Page 10 of Crystal Wrath
“Tell me about yourself, Elena,” he says, handing me a glass. “The real you, not the fiction you created for tonight.”
I take a sip of champagne, the bubbles fizzing pleasantly on my tongue. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” He sits on the edge of the bed, loosening his tie. “Start with your last name.”
“Martinez,” I reply after a pause. There’s no point lying about something he could easily discover. “Elena Martinez.”
“Cuban?”
I nod. “On my mother’s side. She came over to the United States when I was a baby.”
“And what do you do, Elena Martinez, when you’re not impersonating Russian heiresses at galas?”
I perch on a leather armchair across from him, crossing my legs carefully. The slit in my dress reveals more thigh than I intend, and I notice his eyes tracking the movement.
“I observe. I ask questions. I look for patterns.” All true, if deliberately vague.
“A detective?”
I smile. “Of sorts.”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, studying me intently. “You’re very good at answering questions without actually answering them.”
“I learned from the best.” I take another sip of champagne. “You haven’t exactly been forthcoming about your own business dealings.”
“Because you haven’t asked.” He sets his glass aside and rises, crossing the short distance between us. He crouches before my chair, his large hands coming to rest on the arms, effectively caging me in. “Ask me, Elena. Whatever you want to know.”
His proximity is overwhelming. I can see the flecks of amber and green in his eyes, the faint stubble along his jaw, and the way his shirt stretches across his shoulders.
“Are you responsible for the evictions in Little Havana?” The question slips out before I can stop it. It’s direct, possibly too direct, revealing my true interests.
His expression doesn’t change, but something darkens in his eyes. “Business is complicated.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’ll get tonight.” His hand moves to my knee, fingers trailing along the exposed skin of my thigh. “Unless you’d prefer to discuss real estate laws rather than continue what we started downstairs.”
His touch sends shivers up my spine, heat pooling low in my belly. This is dangerous territory.Heis dangerous territory. I came here for a story, not…whatever this is becoming.
“What are we doing here, Renat?” I exhale.
“Testing boundaries,” he breathes, his hand continuing its slow exploration upward. “Yours. Mine. Seeing how far curiosity will take us.”
I should stop him. I should remind myself that this man is potentially linked to criminal activity, which may be related to the very evictions I’m investigating. But his touch leaves a trail of fire on my skin, and when he leans in, his lips brushing the sensitive spot just below my ear, rational thought flees.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs against my neck, “and I will.”
My hands find his shoulders, intending to push him away. Instead, they slide up to the nape of his neck, fingers threading through his dark, wavy hair.
“I should tell you to stop,” I whisper.
He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. “But you won’t.”
It isn’t a question, but I answer anyway by pulling him toward me, my lips finding his in a kiss that contains none of the restraint of our earlier encounter. This is heat and need and the thrill of crossing lines I never thought I would cross.
His hands slide up my sides, fingers brushing the undersides of my breasts through the thin fabric of my dress. I gasp into his mouth, and he takes advantage, deepening the kiss, his tongue tangling with mine in a primal dance.
In one fluid motion, he lifts me from the chair, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist as he carries me the short distance to the bed. The mattress is soft beneath my back as he lowers me onto it, his body following, covering mine in a way that should feel threatening but instead feels like shelter.
