Page 20 of Wicked Dares
He looks just as menacing asleep as he does awake. It’s the dark brows and the sharp cut of his jawline. You can’t tame those.
The gentle rise and fall of his chest are the only things that look soft about him. And even then, that’s beneath the rigid peaks of muscle and the tattoos of ravens in flight lining the entire left side of his abs.
It’s time to go. Leave before my curiosity can tempt me. Besides, I have work.
It’s the first real day of the rest of my life.
Slowly, I shift from under his arm and free myself. Thankfully, I don’t disturb him.
I slide off the bed, my feet meeting soft carpet.
I look around for my clothes and remember they never made it upstairs, so I grab the next best thing to cover my nakedness: his shirt.
I shrug into it, pulling it around my body. I hope no one is downstairs.
This looks like the kind of house where there would be housekeepers or someone along that line.
We’re in the Hamptons. That much I know. Mr. Wicked lives in a mansion-sized beach house that looks like something from a TV show about celebrities.
Last night when I got here, that was the only thing I processed before he consumed me. And the fact that he must bemeh-garich.
I give him one last look.
“Thank you for making me feel alive again,” I murmur.
We would never meet again.
Like the passing ships, it is time to say goodbye.
With that, I leave.
Chapter Four
LEVI
Trying to focus on an important meeting after a night like last night is like trying to get me to search for a pen in the ocean.
It’s just not happening.
I can get past the exhaustion—it was worth it, and it’s not like I haven’t stayed up all night before.
But what I can’t wrap my head around is her.
My butterfly.
The girl with the long red waves who dragged me into a wild fantasy I shouldn’t have wanted.
I don’t even know her name, and somehow, she still found a way under my skin.
The sweet little thing was exactly my kind of girl. When she danced and laughed, she didn’t care who was watching. And she was daring. The way she looked at me right before I kissed her told me she knew better, but she did it anyway.
My father's voice carries across the boardroom, every word delivered with the precision of a man who expects the world to fall in line. It always does.
Jeremiah Vale is a legend in the business world, a man who could turn anything into millions with the golden touch of his hand.
He stands at the head of the room in his charcoal Brioni, hair perfectly trimmed, looking every inch the man who built the empire he now commands as he walks us through the next quarter’s projections.
He doesn’t look like he’s almost sixty. Doesn’t look like he has five grown children, either—though to him, my nineteen-year-old sister Adeline might as well be twelve.
