Page 19 of Prohibited

But it wasn’t the man who left her tied up like a sow.

“You!” she said, shock momentarily removing the shreds of her modesty.

“Good morning, Mrs. Colter,” he said in that clear, silvery voice of his.

Alexander Laurent, the proprietor of the Red Crystal. She had shared a cocktail with him in his establishment when she’d first arrived back in Tulsa, but had becomeunofficially a persona non grata after she started running around with Walter.

He was beautiful in a delicate but ferocious way. A man chiseled from ice. Though he’d been the soul of courtesy to her, the look in his eye had always breathed frost over her skin. There was something that glinted there, frigid and ruthless, that did not belong in the eyes of any human being. He was the same height as her, shorter than most men, but his presence could have filled up the grandest room in the world.

“Why am I here?” The words snapped out of her, one syllable at a time, hot with fury. Evie tugged insistently at her bonds, but held his gaze. Anger was familiar. An old friend. A tool. She clung to it, wielding it to buoy her in these dark, unknown waters.

“My morning has been quite pleasant, thank you for asking,” he said. He unbuttoned the top button of his suit jacket. “Yours, I’m afraid, doesn’t appear to be going in the same way.” He undid the second button and slowly began to shrug the jacket off. Those icicle eyes being level with hers was somehow more unnerving than if she had to tilt her head back to look up at him.

“You can’t be serious,” she said. She drew her elbows into herself, drew herself up onto her toes in some effort to cover herself, but it was useless. While his graceful fingers worked to roll his sleeves up, one at a time, she watched them, trying not to shiver all the while. Ryan had stayed his hand, hadn’t plundered her most vulnerable treasure. But did Alex have the same reservations?Something told her that the man had few reservations about anything at all.

“I’m quite serious,” Alex said. He drew a key from his pocket and slowly inserted it into the lock. The sound of metal scraping against metal reverberated through her and fattened the fear growing thick and gravid inside of her.

“Do not come any closer!” Evie yanked at her hands, at the leather holding her there. Panic fluttering inside of her. And despair, knowing that there was nothing she could do to enforce her demand. Humiliation at being almost naked, helpless. Furious.

He closed the cell door behind him and locked it again. Dropped the key neatly into his pocket along with any hope she had that matters might improve for her. He came to stand behind her, at least a yard away. Evie looked over her shoulder at him, though it hurt her neck to keep craning to look behind her with her arms tied up as they were.

The look on his face caught the breath in her throat.

A scorching blaze snapped from his cobalt eyes, drawing his features and parting his lips. Astonishment mingled with this thing that moved through him–some combination of hunger, desire, rapture. His pink tongue slipped along his lower lip as he stared at the marks on her backside. Evie shuddered and wanted to look away. The expression on his face frightened her. Frightened her because it spoke volumes about what he was capable of.

She didn’t dare take her eyes away from him, though. The animal part of her brain that moved her to survive, to run screaming from the seductive fingers reaching to her from that pit of darkness, howled loudly in her mind.

“Ryan did this?” he said, softly. More to himself than to her. A brilliant sort of mirth came over him. And pleasure so intense she thought he might come floating off of the floor. “He’s been a busy boy.”

Ryan. The name stuck between her ribs like a hatchet. Her Ryan.

No, not her Ryan. He wouldn’t do something like this.

Alex came forward slowly, almost reverently.

“Stop! Stay where you are!” She drew herself as far against the grate as she could, but she was deluding herself. There was nowhere else for her to go. No place for her to hide. No way for her to defend herself. She knew it. And he knew it.

He stopped right behind her.

“And these?” Fingers ghosted over various places on her shoulder blades, her arms, her thighs, touching lightly, one at a time. For a moment, she couldn’t think of what he was talking about, certain that the other man had struck her only on the backside.

But then she remembered. The violence of Linus’s grip, his carelessness with her body as he dragged her up the stairs, down the hallway. Laurent was referring to the bruises. The burn marks from the rug.

Evie scoffed, cringing away from him. “My husband’s idea of taking charge.”

“Did you enjoy it?” He was so close to her now, eyes level with hers. She could feel the warm kiss of his breath on her face. The smell of him stirring something low in her belly, sending a thrill of horror through her. She could practically feel the heat radiating out from his eyes. Could certainly feel the heat of his body brushing her naked skin.

Gooseflesh came up over her body as he continued to touch her where her husband had harmed her. Her nipples tightened, turning to sharp points.

“No,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

A shuddering breath came out of him, as if her answer improved matters. It made her recoil slightly. She’d been expecting him to act disappointed.

“Good,” he said at last. “You won’t enjoy this either.”

A swift click jerked something low in her belly. She stood rigid, willing the ache in her shoulders to go away while she waited for something, she didn’t know what. Slowly, something glossy and pointed, sharp, came into her vision. A blade. His ivory fingers wrapped around the handle.

The line of his body came into contact with hers.

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