by Dia Cole
He repeated my name slowly as if tasting it. “I like it. It’s unique and beautiful like you.” He flashed me a smile that instantly transformed him from intimidating to scorching hot.
My breath caught in my throat as his scent—sandalwood with a hint of something wild and earthy—teased my senses. All at once, I grew aware of the fact that he was standing mere inches away, caging me against his desk. Instead of scaring the hell out of me, I was suddenly aroused. Very aroused.
I licked my lips, fighting back the sudden fantasy of him lifting me up on his desk, spreading my thighs and…
“Ms. James.” He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring. His gaze dropped to the plunging neckline of my white blouse.
Tension and heat crackled in the air between us.
I breathed his name wanting nothing more than to grab his expensive shirt and drag him to me. God. What’s happening? Lust like I’d never felt before pulsed through my veins. I wanted him to touch me so badly it felt as if my skin was straining for his.
He closed the distance between us and tilted his mouth down. His peppermint-smelling breath washed over my face. His lips were centimeters from mine.
I arched up wanting more than anything to know his taste and brand it into my memory for all time.
He reached out and brushed his finger against the hollow of my neck.
An embarrassing moan escaped my lips.
Suddenly, he was several feet away.
Disoriented, I blinked as he lifted his hand.
“You had this on you.” He showed me a single blue sequin clinging to the tip of his finger.
“Oh,” was all I could manage. My head swam in a strange fog. My nipples throbbed, and my sex ached with need. I gasped, unable to stop my rapid breathing.
Looking completely unaffected, Nathan waved me toward the chair as he walked around his desk and settled back into a leather office chair. “Please sit down.”
Shaken to the core, I sank down into the chair on trembling legs. My skin felt flushed and damp. I wasn’t sure if I should run like hell away from him, or jump his bones.
Nathan flashed me a masculine grin as if he’d just read my mind. “You’re hired, Ms. James. When can you start?”
2
Nathan
As I escorted Vana out of my study, her seductive scent—exotic flowers and female musk—inflamed my senses and made me long for things I couldn’t have. I had to fist my hands to keep from reaching out and touching her honey-colored skin to see if it was as soft as it looked. I’d already flirted with danger by getting too close to her earlier. I couldn’t afford to make that mistake again.
I opened the door, relieved as hell to find the housekeeper on the other side. “Mrs. Pierce, please escort Ms. James out. She’ll return on Monday at eight to begin her employment. You may provide her with the gate code and let her know where to park.”
“Certainly,” Mrs. Pierce said, working to mask her shocked expression. Clearly she hadn’t anticipated me hiring a woman like Vana, after rejecting every one of the nearly hundred other more qualified, and much more conservatively dressed, candidates. To her credit, the older woman merely pinched her lips together, and motioned Vana to follow her down the hallway.
Before leaving, the alluring female turned and looked up at me. “Goodbye, Mr. Steele. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”
“Goodbye,” I managed as the endless depths of Vana’s dark eyes imprisoned me.
She unexpectedly grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
The feel of her skin against mine sent a surge of lust straight through my body. My thoughts fragmented under the sudden feverish need to pin her to the door and kiss her.
Thankfully, Mrs. Pierce sniffed loudly, saving me from crossing the line of sanity.
“Ms. James, you would do well to remember that Mr. Steele does not care to be touched.”
“Oh.” Vana immediately snatched her hand away. “I’m sorry.” Her forehead wrinkled, and I didn’t need to read her mind to tell she felt bad for violating some unwritten rule.
I offered a smile to ease her concern. “It’s quite all right.”
Vana let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Well, I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Eight a.m. sharp. Don’t be late, Ms. James,” I said before beating a hasty retreat into my study.
As I rested my head against the closed door, I loosened my tie with shaking hands. “Fuck.”
“Fuck is right, brother. What were you thinking in hiring her?”
I started at the sight of my best friend, Tyberius Digoski, stepping out of the shadows near the fireplace. The swarthy male leveled an accusatory look at me.
I glared back at him. “I forgot you were here.” How the six-foot-seven muscular Alpha male possessed the ability to disappear into the shadows had always been a mystery. However, it made him an excellent spymaster for his treacherous mother, and for me.
Ty’s eyes lightened to burnished gold as his lips quirked up. “I thought you were going to spread her out over your desk and put on a show for me for a change.”
“Right. Like that’s going to happen.” Bitterness swept over me. The silver I wore ensured my impotence. I glared down at the silver cuffs on my wrists. There were no chains on the bracelets, but I was shackled just the same.
Picking up on my thoughts, Ty frowned. “One day you’ll escape those cuffs and my mother. Then you’ll be free to enjoy an exquisite female like that.” He motioned over at the door. “To quote Byron, ‘She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.’”
I groaned. “Please don’t wax poetic right now, brother.”
Ty grinned. “I’d be happy to sample Havana’s charms for your viewing enjoymen—”
“No!” My voice boomed throughout the room. I blinked, more shocked by my reaction than Ty. The idea of the handsome Alpha male touching the female had me gritting my teeth.
Ty took a step back, his gaze widening. “You can’t be thinking of breaking your vow and taking off the cuffs. You know what my mother will do if—”
I raised my hand to cut him off. He didn’t need to continue. I knew very well what Tasha, the Alpha female who ruled our faction, would do if she found out I’d broken her shackles to have a romantic liaison with any female other than her. Hell, the bitch had ripped the throat out of the poor Omega who’d served me my last dinner at Winterhaven, because, according to Tasha, “the slut dared smile at my consort.”
But I wasn’t her consort anymore. Thank the fates. I’d only gotten three things out of the terrible bargain I’d been forced to make with her: my freedom from her bed, this home, and Mira’s life. I’d been forced to give up everything else including my freedom, my seat on the Council, my Lykos nature, and sex. But it’s worth it. I stepped around my desk and peered through the two-way observation mirror into the playroom.
Inside the room, the light of my life danced around a pile of stuffed animals on the floor. My chest tightened at Mira’s infectious giggle. I wondered what fantastical story she was making up in her adorable little head.
Moving so silently I didn’t hear him approach, Ty said, “Mira has a wild imagination, doesn’t she?”
Instead of being pissed he’d read my mind yet again, I nodded. “That she has. Like when we were boys.”
We both grinned and mentally shared memories of the antics we’d gotten into before… Before Ty’s mother had decided she desired me in her bed. Never mind the fact that I hadn’t celebrated my thirteenth birthday. She’d taken my innocence and ended our childhood games forever.
Sadness washed Ty’s smile away. “How I wish things had gone differently.” He too had been helpless to fight his mother’s depraved whims.
I took a deep breath knowing it was a waste of time to think about what could’ve been. “There’s no fighting Tasha. The best we can hope for is ensuring Mira’s safety by sticking to the bargain and not pissing off your she-bitch of a mother.”
Ty frowned. �
�A life lived in fear is no life, brother.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Where there’s life there’s hope.” And from the moment I held Mira’s tiny, squirmy body in my hands, I knew the sole purpose of my existence was to protect that life. At all costs.
The lingering trace of Vana’s sultry scent in the air taunted me. She can’t be mine, I reminded myself. But she can still help me. “The important thing is that we’ve finally found someone to care for Mira.” I glanced back through the glass only to find Mrs. Pierce handing Mira more cookies. “Damn it. I told Mira to stop compelling Mrs. Pierce.”
Ty chuckled. “A few treats won’t cause any harm. Mira’s just exploring her power.”
Her power. I fought the tremor that crept down my spine. Mira was an Alpha female, one of the rarest and most powerful of our kind. As such, she possessed the power to control the minds of humans and Lykos around her. And if she turned out anything like her mother…
Ty gently laid his hand on my shoulder. “Stop. She won’t turn out like the Beast. She’s got you and me to look out for her, and now a new nanny who’s immune to her compulsion.”
“Thank the fates,” I said, shaking my head. “The last nanny filled the entire house with puppies and kittens at Mira’s command.”
“Puppies and kittens, oh my!” mocked the Alpha male.
This was no joking matter. I gave him a hard look. “The nanny before that nearly died because Mira told her to fly off the staircase like a superhero.”
His smile faded. “Well, Havana is an Atavus so Mira’s antics are over.”
I grunted in agreement. Vana’s scent carried traces of Lykos pheromones that initially made me suspect her of being from a rival faction. However, her guileless responses to my probing questions under a heavy dose of compulsion proved she wasn’t full Lykos.
“Do you want me to check into her background?” Ty asked.
I nodded. “She seemed entirely in the dark about our species, but if she has ties to one of the rival factions, we need to know.” There was no question she had a Lykos ancestor. Years of inbreeding between Lykos and humans had resulted in the Atavus, distant generations that carried Lykos genes in their DNA. Although Atavus didn’t shift into wolves like we did, their dormant genes made them stronger than normal humans and more resistant to compulsion. It also increased their attractiveness to our kind.
My gaze was drawn back to the desk and the memory of how sexy Vana had looked leaning up against it. Once I’d smelled her desire for me, it’d taken all my self-control not to cup those beautiful breasts straining to escape her tight white shirt and—
Ty cleared his throat. “Havana’s a stunning female, brother. I too desired her the moment I saw her.”
A low rumbling growl escaped my lips. “Stay away from her.” Although over the years, Ty had seduced females at my request, I couldn’t stand the thought of him with Vana. She’s mine, my inner wolf howled.
A troubled expression crossed Ty’s face. “I’ve known you our entire lives and I’ve never seen you react to a female like this. Hell, I don’t think you even bothered to stay in the room when I took that blonde last night.”
I rubbed the silver cuff on my right wrist. “I wasn’t interested in the blonde.” Truth be told, golden-haired women repelled me. They reminded me of Tasha. I shuddered. Curvaceous females with hair as dark as a raven’s wing on the other hand…
Ty called my name to get my attention. “You’ve essentially invited temptation into your home, brother. What are you going to do about your attraction to Havana?”
“Nothing.” If I broke free of the cuffs and acted on my feelings, Tasha would find out. She always found out. Then she’d kill Vana and torture me. I didn’t mind the torturing part. It wasn’t as if I was a stranger to Tasha’s whips and knives, but I couldn’t live with myself if I caused the death of that beautiful, innocent female. Even worse, Tasha could decide to void our deal altogether. My heart pounded as I considered what that would mean for Mira.
“I’ll stay away from her,” I announced. It was simple. If I wasn’t around the nanny, she couldn’t possibly tempt me. Right?
3
Havana
Lost in the memory of my interview with Nathan, I parked my car in the nearly empty club parking lot and walked toward the door. Nathan had been… Intimidating. Fearsome. And sexy as hell. In my limited time on this earth, I’d never felt that kind of volcanic desire for any man. And that included more one-night stands than I was comfortable admitting to. If Nathan hadn’t seemed disinterested, I probably would’ve bounded onto his lap and given him the ride of his life.
And then I could’ve kissed the job goodbye. My heart sank at the realization that Nathan was completely off-limits. I sighed heavily. It figured the first man who really got my engines roaring would be the one man I couldn’t touch.
“Mistress Robin!” A large figure jumped out from behind a parked car and sent my heart racing around the lot.
Choking on my scream, I stared at the morbidly obese man standing in front of me. “Jeremy, what are you doing?”
Jeremy, whose ruddy face matched the red flowers of the sweat-stained Hawaiian shirt he was wearing, grinned. “I wanted to catch you before you went in.” His beady dark eyes traveled up and down my body, then glinted with hunger. “You look fantastic today. I like the professional look. Is it for a new set?”
“N-no. Look, I really need to get to work.” I looked around his shoulder at the club door. So close, but so far away.
“Just a second. I wanted to be sure you got my invitation. Did you get my messages?” He let out a giggling laugh like the kind a creepy clown would make. Ugh. I hated clowns.
“Yes,” I admitted with a sigh. All fourteen of them.
Jeremy reached out and grabbed my arm. “You’ll come to my party, won’t you?”
The slightly unhinged look in his eye kicked on my inner warning light. It was twilight and the dimly lit parking lot was deserted. It was just Jeremy and me. I glanced down at his sausage-like fingers clamped around my forearm. Shit. Why hadn’t I called Max to walk me in? Stupid mistake, Vana. Summoning my bravado, I said, “Jeremy, you know the club rules. You don’t touch the dancers.”
A sly look crossed his corpulent face. “We aren’t in the club, are we?” He tightened his grip on my arm.
Motherfucker. A mixture of nervousness and indignation had me straightening to my full height. “Get your hands off me.” With my free hand, I reached into my bag where I kept my folding knife.
“Are you going to punish me, Mistress Robin?” Jeremy said, his grin widening.
The sicko is enjoying this. A sliver of fear crept down my spine.
“Step away from the female,” a deep baritone voice ordered.
Jeremy and I looked up as a tall, dark-skinned man stepped from the shadows.
The unfamiliar male was huge, at least half a foot taller than Jeremy, with close-cropped dark hair and bulging muscles that strained against the black-on-black suit he wore.
Holy hotness. My jaw dropped as I saw the man’s face. His cheekbones were sharp enough to cut glass, and they were framed by a strong brow and sensual lips that would’ve put any male cover model to shame.
Jeremy’s fleshy mouth opened and closed in indignation. “Who the hell are you?”
“The male who’ll rip your head off if you don’t leave this female alone,” the tall guy growled. When Jeremy didn’t immediately back off, the man whipped off his sunglasses and glared down at him. “You will leave the premises and never return. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes,” gulped the fat man who quickly waddled toward his beat-up Honda and peeled out of the parking lot.
I let out a relieved sigh and then turned to the stranger “Thank you. I was just starting to freak out about that creep.”
My savior turned his stunning amber eyes on me. “Don’t worry about him. Males like him are harmless. He’s harmless.”
His deep voice washed over me
like melted chocolate, soothing my frayed nerves.
“It’s males like me you need to worry about.” His grin made the butterflies in my stomach take flight.
“Oh, really?” I said, returning his flirtatious smile.
“I’m Tyberius,” he said, holding his hand out to me.
“Havana,” I replied, noting how small my hand looked in his. “Are you the new bouncer?” Max had recently mentioned hiring additional muscle. Damn. I almost regretted my decision to put in my notice. Work would be a hell of a lot more fun with Tyberius around to drool over.
Tyberius shook his head. “No, I’m actually Mira’s uncle. I’m here to do a reference check on you for Nathan.”
Oh crap. I felt the blood leave my face. I may have fudged a little on the résumé I’d submitted with my nanny application. Okay, I’d fudged a lot. My stomach churned as I frantically tried to figure out a way of saving my ass. “You know in-person reference checks aren’t necessary. You can always just call.” I’d left Sydney’s number as my most recent place of employment. She was set to cover for me.
“I prefer to do business the old-fashioned way,” Tyberius said with a slight turn of his lips that left me wondering if he was already on to my ruse. “Let me walk you in.”
Shit. What do I do? The minute he walks in he’ll know I was lying. Unable to think of a Hail Mary solution, I walked stiffly through the door he held open for me.
The eighties hair metal song blaring from the DJ booth nearly blasted us both back into the parking lot.
Covering my ears, I choked on the oh so familiar aroma of whiskey, cigarette smoke, and sweat that seemed to be baked into the purple carpet tiles and faux Roman pillars scattered around the club. God, I’m so over this place. The unsettling interaction with Jeremy in the parking lot was just icing on an already moldy cake. I needed to get out of this place and the only thing standing in the way was Tyberius.