A Ruthless kind of love

The ballroom was a glitter cage. Chandeliers poured light into every corner, violins swooped over the buzz of money voices, and air had that wraithlike sheen of high perfume and greed. Elena Marlowe had never been so out of her depth in her life.

She stood on the periphery of the throng, black silk gown clinging to her form like a mourning shroud, the rim of the champagne flute chilled against her skin. She did not mingle. She did not come in order to be groomed like some man's trophy. She came as an assignee, a reluctant observer in a society that was alien to her. The thought caused a shiver along her spine.

And still, she could sense it-that pins-and-needles sensation of being watched.

Her spine tensed before she'd spun half around. He was the other side of the room, by the bar.

He didn't belong, either-not that the others did. When men swaggered and blustered, this one stayed silent, deadly, his black tuxedo fitted to a body that pulsed with power. He didn't need to intrude; he didn't need to be. He was adamant in a voice that boomed he never once heard the one word: no. His dark, inscrutable eyes fixed on hers as if the rest of the ballroom melted away.

Elena's own throat constricted. Something deep within her growled warning. She ripped her face away, only to feel the weight of his eyes still upon her.

A wrist was ensnared in a hand.

"Miss Marlowe," slurred the drunk smile of one of her editor's friends. His mouth whiskey-tasting, his grip too tight. "You are lovely. May I-"

"No," she snarled, trying to squirm loose.

The man just laughed, holding her closer. "Don't play games. I insist-"

"Let. Her. Go."

The voice cut through the noise like a knife. Smooth and cold and commanding.

Elena froze.

The man in the black suit materialized out of nowhere-huge, ominous, the acrid smell of his aftershave cutting and burning, reminiscent of the smell of heated metal fumes. His presence overwhelmed her, of a kind that warped the air itself.

The investor brushed her aside with a flinch under that intense scrutiny. Without a word, he melted into the crowd and disappeared.

There was a pause between Elena and the stranger. Her heart was pounding in her ears, her skin tingling with a presence that she could not shake.

"Are you all right?" His voice softened now, but no less commanding.

She swallowed. "I could have done it myself."

His brow furrowed. His lips curled, but not in a smile, a sneer of laughter at her expense. "Perhaps. But I dislike men playing with what does not belong to them."

The words hit her like a match to tinder. What in the world don't they have. Their haughtiness made her want to strike him-although the tone, the very commanding tone of it, sent sparks flying up her breast and terrified her.

"Excuse me?" she managed, her voice smaller than she wished.

His eyes locked with hers. He didn't blink, and he didn't back down. As if he could see through every obstacle she had worked so doggedly to erect around herself.

"Do you always interfere in other people's affairs?" she spat, trying to put steel into her voice.

"Only when I want to," he said, an equanimity about his words that suggested that was all there was to it.

The nerve left her breathless. This man wasn't asking-this man was used to commanding. His arrogance of the sort that shattered resistance before it ever had so much as a chance to form.

"You shouldn't-"

But he moved toward her, close enough that she could feel the vibration of his breath along the whorl of her ear. His voice a whisper, lethal in its softness.

"You'll see," he breathed, "I don't always do what I should."

Her gut tightened. Promised and threatened, the words were bound together.

And then he withdrew, as suddenly as he'd appeared. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Elena."

She stiffened. He'd said her name. She hadn't provided it.

Before she could ask him how he'd known it, he melted into the crowd, was gone as if the ballroom swallowed him up.

Elena's heart stalled, thudding. Terror gripped her ribcage, but it was tangled with something she couldn't let her brain acknowledge. Attraction.

No. No, she didn't. He was danger. Men like him always were.

She lingered no longer, his presence burdening her like a specter. On the ride home, she tried to remind herself that he was nothing more than another condescending man, one she would never lay eyes on again. But the pitch of his voice-icy, authoritative-would not be silenced.

Not until she reached the apartment, by which time she'd nearly given up on it.

Nearly.

For when she came in, the tableau brought her up short.

A single white rose, whole and unblemished, on the table by the window. Lost. Irrecoverable. Meant.

She gasped with shock. She hadn't placed it there.

Her heart stumbled to burst, half-way between fear and something infinitely worse: the thrill of knowing she'd already been taken.

And against her will, a shuddering thrill ran through her.

The gallery glimmered like a temple of silence. Chandeliers radiated muted light, dripping over marble floors and gold frames. Waiters glided across the room like phantoms with trays full of champagne. No matter where Elena looked, people were posing-laughing too loudly, complimenting paintings they didn't understand, shaking hands with an air of practiced ease.

She was a faker among them.

The heels clicked softly as she moved, notebook clutched to her chest. The air was too heavy, redolent with perfume and cash. Elena had come to observe, to take in impressions and get sufficient copy for her story, but tonight her thoughts were elsewhere.

### Her thoughts kept turning back to him.

Damien. The gala man. The intruder who had broken in, stuttered out the statement that still burned her ears. The one who had somehow found his way into her home, leaving a white rose like a promise-or a threat.

The rose remained in her desk drawer, its petals limp a bit. She had thought about tossing it. Each time she extended a hand to stroke it, something within her grew stiff, as though to discard it was but to taunt fate.

And now, making her way down a line of oil paintings and abstract canvases, she experienced the sensation again. The thrill at the nape of her neck. The sense of being watched.

She believed she was losing her mind. That paranoia followed her out here.

Until she turned around.

And there he was.

Standing in the corner of the room, leaning on a pillar, dressed in black again. His coat was open this time, shirt collar undone, but his power hung from him like armor. People navigated around him, looking nervously and quickly away, as though some hidden instinct warned them not to linger.

He was looking at her.

Not looking. Not even looking. Looking. His gaze was so piercing, so fixed, the others between them disappeared.

Her heart stumbled. She jerked her head back to her painting-a seething chaos of reds and blacks-but could not see it. Her universe contracted, every cell in her being aware of his presence across the room.

She attempted to regulate her breathing. Ignore him. Do your job. He cannot order you.

Minutes ticked by. Or perhaps seconds. She risked another look.

Gone.

Elena's gut fell. She twisted her head, arching her neck, scanning the room, looking for that dark figure.

And then-

"You shouldn't be here alone."

The words wrapped around her ear like smoke.

She gasped, pen slipping from her hand, clattering on the smooth floor. She turned to find him inches away from her face. How had he come so quietly, so quickly?

Damien's gaze locked with hers, unflinching, unyielding. He filled space much larger than his body.

"You-" Her throat constricted. She stooped to retrieve her pen, requiring the cover to turn aside, to compose herself.

When she straightened, he was still there. Closer.

"This isn't a safe crowd," he said conversationally, his tone amiable, but his eyes anything but. They scanned the room like a predator calculating prey. "Too many vultures. Men who think anything is theirs for the taking."

Her pulse quickened. "And you're not one of them?"

One corner of his mouth jerked-not amusement, not rage, but something in between. "I don't take what isn't mine."

A band around her chest constricted with his words. The same blind arrogance she'd detected at the gala. His confidence wasn't stated-it was lived. He didn't ask. He didn't plead. He simply stated.

"You shouldn't be here alone," he said softly once more.

Her chin went up. "I don't need protection."

Damien leaned forward, his gaze unwavering. His words dropped to a low, intimate tone. "You may not need it. But you'll have it anyway."

Fire flooded her chest. She hated the way he said it, like it was already a done thing, like she couldn't possibly do anything to change it. And yet. a part of her didn't resist the way it ought to.

"Arrogant," she snarled, snagging the word like a trap. "That's what you are."

"Aristocratic," he added, his lips curling into that half-smile once again. "Or honest."

Their surroundings faded. Laughter, voices, the ringing of glasses-everything disappeared, leaving only the tension between them.

Elena tried to step back, but Damien followed her, maintaining rigid, measured space. He did not touch her. He did not have to. His presence was enough to be a restraint.

She sounded dead flat. "The rose. In my apartment. That was you."

His eyes stumbled, a flicker of enjoyment in them. "So you found it."

"You broke into my apartment," she accused, her heart pounding.

"I broke in," he said clinically, as if reporting a matter-of-fact truth. "There's a difference."

"That's-" She laughed, nearly, at the absurdity. "That's illegal."

Damien's expression didn't falter. If anything, his eyes turned colder, with something harder. "Most of what I do is illegal."

The directness stole her breath. He wasn't joking.

Her body was crying to escape. But her feet stayed stuck, as though her legs wouldn't listen to her head.

"You need to leave me alone," she whispered, hating the tremble in her voice.

He was silent for a moment. And then he leaned, his lips brushing dangerously close to her ear, his voice low so that she could hear him alone.

"And if I don't?"

Her knees weakened. The air crackled, her skin buzzing under his pressure.

Elena's mind battled itself-fear on one side, something reckless and unspoken on the other. She thought of the rose, of the way his eyes never looked away, of the strange thrill that accompanied the terror.

Her voice was barely audible. "Then you'll ruin me."

Damien's head tilted slightly, studying her, as though weighing her words. The silence stretched, unbearable, until finally he spoke, his tone like velvet over steel.

Or I'll ruin the rest of the things around you first."

The threat dangled between them, resolute and unyielding.

And then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he stepped back. His face emptied into blankness, as if all their encounter had been nothing more than politely exchanged remarks. He turned, heaved himself through the crowd, and disappeared again into the gallery gloom.

Elena shook, notebook jumping in her hand. She needed to escape, she reminded herself, escape before he came back, before she fell further under whatever spell he was weaving.

But as she swept the crowd with useless eyes, her heart burned with anguish she refused to acknowledge.

Because some part of her already knew she wasn't leaving Damien.

She was walking to him.

She was exiting the gallery when it started raining, but only just. By the time she hit the curb, it was raining in hard, cold sheets. Her thin jacket was clinging to her legs, heels scraping on wet asphalt.

She swore under her breath, attempting to hail a taxi, but every yellow stripe flew by without even the slightest hint of their gaze. The city had taken in all its passengers and stranded her alone, the ink on her notebook already beginning to smudge from careless drips.

It is when the car stopped.

Black, sleek car, tinted windows, engine humming like a wild animal in a cage waiting to be set free. The door had swung open on the inside.

Her breath was trapped.

Damien.

He leaned back against one arm over the leather, wet black hair from rain, the shirt collar still unbuttoned as if he didn't have rules to obey. The streetlamp on the corner cut a diagonal line across his jaw, harsh and merciless.

"Get in," he said.

Elena hesitated, heart hammering against her ribs. "No."

One brow arched slowly. "You'll catch pneumonia out here."

"I'll manage."

His eyes rode her, lingered a moment too long on the crease of her damp blouse, how it clung to her form. Heat swept through her in spite of the chill.

"Elena." His voice dropped, authoritative, almost menacing in its deference. "Get in the car."

His saying it was doing something that it shouldn't. It was the first time he'd ever said it, and it had escaped. possessive.

She swallowed hard against the pull. She had to turn back and go. She should-

Her body did not oblige. Legs getting in front of brain's permission, she got in.

The door slammed shut behind her with a bang, her destiny sealed.

Heat was immediate, the scent of leather and something darker enveloping her. She wriggled, her notebook pressed to her lap as if that would rescue her.

Damien didn't speak at first. He studied her with unnerving patience, his eyes trailing over every inch of her face. She could feel her pulse in her throat, in her wrists, in places she didn't want to admit.

Finally, he said, "You're trembling."

"It's cold," she panted.

"No," he said gently. "That's not it."

Her lips parted in denial, but she could not say it. For he was right.

The silence once more was pulled taut with tension.

And then, with a sudden movement, he put out his hand and brushed back a clenching damp lock of hair from her forehead. His fingers touched hers, a fraction of a second longer than they should.

Elena recoiled, not out of horror, but because the jolt that ran through her with contact against him caused her to blink.

"Don't," she breathed, her voice trembling.

"Don't what?" he growled, his gaze never wavering from hers, a flash of amusement playing at the corner of his mouth as if he already knew.

"Don't touch me."

"Liar."

A single word cut through her defenses, icy and ruthless. He leaned in, close enough she could sense the warmth of his body surround her, his breath mix with hers.

"You don't wince at my touch," Damien whispered. "You wince at the depth to which you crave it."

Her gasps came in and out too quickly, air scorching her lungs.

He was right. And knowing it terrified her more than anything.

"I don't even know you," she breathed.

"You know enough." His voice was final, as if that was all there was to it.

The driver's seat was empty-she hadn't even noticed until then. They were alone. Just the two of them, with rain slamming against the roof like a beat.

Damien's fingers stroked the curve of her jaw again, fingertips along the line of her chin, pushing her face up to meet his. His eyes blazed across hers, hot, as though daring her to let him go.

Every instinct screamed at her to shift. To get this over with. To fight.

But Elena's body again betrayed her, relaxing into touch a little.

That was all he needed.

His lips brushed hers-a breath, a ghostly touch that wove her out of existence. He wasn't kissing her with abandon, not yet. He teased her, faltered, retreated just close enough that she chased what she said she didn't desire.

Her fists were curled in her notebook, knuckles pressed tight with tension, the only thing that kept her anchored to the world as it existed.

"Why are you doing this?" She growled, her voice strained.

"Because I am powerless," Damien admitted, the first crack of vulnerability softening his otherwise cold tone. "And because you don't want me to."

Her heart thudded against her ribs.

The kiss deepened-slow, commanding, dangerous. His lips claimed hers, his hand sliding to the back of her neck, his fingers closing. She cherished the tartness of wine biting on his lips, the power in the way he dominated the second.

And God forgive her soul, she kissed him in return.

The flame increased to something hotter, hotter, devouring fear and reason. For blundering seconds, there were just the two of them-his taste, his scent, his hunger against each shivering defense she'd built.

When he finally let her go, she was panting, stunned.

Damien looked at her, eyes black with things unspoken. And then, gently, with some menace, he whispered:

"This is only the beginning."

The engine of the car roared to life. Elena was instantly awake, realizing she had not even inquired where he was going.

She was sure of only one thing-that she was now in Damien's world.

And she could never go back.