Violent Delights (White Monarch 1)

I sipped my drink, hoping to calm my nerves. “Why bother asking for anything if you’re just going to demand it?”

He licked his lips as his eyes drifted over the short, tight dress Diego had picked out for me. Though Cristiano’s eyes were as black as a starless sky, they still glimmered behind his hooded gaze. “It’s the polite thing to do.”

Had I been brave enough, I would’ve snorted in his face. He’d just shooed off Pilar with no regard for her obvious anxiety. “Is it polite to make a woman tremble with just a word?”

“Very.” One hollowed dimple appeared as the corner of his mouth rose. “Sometime I’ll demonstrate on you.”

My face flushed. He wanted to make me scream and tremble. Despite what I’d heard about his brutality, my mind descended into a shameful vision of being trapped underneath his wide shoulders, begging for a different kind of mercy.

He took my Long Island Iced Tea from me and handed it to a random woman. She started to protest but then looked up and disappeared like the others. “Let me get you a real drink,” he said to me.

Diego was right about playing hard to get. It was working. “I have to check on my friend,” I said. I took a step, but he wrapped his hand all the way around my upper arm and pulled me back against his wall of a body. “Watch your step, mamacita,” he rumbled before he picked me up by my waist, turned, and set me down.

I lost my breath, disoriented by being repositioned like a doll. “What are you doing?”

“There’s glass all over.” Cristiano signaled across the bar, alerting them to the mess.

He kept one hand lightly at my hip. I shifted to see if he’d let me go. He flexed his long fingers against me, pressing the pad of his thumb into my hipbone. A few degrees south, and he would’ve found a pistol strapped to my upper thigh—if only Diego hadn’t made me leave it behind, rendering me defenseless.

Cristiano started to pull me closer, but I moved away. He dropped just his eyes to mine. If he wasn’t six-foot-five as Pilar had guessed, he was within centimeters of it. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You only dance with men in costume?”

“You looked friendlier then.”

He pursed his lips as if suppressing a smile. “I wasn’t.”

“Did you know it was me at the party?” I asked, even though I could guess his answer.

“It’s too loud down here. Come with me.” He nodded behind him. “Arms up.”

Reflexively, I raised them when he cupped the sides of my breasts and slid the deadly weapons he called hands down my waist and hips. “What? Where?”

“Upstairs.” He squatted to clasp one of my ankles.

“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to free my leg.

“Security check.”

“My legs are bare.”

“Nevertheless.” One dark eyebrow quirked. “People are creative about where they hide their weapons.” He grazed both palms along my outer and inner calf, higher and higher, until his hands were under my skirt. Finally, something else overtook my nervousness—a pulse of heat between my legs as his fingers lingered there.

“Hold onto me if you feel weak,” he said, a hint of teasing in his voice.

Nobody around us even flinched, either unsurprised or keeping their heads down. I tried to push his hands out from under my skirt. “I don’t have anything on me, not even my phone.”

“Is that wise?” he asked.

“I had nowhere to put it.”

He paused but didn’t remove his hands.

“And I’m not going anywhere alone with you,” I added.

“We won’t be alone.” His lifted his eyes to look directly into mine. “My men are everywhere.”

A threat. Perhaps Diego had my back, but he was one man against who knew how many savages. I couldn’t go anywhere with Cristiano. Either I’d be leaving myself vulnerable or Diego would try to stop it and put himself in Calavera crosshairs.

Cristiano’s gentle touch didn’t distract me from the fact that it was still callused, or that his hands, as they moved to my other thigh, had taken many lives. His fingertips started high and then slid down to my ankle, which he squeezed almost tenderly before standing again.

Kicking some glass aside, he gestured toward an elevator I hadn’t noticed before. “After you.”

“I’m expected to trust that you aren’t armed?”

He opened his arms. “Frisk me.”

My heart skipped at the thought of touching him. The sprawling shoulders and flat pecs under a crisp white shirt. His wide, powerful torso. He was the weapon, big everywhere that I could see. What about where I couldn’t? My gaze started to drift down, but I stopped it and turned my reddening cheek to him.

“I’ll save you the trouble,” he said, lowering his arms back to his sides. “Not only am I armed, but one signal from me could light this place up with fireworks.”