Page 38 of Beautiful Savage
Five and a half minutes total. I cross back to Daphne's table where Adrian's been holding court, making my absence invisible to anyone watching. We exchange a look. His eyes flick to my right hand where the knuckles are scraped, then back up. A smile plays at his mouth, the kind that says he approves. He stands, melts back into the crowd to continue his reign.
I take the seat beside Daphne, my cock half-hard from the violence, from defending what's mine.
She doesn't speak. Hasn't looked at me since the man approached. But her right hand moves across the table corner, and my breath catches. Her fingertips find the back of my right hand, trace the skinned knuckles where they met his teeth. Two small breaks in the skin, pinheads of dried blood. She doesn't look, doesn't need to. She knows exactly what those marks mean. Holds the contact for two seconds, her skin on my damaged skin, before returning her hand to her lap.
The not-asking is everything. She knows what I did. She touched the hand that did it. She's choosing not to refuse me, and fuck if that doesn't make me want to take her right here on this table.
My right hand comes up to her bare back. Palm flat against her skin, and Christ, she's warm. Not a caress. A claiming. The room sees it. Marisol's table sees it. The same hand that just drew blood now marking her as mine in front of Miami's underworld.
She doesn't flinch from me. She never has. Her breath shifts slightly under my palm, a tiny catch that goes straight to my cock, but she keeps watching the Siren sing. The room watches her accept my bloodied hand on her bare skin, watches her choose the monster.
Forty seconds pass like forty years. The Siren finishes her song. Applause erupts, covering what just happened. The violence, the return, the claim. I remove my hand only when the applause begins, already missing her heat.
The Siren's last song begins. Slow, sensual, the kind that makes hundred-thousand-dollar deals get made in dark corners. Couples drift toward the dance floor. Others head to the bar for final champagne.
I extend my hand to Daphne. She turns from the stage, looks first at my hand with its scraped knuckles, evidence of violence for her, then up at my face. Those dark eyes hold mine for a beat that rewrites my DNA. Then she places her hand in mine.
The dance floor is half-full of Miami's elite. We find space near the center, and I'm hyperaware that we're about to become the room's focus. My right hand goes to her bare lower back where the gown ends, and fuck, touching her skin is like touching live electricity. Left hand holds her right, trying not to grip too tight. Her left hand on my shoulder burns through the suit. Six inches between our bodies.
We move. I'm not a dancer. Learned the basics at some Delgado wedding years ago where everyone was too drunk to notice I had no rhythm. But she is. She makes me look better than I am, following my clumsy lead with the grace of someone who could dance through gunfire. The Siren's voice wraps around us like silk.
Daphne looks at my face. Really looks, not sliding past like the world does, not flinching from the scar or the broken nose or the violence written in every line. Her dark eyes steady on mine like she's seeing through to something that might be worth saving. I look back. The mutual gaze we've been building toward since that first morning when she dropped her performance and let me see the real Daphne.
She steps closer, closing six inches to three, and her breasts brush against my chest through silk and wool. My cock goes fully hard, and there's no hiding it at this distance. Her hair grazes my jaw. She smells like heaven.
My palm presses against her bare back, and I fight not to slide it lower, to grab her ass in front of everyone and show them exactly how much I own her. She responds by pressing closer, and I know she feels my cock against her stomach, know she's choosing not to pull away.
I think about the decision five nights ago. That I'm keeping her. How this dance is part of a permanent arrangement she doesn't know about. The public claim is only half the truth. Underneath runs possession that will outlast the Pentagon announcement, outlast her father's calls, outlast everything except death.
The song ends. Applause for the Siren. I release Daphne slowly, already plotting how to get her alone, how to finally take what I've been denying myself.
We leave the floor together, my hand on her lower back again because I can't stop touching her. Past Adrian's approving nod, Logan and Wren's careful acknowledgment that speaks volumes, Isa's usual glare from behind the bar, Marisol's deliberately turned shoulder that hurts more than I'll admit. Through the staff door. Up the service stairs while my mind runs through everything I want to do to her.
The apartment door closes behind us.
15 - Gunner
The door closes behind us, and the click of it travels through my entire body. The apartment thrums with unspoken need, lamp light painting Daphne’s silk gown in shades of gold and shadow. Her bare shoulders still carry the heat of three hundred watching eyes from downstairs, but now there’s only mine, and the hunger in them could burn this whole building down.
My palm finds her lower back, skin to skin contact that makes my cock throb painfully against my suit pants. Eight feet to the bed where I've imagined her writhing beneath me every night for three weeks, where discipline says I should take her—controlled, careful, safe in the darkness.
But fuck discipline. It died the moment she looked at me without flinching.
I guide her forward, each step measured torture as her hip brushes mine, as her scent fills my lungs. Vanilla and arousal. Three steps past the kitchen where I pressed her against the wall. Five more toward the bed where I've jerked myself raw thinking about her.
The south wall stops me cold. The dance mirror, full-length on its stand, the one I installed for her weeks ago. The reflective surface catches everything: both of us moving together, the apartment behind us, what's about to happen.
My body moves on instinct, ahead of thought. I pull away from her, shrug off my suit jacket in one motion, cross to the mirror in three strides. The jacket goes over the top frame,covering the upper portion of the glass. The movement is automatic. Old habits die hard.
I turn back to Daphne. She's stopped exactly where I left her, watching what I just did. She doesn't speak. She crosses to the mirror with that dancer's grace, reaches up, pulls my jacket off the top. It drops to the floor with a soft thud.
The mirror is uncovered.
She turns to face it. Golden silk catches the lamp light, her hair still in that loose chignon, evening makeup making her eyes darker. She studies her reflection for three seconds, then speaks without turning.
"Undress me. Here, in front of the mirror."
So direct.
