Page 11 of Severed By Vengeance

A deep, velvety baritone seared me where I stood.

Lifting my gaze beyond the asshole cupping his balls on the ground, I was met with a mountain of a man.

Heat climbed up my body as I drank him in, standing against the door jamb as if he’d been carved from literal stone. With hands in the pockets of his slacks, the black dress shirt he wore pulled taut over every solid peak of his biceps and broad chest.

Jesus.

Black ink, like canvased art, dipped beneath perfectly tailored clothing and up the thick,corded muscles of his neck.But nothing drew my attention like the icy hue of his diamond eyes.

I knew I was staring, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away. The ground beneath my feet somehow shifted out of place, even though I hadn’t moved.

“I asked you a question, McCall,” the man said, never breaking our eye contact.

“That bitch kicked me in the fucking dick! I’ll—”

“If I were you, I’d choose my next words wisely.”

Kiernan spat near my boots.

“Fuck you, Cain!”

Derek.

Damn you, Alexa. He was hot.

No, not just hot. Derek Cain was the unholy definition of calculated seduction.

Wetting my suddenly parched lips, I watched as he smoothed back the waves of his brown hair and cracked his neck before moving toward us. Errant thoughts of how soft those locks would feel clutched between my fingers warmed the pit of my stomach.

Our eyes remained locked, causing my pulse to thrum faster with every one of his predatory steps.

Relax, Eva.

But fuck me; I was gone, captive to the devilish grin tilting the side of his mouth.

Self-preservation instincts kicked in when Derek was just an arm’s length away. And I slowly eased against a metal railing, farther from his heavy and imposing presence.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right.” He dipped down to the sleazeball’s level, one hand to the scruff of his neck, the other digging into a pressure point that had the man groaning and doubling over. “What were you saying?”

The officer inside me warred against the woman so utterly taken by this show of dominance, making my core flare as delicious arousal vibrated between my legs.

Derek leaned over the man’s ear, his words unintelligible as he dug his thumb deeper into flesh. Kiernan let out one last strangled howl before crawling on hands and knees toward the porch steps. He stumbled to his feet as he reached the paved driveway and disappeared around the west wall of the home.

“Did he hurt you?”

My head snapped back to Derek, and the intensity in his gaze scorched every inch of my skin.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

“No,” I said, shaking my head and trying to sound composed. “Is that a friend of yours? Because he’s a perverted bastard.”

“Kiernan will be dealt with.”

The way his jaw immediately tensed led me to believe he hadn’t meant to say those words out loud.

Dealt with?

“Meaning, he’s no longer an employee of mine,” Derek amended, as if reading my thoughts.