Page 15 of Bossh*le Daddy
"Silas King." Damian's voice had gone low, lethal. "My oldest rival. Don't talk to him. Don't even look at him."
But it was too late. Silas had seen us, and his smile widened. He raised his champagne glass in our direction, a mock toast that felt like a declaration of war. Other guests seemed to sense the tension, creating a subtle clearing around him like animals avoiding a hunter.
"Why—" I began.
"He wants everything I have." Damian's jaw was granite, his gaze never leaving Silas. "My contracts. My connections. My company." His fingers pressed harder into my waist, possessive to the point of pain. "My things."
The way he said it made me feel like another acquisition. Another object for them to fight over. I should have been offended. Should have reminded him I was a person, not a thing to be owned.
Instead, heat pooled low in my belly at the raw possession in his voice.
Silas started moving through the crowd, heading our way with inevitable purpose. Damian turned me slightly, using his body to block Silas's approach, but I could still feel those slate eyes on me.
"Play your part, little one," Damian murmured against my temple, the words vibrating through me. "Make them believe I own you."
My breath caught at the command, at the implication, at the way my body responded with enthusiastic agreement. I pressed closer to him, one hand coming up to rest on his chest, feeling his heartbeat through layers of expensive fabric. It was racing, though his face remained carved from stone.
"I don't have to pretend that," I whispered back, the truth slipping out before I could stop it.
His eyes snapped to mine, something raw and dangerous flashing through them. For a moment, the ballroom disappeared. The champagne bubbles and tinkling laughter and five-figure gowns all faded away, leaving just us. Just this charge between us that threatened to ignite everything we touched.
Then Silas's voice cut through the moment like a blade.
"Stone." He'd maneuvered closer despite Damian's blocking. "And this must be the mysterious fiancée everyone's whispering about."
His gaze raked over me with an appreciation that made my skin crawl. Where Damian's attention felt like being wrapped in velvet chains, Silas's felt like being dissected. He looked at me like I was a problem to solve, a code to crack, a weakness to exploit.
"King." Damian's acknowledgment was barely civil.
"Aren't you going to introduce us?" Silas pressed, that predator's smile never wavering. "I'm dying to meet the woman who finally thawed the Stone heart."
Damian's body was a wall of controlled violence. I could feel the tension radiating off him, the barely leashed urge to end this conversation with fists instead of words. His hand at my waist had become a shackle, holding me in place when every instinctscreamed at me to run from the danger crackling between these two men.
"No," Damian said simply. "I'm not."
Silas's eyes glittered with something that was either amusement or anticipation of blood.
"Protective," Silas observed, taking a slow sip of his champagne. "Can't say I blame you. She's quite . . . delicate. Breakable, even."
Damian's control finally cracked. He took a step forward, putting himself between me and Silas completely, and when he spoke, his voice could have frozen hell.
"She's mine," he said with lethal simplicity. "That's all you need to know."
*
Damian's hand found the small of my back, guiding me through the ballroom with the kind of controlled urgency that suggested escape. My heels clicked against marble as we wove between conversations I no longer heard, past faces that blurred into golden nothing. He pushed through French doors, and suddenly we were outside, the night air hitting my heated skin like a shock of cold water.
The balcony stretched along the building's edge, dotted with potted topiaries and empty of other guests who preferred the warmth inside. Manhattan spread below us, a glittering circuit board of possibility and danger. I gripped the stone railing, needing something solid while my world tilted off its axis.
"That was—" I started, then stopped. What was I supposed to say? That watching him face down Silas King had been terrifying and thrilling in equal measure? That being claimed so publicly, so possessively, had made my entire body burn in ways I didn't want to examine?
"Necessary." He moved beside me, one hand still at my waist like he couldn't bear to break contact. "Silas needed to understand the boundaries."
"By announcing I'm your property?" The words came out breathier than intended, lacking the indignation I'd aimed for.
He turned me to face him, his free hand coming up to grip the railing behind me, caging me in. This close, I could see the pulse jumping in his throat, the way his pupils had blown wide despite the darkness. Whatever control he'd maintained inside was fracturing, and I could see the cracks.
"You're doing well," he said softly, but there was something dangerous in his eyes now—a hunger that hadn't been there before. Or maybe it had always been there, hidden under all that ice, waiting for permission to burn.
