The skull’s face was split in a manic smile and eyes wild with gleeful insanity.
As I stared at the tattoo, the light shifted, and I could have sworn the tattooed figure winked at me.
It's flirting with me. His skin is flirting with me.
The madness of the thought felt appropriate somehow. In this room, surrounded by the instruments of manufactured sanity and a deranged audience, what was one more delusion?
I went back to studying Rook.
He wasn't wearing the white silk pajama pants anymore.
Red boxer briefs clung to his hips, and that was all. Just a thin layer of crimson fabric between him and total nudity.
My mouth went dry.
He’s so sexy.
Rook was speaking with two men who towered over him. They had to be nearly seven feet tall, both of them, with shoulders like mountains and arms thick with muscle.
Scars decorated their exposed skin—not the clean lines of surgery but the ragged marks of violence survived.
One had a face that looked like it had been reconstructed after meeting the wrong end of a blade.
The other was missing an ear.
Dangerous.
The word felt inadequate. These were weapons shaped like men. And they were listening to Rook with the attentive deference of soldiers receiving orders from their scarier general.
Be careful, Rook. They’re so big.
But I could tell in their gazes and the way they held themselves that they had a respectful terror for their leader, the Trickster.
Soon. . .he dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
Both giants bowed—actually bowed, folding their massive frames in half—and rushed from the room like scolded children.
He makes the other monsters fear him.
The Trickster turned toward me.
Oh.
His body was a masterpiece of controlled violence. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. Arms corded with lean muscle. A chest that looked carved from stone, with a light dusting of dark hair trailing down his abs toward the waistband of those briefs.
The playing card tattoos I'd glimpsed before covered more of him than I'd realized in the padded room. They wound down both arms in sleeves of ink, scattered across his ribs, disappeared beneath the red fabric. Suits, numbers, and face cards, all woven together in an intricate tapestry of chaos.
My heat roared in response to the sight of him. My body remembered what his mouth could do, what his fingers had promised, and it wanted more with a ferocity that bordered on violence.
The addiction is getting worse. I need another hit.
He approached the operating table with a predator's grace, and behind the glass, the chanting intensified. "The Queen! The Queen! THE QUEEN!"
Rook reached my side and looked down at me with those dark green eyes, and the tenderness in his gaze made my chest ache.
"Hello, Beloved." He stroked a braid from my face. "Did you sleep well?"
"Where—" My voice cracked. I swallowed and tried again. "Where am I? What is this?"
