Page 121 of Hunting Pretty

Behind the bar, dusty bottles of absinthe, fine French wine, and imported liquors stood in dark wooden cabinets with iron latticework.

The uniformed bartenders moved with an elegant, slow precision, pouring drinks into crystal glasses with deliberate care.

Lisa got the attention of one of the bartenders by leaning so far over the bar her five-inch Louis Vuitton stilettos left the black-and-white tiled floor.

“What happens in Paris…” she said with a wink.

A few minutes later two cocktails with a green-tinted fog spilling over the crystal edge were pressed toward us.

I pulled out my black Amex but the bartender shook his head.

“Courtesy of the messieurs,” he said, nodding to a dark corner of the bar where two handsome men raised their glasses to us.

“Fuck yes,” Lisa said, grinning as she tugged me along behind her through the crowd toward them.

The two Frenchmen said, “Bonsoir” with languid, cocky smiles, arms draped over the back of the dark wooden booth.

I bet the limit of Ebony’s black Amex that Lisa would be granted her wish of a French male concubine.

Lisa claimed the one with olive skin and dark, boyishcurls. So I sat next to the one with blond hair falling across his light-blue eyes.

It took him all of two minutes to rest his warm palm against my thigh.

“What is your name,cherie?” he said in a delightful French accent.

“Uhh, Deirdre,” I lied.

Deirdre was a central figure in Irish mythology tale ofDeirdre of the Sorrows. The story ends in betrayal, heartbreak, and death, and Deirdre became a symbol of tragic love and sorrow.

I shuddered when I considered what subconscious harbinger of fate caused me to choose that name.

I glanced around the bar for a shadowy figure, the Frenchman’s hand burning against my bare skin.

“Touch her again and I will cut off your hands and feed them to you, finger by bloody finger.”

An ache shot through me even as my panties dampened.

God, I was fucked up. Fucked up and fucked up over him.

“OnlyIget to touch her.”

Surely, he’d appear now that another man had his hand on me. He’d appear to stake his claim on me.

But I couldn’t see him. I couldn’tfeelhim.

Maybe my shadow needed a little more… encouragement.

I leaned into the Frenchman’s chest with a hand that slipped just inside his opened shirt and said, “You know, I’m just here for the night.”

He smiled like the devil himself.

But my shadowy figure didn’t appear out of the crowd to drag me away with a hood over my head.

Whether it was rational or not, this irritated the fuck out of me.

I had the Frenchman—whose name turned out to be Pierre, so typically French—order me another shot.

The sting of vodka wasn’t even gone from the back of my throat when I pulled out my cell phone again, mumbling a lame apology to Monsieur French.

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