Soft boos and irritation rise, and the music fades into nothing.
“Hey!” someone yells. “You can’t do that!”
The muscles in my neck tick with every thrown word or boo, but I just walk. Heat crawls up my spine as I hold her thighs. Her hair, dangling upside down, tickles the backs of my knees through my suit pants, but I burn through any logical thought to put her down.
They’ll be mad you took her.
What are you going to do?
I can feel my grandfather’s eyes on me, and I avoid the Eight altogether. I’ll have to negotiate my way out of this one.
Kenji yells after me. “Slade! Slade, wait.”
I don’t slow down.
She’s done being a show.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THEA
I’m going to throw up trying to sway my hips like I’m sexy. My soul burns, laid bare and raw, humiliated under his stare—but Slade doesn’t look away. Wait?—
Wait, now he’s prowling toward me. One second I’m on stage, knees wobbly despite my best effort to remain upright and pretend to have an ounce of seduction, the next I’m in the air and?—
“Ow!” I yell as Slade grasps my legs together and tosses me over his shoulder. “Slade!” The men’s shouts drown me out. I fist his jacket for balance, but my hands slip, and the world tilts. Each twist drives the air from my lungs, my stomach grinding into his shoulder with every breathless struggle.
Glancing toward the stage, Juliette has stopped moving. Rage simmers in her glare as security escorts her offstage, but what holds my attention are the red numbers flashing on the screen—vivid, glaring, and unmistakably not in my favor.
The eruption in the main club area fades as Slade moves while blood rushes to my head. Hair covers my face like a thick curtain, and I huff it out of my face as the floor beneath me shifts from marble to dark, polished wood. My thoughts spin,everything from superficial to true concern, and all I can do is stare at the stupid floor.
My butt’s exposed.
What is he doing?
What’s going on?
There’s a click of a door before it slams shut, and I’m lowered down in front of him. Instinctively, I step back, smacking my mussed curls out of my face.
Congressman DuPont stands with his back to the door, his chest heaving in short, choppy pulls. His suit’s wrinkled, his tie twisted and clinging to his shoulder—the same spot where I was pinned. I stare at him, watching his downcast gaze roam over the edge of the rug on the floor.
Hands balled into fists at his sides, he makes to step forward but pulls back. Finally, he looks up at me, and his shoulders twitch. Slowly, he drags a hand through his hair and then pushes up the frames slanted on his face. We lock eyes, his head tilting as if he’s trying to study me. I shiver when the muscles in his jaw twitch.
He steps forward, and I lean back, self-conscious. When he takes another step, I retreat. We repeat the dance until I run into the back wall. Inches from me, he breathes ragged, like he’s unsettled about something.
“Wh-what is going on?”
There’s something in his eyes I can’t name, something that makes the air in the room press thick and curl tight around my throat. His gaze is intense, so much so that I glance away, spotting a smear of red lipstick across the collar of his suit. He inches closer, as if he’s giving me time to move. I don’t.
The space between us narrows until his face is millimeters from mine. Whatever swells between us is stealing the breathable space. I suck in a breath.
The warring in his expression looks like he just crossed a self-imposed line, and now he doesn’t know how to go back. He doesn’t touch me yet stands close enough to evaporate the needed oxygen.
“Slade—”
He dips his head, stopping short of the space at the hollow of my neck, and exhales a hoarse breath along the curve of my collarbone. My body heats, but I shiver. My head tilts to the side as I swear he pulls in a long breath, like he’s trying to smell me.
Goose bumps cascade down my arms, my thoughts scatter, and my spine melts; I nearly collapse. He breathes me in like he’s starved, and my body answers by turning to jelly. His mouth brushes close to my ear, skirting the shell where my hair clings tucked behind it.
