Artful Lies (Hunt Legacy Duology 1)

Go on, boys. Carry on playing your game with each other. This girl is out.

‘Cab, love?’ The distant question has my eyes casting slowly over to the doorman as he takes the door handle. I just nod and then allow my gaze to fall to Becker again. He smiles mildly and gives me a subtle nod. He’s encouraging me, praising me. He’s still telling me to go. Then I lose sight of him when the door slides across.

My lungs drink in a sharp blast of cool air when the lift abruptly starts to descend, my eyes darting around at my feet. Becker doesn’t want me. So no one else can have me, either? Is that what this is? The notion shocks me back to life. And I suddenly realise: I’m not in control at all. He is.

Anger sizzles dangerously in my belly, and my hand shoots out and grabs the rail when the lift shudders to a halt on the ground floor. The doorman quickly yanks the door open, but I remain tucked neatly in the corner of the lift, my mind screaming at me not to go there. I need to leave this club. Going back up there will serve no purpose. Using Brent will serve no purpose, other than proving a point to Becker. He can’t dictate who I see. He can’t tell me what to do. He can’t entice me in, tempt me, then push me away and expect my compliance.

‘Miss?’

I look up to the doorman, who’s staring at me with concern. His expression worries me, because it tells me that I look as unbalanced as I feel. I’m about to do something incredibly stupid. My mouth opens, intending on instructing him to shut the door and send me back up to the club, but only a wisp of air breezes past my lips. The fact that my mouth refuses to allow the demand to escape should be a sign. But I ignore the sign and force the words to materialise. ‘Could you shut the—’

I don’t get the opportunity to complete my request. Becker appears from nowhere and prises my hand from the rail, pulling me from the lift. I yelp, stumbling along behind him, my skin burning from the heat of his touch soaking into my flesh. His fingers are entwined with mine, locked tightly, eliminating any potential of breaking free. He was upstairs one moment and downstairs the next. How? He’s showing no signs of exertion from running down here, just signs of . . .

What?

A firm yank of my hand hauls me out of the nightclub, and a further string of aggressive but precise movements has me flying around until my back is against a wall. He pins me to the cold bricks with his front, not that the cold registers. The heat of his torso pressed to mine is too consuming. And so are those hazel eyes that are burning with such intensity, they threaten to melt his glasses. He releases my hand and rests his palms on the bricks on either side of my head, heaving long, deep breaths in my face. He’s all coiled up.

And I realise.

He’s pissed off. With me?

‘You were going to go back into the club. You were going to go back to him,’ he growls in my face, bringing me down to earth in the harshest possible way. He’s livid, and I should be, too. But I’m too stunned to locate my spunk and rip him to shreds. So I remain where I am, nailed to the wall by his body as the sizzling of our combined heat begins to spark. ‘Damn you, Eleanor,’ Becker hisses. ‘Just fucking leave.’

He’s not just pissed off. He’s fuming.

And with just a second to talk some sense into my tattered mind, I’m right there with him. Long gone are the sparks of pleasure. Acid is coursing through my veins.

How dare he?

My hands come up, my palms slap into his chest, and I throw my weight into shoving him back. ‘You came down to check that I was going?’ I yell, my anger unleashed. ‘It’s not pathetic enough that you told me to and I fucking did? You had to check?’ The blood is rushing to my head, making me dizzy. Pathetic. That’s what I am. Fucking pathetic.

‘Yes, I fucking did,’ Becker bellows, making me physically recoil. ‘And you were on your way back up to the club. To him.’

Fucking hell. I’m vibrating with fury. ‘You had no right to tell me to leave.’

‘I know!’

‘Then why?’ I scream.

He swings away from me and pulls at his hair, roughing it up and looking up to the night sky. Then he shouts at the blackness, a long roar of frustration. ‘For fuck’s sake.’ He’s quickly facing me again, breathing heavily, his chest pulsing with each laboured inhale. I’m suddenly wary of his volatile reaction, and I have no clue what to do with it. This isn’t simply anger. This is Becker out of control.