Page 7 of Witch's Dawn
"Looks like you have some admirers," Nona observed. "They keep talking among themselves and looking atyou."
"Great, so now they're being painfully obvious aboutit."
I sucked my drink noisily through the skinny black straw. It felt like a switch flipped in my brain and I was suddenly in a crappy mood. That tarot reading seemed to get under my skin more than Ianticipated.
I also detested being the object of someone's attention. Growing up, I would always get in trouble when a guy tried to talk to me or tell me I was pretty. My parents always made it seem like it was my fault, no matter how covered up or quiet I was. I tried my best to be quiet, mild-mannered and basically invisible, as my parents taught me that a good Christian girl should. But clearly, it didn't seem towork.
"Are they still looking?" I askedNona.
"Yup, checking out your ass shamelessly." She ran her tongue across her teeth. "They look like bad news, which makes them even hotter. Maybe one of them is the Devil you'll fall in lovewith."
"Not if I have anything to do withit."
I sucked down the remainder of my drink and whipped around. Two of the men smiled as I returned their gaze. Only the blond-haired one with blue eyes kept a cool, neutral expression as he leaned against the wall. The black goat's beard just barely brushed the top of hishead.
All three of them stared me down hungrily like a juicy steak waiting to be carvedup.
My body heated and pulsed under their smoldering gaze but the rational part of me was sick of it. Sick and tired of being the object of male lust when all I wanted to do was relax after a longday.
Before I could second-guess myself, I started toward them, hoping my walk passed off as confident and not the hot, swirling mess of nerves that I wasinside.
"Hey," Igreeted.
And flashed a smile as I put a hand on my hip because my mind went completelyblank.
"Hey," returned the one with dark eyes and dark brown hair that fell in a shaggy, sexy mane to his collar. Hisheysounded like rolling thunder. He had been the one getting a tattoo and a bandage now wrapped around hisforearm.
His full lips, surrounded by a five-o'clock shadow, lifted into a smirk as his chocolate eyes roamed shamelessly overme.
"Why don't you take a picture?" I snapped, finally remembering what I was going to say. "It'll lastlonger."
To my utter embarrassment, he and the guy standing next to him with short auburn hair, a clean-shaven face with a sharp jaw, and green eyes, burst intolaughter.
My confidence, as fake as it was, deflated like aballoon.
"I'd be glad to, beautiful," said Green Eyes, retrieving a phone from his jacket pocket. "How about a pretty smile first? Or even better, a little flash ofsometh--"
"I apologize for thesetwo."
The quiet, serious-faced one with blue eyes suddenly stepped between me and his friends. They shrank back ever so slightly, almost unnoticeably but I somehow caught it. Whoever these guys were, Blue Eyes was incharge.
Every cell in my body practically hummed in vibration as he stood inches away from me. He was broad and tall like a viking, with a fuller beard than Brown Eyes but still trimmed short and neatly. I nearly gasped when I got a closer look at his eyes, they looked almost like contact lenses. Such a pale, icy blue like an Arcticlandscape.
"These two are like animals," he said in a lighthearted but commanding tone. "I'll make sure they control themselves and don't ogleyou."
I narrowed my eyes,unconvinced.
"You were ogling just as much. Don't pretend to beinnocent."
"Oh," his mouth lifted into a wry smile for the first time. "I wouldn't dream of pretending such a thing. At least I," he brought a hand to his sculpted chest. "Am a gentleman aboutit."
That was the moment I should have walked away. This man was far too charming. Raw masculinity came off him in waves. It did from all three of them but the strongest fromhim.
There was something else too. Some kind of power or energy that I couldn't place. At first, it seemed to keep everyone away from them at this party but now that I stood within inches, it drew me in like amagnet.
"Whatever," I said, trying to shake off this hold they had on me. "Keep your eyes toyourself."
"I'll make no such promises," he said with a wicked gleam in his icy eyes. "So how was your tarotreading?"
