by Romi Hart
Bernard said he knew everything about Anarock and Finn believed him. He had no reason to doubt the man’s word. He knew about Colonel Weeks. He knew about the Omega Battalion. He knew everything.
How did a house Crest of Anarock get so much money if not from illegal dealings? That wouldn’t normally give Finn any pause. Everybody had to make a living and he was no saint himself, but these people gave him the shivers. He never before encountered anyone as hard and determined and ice-cold.
He always considered himself hard and determined and ice-cold. He indulged in the conceit that he, of everyone in the Prometheus Crest, had the stones to do what he wanted and to hell with the consequences.
These Novaks made even Finn hesitate to interact with them. He questioned if he could stand next to any of them, even Claire—especially Claire. That conversation about the truck and the suppliers who tried to screw over the Crest struck Finn as the closest thing to a death threat he’d heard in years.
He never heard anything like that in the Prometheus Crest. Victor and Colonel Weeks and all their kith and kin were far too kind-hearted and merciful to ever inflict retribution of that kind on anyone who crossed them. They never inflicted retribution on anyone, period—not real retribution, not the kind that counted.
Victor let his brother Bryce get off scot-free for blatant treachery. He should have cut his brother’s throat in front of the whole fucking Crest. Instead, he let Bryce walk out of Anarock alive and well without even a slap on the wrist. Now every report put Bryce in charge of the Omega Battalion preparing to invade Anarock all over again.
The Novaks would never do something like that. Finn could see that painted on every face and now he heard those very words coming out of Claire’s pretty rosy mouth. These people would never suffer their enemies to survive to attack them another day. They would retaliate with ruthless certitude and put their enemies in the ground. They would send a clear, strong message to the rest of the world that crossing the SeamStream Crest didn’t pay.
Bernard ran this shop, but Claire was the hardest and coldest and most determined of them all. Finn could see that plain as day. Her hypnotic charm and enthralling beauty did nothing to hide it and even enhanced it.
All these years, Finn prided himself on being able to cast his charm on any woman he wanted. He could bewitch them with his eyes and bend them to his will. Now he saw Claire doing exactly the same thing to him and he couldn’t stop himself from falling under her influence.
Where would this end? What would she make him do? Would she make him turn against his own Crest? How was that possible? Even so, he didn’t see himself extricating himself from this situation as much as he wanted to.
He didn’t want to. That was the honest truth. He enjoyed the attention too much. He enjoyed getting his ego stroked, not just by her but by all these powerful people who made him believe they thought so much of him. Even Bernard insinuated Finn was smarter than the rest of the Prometheus Crest.
He saw it all happening apart from himself, but he also saw how powerless he was to stop it. Was he really this weak? Would he really bend to the first person or group of people who caressed his pathetic little ego or was there something more sinister going on?
These people were mutants. He had to remember that at all costs. They weren’t rich and powerful humans. They were mutants of Anarock. They were a house Crest of the same people to which Finn belonged and no one in the Prometheus Crest knew what power the SeamStream Crest had.
They could be magicians. They could be shifters. They could be anything. Whatever their power, they could be using it on him right now. They could be bewitching him to swing the negotiation. Why on Earth wouldn’t they? They would do a lot more than that to get what they wanted.
No wonder they had money coming out of their ears. No wonder they controlled the wealthiest business on Canal Street. God only knew what else they had going on behind the scenes. How the fuck would they be able to get all that without some hidden power?
The limo stopped and Fin woke from his thoughts. The door opened and Claire got out. He followed in a daze, but when he straightened up, his jaw dropped and he snapped alert with every sense zinging. “What the hell is this?”
Claire turned to him with that enthralling smile glowing out of her exquisite features. “This is our house.”
5
Claire studied Finn’s profile taking in the house on St. Charles Avenue. He blinked at it in a curious mixture of astonishment and horror. He traced the high wrought-iron railings decorating the balconies rising into the upper floors. Ancient oak trees dripped moss and mistletoe. Insects rasped in the gardens sprawled around the mansion.
Claire slipped her hand into his arm again. It gave her another opportunity to touch him, to feel his body inside his clothes. His presence seeped heat into her middle until she burned with desire. She never encountered a man who affected her like this.
She tried to draw him up the front steps, but he shrank back. “I shouldn’t. I should get home. I don’t think…”
She tightened her grip on his arm. She couldn’t let him get away, not now when she got him this close. “It’s all right. No one expects you to do anything. Just come inside and have dinner with us. No one will be there that you didn’t meet at the office. You know you get along all right with them.”
He brushed his fingertips across his mouth. “I should probably change my clothes. I wasn’t planning on this.”
“You’re fine the way you are.” She gave his bicep a squeeze. His muscular shoulders and solid arm felt good against her breast and belly. She stopped short of rubbing her body against him even though she wanted to.
The very fact that the house shocked him drove home to her mind that he was alien. He belonged to another Crest. He was a dragon shifter. That alone captivated her. She couldn’t look away. Everything about him attracted her nearer to him.
He relented and let her steer him up the steps. She watched the reaction spread over his features the farther into the house they went. His eyes popped when the pair entered the vaulted foyer tiled in black and white checkerboard. The French Colonial decorations around the ceilings made him hesitate more than once.
He stared at every painting on the walls, every shiny side table and the brocade drapes sweeping away from the windows. He blinked so much she had to propel him to take every step.
She guided him into the parlor. The instant they entered, Damien appeared from somewhere. He strode up to Finn and held out his hand. He didn’t wait for Finn to shake it. He grasped Finn’s other elbow and gripped his shoulder. “You made it! I wasn’t sure you would come. Make yourself at home. Dinner will be at six. The rest of us will be in and out until then, so you’ll have the run of the place. Just listen for the dinner bell, but it doesn’t look like Claire plans let you out of her sight.”
He cast a meaningful grin at his sister and Claire’s stomach flipped. So he knew. Damien always knew when Claire liked someone. That meant everybody else picked up on it, too. The family never hid anything from each other.
Damien strolled to the other side of the room. Finn stared at him from behind, but Damien didn’t notice. He bent over the roll-top desk sorting through some papers.
Claire saw her chance and sidled closer to Finn. She took hold of his arm and pressed it tighter. “Would you like to come upstairs for a little while? It’s more comfortable up there.”
He whipped around, but he neglected to withdraw himself from her hold. “What? Upstairs! What do you mean?”
Damien didn’t turn around, so Claire dropped her voice to a confidential murmur. “No one’s around. I can show you the house or we could find a quiet place to sit and talk. Would you like that?”
His black face hovered before her eyes. His eyes bored into her depths. She wasn’t used to this. His full, soft lips enticed her. What would he taste like if she kissed him right now?
Without thinking, she let her other hand slip around his waist and down the back of his thi
gh. She glided it up against the tight crease of his ass. His body softened with an ever-so-slight melting sensation when she touched him like that. His lips parted to show his teeth and his pupils dilated, but only for an instant before he stiffened. “I shouldn’t.”
Without turning around or even glancing at the pair, Damien strode out of the room. He let the door slam shut behind him and Finn snapped around to stare. He didn’t seem to know what to do in these new circumstance, so Claire took the matter in hand.
She gave him a subtle shove. “Come upstairs. No one will bother us up there.”
He didn’t answer. That effervescent yielding softness in his limbs acquiesced to her silent commands. She sensed him falling into her grasp and the realization thrilled her beyond belief. She wanted him and she would get him. She always got what she wanted in the end.
She escorted him out of the parlor to the grand staircase. She walked him upstairs and he offered no resistance. He got far too distracted by the house. He didn’t notice her feeling him through his clothes.
Her keen ears detected where in the house her siblings and her father worked and handled their own business. They would hear her taking Finn upstairs and they would know to steer clear. The Novak family understood each other far too well not to understand what was going on.
On the second floor, she pretended to give him a tour of the house. She showed him the conservatory and the library and the upstairs lounge with its impeccable couches surrounding the sunken seating area.
She stopped on the threshold of a guest room overlooking the western gardens. She wouldn’t have entered, but Finn wandered through the door and rotated in a complete circle. She couldn’t tell how much of the details he actually saw.
He blinked at the large canopy bed and the ebony dresser with the china water pitcher and bowl resting on a lace runner. His limpid black eyes sank closed and he blew out a long sigh. “I don’t think I could ever get used to this.”
She observed him from the doorway. Even from several feet away, he fascinated her at a visceral level. “We’re all so bored with it that we don’t notice it.”
“It’s so different from what I’m used to,” he breathed. “We don’t have anything like this in Central.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” She dared to inch toward him. As much as she wanted to touch him again and again in a thousand ways, she held back. “Life would be pretty boring if we were all alike.”
He shook his head and rotated toward the window. He didn’t seem aware of her at all. “Something tells me you wouldn’t get used to life in Central City.”
“Don’t be so certain. We can be very adaptable when we need to be.”
He surprised her by glancing at her over his shoulder. His eyes sparkled with sudden acuity. Just for a moment, he revealed the steel with which he stood up to Bernard at the conference. “Is that so?”
She had to smile at him. Hot blood rushed to her cheeks when he looked at her like that. Those eyes bored into her and excited her out of her mind, but she couldn’t show him that. She craved him more than ever when he moved into his own strength, when he didn’t fall into the trap of getting distracted by the wealth and power surrounding him. “Yes. It is so.”
He turned around again and the moment passed. He drifted into his thoughts where she couldn’t reach him. He gazed through the window looking west. “It doesn’t seem possible that they’re all over there right now. They’re right there almost close enough to touch, but they seem like they’re on the other side of the world. I have to try hard just to remember them and their world doesn’t seem real. I can’t believe people really live like that right over there, just a few miles away, while over here, people are living like…. like this.”
She drifted up behind him. The minute she acknowledged to herself that she wanted him, she gave in to that urge and slipped her arms around his waist. She leaned against his back and inhaled a deep lungful of his scent on his neck.
He surprised her again by not jerking away or trying to break free. He remained standing there gazing through the window. He didn’t remove her arms from him. In fact, he relaxed into her embrace as though he expected it and even wanted it. He sighed.
She didn’t say anything to break the stillness. She sank into the deep darkness of his being. He enticed her into himself where she couldn’t see anything or understand anything. She’d never met a man who did this to her. Most men left her cold and bored. They didn’t engage her beyond the physical.
Her nose brushed his neck and she pressed her mouth and cheek to his skin where the arrow of black hair pointed toward his collar. Just for a moment, he returned the pressure of that touch leaning into her. He let out a sigh that shook him to his very core. God, he felt good when he sank into her arms like that.
The next minute, he tore himself away and whipped around. He rounded on her glaring. “No! Don’t do that.”
Claire expected that—in fact, she expected it long before now. She stayed where she was for a second and surveyed him up and down. She suppressed a knowing smile at the tension racking him. “What’s the matter, Finn? Don’t the girls of the Prometheus Crest do it for you anymore?”
His eyes snapped open and he bared his teeth at her. His features hardened, but his body still trembled with the barely veiled charge running through his nerves. He gritted his teeth and his lips curled back growling at her. “What are you trying to do to me? Is this your way of influencing the negotiation?”
She couldn’t hold back a wicked grin. She wanted him so bad and he stood so close and intense. She sensed him falling under her command. She sauntered a few steps closer. Her body shimmered with the heat burning her up inside. “How could I influence the negotiation when there isn’t one going on? Can’t I want you without it having anything to do with business?”
He staggered a few steps away and bumped into the bedstead. He shook his head fast staring at her in blank horror. “You’re trying to mess with my head. You’re doing something to me.”
She recognized the signs of him losing control. She stopped where she was, but she couldn’t stop grinning at him. His frenzy intoxicated her beyond measure. “I’m not doing anything to you, Finn. I want you and I touched you. That’s all. This has nothing to do with the negotiation.”
He raised his forefinger and pointed at her shaking his head in wordless dread. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a bell rang far away. It echoed through the house until the corridors and rooms rang hollow and lonely.
Claire knew otherwise, though. The others would hear. That bell would call them to dinner and she had to go. That sound acted on Finn with unmistakable force. He spasmed sideways and bolted for the door. He staggered through it casting one backward glance in her direction before he vanished around the corner.
She smiled again—to herself this time. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. His body told her so. The fact that he wouldn’t give in made her indescribably happy. It thrilled her more than anything. She wanted to chase him, to pursue him, to capture him and make him capitulate. The more he resisted in spite of his own obvious desire, the more he fired her passions to experience everything about him.
Her flesh quivered for any whiff of his scent. Her juices dripped between her legs as she imagined savoring again the supple velvet of his neck against her mouth. Crushing erotic fantasies infected her mind when she breathed on his skin. She wanted to shatter in him, in the catastrophic climax of fulfilling her deepest passions with him.
He understood. He knew everything he did to her and everything she did to him. He wasn’t stupid enough not to recognize the signs. He wouldn’t resist her if he didn’t know.
He resisted because he wanted it because it affected him the same way. She read that in his body, in his trembling agitation every time she came near him, every time she even looked at him.
Voices drifted up the stairs. He was down there right now. He was talking to her brothers and her father. He was sitting down
to dinner in her house. She should be down there, too, but she didn’t want to share him with anyone. She wanted him all to herself to do what she wanted with him.
6
Finn followed the sound of voices. He spotted the Novaks he met at the office. They gathered in an enormous dining room like something out of Buckingham fucking Palace. They surrounded a table the size of Wrigley Field. Damien sipped Scotch out of a cut crystal tumbler. Lucy twirled a sparkling wine glass between her fingers. She laid the burgundy liquid to her lips in between talking to her brothers.
Finn cringed behind the corner. He rested his forehead against the wall and shut his eyes to catch his breath. Claire’s attention threw him into an emotional turmoil he didn’t know how to cope with.
What the fuck was she doing to him? He kept telling himself she was casting a spell over him, but that wasn’t true. She wasn’t using magic. He spent enough time around magic users to know that.
She didn’t need to use magic. Her body and her eyes and her milky smooth skin did something to his blood. It threw stardust over his brain so he couldn’t think.
What was wrong with him? He spent his life using his own magnetic presence to confound women and get them to do what he wanted. He didn’t know what to do with a woman who did the same thing back to him. He had to fight every second just to keep his head screwed on straight. He had to struggle to resist falling into her and getting consumed by her. How could he do that when he really did want her?
He wanted her. There. He let himself admit that much. He wanted all of her. He wanted her trailing her nose up his neck to his ear. He wanted her rosy mouth grazing his skin. He wanted to smell her and taste her and feel her all over him.
The problem was he never seemed to get out of her presence. He hadn’t been out of it since he first laid eyes on her. She stuck to him like a barnacle. She never gave him a fraction of a second to figure out what he thought or what he felt or what he wanted.