“Don’t call me that.” She cursed herself for reacting, but she hated that nickname. The media had coined her Duchess after her failed engagement when she was nineteen. It didn’t matter that her fiancé had been a baron, or that it was an empty title in the first place. He’d promised to take her away from Houston and to help heal the poison deep within that she never seemed to be able to escape. The media reported snidely on a King finally becoming legitimate royalty until it all fell apart.
And then their meanness had turned into gleeful cruelty at her expense.
That was a long time ago.
It didn’t feel like ten years with Frank looking at her like he knew every single one of her secrets and would exploit them in his own time. She belatedly realized that she wasn’t coming out on top of this interaction any more than she had on their previous ones. “Just give me the damn building, Frank. You aren’t using it and we’re willing to pay an absurd amount for it.” The apartment building wasn’t in a prime location, but Lydia had plans to convert it into high-end condos for out-of-town teams that Kingdom Corp contracted from time to time to help with specific jobs.
When Frank didn’t respond, she gritted her teeth. “You have absolutely no reason to hold out…unless you’re getting off on being the biggest dick in the room?” Journey lowered her voice, forcing him closer. “Because, for real, only one of us has a cock, so it’s not exactly a contest at this point. You’re just being ridiculous.”
Frank took his shot slowly, maintaining eye contact in a way that should have been awkward but instead sent a bolt of need right through her. He was so focused. She’d seen him dismissive and distracted and uninterested, but she’d never had Frank Evans’s full attention directed at her.
Until now.
He took her hand and pressed the empty shot glass into it. Their skin barely touched, but she felt the contact all the way to her core. He leaned closer yet, not touching her anywhere else, but she swore she felt his lips move against her neck. “You seem tense, Journey. Distracted.” He shifted, the phantom touch moving up to the spot below her ear. “Have I done something to piss you off?”
She licked her lips before she could remind herself why it was a bad idea to react. “That would require me to care about you one way or another.”
“You do.” He inhaled deeply. “You’re sitting here, wearing that cocktease of an outfit, and all but begging me to slip my hand up your jumper. We both know I’ll find you wet and wanting, and we both know you’re wet and wanting for me and me alone.”
She shoved him back, fury and something like fear taking the reins. “Oh, fuck right off, Frank. You’re delusional if you think I want you.”
“I know you want me.” His slow grin had her fighting not to clench her thighs together. “Just like I know you’re going to go home alone tonight and touch yourself while pretending it’s me.”
“I loathe you.”
“That’s one way to put it.” He snagged the glass out of her hand, which was just as well, because all she wanted to do in that moment was throw it at his perfect face. “Have a nice night, Duchess.”
Beckett stared at Samara. There wasn’t a single damn reason to believe the shock in her dark eyes. She was on Lydia’s payroll, and his aunt would use every advantage she could come up with to undermine him. Lydia wasn’t stupid, and if her connections were half as good as Frank’s, she already knew about him and Samara. She knew that Samara could be a dangerous distraction to him.
Every time he’d seen Samara up to this point, she was…toned down. He didn’t know how else to put it. She owned her sexuality, but it was blunted with a professional edge. It didn’t make her less beautiful, but tonight it was like whatever normally banked her fire had been removed.
She took his fucking breath away.
Her brilliant red dress set off her dark skin and hair, a flame in the shadows. It barely touched the tops of her thighs, and the fabric clung to her breasts and hips, the texture seemingly soft to the touch, a temptation to do exactly that.
She leaned against the closed door, watching him as if he was the dangerous one in the room. As if she didn’t fray his control with every breath she took. He started for her, not exactly sure what he’d do when he finally closed the distance between them.
“Beckett.” She licked her lips, her gaze dropping to his mouth. “We need to talk. Really talk.”
He knew that, but desire hijacked his reasoning capabilities and he couldn’t focus on anything but Samara and that tiny fucking dress. “You look good in red.” He stopped in front of her and reached up to sift his fingers through her hair. So fucking soft. “Every time I dreamed of you over the last six months, you were wearing those tiny red panties that you had on that night. If I hadn’t needed to get on a plane that next morning, I would have booked us a flight to anywhere you wanted to go and spent the next week fucking you senseless.”
Her dark eyes went wide. “That…You can’t…”
He kissed her. She tasted of cinnamon. Beckett brushed his lips against hers, a soft question he didn’t have to put into words. She went tense for half a breath, and he stilled,
