Page 23 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors

About ten feet away from me, a woman stood head, shoulders, and perky, pushed-up, voluminous bustline above the crowd.

Nice tits.

I didnotjust think that. Dear God.

But soft-looking feminine flesh rounded above the dipping neckline of her dress like two scoops of something delectable. Light tan but not pasty skin showed on the crests where her white theatrical paint had worn away.

I was a bog-standard cis-het male.

I had eyes.

Ilooked.

I was still looking.

Still—

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints and divinities,I yanked my gaze up to hereyes.

The woman was staring right back at me.

My gaze locked on her dark, black-lined eyes over the bobbling heads of the crowd.

Fathomless, dark, lovely eyes that stared right back into mine.

A level, straightforward gaze.

An honest scrutiny of my interest and intentions and an acknowledgement of just how much I had been ogling her.

For an instant, I thought the woman must be well over six feet tall, but her proportions would have been off if that were true.

She must have been standing on something.

A box. A stool, perhaps.

A stage.

She was painted stark white. Her eyes like the darkest of nights were lined in black, and her lips were filled with scarlet.

Not a clown, but a performer, definitely.

Under her veil that tumbled over the crowd, blown by the desert zephyr, the woman was a pretty blonde with hair like honey-streaked ash wood, a contrast to her dark eyes and brows.

The daisies in her bouquet drooped over her hands in the desert heat.

Assuming she was just another bride in the city of quickie marriages would have been easy, but the intensity of her gaze captured my attention.

Those dark eyes, those eyes I could fall into, held anger.

The anger filling her eyes was what I couldn’t look away from. The absolute passion, her targeted rage, would have been terrifying if she’d been holding a gun instead of wilting wildflowers.

That woman was absolute fire. I could burn myself on her.

I should have looked away.

My job was to scan the crowd for assassins, to be an additional pair of eyes in my security detail, so that I wouldreact in accordance with the plan if my bodyguards took me to the ground under a gunshot or hustled me indoors to escape a thrown bomb.

Over the crowd, the bride did not look away.