Page 94 of Black Sheep

His hand traps my waist. Leading me toward the bar, he leans down to rasp in my ear, “Okay then, I’m sure I can find some other rewarding project for you to undertake in my lap.”

Once again I’m overpowered by the absence of the man those twenty-one minutes of footage tell me he should be. My brain tells me it shouldn’t be this easy to want to banter with Axel because he is that man. Yet playful words like those we used to indulge in when we were teenagers rise on my tongue. I bite them back and perch on the barstool.

He murmurs to his private bartender, who sets up the makings of a mimosa. A minute later, Axel slides the drink in front of me. “Enjoy it whiles it lasts. I’m cutting you off after two.”

“I hold my liquor better these days.”

A shadow crosses his eyes but it’s gone a second later. “Says the person who passed out after one drink last night.”

“That wasn’t the drink. It was…” I stop, my cheeks flaming.

“Getting your brains thoroughly fucked out?” he supplies with an arched brow. “Well, drink up and expect a repeat performance tonight.”

The recollection sends tingles up from my toes.

I grab the drink and take a large sip then watch him swallow a mouthful of his Balvenie whisky. Through the open neck of his shirt, I watch his strong throat move. Dear God, even watching him sip his liquor is sexy.

How? How can he be two completely different people? The desperate need to understand claws through me. I turn in my seat to look at him, really look at him.

But he’s staring over my shoulder, his face set into serious lines. I follow his gaze, the hairs on my neck rising. Axel is staring at a couple two lounges over. The man is tall with dark hair almost the same shade as Axel’s. Even from a distance, he’s striking and chillingly sexy. His demeanor is forbidding to the point of arctic. Except when he looks at the woman he’s with. She’s petite, barely coming up to his shoulder, with caramel-blond hair, and yet there’s a strength about her that I almost envy.

Axel stands, his hand pressing into my waist before he releases me. “Excuse me, baby. Quinn’s here. I’ll be right back.”

The man looks up as Axel approaches. His expression turns from complete and utter absorption in the woman to guarded camaraderie.

They shake hands. He introduces Axel to the woman then they move to one corner of the lounge.

A faint memory strikes. He’s the man I saw Axel talking to when I was forced to resort to texting Axel the last time I was here.

Quinn Blackwood.

The men are remarkably similar in height and build but, where Axel’s face bears the shadows of his character, Quinn Blackwood’s daunting personality lives in his chilling aura and eerie silver-blue eyes. I felt the power of it when he looked my way that night.

Unwilling to be caught gawking at the two most striking men in the club, I let my gaze drift over the crowd. And land on a redhead glaring at me from the side of the dance floor below the lounge. She was one of the many women eyeing Axel when we entered.

My middle finger twitches. I tighten it around the champagne flute, turn away, and take another sip. By the time I reach halfway, the light buzz in my belly is fizzing through my blood.

I rise from the barstool and move to the U-shaped booth. Tall and sumptuous, it gives privacy when needed without compromising full enjoyment of the club. I set my small clutch down and perch on the seat.

Dua Lipa’s “Hotter Than Hell” throbs from the speakers. The sultry music pounds through me. Between my legs, the unsatisfied hunger Axel stoked earlier rears its head. I cross one leg over the other in a vain attempt to stem it but that only intensifies the ache. I drain my drink and jump up.

The lyrics wail about the devil, pleasure, heaven and sin.

My skin heats. My hips move before I fully connect with my actions. Across the lounge, Axel’s gaze hones in on me. His lips move in conversation but his eyes never shift from me. My nipples tighten at the unholy gleam in the gray depths.

They finish talking, and he walks across the floor to me. With every predatory step he takes, my heart races, and the muscles in my belly quiver. He reaches me, towering over me like a dark overlord.

“Are you done with your meeting?” Shit, is that my voice? Needy and unsteady?

“I’m done with my meeting,” he confirms, his voice pulsing with decadent intentions. “Now I can take care of you.”

“H-how?”

“Take a wild fucking guess.”

A different sort of tension mounts. Not-quite-steady hands trace my bare arms, down to my wrists. He raises them to drape over his shoulders, then takes control of my hips. The light material gives him the perfect geography of my naked body underneath. When he cups my ass, his breathing alters.

What that does to me…I shake my head.

---