I realized what was wrong with Charming. His blue eyes were dull and cloudy.
Not piercing and deep enough to drown in.
Lovely. I’d let the disgustingly handsome fed ruin an entire eye color for me.
Allister’s attention moved to the man beside me. His gaze narrowed and flickered with loathing before he looked away.
My heart rate slowed at his strange reaction, but I quickly pushed the feeling down. I didn’t like to think about the fed. Every time I did, an edginess came over me, leaving a hollow and uncertain sensation in my chest.
I’d seen him a few times since he’d taken me to Ace’s last year. Our relationship had picked up on the same note it’d always been on. However, it was as if he had never taken care of me that night. He was different, radiating a tension that touched my skin each time I stood by him. His responses were dryer, his tone harsher, and he’d often walk off and leave me standing alone, like my mere presence agitated him. It annoyed me.
“So . . . you gonna tell me your name?”
“Guess,” I finally said to Charming, turning my attention to him.
“Hmm.” His gaze lit with the challenge. “It’s elegant and beautiful, just like you.”
I rolled my eyes at his flattery, but I made him guess for another ten minutes until I finished my drink and needed to use the restroom.
Just as I was about to pass the men’s room, the door opened, and I came face-to-face with Allister. Oddly, my heart stalled, stealing some oxygen from my lungs.
“Hello, Officer.”
He didn’t say a word as his gaze bit through my skin.
“Okay then,” I said. “You have a lovely night.”
I tried to pass him, but he stepped in front of me, blocking my path. It’d been a long time since we’d played any game, and anticipation buzzed in my veins.
“What are you doing with Knox?” His voice was low and smooth, and I could feel it in my toes.
I frowned. “Who’s Knox?”
“The man you’ve been flirting with for the last fifteen minutes,” he snapped.
“Well, you’ve just answered your own question, haven’t you, Officer? Flirting.”
My smile faltered as he took a sudden step forward, forcing my back to hit the wall. A breath of air escaped me. His arms came up on either side of me, caging me in. He was so close my entire body hummed beneath the surface.
“I’m sure the Bureau doesn’t approve of this kind of behavior,” I breathed.
He was distracted, his gaze beside my head, where a lock of my hair brushed his hand. He pulled it through his fingers, and the small amount of pressure on my scalp tightened between my legs.
The air sparked in the small space between us, and it made me so uncertain I opened my mouth again. “Or maybe harassing women is on the daily agenda—”
“Shut up.”
I glared at him.
My hair slipped through his fingers, and his gaze focused on my face. Something dark and lazy played in his eyes.
“You’re going to tell Knox it was not nice to meet him and then go join your group of friends.”
I laughed, realizing which game this was. It was the one where he pretended to be my keeper, and it was the most annoying one we’d ever played. “Tempting as that demand is, I’m going to have to pass.”
The intensity in his eyes was like staring directly into the sun, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I dropped my gaze to his tie. It was perfect, like always, and while I would usually adjust it anyway, I didn’t reach for it now. His presence radiated tension, and it sent a nervous tremor through me.
“You don’t know a single thing about him, Gianna.”
“You don’t need to know anything about someone to sleep with them.” I wasn’t even planning on having sex with the man with dull eyes, but Allister goaded the words straight from my mouth.
A small growl sounded low in his throat, and I stared at him, frozen. Someone was taking this game a little too seriously.
His palm slid from the wall, and his voice was calm and final. “You’re not going home with him.”
I stared at his hand running the length of his tie and knew my libido was completely out of control at the moment, because I imagined his hand on me—in my hair, on my throat, covering my mouth. Heat pulsed between my legs.
“I’ll leave with him if I want,” I finally managed.
“Try it.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I just did.”
This was exactly why I hated this game. A small noise of frustration escaped me, and I ducked underneath his arm and headed toward the ladies’ room.
“You heard me, Gianna.”
I’d heard him, all right.
Didn’t mean I’d listen.
I had always tried not to do things out of spite, because every time, it only led me down a rabbit hole of regret. However, the moments after Allister’s stupid game pushed me straight into the underworld’s own version of Wonderland.
I washed my hands after using the restroom, and then halted at the end of the hall.
A bad taste filled my mouth.
The lighting was dim, but, as though they were the most perfect couple in the room, strobe lights danced across their forms.
A brunette had a hand on Allister’s chest as she stood on her tiptoes to say something in his ear. It wasn’t an odd scene—women were always all over him—but it was rare when he acknowledged them, unless they were one of his socialite dates. The sight that sent an odd sensation tightening in my stomach was his hand coming up to rest on her hip, in the most natural way, like he’d done it before.
He was touching her.
Why wouldn’t he? She was classy, composed, everything I was not. He wouldn’t touch me, not if he were hanging off a cliff and I was the only one who could pull him up.
I couldn’t keep it in—spite grabbed me in its electric embrace and wouldn’t let go.
Allister wasn’t going to win this game.
In the end, however, he won. He won everything.
I strode up to Charming, grabbed his tie, and gave him a tug toward the door. He smirked and followed me.
I turned my head in Allister’s direction. The brunette was still whispering something into his ear and his hand was still on her hip. But his gaze was on me. I swallowed as his eyes drifted to Charming, a lazy flicker passing through the blue before disappearing into vicious depths. Heartless. The look was full of the promise of retaliation. And then he dismissed me, giving all his attention to the brunette, as though I couldn’t be stupid enough not to listen to him.
Anger flared in my chest. I wasn’t going to let him scare me into losing. What could he possibly do, anyway? He was just a lackey of my family’s, and he wouldn’t even touch me.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” I told Charming. “I’m merely using you to make my ex-boyfriend jealous.” The truth would have been a little hard to explain.
“Whatever, baby.”
His slimy response grated on my nerves. Now, I could see this man’s charm was dropped in a vat of oil.
My apartment was only a couple blocks from the club, and I continued my trek, hoping Charming would just drift away. Unfortunately, he followed like a lost puppy.