“I’ve lost all respect for you,” Nyx said dryly.
With a grin, I kissed her invisible head before she could recoil, and I put my skirt back down. She slithered down into the top of my toga to hide from my attention.
“Nooooooo,” Lena screamed good-naturedly as I sat down,laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.Everything really is hilarious these days.
Everyone resumed chanting. “Do it! Do it! Do it.”
“Wahoo,” I shouted while laughing. Grabbing the short sleeve of my toga, I pulled the ultra-stretchy material down so my arm was out.
The table oohed and aahed appropriately as I showed off my shoulder and my elbow.
Apparently, I had a knack for performance theater (stripping).This feels like a very lucrative talent.I should pursue this.
I pulled out the other side so both my arms were free.
Everyone clapped, and I laughed. As a naturally introverted person, there was something strangely intoxicating about all the attention. I was soaring through the sky, light as air.
Slowly, I pulled at the stretchy material that covered my chest and made faces as the table laughed harder.
The piano music stopped.
There was a commotion in the far corner of the room.
The bench went flying, knocking over three naked sirens on their knees, as the pianist stood up.
Still dragging my toga lower, I recoiled in horror as glacial blue eyes flashed.
Tattooed letters stretched across a pale throat, and shadows were stark on a sharply defined face. A weapons holster stretched across a white silk shirt with blue crystal buttons—it was full of guns.
Kharon stalked across the room toward me.
Death in his eyes.
He shoved away a naked Spartan male who approached, then he did the same to a siren.
Oh my god,he’sthe pianist.
Why was everyone trying to get tohim and not away from him?
It hit me: after the massacre at Corfu, I’d thought I’d hallucinated piano music, but it had been real.
Kharon had been playing in the house.
Distractedly, I stretched my toga fabric lower and?—
“What the fuck are you doing?” Augustus’s callused hand wrapped around my neck, his fingers dug possessively into my sensitive skin. His other hand roughly yanked the straps of my toga back up.
Kharon stopped, still halfway across the room. He watched, unblinking, as Augustus touched me. His expression was unreadable.
I forgot how to inhale.
“It was a simple question.” His breath tickled my ear as he squeezed my neck tighter. “Why are you taking your clothes off in public?”
“Professor,” I whispered as he choked me. “Whatare you doing?”
He leaned close, dark eyes feral.
“I’m taking control—Alexis,” he said silkily.
