Page 19 of Gluttony
“I love you too.”
“Have you read the scripts I sent over?”
“Maybe.”
“For fuck’s sake. If you don’t pick something soon, you’re no good to me.” Chet shot back the remaining whiskey from his glass. “Have an answer to me by the end of the week or you’re dropped.”
The sad truth was Chet was the best agent in town. He had connections. He’dmadeTony, and he knew it.
Chet pointed his empty glass at Tony with a warning in his narrowed eyes. “End of the week.”
Then he was gone, lost in the crowd of noisy revelers.
The scent of Chet’s whiskey still burned into Tony’s olfactory and before he knew what he was doing, he found himself at the makeshift bar. The tall lanky barman wore coke-bottle spectacles that turned his eye color a cloudy gray.
“What can I get you?” the barman asked.
Tony considered. The night had taken a turn and the rolling in his gut was becoming unbearable. It was either leave or get a drink and become numb. Make that shell fill up withsomething.
Just one.
“Scotch on the rocks,” he answered.
The man nodded and left to prepare the drink, pulling out a clean glass from the rack.
Tony exhaled a long, drawn out breath. He placed his palm on the back of his neck and squeezed. Just one drink. No harm, no foul.
A change in the atmosphere to his right signaled her arrival. Talk about a craving. She was the temptation he couldn’t have. The haven in his nightmare. Just touching her would block out all sin-sensing, and she knew nothing about it. She thought he was a jerk. Maybe he was.This is torture.
“You don’t want that drink,” Bailey stated, her velvet voice low enough for his ears only.
His gaze slid sideways. Standing half a foot shorter than him, she was an impressive woman. Classically beautiful, tall, and striking. How she managed to slide under the radar was beyond him. Throughout the night, rarely a person looked her way. She tried to play down her beauty with boring pantsuits and little makeup.
No colleague asked why she shadowed him. He’d originally assumed word had gotten around about the stalker gift in his trailer, and the need for a bodyguard. Gossip like that was always front and center, and his co-stars were always the first to enjoy a bit of friendly ribbing. But if word had indeed gotten out, he’d have known it by now.
No, he believed no one noticed Bailey because she was good at being a ghost, at pretending she blended with the furniture. There was something about the decor in her condo. It felt thrown together, sparse and almost like a display model home. There was no connection there. No life. It seemed furnished by the salesperson. Not a single family photograph, no identifying paraphernalia. Only the pictures of a tropical getaway merited pause. Sloan’s quick report over the phone earlier today had been lacking in regard to Bailey’s pre-CIA life. Boarding school in her youth. Rich, dead parents she never visited, or took their money. She’d donated it all to charity instead. Before she worked for the agency, she was basically a ghost. Exactly what the agency liked.
Tony tore his gaze from her and brought it back to the barman. He placed the glass on the bench before heading off to the next customer. Tony reached but was stopped by long, elegant brown fingers wrapped around his tanned wrist. The contrast between their two worlds was never so evident as that joining, but when the grimy sense of gluttony in his gut disappeared, he knew he had to have her. He stumbled, adjusting to the new serenity. It was a biological response that had been programmed into his DNA. Each of the Deadly Seven reacted upon contact with their mate with an almost medicinal response. The sick sense in their gut disappeared, and the concentration of sin in their blood reset. They felt human. He could have wept at the sudden absence of queasiness, and he could have gathered her into his arms. Instead, he took her calming scent in and breathed. She smelled like soap with a hint of coconut.
Mistaking the reason for his fumble, Bailey’s grip on his wrist tightened, and she steadied him.
“Are you okay?” Her sharp eyes scanned the crowd for danger.
That was the second time she’d asked that tonight. The awareness hit him squarely in the chest. He’d only a moment to comprehend,maybe she doesn’t hate me,but then he remembered her wiping her mouth with the back of her hand after they’d kissed.
No, she was disgusted with him.
His power—whatever it was—throbbed beneath his skin. It started with a light drum and strengthened to an aching hammer. From his legs up his torso… in his neck.
Aghast, he looked down. A blue glow pulsed in his veins, keeping time with his ever-increasing heart rate. Anyone with their eyes on him would see. Something powerful, untamed, and hot wanted to get out of his body. Here. In front of everyone.
This could be dangerous.
Bailey’s grip released, and she took a step back, stunned eyes on his forearms, on the light coalescing in his hands. “What the hell, Lazarus?”
He shook his hands, flexed his fists, and instinctually suppressed the powerful urge. “It’s nothing. Special effects I forgot to wash off. The paint glows under these lights.”
Pulsing. Throbbing.
