“You don’t even know what’s underneath?” I smirk.
“That makes it worse,” he murmurs, holding out his hand for me to take. When I do, he presses a gentle kiss to my knuckles, then flits.
The second we slip out of the shadows, he says low in my ear, “I’ll go get changed.” His lips brush my cheek, but in his rush the mental wall he’d created slips.“Restrain yourselves.”
He’s gone in a blink and I smile, smug.
The living room stares back at me, the room where, not so long ago, Kane told me they would be my enforcers, and a bloodied bag of kneecaps once sat on the table.
Now, that very table is laid out beautifully. It gleams beneath black and chrome dishes, intricate silver candelabras with red candles, and a bottle of wine with waiting glasses.
There’s even music, soft piano, classical and wordless. And thesmell, something rich and earthy that has my mouth watering. I follow it to the kitchen, stopping in the doorway at the sight that greets me.
With a towel slung over one shoulder, sleeves pushed up to reveal those strong, dark forearms, Julien kneads something as I step—
“Mon âme, if you come any closer, the food will not be finished.” He maintains his steady movement, never looking back.
“Anything I can do to help,chef?”
I smile when he stops kneading, tilting his head back with a quiet laugh edged with a groan. I’d purposely tried my practised French accent for thechef.
He shakes his head, before his hands continue with renewed vigour. “You could taste the wine for me. It’s on the table.”
I’ve never seen a man cook from scratch, and I find my gaze drifting to Julien’s capable hands, the veins in his forearms, his broad shoulders, how his shirt strains against the muscles…
“Mon âme,please.” He whispers something in French that sounds like a curse. “You’re a distraction.”
“You haven’t even seen me,” I tease, low and sweet.
“I can feel you, that alone undoes me,” he says without turning. “Be merciful… taste the wine.”
Although provoking my calm and charming Julien is dangerously fun, I don’t want to ruin this. Not when I can see how much effort they’ve put into everything already.
With one last look at those beautiful hands, I head back to the dining room.
I take off the jacket, placing it over the back of a chair before pouring a glass of wine, some French red with a name I can’t pronounce but try under my breath—Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I don’t often drink wine, always finding it too dry or too sweet. But after one sip, I hum in appreciation. Seems they’ve got good taste in this too.
The room is quiet save for the soft music and the rhythmic tap of my heels as I walk. Glass cradled in my hand, I pause in front of the large fireplace, drawn to the canvas hung above it.
A splatter of abstract lines on white, clearly Sai’s work, one I remember admiring the first time I saw it.
At a brief glance, it’s a chaos of blacks, blues, reds and greys. But the longer I look, the more a subtle pattern reveals. My eyes narrow, head tilting as I try to decipher it—
“Fuck.”
The mental barrier Ezekial had placed—back when I revealed I could hear them—is gone.
I smirk smugly into my glass, pretending I don’t hear the words meant only for the others. I keep studying the lines of paint, the way the blur of colours bleed into a violent, violet centre.
“It’s barely a scrap of silk, Red.”
I smile at the familiar taunt wrapped in a gritty rasp. It’s a distant echo from The Inferno, when he used to mock my little dresses.
“I used to hate that nickname,” I murmur, back facing him as I run the rim of the glass over my bottom lip.
Power crackles behind me, sparks and shadows skimming my spine as he moves closer, voice lower. “And now?”
I take another slow sip, letting the wine linger on my tongue rather than answer.
