Page 52 of Restless Hawke

Those callouses brush my skin. The heat of his fingers seeps into me. And I can’t help the way the memory of them moving inside me rushes to the forefront of my mind.

He marches me into the main living space—two floors tall, with bright Louisiana sunlight pouring in from the windows and a crystal chandelier hanging in the center. A rounded staircase curves up the far wall, leading up to what I have to assume is the main bedroom, but I don’t have time to examine it any further.

Coen loosens his hold on me, allowing me to slip free and turn to face him fully.

One of his dark brows rises over the vibrant blue. “What are you doing, Allegra? Because I’m sick of the games. You know you’re not welcome to play here.”

I set down my purse on an end table next to a low, white leather couch. “Who says I came for the tables?”

His pupils dilate, his throat working on a thick swallow. “Apparently, my warning didn’t take.”

“Oh”—I approach him cautiously as one would a wounded, untrusting animal, nodding slowly—“it definitely took. My legs shook all night.”

And I had to slide my own hand between them to ease the ache when I got back into my room—though I refuse to admit that weakness to him.

I stop just in front of him, only a few feet separating us, offering a coy smile as the memory of ourgamein Macau surfaces, blazing hot. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

Inching closer, I allow my gaze to dip to his crotch. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the way you adjusted your cock before you slid out of that booth, Coen. I wasn’t the only one affected by your little game.”

“Mygame?” His brows rise incredulously. “What aboutyours? You’ve been playing one with me from the minute we met.”

There isn’t any point in denying it.

“I was, but can you blame me?” I smirk. “Don’tyouresearchyouropponents?”

Coen crosses his arms over his chest, the motion pulling at the crisp white dress shirt he wears. “Of course, I do.”

I spread my hands to point out the opulence of the suite and the life he clearly lives. “You just pay your minions to bring you the information, right?”

He scowls at me because I’ve hit the nail right on the head. His family is precisely the type to have a massive security force and people who specifically do their digging and dirty work. All he has to do is request information on anyone he knows will be at those tables he sits at, and his people will bring him anything they can find.

“Well”—I reach out and run a finger down his chest, his hard pecs tightening under my touch—“not all of us have the benefit of a staff to do our bidding. I don’t own a hotel…”

“Neither do I.”

I lean in. “Your family does. It’s semantics. Anything you want is within reach…”

In retrospect, that might have been the wrong thing to say while I had any part of my body touching this man. I hadn’t meant the words to sound like an invitation, but it’s exactly how they came out.

His brow rises slowly, heat flickering in his gaze that goes far beyond that of the anger that’s permeated it so heavily. “Is that so?”

The way the question rolls off his tongue, he might as well be on his knees with it buried between my legs.

This would be the time to retreat.

To back away a few steps…

To put space between him and me before things go horribly awry…

But things alreadyhavegone awry.

They have since the minute he sat next to me at that bar in Atlantic City.

So, I don’t retreat.

I nod.