Now, an hour into the meeting, she’d stopped hissing whenever a brother asked her a polite question, and had even eaten half of her salmon and poached eggs with hollandaise sauce. She’d refused coffee, which reminded me of how she didn’t drink the one I bought her in Milan, and her body language was so fucking uptight, I expected her to pass out from muscle exhaustion any second.
For the past sixty minutes, we’d discussed the successful transaction last night, the rare delivery of a diamond over twenty-six carats next week, and the on-going politics in Sierra Leone. Boring stuff for an outsider.
She isn’t an outsider. She’s ours now.
More often than I wished, I caught myself watching her, my eyes seeming to land on her, regardless of who was speaking. She was the only splash of colour in the line-up of men on her side of the table—a peach fiesta smack in the middle of leather-jacketed bikers.
“Now that we’ve got the basics out of the way, Jethro, do you have anything to report?” Cut looked down the table, surveying his good disciples.
I stiffened in my chair as all eyes turned on me, including Nila’s. Last night had been fucking boring. I had nothing to add. Now that I’d eaten, I just wanted to leave, get the debt over with, and go for a ride. I needed to get out of this place and away from these people.
“No, nothing to add. You’ve covered it.”
Daniel snickered, his dark hair spiked with too much gel. “Yeah, Pop, you’ve gone over the boring shit. Let’s get to the good part.”
Nila froze; her dark eyes glared, shooting hatred across the table toward my younger brother.
Couldn’t say I blamed her; the feeling was mutual.
Daniel sneered at Nila, licking his lips and blowing her a kiss. “I want to see how our guest reacts.”
My fists clenched on the table.
Kestrel shifted beside her, nudging her shoulder with his. Loud enough for his voice to carry, he said, “It’s okay, Nila. You’re on the sane side of the table. I won’t let him touch you.”
Nila tensed as her head swivelled to look at him. Her eyessearched his, her chin cocked in a strange mixture of defiance and curiosity.
The second turned into a drawn-out moment, and still they stared.
What the fuck?
Finally, Nila nodded, her black ponytail draping over her shoulder. Never tearing her gaze from Kes, she said softly, “Thank you.”
Kes beamed, his golden eyes, the trait all Hawk men carried, glowed. “You’re welcome.” Something passed between them. Something I fucking hated.
Running a hand through his dark, silver-flecked hair, Kes tore his eyes from Nila’s to look directly into mine. “You only have to come to me if you ever feel overwhelmed.”
That lowlife bastard.
My hands balled in my lap. “Enough.”
Kes reclined in his chair, dropping his forearm—the one tattooed with a bird of prey—beneath the table.
Nila jumped a mile.
He’d touched her! That goddamn arsehole touched what was mine.
The instant Nila jolted, Kes pulled away, a smug smile on his lips. “Sorry.”
“Don’t touch me,” Nila hissed.
Something warm sprang from nowhere in my chest. Warm? How was that possible when my heart was full of snow?
My lips twitched, smugness of my own unable to be hidden. Nila might be intrigued or even drawn to Kes, but it was my cock that’d been in her mouth,mytongue that’d been in that pretty cunt of hers.
Kestrel’s suave smile dropped. He always did think too highly of himself. Just because the club whores preferred him, it didn’t mean he was better than the rest of us. He was my favourite person; however, I would not tolerate him poaching my prey.
Kes hung his head, turning on the charm and magic puppy-dog eyes that twisted the knickers off many women. “I only meant to offer comfort. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
