Page 11 of Devil’s Azalea (Nightshades #3)

EMILIA

My breath hitches, clogging in my throat, and for one reckless moment, I forget where we are.

The world narrows to the man behind me. Rafael’s hand is moving in slow, sensual circles on my thigh, and the arm wrapped around my waist is inching higher until it rests just beneath the swell of my breasts.

Oh God, not now. Not him .

But my cunt contracts with a mind of its own, my breasts becoming heavier as my nipples stiffen against my lace bra.

And against every screaming rational thought, I surrender to the moment, tipping back until my head falls onto his shoulder.

Years of denying this—denying him—and my body still remembers exactly how to melt for him.

Rafael, the bastard, seizes the opportunity like the predator he is.

His hand on my thigh glides higher, his fingers brushing dangerously close to my center, while the other hand slips up, cupping my tit and pinching my aching nipple between his index and middle fingers.

I bite back a moan and rub my ass against the thick line of his cock, feeling how wet I’m getting for a man I should hate .

A muffled thud outside the little heated closet jerks me back to reality.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell am I doing? How did I forget we’re crammed in a closet while a man I poisoned is literally three feet away .

I peek through the slats.

Jason is struggling to regain his footing—the sound was probably him slipping to the floor. He’s back up now, scowling like he wants to kill someone. And before I can blink, he’s slapping the terrified young man being restrained by two of his security men.

“That waiter made the mistake of giving your date a drink after you… got to him,” Rafael whispers in my ear, his hot breath fanning the shell, sending fresh goosebumps racing across my skin.

I shudder. Ugh… Goddammit.

“Shh, easy, darling.” He rolls my nipple between his fingers again, teasing it until I’m stuttering inside, mind fogged with lust.

“S–stop that,” I hiss, twisting to glare up at him.

A catastrophic mistake.

Because the space is so cramped and we’re pushed so tightly together, he's hunching his back in order to fit into this small space. Looking back means staring directly into his face—into those hypnotic silver eyes with their tiny flecks of blue.

Eyes that have haunted me for years.

Even when I was training to become an agent, learning to resist every form of mental and physical manipulation, I never found a defense against those gorgeous eyes.

Not when they look at me like this. Not when?—

My breath hitches when he tilts his head the slightest bit, like he’s going to kiss me.

Shit.

I wrench my gaze away from him, forcing myself to focus— back into the office, back on the reason we’re here. But everything is still blurry, and I can barely hear anything over the thunder of my pulse in my ears.

Then I hear it—fear, raw and real, in the waiter’s voice. It cuts clean through the fog.

“I swear, Mr. Moore, I didn’t put anything in the drink,” he whimpers. “I served all the drinks on my tray in the hall, and you chose that glass yourself. That means I would have had to spike everyone’s drink, not just yours. But they’re all fine!”

The waiter’s argument is logical, but logic has no place in this room.

One of Jason’s men steps forward and hits him with the side of his gun.

“Every moment you waste lying pushes you closer to your death, swine. Tell us who sent you, and maybe you’ll live.

” “I’m innocent!” the poor guy sobs, tears streaming down his face.

“I swear, I swear on my mother’s grave, I didn’t—aghhh!

” His desperate pleas dissolve into a scream as Jason’s other man shoots him in the thigh.

He drops to his knees, clutching his bleeding leg.

I glance away, bile rising with guilt.

This is all because of me. Jason, in all his small-mindedness, could never comprehend that the little dose of poison creeping through his bloodstream came from my lipstick, transferred during that innocent kiss on his cheek.

Even now, the telltale stain is still on his face, slightly smudged but unmistakable to anyone who knows what to look for.

He crouches in front of the sobbing waiter, whose face is crumpled in pain and smeared with snot and tears. “Listen, I’m going to give you one more chance to tell the truth,” he says with deceptive softness. “Who gave you the order? Who are you working with?”

The waiter just cries, his lips quivering uncontrollably. “I–I’m innocent. I didn’t do it, I?—”

We’ll never know what he was about to say because, quick as lightning, Jason snatches the gun from his man, levels it at the waiter’s face, and fires—point blank, right in the forehead.

I flinch back against Rafael, instinctively burying my face into his shoulder, seeking comfort in his warmth. He rubs my back gently in response, grounding me with slow, soothing strokes.

“I hate it when they lie to me like that,” Jason tells his men with casual disdain, as if he’s discussing a minor social faux pas rather than the execution he has just performed. “Look into him. I want to know who he’s been meeting with—and what they talked about.”

One of the men nods and steps out.

He won’t find a damn thing. Because that poor guy was innocent.

He probably had a family. Loved ones he kissed goodbye before clocking in for his shift, not knowing it was the last time. He didn’t have to die .

But he did.

Because of me, what I did, and the cruel coincidence of Jason getting a drink from him after I poisoned him.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault Jason is a dumb fuck who can’t understand your brilliance.”

I blink at Rafael in surprise. What? Does he think I’m upset that someone else took the glory for my work? But then I catch the glint in his eye—he’s teasing. Trying to make me feel better, in the only twisted way he knows how.

The lines blur.

They’ve been blurring ever since I realized he’s been shadowing me like some sort of perverse guardian angel all those years.

But this time, they blur so hard, for one delirious moment, all I want is to go back ten years…

back to a time when I could be his without complication or consequence.

The guilt of potentially betraying him doesn’t even register against this overwhelming longing .

My eyes drop to his lips.

I haven’t even had time to fully want it before he lifts his hand to his mouth and?—

Wait. Did he just spit on it?

I frown as he raises those saliva-coated fingers and scrubs them firmly across my lips, his eyes darkening to stormy pewter.

He’s wiping off my lipstick.

My heart starts hammering, thudding with every rough pass of his fingertips over my lips and the unspoken knowledge dancing behind his stare.

He knows. How the hell does he know?

He pulls back just long enough to grab a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wipes his fingers clean. Then, with a tenderness that shouldn’t belong to a man like him, he dabs the cloth over my lips too.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

The rhythm is dizzying. Strangely lulling.

My eyes flutter shut.

“Rafael, I–” I gasp as he leans down and brushes his lips against mine.

My lips tremble, parting for him, and he sinks in, kissing me with a low, tortured groan that I swallow.

The hand that’s been resting casually on my breast all this time— God, how did I forget it was there? —slides higher. Up, up, until it wraps around my throat—not threatening, but possessive—as he tilts my head just so, deepening the kiss.

His tongue caresses mine, dueling and tangling in a sensuous dance that sends shudders through me.

Then he moves to the roof of my mouth, the edges of my teeth—which I never realized was an erogenous zone until this moment—the tender inner lining of my cheeks.

No part of me is left unclaimed by his masterful assault.

By the time he’s done, I’m melting. Boneless. Brain empty .

He releases my throat, and that hand slowly trails downwards, caressing my skin as it goes, until it plunges seductively into my cleavage.

My moan escapes before I can catch it, low and needy as the warm.

The callused weight of his palm covers my tit, my nipples puckering instantly beneath his heated grip.

“Fuck, you need to keep quiet, baby,” he murmurs into my lips.

I know. But how can I when?—

Knock knock.

A sharp sound pierces the charged atmosphere.

I jolt, instinctively pressing closer to him. My heart is thundering, panic spiking so fast I can barely breathe.

Oh shit, shit, shit.

Did they just knock on our door?

Have we been found?

But then the knock sounds again, and I realize with a rush of relief, it’s not the closet. It’s coming from the main office door. We have not been found. We’re still safe.

“What do we do about his body?” one of Jason’s men asks, nodding to the dead waiter as he glances at the door.

Shit. Someone just died because of me, and what am I doing?

Making out with my nemesis !

Fucking Rafael.

I slap at his wrist with sudden vehemence. He responds with a frustrated huff but slowly withdraws his hand from my tit, and I fight the urge to whimper at the loss, disgusted by my own weakness. Focus, Emilia! Focus, focus, focus!

“Nothing. It’s probably our friend at the door. Go check it out,” Jason says, circling his desk to sink into his high-backed leather chair like he’s not sitting in the same room as a bleeding corpse. “And if it’s not… well, you know what to do.”

My God , I knew he was corrupt—you don’t get involved with the Nightshades without being dirty to the core—but I didn’t expect this level of depravity.

Politicians are usually slimy, sure. They’ll kiss babies and stab backs in the same breath just to claw their way to power.

But this man takes the cake. He’s not even a wolf in sheep’s clothing—just a straight-up thug in a tailored suit.

Jason’s man opens the office door, and it must be who they’re expecting because he steps back without a word, closing the door behind the newcomer.

The man walks in like he owns the room. Crisp, expensive-looking suit.

Slicked-back hair. But something about him still screams cheap—maybe it’s the overconfidence, or the lack of soul in his eyes.

His features are so distinctly Slavic that I’ve pegged him as Russian before Jason even opens his mouth.

“Yes, Viktor,” Jason says, waving an impatient hand. “What does Sergey have to say for himself?”

Behind me, Rafael goes rigid, his playfulness gone. Does he know the Russian?

Viktor tosses a disdainful gaze at the dead body on the floor before stepping around it towards Jason. “My pakhan would like you to join him,” he says, pride curling his words. “Leave the Nightshades behind. They’re about to become a thing of the past.”

I tense immediately. What the hell? This dumbfu–

Jason throws his head back, laughing like he was just told the joke of the century. Viktor clearly hates this reaction; his jaw tightens visibly. “I fail to see what’s so amusing, councilor.”

“I get being ambitious. Trust me, I do,” Jason says, mirth dancing in his tone.

“But saying the Nightshades will soon become a thing of the past? That has to be the biggest oxymoron I’ve ever heard.

They’re as rooted in this city as the Statue of Liberty.

Trying to uproot them is suicide, and I’m not suicidal They’re too powerful to be crossed. ”

Viktor folds his arms across his chest. “That was when they had everyone in their pockets. But times are changing. There are new powers at play that don’t get along with them, and it’s only a matter of time before she gets them. We’ll help, of course.”

Jason perks up, suddenly intrigued. “She? New powers, you say?”

“I’m not at liberty to say much, but the raid at their establishments a few days ago is not the last of it.

They’ve made a powerful enemy, an enemy even more powerful than they are, and this enemy has promised to back my pakhan .

” His voice hardens. “So, tell me, Councilor—where will you stand in this? With the soon-to-be-gone Nightshades… or will you rise with the new powers?”

“Hmm, you make compelling points,” Jason hums, weighing it. Then he stands. “Tell your pakhan if he can give me concrete evidence that he’s able to take the Nightshades down, then I’m willing to think about joining him.”

Viktor nods. “Expect a message from us very soon.”

The two shake hands, then walk out of the office together, stepping over the dead body like it’s yesterday’s trash.

I wait, counting the seconds. One beat. Two. Three.

When I’m sure they’re not coming back, I twist the closet door open and burst out, desperate for air untainted by Rafael’s intoxicating presence.