Page 7 of Stealing Cinder

My molars grind together.

The energy of the lounge shifts.

My date's hand is still on my thigh, but every nerve ending in my body redirects to the lounge entrance. The music hasn’t faded, but the conversations from the surrounding society members do. Members at nearby tables shift, pressing into banquettes, making themselves smaller. A woman two stools down gathers her clutch and slips off her seat without a word. I watch her take a side door that leads to higher levels of the club.

Okay, that’s odd.

I pull my gaze from the emptying lounge and look toward the entryway.

And that is when I see him.

Samuel “Bones” Payne.

Every inch of his six foot four inches fills the entrance. He wears a tailored black suit that stretches over broad shoulders and a perfectly formed board chest. Long dark hair is pulled into a tight knot at the back of his skull. Silver threads through dark hair at his temples, catching the amber neon.

Oh, fuck.

A trimmed dark beard frames a jaw cut from granite, and beneath the crisp white collar of his shirt, the edges of ink climb his neck. His hands hang loose at his sides, scarred knuckles visible even from here. The thick ridges of the scars catch the light.

He’s a brawler. Or at least he was at some point.

Dark brown eyes move over the room, slow and steady. I watch as every person they touch drops their gaze to the floor.

Then they land on me.

Electricity skates over my senses. It is like ice on overheated skin. I can’t describe it any other way. My breath holds and so does my heartbeat. The air between us crackles with an electric charge, that has the fine hairs on my arms lifting for the second time tonight. But this isn't in revulsion.

Lord, save me because the heat pouring through me right now is all about the way this man enters a room. And that’s a very bad thing for a man with a killer reputation in every sense of the word.

Everyone knows his name and his occupation. He’s one of Chicago's top underground mafia kings and a walking orgasm waiting to happen.

That last part I would never say out loud, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

He moves toward the bar with unhurried steps and the members in the lounge seem to have no problem clearing a path for him that leads directly toward me.

“Hey. What the hell are you looking at, woman?” Rough hands latch onto my chin and yank my attention away from the crime lord and back on my drunk date.

“You belong to me. I don’t need you having the hots for another man when you are supposed to be my fuck bunny for the night.”

I throw his hand off me. Disgust scrunches my face while my throat gets a revisit of the martini.

I swear my drunk date only stops short of whipping his dick out and measuring it on the stool because he can’t stand without falling over.

But I can’t focus on him for long. Not when the mobster’s scent replaces the bourbon currently burning my nostrils.

Warm, exotic, and raw male. I inhale deeply.

“You’re far too beautiful to entertain rats and their clumsy attempt at getting you in their bed."

I shift my body on the stool to face him, entranced by the smooth flow and dip of his words. His voice is pitched low just for me, and the rough edge of it rolls warm down my spine.

Heat creeps into my face. For a second I feel a wave of embarrassment at the blush hitting my cheeks. “I have to admit, today has not been one of my finest.”

My hands tremble so I wrap my fingers around the hem of my dress and hope he doesn’t notice. Beside me Drunk Dude’s face is an angry shade of pissed off.

I guess the guy is utterly clueless or so drunk he doesn’t realize what he is doing. Or he has a death wish. Either way, he straightens on his stool, puffs out his chest and bellows, "Hey, buddy, fuck off. We're in the middle of something."

From the deep scowl on Payne’s face, that was the wrong thing to say to the mobster.