Page 3 of Wild Elite

“Hey, let me fantasize,” she said, her eyes glimmering with amusement. She suddenly looked over my shoulder. “Speaking of guys trying to get us into bed, I think you’ve caught someone’s eye.”

I turned around and followed her gaze. She was right. Not far from us, leaning against a wood-paneled wall, was a man in a suit that fit his tall, muscular frame as if he were born wearing one. He was also wearing a black mask, but it didn’t cover much, and I could easily make out his chiseled, devilishly-handsome features and blue-green eyes, one half-hidden behind a spill of tousled light brown hair.

He was staring right at me.

As handsome as he was, there was something almost reptilian about his gaze, and I quickly snapped my attention back to Katie. “Do you know who he is?”

She shook her head. “He looks familiar, but I can’t remember where I know him from. He seems super into you, though.”

I glanced back over my shoulder. The guy was talking to someone who’d approached him now, but his gaze fell back to me the second I turned to look at him again.

“I don’t know,” I said, turning back to Katie. “He looks kinda mad.”

“You think?” Her forehead wrinkled. “Hold on… let’s not make it obvious that we’re staring at him.”

We waited a few seconds, trying to act natural, and then we shuffled around a bit so we could both look at the guy via our peripheral vision without being obvious. Unfortunately, he could probably tell exactly what we were doing, because his eyes were still locked right on me.

He lifted his mask off his face and sipped at a glass of amber liquid, upper lip curling slightly as he swallowed the presumably-strong liquor. Now that I could see the entirety of his face, my knees suddenly felt weak. As angry as his watchful gaze was, I couldn’t deny the effect he was having on me. He might very well be the hottest man I’d ever seen in person.

I gulped as something quickly occurred to me. It was hard to admit to myself, but the wild, furious expression on the stranger’s face was actually one of the sexiest things about him. He was gorgeous no matter what, but that intense, heated stare made shivers race down my spine. Some were laced with excitement and anticipation, but the majority were spiked with fear.

And strangely, I liked it…

Something stirred deep within me, a dark, distant craving that made my head spin and my stomach twist with nervous butterflies.

“You’re right,” Katie murmured, distracting me from my train of thought. “He’s hot as fuck, but he looks really mad at you. You sure you don’t know him?”

“Never seen him before,” I said, averting my eyes.

“Weird.”

My skin tingled. From the edge of my vision, I could see the guy was still watching me, his strong jaw flexing as malice filled his gaze.

“Maybe you look like an old girlfriend of his who cheated on him? Or something like that,” Katie suggested.

I nodded. I was certain I’d never met him before, so there had to be some sort of rational explanation along those lines. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay, he’s kinda creeping me out now. No one stares like that unless they’re an ax murderer,” Katie said, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

I followed her, but not without giving the handsome stranger one last look. As we crossed the room and headed for a table filled with sparkling champagne glasses, I could still feel his eyes on my back.

I could’ve sworn I didn’t know him, but apparently he knew me, and he didn’t like me one bit.

I tried to put him out of my mind as Katie and I slowly sipped champagne and mingled with other guests. Willa drifted in and out of our vicinity throughout the night as she tended to all her party guests, ever the social butterfly.

After an hour or so, I began to feel a little lightheaded. It wasn’t from the champagne, because I’d only had one glass. It was the loud music and the crowds of elegant people, the vibrant gowns, the Venetian masks, the paintings adorning the walls; all colors and faces and voices twirling and twisting together like the inside of a kaleidoscope. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was an outsider looking into this gilded world of shimmering perfection, and it made me feel dizzy and breathless.

“I think I need to go splash some cold water on my face,” I said to Katie and Willa, who had just rejoined us. “I’m starting to get a headache.”

“Oh, no.” Willa’s brows pinched together with concern, and she pointed toward the double doors we’d initially entered through. “Go out there, then head up the left staircase. There’s a bathroom a few doors down the hall on the second floor. It’ll be way quieter than the bathrooms down here, and there’s painkillers in the cupboards.”

“Thanks.”

I went the way she said, padding up the beautiful staircase on the left of the entry hall. The second floor was eerily quiet and fairly dim, lit only by a few chandeliers hanging here and there in the wooden-paneled hall. Clearly, Willa’s parents had told her to keep the party restricted to one floor only.

I tried the first door I came across, but it led into what appeared to be a study. The next one looked like it was entirely for book storage, lined with shelf after shelf but no chairs to sit on. Willa had said the bathroom in this upper wing was a few doors down the hall, so I figured it was probably the next room.

For a moment, I thought I heard sounds coming from somewhere nearby, but I figured it was just noise drifting up from the party downstairs. When I opened the next door—this one on the right side of the hall, just beyond a large oil painting in a heavy gilded frame—I got the shock of my life.

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