Page 28 of Santa Daddy
Makeup followed. Smoky eyes that made my gaze look darker and more dangerous than I felt. Lips painted a deep red that looked like I’d been drinking wine or blood or both.
They dusted shimmer over my collarbones, my shoulders. Each brushstroke made me feel less like Dani Morales, mall elf and ramen connoisseur, and more like someone else entirely.
When they finally stepped back, I caught sight of myself in the big mirror beside the tree.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Heavy. Measured. Familiar.
My heart jumped into a sprint that had nothing to do with cardio and everything to do with the man who’d wrecked my body against a wall.
Here we go.
He filled the doorway an instant later.
Snowflakes clung to the shoulders of his dark coat, melting slowly in the overheated air. He’d traded yesterday’s shirt for a crisp black one, open at the throat. No tie. Cuffs rolled once, revealing strong forearms and the hint of ink.
His eyes traveled from my heels up.
Slowly.
Taking in the hem of the dress, the curve of my hips, the way the silk hugged my waist, the slit that flashed thigh when I shifted my weight. Paused at my bare shoulders, the red of my mouth, the smoky eyes Svetlana had carved for me.
The silence stretched.
Heat crackled between us like static.
His throat worked, like he’d just swallowed something that didn’t go down right.
“You’ll do,” he said finally, voice rougher than I remembered.
You’ll do.
That was it? After they turned me into a Bond girl who’d eat men alive, all I got was a grudging “you’ll do”?
Something snapped. Something small and stubborn and made of all the pieces of me that weren’t his to command.
I turned fully toward him, letting him see the whole effect head-on. Tilted my head. Smiled sweetly enough to rot teeth.
“Careful,” I said. “If you compliment me any harder, I might actually fall for you.”
I wasn’t expecting anything.
His expression shifted anyway. For a second, the corner of his mouth did something almost like a real smile. Then it was gone, replaced by that predatory focus that made my skin too tight.
He stalked closer with that lethal, controlled grace that never failed to make heat slip through my veins no matter how many bodies I’d seen him stand over.
Up close, the air around him was still cold from outside. Snow and December night clung to the wool of his coat. Underneath: the familiar scent of dark cologne, soap, faint coffee.
He stopped so close that the edge of his coat brushed the silk hugging my thighs.
“You look like mine,” he said quietly.
Not “beautiful.” Not “stunning.”
Mine.
The word should’ve lit me on fire with rage. Should’ve made me shove him, claw his face, remind him I was a person, not property.
