Page 6 of In the Dark

“Ready to show me you can be just the girlfriend I want you to be? Because I’m ready to get you alone.”

The song ended, and I stepped away from him immediately. “Actually, I think I have a few more dances in me, but I need to use the restroom first. If you’ll excuse me …” I rushed away, my hand gripping the side of my dress as I hurried down the hall.

I only got around the corner before I heard Callahan’s voice. “For the love of God, tell me you’re not leaving with him.”

“If I said I was?”

“I’d tell you to let me take you home instead.” He stepped into my space, and I felt pulled to him—so much so that I held my breath.

“For what?”

“For whatever you want. Unlike your date, I’m fine with submitting to a woman, Jasmina. Promise the night will be better spent with me than him.” I could smell the hint of expensive bourbon on his lips because he was so close, and I had to look up at him even while I stood there in heels. Our height difference was even more obvious now. He had to be at least six five and I was only five.

“Why do you care?”

“Because you’re holding onto the persona your family built for you in the same way I am. I’m intrigued by it,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a gravelly low. “Yet, you’re a bit mean under all that duty you carry on your shoulders, Jasmina. And I think I might like mean.”

“Or you just want to screw around with the enemy’s niece.”

“Don’t be mistaken. I abso-fucking-lutely want to screw you.” He shrugged, a slow, wicked smirk tugging at his lips. “But maybe you want to screw around with your uncle’s enemy, too. What’s one night, Viper, when you have your whole life to live for them?”

One night. To be Jasmina. Not the asset, not the niece, not the weapon. It sounded almost innocent. Almost.

“Jasmina?” Tomás’s voice echoed down the hall: whiny, high, and almost condescending.

My face curdled in visceral disgust. I looked at Callahan—at the dark promise in his eyes and the hand he held out to me. “You better make it the best night of my life.”

The smile that spread across his face was catastrophic. He grabbed my hand, his grip firm and hot, and before I could change my mind, he yanked me around a corner and swiped his watch over a mounted sensor that opened a door. “Where are we going?”

“Only place worth it in this whole damn building.” He pulled me down a hall and then hit a button for a service elevator.

Once he’d tugged me into it, I felt it prudent to clarify. “Look, Knight, I want to be clear—”

“Callahan,” he corrected.

“Callahan,” I breathed, and he smiled as his hands went to my face.

“That’s it. I like my full name on your lips.”

“Wait.” I put my hands on his massive, broad chest. “You can’t tell a soul.”

He rolled his eyes like I was being silly, but when I lifted a brow and nudged him a little, he said, “Fine. That it?”

“I gue—”

I didn’t get to finish the sentence.

He threaded his fingers through my hair fast, gripped the strands, and held me there while he tasted my lips roughly. Without apology. Without reservation. And without any other motive than feeding our desires.

We weren’t meant to want one another. This was bad for each of our families and businesses.

Feeding a purely selfish want was intoxicating. It was something I didn’t do. It was something I shouldn’t do.

As the elevator doors pinged, I yanked myself away from him in case there was someone on the other side and wiped at my mouth. “Security cameras will show us together. We should be more discreet.”

“I’ll have them wiped if you want, Viper,” he said, sounding almost disappointed that I was thinking about it.

Then, I turned toward where the elevator doors opened to a rooftop conservatory—a sprawling glass building filled with exotic midnight blooms and the cold, salt-cracked air of the East Coast. Below us, the city was a grid of lights; above us, the stars twinkled brightly.