Page 58 of Pride: Kneel Before None

“Discovered your impressive wardrobe.”

“Obviously,” he murmured against the hollow of my throat.

My eyes fluttered shut as I added, “Though I must say that I am slightly disappointed in the lack of variety in your formalwear.”

He nipped at my exposed collarbone. “That right?”

“Mmhmm.” The sound came out as more of a sigh than an answer.

“Black looks good on me,” he smugly replied.

I opened my eyes and tilted my head forward, locking our gazes. “Nothing looks better.”

An honest-to-devil growl came out of him. His hands squeezed my waist firmly enough to pull a sharp gasp out of me.

“Don’t tempt me, Eve.”

“You aren’t already?” I lifted a brow with playful innocence.

“Not just talking about taking your body. Already know I can have that whenever I fucking want.” He licked a stripe up the side of my neck until his mouth was at my ear. “I’m talking about dropping the veil and branding my mark somewhere inside you where only my demon cock will find it.”

All the air rushed from my lungs at the obscene imagery.

When he drew back, there was that familiar heat still in his gaze, the one that eclipsed his green eyes into thin rings. One hand abandoned my waist, rising to place the edge of his finger beneath my chin while the pad of his thumb pressed against my lower lip.

“But we have other things to discuss before that happens.”

Amusement bled into my eyes, adding more sparkle to them than the city’s neon lights. “Are you suggesting that the great Ace Reynard can’t multitask?”

His thumb pressed insistently at the seam of my lips. The tip traced along the edges of my teeth.

“No, I’m suggesting you can’t.”

I huffed out, my mouth then opening to refute the absurdity of that statement. “Bull⁠—”

Ace’s thumb exploited the gap and sank further into my mouth, hooking on the bottom row of my teeth. He gave a firm tug, controlling the movement of my head with a dizzying level of dominance so easily wielded.

“Didn’t ask for your opinion, Little Spade.”

My words died somewhere between my throat and the pressure of his control.

I sat there on the ledge of the balcony, sixty-something floors up, with a Knight of Hell making it clear that things between us shifted with a speed that would have made whiplash jealous.

After several stretched moments of nothing but the sound of the city approaching its morning slumber and the howl of the desert wind, his finger slipped free from my mouth.

“Good girl,” he rumbled, his hand falling back down to settle on the dip of my waist. “Now, sit still.”

His eyes locked onto mine with the intensity of a predator studying prey. The hunger was still there, but something else rose beyond the surface of his irises. An eerie glow, not quite green and not quite blue, overtook the natural mossy hue of his eyes. It reminded me of tropical waters demanding to be seen in the dead of night.

The aura spread from his eyes, bleeding out like a serpent as it unfurled through the air towards me. There was no element of danger radiating off it, simply a prickling sensation that sent goosebumps across my skin even beneath the warmth of his robe.

It was a sensation I had felt before. A memory snapped into my head of my first day stepping into Sevenfold.

Somewhere along the way, I felt a strange sensation along the back of my neck. It came off as warm and welcoming, yet underneath that intense and old. It was everywhere and nowhere along my body, like invisible fingers dancing over each and every inch of my flesh and licking deep into the marrow of my bones.

My hand lifted to trace the side of my neck with my fingertips, unable to pinpoint the source. Turning my head, I scanned the area around me, but nothing appeared out of the norm. No pervy creepers staring me down or security guards lurking and ready to pitch me to the curb for breaking their silly rules.

The recollection of the moments before I had been invited to the blackjack tournament felt like eons ago considering all that had happened in such a short amount of time.