Page 4 of Rio (Knight Empire #3)

“I’m going to strip.” I stand up, my hands reaching for the zipper of my pants. Her eyes turn dark. Her lips part. I know that look. I can sense her desire. It’s so obvious that she wants me. I undo a cufflink.

“A cufflink?” she cries, her body sagging slightly. It’s like she’s releasing a breath she’s been holding in. If I’m hard with anticipation, she’s also feeling something too, but it’s such a pity that she’s in denial about it.

“Slow burn, baby. You love the tease.”

She doesn’t smile. She fights to keep on the mask. Trying to look calm, but I know she’s not. We play again, and three rounds in, I lose a sock and two cufflinks. She loses her earrings.

We’re toeing the line, and the air between us grows heavier by the second. Then I win the next hand, but barely—a lousy two pair. But smile fades, and that tells me everything.

“Your move,” I murmur. “Is that dress coming off, princesa?”

She leans back, arms crossed. “No.”

“I get to ask you a question, then?”

“Maybe.”

I can’t help but notice the tight set of her jaw, the flicker of something defensive in her eyes. “Maybe?” She’s not playing coy. She’s hiding.

Then she bends down, reaches up her dress, and, hot damn if my cock isn’t going to start leaking cum. She hold up her lacy black thong, and my breath stalls. My cock presses uncomfortably against my boxers and if this continues, I’m going to shoot my load right now.

Damn it if she doesn’t go and dangle her panties from her fingers.

My mouth waters at the slip of lace and satin in the stringy thong she’s twirling around.

A sharp grunt escapes my mouth before I can stop it.

It’s the kind of sound that betrays just how close I am to losing it.

My brain hazes over, every thought vanishing before I can grasp it.

She throws her panties onto the bed, good job, too, because I’m so tempted to reach for them and sniff. And then another rock lands on me. Underneath that dress she’s naked from waist down.

“Cheat.” My voice is hoarse.

“How?” She sits back down. Cross-legged.

Cross-legged.

But she makes sure her dress covers her legs, spilling onto the floor, so I can’t get a peep. She’s cross-legged and bare. I want to crawl along the floor, lift up her dress, and feast on her pussy. I’d bet a million dollars, she’s dripping wet.

“How am I cheating?” Her voice is steady and calm, her expression cool as ice. She looks like a movie star from the fifties in that elegant dress which covers everything. Clearly she doesn’t want me asking questions, which means, we need to play a few more rounds, and fast.

“Because you can take your panties off, while keeping your dress on, and I can’t do that.”

She chortles. “You sound like a little sulky boy, Knight.”

Sentences elude me right now, so I focus on the game. We each pick up our cards. She grins. I groan because I lose.

“What’ll it be, Knight?”

I stand up and slowly undo the buttons of my shirt. Shel gives me one of those hungry stares I’m accustomed to. Encouraged, I slowly peel off my shirt, feeling thankful I have a body worthy of her looking at.

She licks her lips, as I sit down, then clears her throat and twiddles with the high-neck. She must be roasting in that dress. A thin sheen of sweat lines her face. I know she’s hot. I’m feeling hot myself.

We play another round. She sets the cards down, looking jubilant. “Straight flush.” She looks at me, but her gaze soon drops to my chest.

“Oh, princesa.” I set down my cards. I got super lucky. “Royal Flush.” I lay down my cards, all diamonds, high hands, in order, and look up, feeling gleeful.

She looks uncomfortable. It occurs to me later that she’s wearing a watch and a bracelet. She took off her earrings, and she could have taken her watch and bracelet off next, but she chose to take off her panties.

Now there’s a tease if ever I met one.

We play a few more rounds, and she loses, again.

I want that dress off.

Unless she’s going to fiddle around with her bra and take that off? That’ll only get me more aroused. I lean forward—as much as my stiff-as-a-rod boner will allow me to. “Are you stripping for me now, princesa?”

She arches a brow, trying to stay cool, but her dewy face, and the tightness around her eyes, gives the game away. She sits upright, her spine stiffening, and I know she’s trying to figure out how to dodge it.

She doesn’t want to strip.

“How about a question then?” I ask.

She clenches her jaw. “Fine. One question. Make it count.”

She’s all hard edges, with steel walls around her. I sense she doesn’t want me probing, but I so badly want to dig and unearth all her secrets. Even the painful ones, because I know this much. Despite her armor, despite that quick tongue and sharp mind, Raquel’s hurting. She’s hiding something.

“Why do you invite me in and then push me away, princesa?” She seems to have an internal battle whenever we’re close together, and her actions confuse me, but I can’t walk away because she’s different. There’s something about this woman that catches my curiosity more than it should.

"I can't make my mind up about you."

"You’re trying very hard to resist me."

"Not resist. I'm struggling with my morals."

"Morals? Who needs morals?” I cry. “How about we abandon them for tonight?"

She laughs, shaking her head and staring at me in disbelief. "I figured you'd be the type of man to do that."

I sit up, gut hardening. "What type of man?"

"The type who screws around and leaves. Not that I'm looking for anything more than fun from someone like you."

"Someone like me?"

"A playboy. Someone who probably has a woman in every city. Someone who uses women for pleasure. Nothing wrong with that, either. Women use men for pleasure. I do, too, sometimes."

She’s so wrong about that. I like to think of myself as a man of honor. "Then what do you hate about me, apart from my name?" We could both use one another for pleasure, but I have a feeling she’s not the type of woman I’d screw once and discard.

"Who you are. I have no patience for entitlement."

"You think I'm entitled?"

"I've had to work twice as hard for half the respect, but for people like you it's guaranteed, just because of your wealth."

“Must you always hold that against me?”

I feel like she has a deep buried pain. I can see it, just like I could see it in Mama, in the early days, when the old man ripped all our lives apart.

She looks at me, eyes sharp. “Do you so badly want to get me in your bed, Knight? Is this the part where you try to get to know me, pretend to care, and listen, so that you can salve the hurt and—”

“No.” I shake my head, slightly confused, trying to figure her out. She could so easily tell me to get lost, but she hasn’t. “I would like to end up on that bed, with you,” I say carefully, “but that’s not my main driver for wanting to be here. I just want to know more about you.”

She looks at me as if, after all this time, she still needs a reason to validate why she shouldn’t let me in, but she can’t find one.

“I want to know what makes you look at me like I’m a grenade lying at your feet.” There. I said it.

She opens her mouth to protest, but I hold up my hand, halting her.

“You hate the Knights. Allegedly you hate me because I’m a Knight, and yet not only have you allowed me to come into your hotel room, and offered me a drink, but we’re playing strip poker, your idea, not mine.

And now I’m shirtless, while you’re panty-less.

” My cock, on cue, twitches again. “All that to say, if you didn’t feel anything towards me, we wouldn’t be here, like this . ” I wave my hand between us.

She swallows, her eyes narrowing. For a second I don’t think she’s going to answer.

“I despise myself for wanting you.”

Not the words I was expecting. They hit hard, like a gut punch I didn’t see coming, and which knocks the breath from my lungs.

My quickfire quip would be to grin, and tell her that I knew she wanted me, but there’s a solemnity in her eyes, something raw and unspeakably fragile.

Something that makes me take notice, and want to peel back more layers, and get to know her better.

“Why?” I barely recognize my low whisper.

“I mistrust men like you, and families like the one you come from. I’ve grown up hearing the very worst about these people, and I know one thing: the rich cannot be trusted.”

“If this is about the old man and AO Eletronica, we outplayed him and managed to get Dani’s father’s—”

“It’s not just that. It’s about the stories I heard, from my mom, growing up in a favela on the outskirts of S?o Paulo.”

“You grew up in a favela?” I flinch because she’s hit me with something that I can’t reconcile with the image of the woman I see.

I don’t care where she grew up, but her words surprise me, because it’s the last thing I expected her to say.

It’s the way she says it, as if it’s a confession shrink wrapped in shame.

It kills me. She shouldn’t feel ashamed. It’s a shock, for sure, that this polished, glamorous, supremely smart and confident woman—grew up in a favela. My brain short circuits for a while but I’m filled with admiration and disbelief.

“You’re shocked, and you’re disgusted.”

“No. Not disgusted. In shock, yes, because I would never know. I’d never have guessed.”

“That I clawed myself out?”

“No, because you have balls, and confidence and grit. That’s what attracts me to you, but you telling me about where you grew up, well, that’s a big surprise, a shock, even, but in the best way, not in a way that makes me think less of you, Raquel.

You have the wrong impression of me. Give me time to help you see me for who I really am.

” I’m scrambling to not piss her off because I can tell she’s judging me, and watching how I react.

I get up and sit back in the chair. “Tell me more,” I say softly.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“I can’t tell you—”

“Tell me what you can, please.”