Page 19 of Darling Psycho

If something looked suspicious, it usually was.

“I don’t want a drink. Thanks, though. Which table do you want me to watch?” He’d called her in, which meant the manager suspected a gambler was winning big.

“There’s no one to watch tonight.”

Huh? She arched a newly shaped brow. “Then why am I here? I had stuff to do, Jay.”

“Did you now?” he half-grinned, relaxing an arm against the bar. It showcased the large Rolex on his wrist.

“Yes,” she all but hissed, annoyed she’d driven down the mountain for nothing. “And it didn’t require pouring myself into this dress either.” The moment she said it, Jay’s eyes skimmed over her frame admiringly. “You look beautiful, as always. Let me buy you dinner as an apology for getting you here when you’d rather be sequestered at home in your cabin.”

Had she told him she lived in a cabin? She’d given him so few personal details.

Being around sneaks and liars meant Angela kept most things close to her chest, but maybe she’d slipped one time and told him something about herself other than she was a college student. She talked to Marco, Jay’s assistant and boy toy, more than anyone else.

Mentally shrugging, she took the stool next to him. “You and your dinner invites. You know if you looked at any other person in here, they’d fall over themselves to accept.”

He smirked slowly, his eyes darkly hooded by his lids. “But not you.” Not a question, so she didn’t feel the need to answer. It was a textbook response. He didn’t flirt with her in the traditional sense she was used to from boys. Kind of like Jay toyed with her in a cat-and-mouse way for entertainment.

Maybe he was a sadistic sonofabitch who didn’t have enough cars and bitches to play with.

“What’s with you lately?” she asked. “Do you only like the chase because I’ve told you no a million times?”

There wasn’t an ounce of shame on his face as he grinned, making him doubly handsome. But again, she felt nothing for the man, not even a token twitch in her underwear. Which, in the right circumstances, he might make an adventurous boyfriend, if only for his private jet.

Who the fuck gave their heart away at fourteen? Angela met her gaze in the bar mirror and wanted to punch the girl she saw because it washer.

It was time she took it back.

She’d been mulling over the idea of transferring to New Mexico for the next semester, going home finally, starting afresh where she didn’t smell her phantom monster on every Colorado breeze.

“Maybe I find you irresistible, Miss Cabello.” Jay started and made her snort. Then he arched a dark eyebrow and smirked in return. “Or perhaps I’d like to discover all your secrets.”

Angela turned cold. Did he know she was spying?

Playing dumb because, on the surface, she didn’t have secrets. “I don’t understand.”

“I think you were caught in a spider’s web a long time ago, sweet girl.” He said mysteriously. Angela didn’t get the chance to ask what he meant by that, because it was as if something shook the earth, causing all the air to stutter in her lungs.

She blinked as she watched Benz glance over her shoulder, and then his stare held and held and held...

Angela turned slightly on the stool to see what caught his attention. And that’s when her brain shut down, seeing who strode through the casino like a swaggering cowboy with his black coat flapping around his legs.

Shaved head.

Midnight clothes.

An aura even a monster would cower from.

Lawless.

Lawless was here.

An incredulous tightening started in her stomach and spread out until Angela was frozen on the bar stool. Watching him advance through the crowd like he was a man not of this earth. People stared when he passed by, and he didn’t give anyone his attention.

He was staring at Jay Benz, and Benz was staring back. He looked equally surprised, with a tinge of anger around his eyes.

It came unbidden, and she shuddered with perverse arousal flaming alive inside of her.