The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(57)

Whereas Cleopatra? She’d been born with evil in her veins.

Knuckles brushed along her jaw, and she looked back as Adair forced her chin up so their gazes met.

“It was wrong of me holding your connection to Diggory against you,” he said quietly.

Her entire body jerked whipcord straight.

“You being part of his gang was no different than me or my brothers.”

Only . . . it was altogether different.

She made to move out of his reach, but he retained his hold. His touch, a blend of tenderness and strength, brought her eyes sliding briefly closed. She’d been punched, slapped, and pinched with regular frequency by brutes in the street whom she’d tangled with over scraps. But those cruel thugs—none had ever dared put their hands upon her . . . and the ones who had when Broderick rose to power had lost fingers for it.

Never had she known a man’s touch could feel like this—a gentle, fleeting caress that made her long to turn herself over to the power of his embrace once more.

Their breaths mingled—his with the acrid hint of cheroot and coffee, so very masculine and enticing. He dipped his head lower, and Cleopatra lifted hers to take his kiss.

The door flew open with a rapidity that brought both of their heads up.

Sidestepping Adair’s attempts to shove her behind him, Cleopatra unsheathed the dagger in her boot and pointed it at a glowering Ryker Black. And as little as the world knew of the ruthless gaming hell owner, Cleopatra knew enough to gather from his seething silence that he was furious.

The nameless guard who’d stood sentry outside her room stared back with a derisively triumphant grin on his lips.



Adair took in the pair in the doorway: Ryker and the guard, Wilson, who’d been in their employ for more than ten years.

His brother was furious.

As long as Adair had known Ryker, the other man had been a master of dissembling. Where most couldn’t gather what he was thinking and when, there were certain tells.

The vein bulging in the corner of his eye was the mark of his outrage.

Ryker moved his piercing stare from Cleopatra to Adair . . . and then settled for a lingering moment . . . a damning one . . . on the building plans for the Hell and Sin Club.

Silently cursing, Adair tucked his pistol back into the waistband of his breeches. “Usually a knock will suffice,” he drawled.

That telltale vein throbbed all the more. “Miss Killoran,” Ryker commanded in even tones. “If you’ll excuse us?”

And Cleopatra, who’d earned his admiration for her cleverness and pride, now with her fearlessness in the face of Ryker’s wrath moved up in his estimation all the more. “We were in the middle of something here, Black.”

Through the years, their sister, Helena, hadn’t even met Ryker’s simmering rages with a challenge. Cleopatra was a fool . . . but a brave one.

Ryker’s irises disappeared behind thin slits of barely suppressed rage.

She hitched her left foot up onto her seat and resheathed her weapon.

Wilson, once a young man who’d come to their employ after escaping Diggory, glared with a searing loathing at her.

At the other man’s focus on her exposed limb, fury thrummed to life, and Adair hurriedly stepped between Cleopatra and Wilson’s line of vision.

“Oi’m not asking you, Miss Killoran,” Ryker growled, slipping into his Cockney.

Cleopatra opened her mouth to no doubt protest, but then Penelope entered the room.

It is to be a bloody gathering, then, Adair thought.

“Cleopatra,” she eagerly greeted. Rocking Paisley, she tipped her chin awkwardly. “I’ve been searching for you. Would you join me and Paisley this morning in the nursery?”

His sister-in-law had proven herself mad on numerous scores. Anyone who believed this was anything other than a well-timed rescue on Cleopatra’s behalf didn’t have a brain between their ears. As proud as the young woman had proven herself to be, Adair braced for her to continue going toe-to-toe with Ryker when she stepped out from behind him.

A soft, wistful expression stole over her features as she stared at the small babe. From the gentleness in her eyes and tender smile on her lips, there was a maternal softness to Cleopatra. An odd tightening squeezed at his chest.

Adjusting Paisley, Penelope held out her fingers, and Cleopatra immediately joined her. She paused in the doorway, casting a last, lingering glance at Adair before taking her leave.

“Outside the nursery.” Ryker gritted out the command for the other man, and Wilson immediately scrambled into action.

Adair watched his retreat, wanting to bloody his brother’s nose for sending a guard after her like she was . . . Like she was what? A Killoran? It was precisely what she was . . . and yet, she’d also become so much more.

Disquieted, Adair curled his hands into tight balls and used the time as his brother closed the door to compose himself.

“Wot in ’ell are you doing?” Ryker might have been speaking about the weather for as casual the delivery of that query.

Adair made a dismissive sound. “She had . . . ideas for the Hell and Sin.”

Ryker sprang into movement. Storming across the room, he took up position on the opposite side of Adair’s desk. “You gave her the plans for the club,” he boomed, slamming a fist down on the surface with such vigor, the ledgers leapt and then promptly settled into place.