Lifting his head, Tiege studied her with something close to horror.
“Sloane,” he breathed her name like a curse. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She tilted her chin. Okay, so there wasn’t any love lost between them. Still, he didn’t have to look at her as if she was something he’d found stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
Prick.
“I was sent by your brother,” she said in wooden tones, ignoring the females who continued to crawl over his half-naked body with nauseating gusto.
Tiege narrowed his gaze. “Petros always did have a peculiar sense of humor,” he muttered. “Are you here to be my babysitter?”
Her lip curled. “There isn’t enough money in the world to entice me to become your babysitter.”
His gaze lowered to her heavy leather jacket, easily sensing the weapons that she’d strapped to her body.
“I have Jacob as my guard,” he drawled.
“I was sent to retrieve your…” She deliberately allowed her gaze to move toward his slender fingers that continued to draw lazy energy from the unsuspecting humans. “Dinner.”
He arched a brow, lifting an arm to tuck it behind his head as he studied her with an intensity that made her shiver.
“You?”
She planted her hands on her hips and forced herself to meet him glare for glare.
So what if he was gloriously sensual? So was Beelzebub.
In fact the two closely resembled one another.
The dark, smoldering beauty. The lean, sculpted features. The thin lips framed by the trimmed goatee.
Demons who preyed on the weaknesses of females.
“Trust me, I was equally surprised,” she muttered.
He smiled with mocking amusement. “But you obeyed.”
She could feel her face tightening. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself she didn’t give a damn about this male’s opinion, he always managed to make her feel like uptight ass-kisser for doing what was right.
“I understand duty.”
“Implying that I don’t?”
She refused to rise to the challenge. The aggravating, intoxicating creature was just waiting for the opportunity to mock her rigid devotion to her position.
Instead she shrugged aside his question. “We need to speak.”
“Then speak.” He lowered his gaze to watch the brunette kiss her way down his washboard stomach.
Sloane rolled her eyes as the blonde on the other side of Tiege tried to dislodge the brunette.
“In private,” she snapped.
“Later.” He didn’t bother to glance at her. “In case you didn’t notice, we’re having a party.”
Sloane was fairly certain that there was no one in Vegas who wasn’t aware there was a party in the elegant suite. The sounds of a hundred voices shouting over the throbbing music had swelled to a deafening level despite the fact that it was still early in the evening. And that didn’t include the crash of expensive bottles of champagne and the person who was throwing up in a nearby bathroom.
“This is important,” she insisted.
“What could be more important than this?” He waved a languid hand around the vast room that looked like it could have been plucked from an English mansion. “Good food, good wine, and exceptional company.”
“I don’t know,” she said in dry tones. “Maybe the reason we’re here.”
He flashed his wicked smile, threading his fingers in the brunette’s hair as she inched ever closer to the massive erection that was disturbingly obvious beneath the silk boxers. “There’s only one reason to be in Vegas.”
She took an instinctive step back as an odd pain twisted her heart.
“Fine,” she hissed. “You don’t want to listen, then don’t blame me when there’s no ceremony.”
She turned on her heel and marched toward the door. Enough was enough. Let the bastard deal with the mess.
“Christ, you’re a pain,” Tiege growled from behind her. Then, without warning, he gave a sharp clap of his hands. “Everyone out.”
CHAPTER TWO
Tiege folded his arms over his chest as he watched the human females scurry from the room.
He should have been furious.
The fun was just getting started when Sloane had forced her way into his room and disrupted his plans for a few hours of mindless pleasure.
But he could barely work up a vague sense of disappointment as the giggling gaggle disappeared into the drunken revelry that still raged in the outer suite. If he were completely honest, he’d admit that he’d been going through the motions since his arrival in Vegas. The expensive suite, the cases of expensive hooch, the females…
He told himself it was because he was focused on the upcoming ceremony and the potential hope the pendant might help them rid the Obsidian Throne of its current Sovereign.
What was more important than revenge?
Nothing, that was what.
But that didn’t explain the sudden sparks of excitement that buzzed through his body the second Sloane had entered the room.