The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(29)

For a long minute, he believed she’d strike him. Little gold specks of fury glittered brightly in her eyes. And for an even longer moment, he wanted her to. He deserved a facer. Then she marched off, brushing violently past him.

“Cleopatra,” he called out as her fingers found the handle.

She stalled, but she made no move to turn around.

“I don’t want you wandering these halls at night,” he ordered. “Are we clear?”

“Go to hell,” she spat.

She’d taken his orders as an insult. Guilt knotted in his chest. She didn’t know he wanted her gone for his own sanity. Regardless, it was safer not engaging her, letting her form whatever erroneous opinion she had.

Letting herself out, she pulled the door shut behind her with a barely discernible click.

What in blazes had overcome him? He slammed a fist on the desk so hard, the ledgers leapt from the force of that movement. It only brought his attention to the design plans he’d pored over with Cleopatra. She’d raised valid points in terms of the layout of the hell, and her questioning seemed innocuous. Only she was a Killoran. Since Adair and his siblings had freed themselves of Mac Diggory’s clutches and established a fortune and future of their own, they’d earned eternal enemies in that gang. Through countless criminal acts carried out against Adair’s family and his gaming hell, he knew better than to trust her. Knew better than to desire her . . .

A knock infiltrated his tumultuous thoughts—a hard, strong, powerful one that marked it different from the waiflike Cleopatra. “Enter,” he called, swiftly straightening.

Ryker entered. His keen gaze did a sweep of the room, taking in everything. “I observed Killoran in the halls.”

Killoran. It was, of course, the young woman’s surname . . . but there was a detached coldness that no longer fit with the spirited minx he’d held in his arms. “I sent her to her rooms,” he said as his brother entered the room and shut the door behind him. Ryker had been watching after the newest houseguest. After his exchange with Cleopatra Killoran, Adair had no right to any annoyance at having his responsibilities questioned. Adair concentrated his efforts on righting his piles.

“You sent her to her rooms? And you didn’t see fit to personally escort her there?” Ryker asked.

Adair briefly stopped in his tidying.

He’d been tasked with looking after Killoran’s sister, and yet here he’d stood instead, sharing the building plans for the Hell and Sin, letting her inside that world, and then nearly taking her on his desk. “It won’t happen again,” he finally said, that reassurance laced with a double meaning. His brother could never know. It didn’t matter that Cleopatra’s kiss had said she was no virgin. It mattered the gang she belonged to, and the spell that had blotted out all logical hatred for her.

“Carelessness—”

“Kills,” he cut in brusquely. “I know the damned rules.” He, Ryker, Niall, and Calum had established the very guidelines for survival as boys. “I won’t forget.”

“See that you don’t,” Ryker commanded in gravelly tones. “My family lives here.” Recently a father, Ryker, who’d always been overprotective of his kin, had developed a singular intent to look after his loved ones.

“I will not make the same mistake,” he assured.

With a nod, Ryker let himself out. Abandoning any hopes of sleep for the night, Adair, in a bid to set Cleopatra from his thoughts, claimed a spot at his desk and evaluated the most recent design plans for the Hell and Sin.

His family and his club were everything . . . he’d do well to not, as Ryker said, let a Killoran threaten either.





Chapter 8

The following day, Cleopatra didn’t leave her temporary chambers. She rose, dressed, and took her meals—or at least accepted the trays—and remained closeted away.

But her exile was not a result of that frosty warning issued by Adair the evening prior.

Seated cross-legged on her bed, she stared at the doorway.

“I kissed him,” she whispered, and the horror of that admission being spoken aloud for now the twenty-sixth time did not blunt the shame of it.

She, Cleopatra Killoran of the Devil’s Den, had kissed Adair Thorne, proprietor of the Hell and Sin Club. Not only had she kissed him, she’d panted and pleaded like a bitch in heat. And despite her scorn and disgust for the women she’d witnessed who made fools of themselves for a man’s touch, Cleopatra had wanted more of his embrace.

Groaning, Cleopatra dropped her head into her hands. She’d vowed to never give herself the way the whores in her club did. Those embraces were, at best, lust-crazed responses from women without any self-control; at worst, they were acts of desperation. And Cleopatra had tired of desperation long, long ago.

Yes, she was a woman of logic, reason, and sense who’d never part her thighs for any man.

But how very close you came last evening . . .

Cleopatra cringed. On a desk no less, like one of the fancily dressed whores employed at the Devil’s Den. Yet, it wasn’t her body’s response to him that curdled in her belly like spoiled milk. She’d actually enjoyed being with him. For the first time since she’d learned that she would be moving out of the Devil’s Den and giving up the only life she’d ever known, she’d been at ease.