Page 55 of Rapture's Edge (Night Prowler 3)
That was when the air actually turned to fire.
Audible gasps went up through the crowd. The ham-hock hands of the man who’d just been ready to fight her trembled. Someone whispered an astonished, Merde!
And beyond her thundering heart and frozen muscles and horror, Eliana could appreciate why.
Huge, bare-chested, and leonine, D stood exposed, chin lifted, eyes hooded, shoulders thrown back. His body was carved and corded with muscle, a sculptor’s imagination gone wild. From the V-shaped muscles that rose from the waistline of his low-slung leathers to the articulated corrugation of his rock-hard abs to the bulging biceps of his arms and the flare of heavy lats on his back that tapered down to his narrow waist in an inverted triangle, he was magnificent. Breathtaking. Hercules, Adonis, Samson, and Tarzan, all rolled into one.
He had multiple, elaborate tattoos: the stylized Eye of Horus on his left shoulder, thick black tribal symbols tracked down the length of his right arm, an enormous cobra that snaked its way down from his neck, around his back, and up to his chest, where it coiled, sinuous. In the center of one loop of scales right over his heart there was inked a name in cursive letters with thorny vines and flowers patterned around.
The letters spelled out Eliana.
Astonished, she glanced back up at his face, noting the scratches she’d given him had already healed. He was smiling at her, a slow, seductive curve of his lips. “How ’bout a rematch?” he said in a low, amused rumble. “Five hundred says I win this time, too.”
Son of a bitch.
The crowd exploded into a frenzy. Bets were placed, money changed hands, and shouting and shoving and chaos ensued. From one corner of her eye she noticed Alexi standing with arms crossed, glaring back and forth between the two of them. The flabbergasted blonde beside him couldn’t tear her wide-eyed gaze from Demetrius’s naked chest.
He took a step forward. She took a step back. They began to circle each other slowly, warily, their gazes locked together. All the noise and movement faded to the background as her focus honed on his face. His movements. His breath.
Her own breath was ragged, her pulse a thunderstorm inside her skull.
“If you think I’m going to lead to you to the others, you’re wrong,” she said, low enough she knew only his ears would be able to hear. Over four hundred miles of hiding spaces in the catacombs; he’d have to search for days to find them, and by then they’d be long gone.
He cocked an eyebrow. The silver rings in it glinted in the light. “Not here for them, baby girl. I’m here for you.”
If he meant to anger her with his endearment, it worked. “Nice tattoo, by the way,” she snapped, glancing at his chest. “I’ll be carving that off your dead body later.”
He tutted. “You’ll have to kill me first. Good luck with that.”
Then he lunged forward in a blur of bronzed skin and leather and grabbed her.
She twisted out of his grasp, using all her strength to tear free. But he had her again in an instant and pinned her arms behind her back. Heady and warm and masculine, the scent of his skin flamed hot in her nose as he leaned down and whispered into her ear, “You’re not trying very hard. You need to give the crowd their money’s worth. Butterfly.” She felt the fleet brush of his lips across the flesh of her shoulder, and then he released her and sprang away.
She whirled around with a savage snarl. He was on the other side of the space cleared by the circle of bodies, hands on his hips, staring at her with a heated expression somewhere between amusement and anticipation. He stretched a hand out and crooked two fingers at her, a silent command.
Come.
Oh no. Oh no he didn’t.
Fury blinded her, and she went on pure instinct, striking out, hitting, kicking. The next few moments were a blur. There was the sensation flying, of falling, of gravity spinning away. Her hands were around his throat, his hands came around her waist, and suddenly she was flat on her back in the center of the fighting ring with Demetrius straddling her body, his hands pinning her wrists to the ground above her head.
The roar of the crowd was deafening.
He grinned down at her, victorious, and then, before she could scream the curse that was on the tip of her tongue, his mouth was on hers.
Ache and salt and softness, the ground cold and hard against her back, Demetrius warm and hard against her chest, pulling greedily at her lips, drinking deep…the sharp edges of her fury began, awfully, to melt.
He pulled away first, panting, flipped her over, and in one horrifying, fluid movement, flung her over his bent knee so she was staring in shock at the dusty, scuffed ground.
And then—horror of all horrors—he spanked her.
In front of everyone.
Three times.
Hard.
The crowd went absolutely insane.
