Chapter Eight

 

 

 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Grant drawled. “Looking for something?”

Juliet jumped back from the door as if it had suddenly caught fire, her gaze darting from his hard, glittering gaze to the deadly black pistol he held pointed straight at her heart. “I – I was just looking for the dressing room. I must have gotten–”

“Lost?” He smiled coldly. “Somehow I think you ended up precisely where you wanted to be. Turn around and put your hands on the bedpost. And before you think about running, I should make one thing clear. I will shoot you this time.”

She believed him. Gone was the charming gentleman who had flirted shamelessly with her in the ballroom. In his place stood a man carved from granite. A man without kindness or compassion. A man who wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in her at the slightest provocation.

This was The Wolf she’d been warned about. If only she’d listened to Bran…

Turning quickly around, she did as he had requested, her fingers wrapping around the sturdy mahogany bedpost until they interlocked. Her muscles tensed when she heard the creak of a floorboard directly behind her, and she jolted when his hand clamped down on her shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she said warily.

“Checking you for weapons.” He pressed the pistol into the small of her back as he began an impersonal sweep of her body, starting with her neck and working down towards her legs. But his brisk, efficient touches began to slow the closer he got to her waist…and they stopped all together when he reached her hip.

“Lift up your dress.”

Juliet’s skin turned cold and then hot as a flush spread from the tip of her toes to the top of her breasts. Exposed above the lace-trimmed bodice of her gown, her collarbones flushed a dull red. She turned her head and glared back at him over her shoulder, eyes bright with defiance.

“The devil I will,” she snapped.

His head tilting a fraction of an inch to the side, he studied her as a scientist might a particularly fascinating new discovery. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

“No.” It wasn’t until she’d spoken the word out loud that she realized it was a lie. Truth be told she was afraid of him. But not for the reasons she should have been. The way he could summon a blush to her cheeks with a single glance frightened her. And his ability to make her skin burn with a simple touch? Downright terrifying.

“You should be.” He leaned in so close she could smell the peppermint on his breath and see the throb of his pulse on the side of his neck. His voice a velvet whisper, he said, “Lift up your dress, Juliet. I am not going to ask again.”

“Are you going to rape me?” she asked matter-of-factly.

A sneer drew his mouth to the side. “I’m going to find all the weapons you’re hiding before you try to kill me with them. I can assure you, I find nothing remotely desirable about a common criminal. You and your kind disgust me.”

Now who was lying? Grant may have hated her every bit as much as she hated him, but there was no denying the attraction between them. Even now it shimmered just beneath the surface of their animosity, a flint that only needed the tiniest of sparks to ignite and burst into flame.

“Easy,” he said through gritted teeth when she lifted her leg up and placed the toe of her boot on the edge of the bed. “No sudden movements.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got a pistol. What do you think I’m going to do?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.” Cold steel kissed the nape of her neck as he pressed the muzzle to her bare skin. “But I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

Smart man.

Slowly, carefully, she drew the hem of her dress up to her knee, exposing the small dagger she had strapped to the inside of her calf. Removing it from its leather sheath, she held it reluctantly over her shoulder, the hilt pointing backwards. Grant snatched it away.

“Now the rest,” he said.

“That was the only one I–”

“The rest, Juliet.” It wasn’t a request, but a command. One he punctuated with a low growl that sent a shiver coursing down her spine. Bran, devil take him, had been right. The Wolf was ruthless. Now that he’d managed to sink his teeth into her, she didn’t see an easy means of escape. But no matter how sharp his claws or how vicious his bite, she would not – she could not – give up without a fight. It wasn’t in her nature to surrender. She was not a meek little lamb bound for slaughter. She was a lioness. And soon enough Grant would feel the sharpness of her claws.

“Juliet.”    

“All right, all right. You needn’t be so testy,” she complained as she hitched her skirts up even higher and pulled out a pistol, then a second dagger.

“Toss them on the bed,” he ordered tersely.

She did as he asked, then waited with her hands loosely draped on her hips for his next command. It was a good thing she was facing away from him, for it meant he couldn’t see the calculating light in her eyes or the determined set of her jaw. She kept her leg poised on the edge of the bed, her bunched skirts revealing the creamy plumpness of her thigh and the slender curve of her calf. She could feel his gaze scorching her sensitive flesh and a small, catlike smile curved her lips. Grant may have forced her to get rid of her physical arsenal – with the exception of the small dagger she had tucked between her breasts – but there was one weapon he couldn’t strip her of.

Her feminine wiles. 

Juliet may have been a virgin, but she wasn’t innocent. Far from it. She knew firsthand the devastating power a man could yield over a woman…and, courtesy of Sam, the power a woman could yield over a man.

She still remembered the night she’d asked her friend why she had willingly chosen a profession where she was controlled by the opposite sex. They’d been sprawled on Sam’s red satin sheets, drunk on a bottle of champagne Juliet had lifted from a fancy nabob’s house along with a gold pocket watch and a diamond choker.

Lifting a sleek ebony brow, Sam had softly laughed and said, “But darling, you’ve got it all wrong. I control them. Not the other way around. All it takes is a smoldering stare…a suggestive touch…and they’ll do whatever I want.” She sipped her champagne. “The real trick is making them believe it’s their idea.”

“How do you do that?” Juliet had asked, intrigued.

Sam rolled from her belly to her back, dark hair slithering over her arms in a curtain of black silk as she sat up on her elbows. “Figure out what they desire – what they really desire – and give it to them.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“If it was that easy I wouldn’t make thirty pounds a client.”

Champagne spilled across the coverlet as Juliet’s flute tipped in her hand. “Thirty pounds? But that’s a bloody–”

“Fortune. Yes, I know.” One pale shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. “And I don’t even have to leave this bed to get it. Well, sometimes I leave the bed.” Her blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “What can I say, darling? Passion is a powerful tool. Learn how to wield it and you’ll have the world – and any man you choose – at your fingertips.”

Juliet had learned a valuable lesson that day, and it was one she’d never forgotten. If she wanted to control the runner, all she needed to do was find out what he wanted…and give it to him.

“Is that everything?” he asked, nodding at the pistol and dagger she’d thrown onto the bed.

“Of course. What?” She slanted him a sideways glance over her shoulder when she heard his incredulous snort. “Don’t believe me? I can’t say as I blame you. I suppose I could always disrobe completely. That’s the only way you would know for sure,” she purred, channeling the smoky voice she’d heard Sam use with her clients. While the art of seduction did not come as naturally to her as her friend, she’d always been a consummate actress. Not that her desire for Grant required much acting…

“That will not be necessary,” he said quickly. Too quickly to her way of thinking.

Ignoring him, she began to trail her hands up her body. His countenance unreadable, Grant remained motionless behind her. Were it not for the heat emanating from his smoldering gaze she might have thought he was unmoved by her little sensual display, but try as he might he couldn’t stop his gaze from following the slow, tantalizing trail of her fingertips as they slid over the swell of her breasts.

“What are you doing?” he demanded when she hooked her thumbs inside the capped sleeves of her gown and started to pull down her bodice.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Touching her chin to her shoulder, she peeked up at him beneath long auburn lashes. From the clenched jaw and throbbing muscle high in his right cheek to the carnal longing in the depths of his green eyes, his handsome countenance was a myriad of contradictions. She could sense the battle within him, for it was the same battle she was fighting within herself. Need versus want. Instinct versus desire. Self-preservation versus insatiable lust…

“This isn’t going to work.” He grabbed her wrist abruptly, long fingers closing around the delicate bones in an unyielding grip. For all intents and purposes he might as well have shackled her…to himself.  

“What isn’t?” Using the wrist he held as a fulcrum, she pivoted towards him until they were facing one another with nary an inch of space in between. Were it not for the cold hard pistol pressed against her belly, they might have been in the middle of an elegant waltz instead of a tense standoff that was more likely than not going to end with one of them sprawled in a pool of their own blood.

“You’re mediocre attempts at seduction.” His gaze hardened as he stared down at her, his mouth curling into a sneer.

Juliet blinked.

Mediocre? He thought she was mediocre?

Arrogant bastard.

She’d show him mediocre.

Without giving herself time to think of the consequences, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt, rose up on her toes, and pressed her lips to his.