Page 12 of Monsters Wear Crowns
A slow smile tugged at his lips, and my breath caught.There it was.That dimple. A single, devastating crease on his right cheek.
Fuck. Fuck.
“Something tells me you don’t mind the company.”
The air shifted between us. My heart pounded, though I kept my expression casual. There was something about him–an ease to his confidence, a quiet dominance that made the space around him feel smaller. I was suffocating.
His presence slotted too neatly into the empty space beside me, like he’d been meant to be there all along.
Because hewas.
His gaze dragged down the length of me, slow and deliberate, making no effort to hide the way he drank me in. My fitted black skirt, the delicate lace of my red top, the curve of my legs crossed at the knee, my red-bottomed heels tapping against the footrest.
My skin prickled beneath his scrutiny.
“You dress like a woman who enjoys attention,” he mused.
I arched a brow, feigning nonchalance despite the heat licking up my spine. “And you watch like a man who enjoys giving it.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Amusement. Interest. Approval. “Guilty,” he murmured, lifting his drink to his lips.
I exhaled slowly, forcing the tension coiling in my stomach to loosen. He said it like it was an inside joke I was supposed to understand.Fuck. Shit. Oh, god. This was the man stalking me? He was fucking gorgeous.
I swirled my glass, keeping my voice light. “Tell me, do you make a habit of approaching women in bars with thinly veiled arrogance, or am I just special?”
His lips curved around the rim of his glass. “You’re special.”
Two words. Simple. Uncomplicated. And yet they triggered an annoying flare of arousal. I shifted, suddenly too aware of the situation I was in. This wasn’t just some man flirting at a bar. This was the predator finally pouncing.
I lifted my glass to my lips, letting the whiskey linger on my tongue as I studied him over the rim. “Flattery doesn’t work on me.”
He exhaled a quiet laugh that felt more like a secret than amusement. “Good. I wasn’t trying to flatter you.”
I narrowed my eyes, more fascinated than I wanted to admit. His confidence wasn’t forced. It waseffortless, woven into the way he held himself, the way he spoke. I was used to men who thought power was about loud voices and heavy hands. But this man?
He carried it like it was stitched into his very skin.
He turned his glass between his fingers, regarding me with that same casual arrogance. I noticed several silver rings and a very expensive watch. “You’ve been restless.”
I stiffened. “You’ve been watching me?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just took a slow sip of his drink, watching me over the rim. The ice in his glass clinked softly as he set it down. “No,” he finally said. “Not for long. I watched you sit down and order.”
Something about that answer made my heart race. I shouldn’t have been interested. I should have been irritated. Maybe even a little unnerved.
But I wasn’t.
And that was the problem.
I shifted in my seat, tilting my chin up. “And what makes you think I’m restless?”
He leaned in just a fraction, his scent drifting toward me. Whiskey and cedarwood. “Because I know the look of someone who came here searching for something.”
A muscle in my jaw ticked. He wasn’t wrong, and that irritated me more than the words themselves.
I swirled my drink in my glass before gently bouncing it on the bar with a soft clink. “And what exactly do you think I’m searching for?”
His lips parted slightly, as if he were on the verge of saying something scandalous. But then he only smiled. Slow. Intimate. “That,” he murmured, voice like a whisper against my skin. “Is what I’m trying to figure out.”
