Page 108 of Devil's Cage

My hands ball into fists at my sides. I forgot the effect that he has on me. I forgot howangryhe can make me with just his presence. If only that was the only effect that he had on me. Already I’m focusing on his long fingers and feeling the effects of his confidence like a fever over my body.

I could throw something at him and run, but only if my aim decides to be effective. It might buy me a couple of minutes, at least to get to the elevator where there is a panic button.

“How did you get in here?” I ask darkly.

He’s so much more painfully handsome in front of me right now than the version of him that lives in my memories. His shoulders seem broader. He has those familiar piercing light blue eyes and a full bottom lip. A five o’clock shadow stubbles the hollows of his cheeks and jawline. His high cheekbones make his face seem more angular than before. His dark hair is styled back and away from his face. There’s no way to tell if the slight wave his locks used to curl into when it was worn longer has disappeared. I hate that I want to know so badly. I expect him to be taller—he was always taller than my five-foot-four frame anyway.

“That’s how you want to start things?” Nathaniel rolls his eyes and pushes back from the desk so quickly that I flinch. Thatanswers the height question. He towers over me now, even with the distance between us. “Might I suggest an alternative?”

His eyes seem to pierce right through me, reflecting the low yellow light until they almost glow in a feline way. The feigned civility he promised a moment ago is gone now. Instead, his face twists into something terrifying. His chin dips low to his chest and he peers up at me through his eyebrows as he stands in an elegant motion.

“Begging for my forgiveness would be a far,farbetter choice at this junction.” His voice is deep and commanding and sinks into me in a way that I’ve never experienced before. My lips part in surprise. This man is the one thing I fear most, the one thing any woman should fear most—the monster of my nightmares wearing the most handsome face.

I’m violently attracted to it.

The cut to his jaw is sharper. His posture and gait are that of a predator as he studies my much smaller frame. This look is so much more intense than when he would glance at me after hockey and football games in high school, than the cursory looks that he would give me when he thought that Alessandro wasn’t looking that fed my fantasies for years, well after he had gone off to college, even after I had gone to college myself. He was mygo-todark fantasy. I can’t count the number of times I’ve touched myself to versions of this exact look over the years. He lookedstarvedand predatory, top of the food chain. And I’m the one who has been caught in his trap.

To think of all the times he has been in our house to retrieve Alessandro for some activity or another; they had been best friends, once upon a time. They had been nearly inseparable, and I had the privilege of existing in their orbit. Once, I thought the pair of them together could have toppled worlds, but then they went off to separate colleges and everything changed.

“Do you want to get on your knees for me the easy way, Camila, or the hard way?”

Fuck. My knees buckled under my weight without my permission.

“You’re even more stupid than I remember if you think that I would ever do anything the easy way,” I say back.

Nathaniel groans and my body responds easily to it. I wish I could blame how wet he makes me on a fear response, but that wouldn’t be true, because it’s always been the same. That was back when he hardly knew that I existed, let alone turned that particular charm of his in my direction.

I’m so warm that I’m uncomfortable in my body. Fear and powerful arousal make my legs feel heavy. I feel like I’m sinking into the floor. I can feel my quick pulseeverywhere.

Nathaniel’s head rolls backward as if I just said exactly what he wanted to hear. When his head lifts, he looks nearly feral with joy. “Good. It will be so much sweeter for me that way.”

“W-whatever you think is going to happen here, you’re very wrong.”

“I think you’re going to show me exactly how much you missed me… How truly fuckingsorryyou are that you ever acted against me. That’s what’s going to happen, Camila, whether you want to or not.”

He looks so casual with his hands tucked into his pockets. His shoulders and posture are completely relaxed. Only the glare is dominating, and he has immobilized me with. My throat tightens and I summon the last of my bravado from the pits of my courage. “You know youdolook pretty good for a dead man, Angelo, but you don’t lookthatgood. I would rather die, or swallow knives and chase it down with fuckingbleachbefore I ever got on my knees for you.” I practically spit at him.

He twitches.

It’s just a subtle little move of his shoulder, but I know him better than he thinks. It’s the same flinch he would do to fake out his dueling partners when he and my brother had taken up fencing. It always precedes a trick move. A feint in football, a sucker punch in boxing, a twitch in fencing…

He’s coming for me. I know his tells. After all, I watched so closely it had bordered on obsession. That was before he killed my brother. I memorized every single thing about him, then.

So, when he twitches, I do too.

He willnotcatch me today.

CHAPTER FIVE

Nathaniel

Finally.

I was worried that she was going to attempt to have a conversation with me, try to talk her way out of it, or wear me down. Honestly, I thought that she would attempt something truly stupid like threaten me with backup or other members of her family. The last time I saw her, she would never have dared to speak to me that way.

She runs into the living room.She wants to play cat and mouse?I’ll play. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen any real action anyway.

I lived in a constant state offightfor so long, and slipping back into my regular life has been a far,farmore difficult transition than I would like to admit to. I find myself looking for outlets for my anger, fighting myself sick in the gym. The desire to scrapand spar is most intense than ever before. I was never a man prone to violence, but I breathed it in those prison yards. It’s a part of me now—a part of me that I don’t want my family to know anything about.

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