Page 12 of Power
As the bar around us ceased to exist, I extended my hand, eager to feel her supple skin against my own.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Her beautiful lips—lips I could imagine kissing me all over my body—parted slightly.
“I fell down.”
Her voice hit me like aged whiskey: smooth, intoxicating, and guaranteed to make me do something impulsive. A blush crept across her cheeks, and I found myself wondering how far down that blush went.
When her hand slipped into mine, every cell in my body snapped to attention. The gentleman in me wanted to buy her a drink, learn her story. The devil on my shoulder had other ideas, involving that bar top and significantly less clothing. Both sides agreed on one thing: I needed more of her.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
Neither was I, and now I can’t look anywhere else.
I didn’t date women for good reason. The moment they discovered my last name, dollar signs would appear over their eyes. Us four Lockwood brothers were wealthy through inheritance before we started our ventures, and while many people didn’t know my face, my name echoed through Chicago like a drumbeat. I’d lost count of how many times I’d watched genuine smiles turn predatory the moment women connected the dots. It was always the same dance: their laugh would get a little louder, their touch a little longer, their eyes a little sharper. And then I never knew if they were interested in me or my prestige.
In fairness, I probably hadn’t met the right women. Plenty of women, I would argue, didn’t care about things like wealth, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, I’d given up on dating, but now, that rule seemed as absurd as it was impossible. Instantly, I wanted to know everything about this woman. Her name. Her story. The taste of her lips. The sound of her in bed when I?—
A gust of air blew the tendrils of her hair slightly, sending a piece of paper dancing between us that she’d been holding when we crashed into each other. I picked it up because, apparently, I was now the kind of man who chased windblown trash just because it belonged to her.
But what I read made my insides flutter with amusement:
REVENGE LIST
Well, well. Maybe she wasn’t the angel she appeared to be. And maybe, just maybe, that made her even more irresistible.
6
JACE
When I glanced up, I found myself staring into a pair of wide, panic-stricken eyes. The woman’s cheeks were flushed so scarlet, you’d think she was coming down with a life-threatening fever.
“Put laxatives in his coffee?” I read aloud, cocking an eyebrow and fighting to keep a straight face. “Remind me never to accept a drink from you.”
She thrust out a delicate hand, chin tilted defiantly despite her obvious mortification. “That’s private. Can I have it back, please?”
I couldn’t help but grin, holding the napkin just out of her reach. “Who’s the unlucky guy?”
She lunged for the napkin, but I was faster. And taller and not at all ready to let this go because this was one of the most amusing things I’d come across in, well, ever.
“It’s just a joke,” she insisted, her voice pitched higher than before, her gaze darting between me and something behind me.
“Shove ice picks into his balls,” I read dramatically, watching her wince. “Damn. What’d this guy do? Kick a kitten?”
“It was just a … creative writing exercise,” she mumbled.
“Are you an author?”
“Of that napkin, yes. Now give it back,” she retorted, a spark of sass breaking through her embarrassment.
Her eyes darted behind me again. Was the target of her wrath here? That could get interesting.
“You shouldn’t glue his office chair wheels,” I advised. “Unscrew them instead. When he sits down, he’ll go flying. Much more satisfying.”
Her mouth twitched. “Are you … critiquing my revenge fantasies?”
“Someone has to maintain quality standards in the vengeance industry.”
