Demand - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,46
the center of the archway, waiting for the door to lift and reveal the main castle foyer. Seconds tick by, feeling slow when they are fast, and within a few breaths the barrier is gone, and Kayden is standing directly in front of me, a perfectly fitted tuxedo hugging every tall, broad, perfect inch of him. He owns it just as well as he owns denim and leather, like he owns everything around him. Like he does me—and that is trust. A deep, complete trust that my past says I should have for no one, yet I have it for him.
I want to tell him this, but all that comes out is, “Hi.”
Those pale, pale blue eyes of his answer with a fast, intimate sweep up and down my body, before he snags my hips and pulls me to him.
“Hi,” he replies, aligning our lower bodies and removing more than the space between us. I know now that we are not separate, but together. “You,” he declares, his voice low and silky, “are breathtaking in every way.”
“And you,” I say, flattening my hand on his chest, feeling his heart thundering the way mine is, “really are beautiful, Kayden Wilkens.” I search his face, finding starkness in his eyes that I want to erase but know I cannot. “How bad was it with Enzo’s mother?”
“Bad enough that if you and I could be fucking it out of my head right now . . .”
“And yet you dressed somewhere else.”
“I wasn’t in a good place, and tonight, before this party we need to attend, was not the time for you to see that part of me.”
“Is there ever going to be a time you show that part of yourself to me?”
“Yes. Or you wouldn’t be going to this party with me.”
“Promise me, Kayden.”
“I promise you, Ella. Just not yet.”
“I’d reject that answer, but I know we have a party to go to, so I guess we’re just going to have to stick to the plan.”
“And that would be what?”
“There’s going to be some fighting before we get to the fucking.”
He wraps me in his arms and presses his cheek to mine. “And what if I don’t want to fuck you? What if I want to make love to you, Ella?”
I lean back to look at him, and in his eyes, the starkness of moments before is now tenderness and passion. There is an open door I needed so damn bad tonight. “Can we do both?”
“We will do both.” He brushes his lips over mine, a whisper of a touch I feel everywhere, and I wish he were touching me now, not later. “Many times,” he adds, seeming to reluctantly release me, before inching up his sleeve to check the time. But this time, instead of seeing the watch, it’s the Hawk beneath it that has my attention, reminding me of the bracelet yet to be revealed.
“We need to get moving,” he says, draping his arm around my shoulders and heading toward the main foyer. “Chief Donati will be there tonight and I don’t want us to miss him.”
“Please tell me Gallo won’t be there, too,” I say as we cross the foyer.
“He won’t,” he says, opening the door leading to the garage and allowing me to enter the stairwell and start down the narrow path.
“This event is by VIP invitation only,” he adds following me down, “and mostly high-ranking politicians, elected officials, and all their cronies.”
“Does that make us their cronies?” I ask over my shoulder.
“That makes us their biggest wish they’ll never get.” He catches up with me and opens the garage door for me. “And that’s power, sweetheart. You’ll see that at the party.”
On that note, I enter the surprisingly warm, well-lit garage and see the ridiculously expensive shiny blue Pagani Zonda that ironically, considering the statement he just made, was given to him as payment for a job. “Why is the police chief’s presence tonight so important?” I ask when he steps to my side. “Is it about the favor you owe him?”
“It’s about the favor he won’t get if he doesn’t keep Gallo away from you. Which car, sweetheart?” he asks, indicating the four F-TYPE Jags lined up on the opposite side of the garage.
“I love the ice blue,” I say, “but black feels very James Bond, like you in that tuxedo.”
He laughs and walks to the rack of keys on the wall. “Just call me 007, sweetheart. And since we’re talking cars, we need to get you