of glass and mirrors.

  A bathroom?

  He flips the lights on low and I see what appears to be a shower. When he steps inside and hits a few controls, steam blooms from nozzles.

  Despite the warming temperature in the room, my nipples peak and my clit throbs. My inhibitions apparently faded with each shot of liquor I drank, and I reach for the buttons of my blouse.

  He brushes my hands away before undoing the buttons one at a time. “When you walked into that room for the first time, I felt like I took a sledgehammer to the chest.”

  I lift my gaze to his.

  “And when you realized what was happening in the next room? I’ve never seen anything so fucking sexy in my life. How badly did you want to touch yourself?”

  I can’t even begin to describe how badly when he’s looking at me like that.

  He reaches the last button and pushes the silk over my shoulders. I let it fall to the floor.

  “I wanted to watch you touch yourself while you watched them. It took everything I had to stop you.”

  My hands go to the button of my jeans, but Kane’s already there. He peels them down my legs and I stand before his crouching form, dying for him to touch me again.

  “Why did you?”

  “The second you touched yourself, I would’ve pinned you to the desk.”

  My nipples tighten, imagining him coming out of the shadows to take me like the man had owned that woman. The image of him fucking her face flashes across my brain. I wanted that. Now, I just want my stranger.

  No, not a stranger anymore. I want Kane.

  He rises to his feet before me. In his jeans and T-shirt, he’s even more devastating than in the suit he wore that night. The sleeves stretch around his biceps, and every inch of ink-covered skin makes me want to trace the lines with my tongue, pushing away the clothing that hides the rest of it. He’s big and forbidden, but somehow, that makes him infinitely more striking. And he’s struck me so hard as to knock me completely off-balance.

  He’s a dangerous man. A man I shouldn’t be drawn to. Shouldn’t want more than I want to breathe right now. But I do. And as much as I want to throw my control at his feet, I hang on to a thread, telling myself it matters.

  Taking a step toward the billowing steam, I reach behind my back to unhook my bra, shrug it down my arms, and pull it free before dropping it.

  “You want to watch me now, don’t you?”

  “Fuck yes.”

  His voice sounds ragged, almost as needy as the one inside my head, and a surge of power fills me as I strip off my panties, reach back to find the glass door, and push it open. Steam envelops me, and the heat intensifies everything I’m already feeling.

  “I want to watch you touch yourself too.” I’ve thought about that more than I want to admit since that first night.

  I let the door close with me inside and keep moving back until my shoulder blades hit the tile. The hair around my face curls into tiny ringlets from the humidity, and my fingertips send chills skating across my skin when I drag them over my collarbone.

  His eyes flash, and I feel like I’m taunting a wild animal. It’s more intoxicating than the liquor.

  “You must like dangerous games, because you’re playing one again.” His voice is deeper, rougher, like maybe he’s half as affected by me as I am by him.

  I want to make him burn for me. I want to force him to lose his grip on his iron control. What would happen if he stopped holding back and just took?

  “I’m just getting started. Feel free to jump in whenever you’d like.” I skim over my nipples, and they tighten impossibly harder before I thumb them.

  Kane’s nostrils flare just before he reaches behind his neck and pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it on the floor. His gaze locks on mine, saying the next move belongs to me.

  Good Lord, he’s ridiculously sexy. His body couldn’t be more perfect if a great master carved it from stone and then added his tattoos in perfect strokes. I’m so far out of my league, it’s not even funny. And yet, his big hands flex at his sides like he can barely kee
p himself from ripping the glass door off the shower to get to me.

  Another wave of need and power wash over me, spurring me on. I circle the tight buds like I’m about to pluck them, but I don’t. I’m a tease.

  Kane takes a menacing step forward before he remembers his jeans and boots. The shoes go first, and then he makes quick work of the button fly. His cock pops out without briefs to hold it back, and he shoves the jeans down before kicking them aside. He takes another step forward, but instead of ripping the door open, he leans against it, his fingers splayed on the glass as he stares at me.

  “You don’t have any fucking idea what you do to me. You’re an unholy temptation.”

  12

  Kane

  Temperance, the unholy temptation. It’s exactly what she is. Maybe that’s why I was so drawn to her even from the beginning, when I told myself I wouldn’t touch her. But everything about her—from each strand of the thick, dark hair on her head to the smooth skin taunting me as it wraps around every curving inch of her body—was made to destroy my control.

  Maybe to destroy me.

  I’ve never wanted anything in my life as badly as I want her. And all it does is grow and spread until I’m consumed by her.

  Throw in her attitude and the streak of vulnerability she tries to hide? She has no idea of the power she has over me. It’s not because I’m watching her tease herself, dragging her fingertips over her nipples and back again, that I’m caught in her snare.

  No. It’s everything that is Temperance Ransom. She’s got me by the balls.

  I’m trapped. Willingly.

  God help me if she ever finds out.

  “Are you coming in?”

  She plucks at her nipples again, and I want to tug one between my teeth and make her moan myself, but that’s not what started this. I want to watch her touch herself more than I want to live to see tomorrow.

  “Are you going to be a good girl when I do?”

  A catlike smile curls her lips upward before they form a single word. “No.”

  Fuck. This woman is beyond dangerous.

  The first time was supposed to be playing with fire and getting out before I got burned, but when she ran from the room, I was nowhere near ready for her to go. But still, I told myself never again.