Page 18 of Devil Mine

Golden eyes stare back at me, a dark, chaotic look shining in them. The surge of lust in my stomach is immediate.

No. It can’t be.

I twist my head to look back, to make sure it’s him, but Franklin continues twirling me until I’m facing him once more and my back is to the man.

The same man I’d spotted atFirenze.

Dagny had insisted we go out clubbing that night. There was a guest DJ she wanted to see and she’d been ready to beg me to go.

She hadn’t needed to. I’d needed a night of fun, of letting loose. Finding out I was going to be married off, realizing I’d wasted my life working towards something that was going to be taken from me anyway, and witnessing my father’s attack on top of it all had been too much.

I’d needed a break.

This was the start of a new Tess, one who prioritized herself and not others or what they wanted.

I was dancing with abandon, enjoying the alcohol, the music, the loosening of my muscles, when I felt myself being watched. It was so similar to the feeling I had tonight that I’m ashamed I didn’t connect the two.

I opened my eyes to find a man perched on a balcony high above me, hands spread wide on a railing,staring.

Unabashedly.

At me.

He was too far away and too doused in the darkness of the club for me to make out his features, but those golden eyes weren’t ones I could easily forget. They were penetrating in their unflinching study of me and I found myself looking right back at him. When a slow smile tugged at his lips, liquid heat pooled between my legs.

I tried to point him out to Dagny, but by the time I got her attention, he was gone.

There’s simply no way it’s him. I must be imagining things in my moment of need, conjuring a man I could actually want.

“Twirl me again,” I ask.

Franklin grins. “You like that?”

I suppress a gag. “Sure.”

He does as I ask and I find myself twirling once more, this time focusing my eyes on the place where I just saw the mystery man.

I’m prepared for his gaze, or so I think.

I quickly learn differently when our eyes clash once more and the breath disappears from my lungs.

It’s definitely him and he’s definitely looking at me.

???

Chapter Seven

Tess

We have barely a second to stare at each other before I’m spinning again, but in that time he undresses me swiftly with his eyes. They rake hotly over me, igniting something in my belly I wasn’t even aware was dormant. He wets his lips slowly in appreciation and I almost come on the spot.

There’s no calming my galloping heartbeat or the catastrophic chain reaction tumbling through me like falling dominoes.

Even though I don’t have much time, I get a good enough look to fuel my nighttime fantasies.

Some people are quietly magnetic, and he’s anything but. He’sloud, in every way. Sex oozes off of him and crashes against me in thick, powerful waves that pull me in with the strength of a rip tide. Everything about him is black – his suit, his hair, his tattoos, his features, his entire aura.

Everything except his eyes and his skin, both of them golden like rich honey.

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