Car Salesman said something to her again. She broke our stare, but my feet were already moving, carrying me across the floor and to her side.
“There you are, darling.” I placed a hand on Isabella’s back, right above the asshole’s arm, which was still curled around her waist. My polite smile masked the vicious dose of possessiveness pouring through my blood. “You didn’t tell me you made a new friend.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t take his arm off Isabella. “Who the hell are you?”
“Someone who’ll rearrange your already pitiful face if you don’t leave in the next ten seconds,” I said pleasantly. “In case your knockoff Patek Philippe can’t tell the time correctly, that would be right about now.”
Ten seconds was generous. I’d wanted to slam my fist into his jaw the moment I saw him.
Blotches of red formed on his face. “Fuck you. I—”
The man lapsed into silence when my smile sharpened. I didn’t enjoy violence outside the ring, but I would gladly knock his teeth out and feed them to him.
My pulse roared with bloody anticipation.
He must’ve read the intentions scrawled over my face because he quickly dropped his arm, mumbled an excuse, and scurried off.
“What the hell was that?” Isabella demanded. She shrugged off my hand and glared at me. “You scared off my date!”
A muscle ticked in my jaw. “It’s not a date if you didn’t show up with him.”
It occurred to me someone from Valhalla might see us, but my peers didn’t frequent places like this.
Even if they did, they would be in the VIP lounge, not on the general dance floor. But honestly, I was too riled up to give a fuck. The entire managing committee could’ve been standing next to us, and I’d still be focused on Isabella.
She canted her chin up. “It is if I leave with him.”
“If that was all it took to scare him away, he doesn’t deserve you,” I said coolly. “If you’d left with him, you would’ve had to endure two minutes of assuredly unsatisfying fornication on a dirty mattress without a bed frame, so you should thank me. Given how he ran off, I doubt he could find enough rhythm to clap along to a basic nursery song, much less make your night worthwhile.”
Isabella’s jaw unhinged. She stared at me for a long moment before dissolving into laughter.
“Wow. Fornication? Who talks like that?”
“Am I wrong?”
“I wouldn’t know. Like I said, you scared him off before I could confirm how—” Her sentence broke off in a gasp when I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her to me.
“Do you think you would’ve enjoyed your time with him, Isabella?” I asked softly. “Would you have screamed for him like you did for me when I had my fingers buried inside your sweet little pussy? When you rode my hand until it was soaked with your release? I can still hear your cries, love.
Every damn second of every day.”
A dark flush colored her cheeks, swallowing her earlier amusement. Her eyes blazed with a fire that matched the one wreaking havoc on my good sense. “Stop.”
“Stop what?” My free hand slid from her waist to the small of her back. The warmth of her skin seared into my palm, branding me.
“Stop saying things like that.”
The noise should’ve overpowered her breathless words, but I heard her as clearly as if we were in an empty room.
Her throat flexed with a swallow when I grazed my knuckles up the bare expanse of her back. Her dress dipped to just above her waist, and her skin glided like silk beneath my touch.
“Things like what? The truth?” I lowered my head, my mouth brushing the shell of her ear. “If there’s one thing I regret, it’s walking away before we finished what we started in the piano room.”
If we had, maybe the memory of her wouldn’t have tortured me so much the past week. Maybe it would’ve satiated this savage, clawing need to etch myself in her so deeply I was the only man she could think of.
I’d abandoned an evening with my books for a nightclub, for Christ’s sake. If that wasn’t a sign of my irreversible spiral, nothing was.
A shiver rippled through her. Her head fell back when my lips skimmed down to her earlobe and nipped. “Kai…”
The breathy sound of my name on Isabella’s lips snapped whatever control I had left.
Lust surged through me, sweeping every piece of logic and rationality aside.
Few things in life were certain, but this I knew—if I didn’t have her soon, and if she didn’t want me as desperately as I wanted her, I would fucking die.
“Go upstairs and tell your friends you’re leaving.” I curled my hand around the back of her neck, my voice so low and dark I hardly recognized it. “You have five minutes, sweetheart, or you’ll find out firsthand that I’m not always the gentleman you think I am.”
CHAPTER 18
Isabella
I didn’t remember what excuse I gave my friends for leaving early. I didn’t remember much at all, really, about how I ended up here with Kai at half past midnight, my heart in my throat and my body thrumming with nerves.
We were at the Barber, a bar that looked like, well, a barber shop, if barber shops served alcohol in faux shampoo bottles and employed DJs who looked like they could moonlight as models.
Unlike the chaos of Verve, this place screamed exclusivity. Engraved admission wristbands, sensual music, air redolent with the perfumes of the lucky few who knew this place existed. We were only a few blocks from the club, but it was like we were in a different world.
Anticipation fluttered beneath my skin as Kai and I passed through a velvet curtain separating the main floor from the VIP area. He was a good foot taller than me, yet our steps fell in perfect rhythm.
Every once in a while, his shirtsleeve would graze my skin, or my hair would tickle his arm. Neither of us visibly reacted, but every little touch dripped into the tension already simmering around us.
You have five minutes, sweetheart, or you’ll find out firsthand that I’m not always the gentleman you think I am.
Pressure ached between my legs. After last week, I had no doubt Kai was capable of quite a few ungentlemanly things. I both loved and hated how much the prospect turned me on.
My anticipation scattered into head-to-toe tingles when the curtain closed behind us, cocooning us in a room that looked like…another barbershop. Black-and-white checkered tiles covered the floor, and black-cushioned swivel seats anchored personal bar stations. Instead of brushes, hair dryers, and gels, the stations boasted glasses, garnishes, and alcohol.
The room was oddly empty, but my heart jerked in surprise when Kai walked over to a station and knocked on the mirror. It slid open, revealing a bartender in a bow tie. He handed Kai two bottles, and the mirror shut again.
I couldn’t decide whether the setup was incredibly cool or disturbingly creepy.