Page 7 of Dark Desires

What the fuck has gotten into me?

Moments ago, survival was all I wanted.

Now my body’s betraying me, choosing the reason I ran in the first place—freedom.

Pleasure. Fire I can’t cage.

I throw back the last of the water, letting it continue to restore me.

He leans against the counter, watching me with a strange intensity.

“Better?”

“Yeah, better.”

He offers his hand from across the island.

“Alexei.”

“Isabella. But everyone calls me Isa.”

I take his hand and shake it.

No last names. That’s fine with me. Last thing I want this guy to know is that I’m a member of the Mancini family.

Instincts tell me that name would have meaning to Alexei.

His touch is warm, irresistible.

“You’re full of surprises, you know that?”

He laughs, slipping his hand away from mine.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. I try to keep things interesting.”

“I can tell.”

A charged pause hangs in the air.

“So,” he says, quickly filling the silence. “Out alone tonight, avoiding the attention of strange men?”

I purse my lips. “I was with my friends, but they ended up all getting too drunk and obnoxious. I love them to death, but I canonly take so manywoosright into my ear. Not to mention that the guys you beat up seemed like standard fare at that club.”

I clear my throat. “And what about you? Cruising the streets, looking for women to snatch from the clutches of danger?”

He grins, leaning on the counter. The top two buttons of his shirt are open, and I can see that his chest is also covered in ink.

“Nothing so dramatic. I’d popped into Gray for a quick drink, and noticed right away how that man was looking at you. When he followed you out of the club, I had a good idea what was going to go down.”

This gets an eyebrow raise out of me.

“That implies that you were looking at me,” I say.

He laughs. “Guilty as charged, I suppose. What can I say? You’re hard to ignore.”

I lean forward. “I guess in that way, everything balances out in the end. I attract the creeps, and then I attract the guys to beat them up. And then I end up in a penthouse apartment.”

“That’s certainly one way to look at it,Devotchka.”