Page 40 of Riot

One was Irina’s boyfriend. Rollo. He smiled when he saw her, wrapping his arm around her waist like he’d done it a hundred times and would keep doing it until the end of the world. His energy was soft, easy.

But the man standing next to him?

He was anything but.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t move.

He just looked at me.

And I looked right back.

It hit me so fast I almost lost my breath. That washim.The man who’d delivered the tiger to Boaz. The one I’d only seen once but hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. His presence was even more potent up close—more dangerous. He had the kind of face that made you want to make mistakes. Dark-skinned, sharp jaw, mouth full of glinting grills that somehow made him look like both a prince and a villain. His eyes were low and slow and heavy with something I couldn’t name. Lust? Curiosity? Recognition?

My body reacted before my brain did.

My skin warmed.

My lips parted slightly.

My thighs pressed together.

There was something about him that felt like gravity. Like inevitability.

“And apparently you’ve met Riot already,” Irina said while winking, as if the name didn’t just shake something loose inside of me.

He turned my way and locked his eyes to mine.

And for a second, it was like the rest of the party faded.

Just soundless, breathless heat.

I didn’t smile. Neither did he.

But something passed between us anyway.

And I knew...

This night was only just beginning.

Chapter 12

RIOT

The second I saw her, the entire room disappeared.

It was like my pulse stopped just long enough to restart in a different rhythm. Slower. Heavier. Focused. She moved through the crowd like smoke—quiet, but impossible to ignore. That scent hit me again. Innocence. Purity. The same one I caught back at Boaz’s estate. I’d never forget it.

And now here she was.

Free? How did she manage to get out? And what about the other girls?

But her skin glowed under the low light of the bar, deep and smooth like melted cocoa. That black dress she had on? It was painted on her body. And those legs? Those thick, cocoa-dipped thighs and the slight sway of her hips? Her body wasn’t just a temple it was a whole sermon.

Rollo and Irina were laughing beside me, arms wrapped around each other like newlyweds. Rollo and I were close but he switched new girls every other week. This Irina chick was new and I didn’t trust her. But I didn’t trust most women.

My baby cousin Abra was already posted at the bar with a few friends, tossing her head back in laughter.

But I couldn’t hear a thing.

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