Giselle shook her head, like she was still denying the truth standing in front of her. AKA me.
“Giselle Santos,” I murmured her name, liking the way it tasted on my tongue. I liked it almost as much as I liked the taste of her. Hmm. I could go for another round. “Like I said, you and I have something to talk about, unless you want to continue denying it, princess?”
She swallowed. “You’re not… you can’t be the—”
I took a hand off the railing, reaching for my shirt. I started to unbutton the top few buttons, exposing my chest to her, letting her see the black dragon tattoo resting there. “You must not know much about my family. My father’s known as the Great Dragon. The Great Dragon birthed many children. All of my brothers and sisters have tattoos like this—” I pointed to the dragon on me. “—different colors, though. I’m the Black Dragon.”
The Dragons were shrewd businessmen and women, along with unrivaled hitmen. We were taught from a young age how to kill, how to take down our opponents. Sometimes we took on contracts from the Guild, killed for others for hefty sums.
Giselle gulped again, and she couldn’t deny the black dragon tattoo on my chest, nor could she take her eyes off it. She lifted a hand, a white-gloved hand, slowly moving it to my chest. The moment that soft, sheer fabric grazed my skin, when she traced a part of my tattoo, my heart rate sped up.
She was speechless. She couldn’t say a word. I, however, could, and I took the gloved hand touching my chest in my own hand and said, “Let’s sit down.” Holding onto her hand, I dragged her to my booth. I let her sit down first, and then I scooted into the booth beside her. She had set a hand on her stomach when she’d sat down, and I asked, “Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes,” Giselle whispered. “More of an ache, really.” She could not stop staring at me. We sat side by side, and yet she still looked just as stiff as she’d looked before. Finding out she knew who I was, that the stranger at the Playground was, in fact, no stranger. “Cut the shit. You don’t really care how I feel.”
She sounded so sure of herself, I found myself grinning.
“Stop that,” she hissed.
“Stop what?”
“Stop that. Stop—” Giselle’s gaze fell to my mouth, which still held that grin. “—doing that. Stop smiling like you know something I don’t. I—what happened in the club was a mistake, okay? You said it yourself. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Then why choose me again that night?”
Giselle glared. “I didn’t choose you. You came up to me—” She stopped herself. “It doesn’t matter how it went.”
I lifted a brow. “It doesn’t? No, you’re right. It doesn’t. So not cool, leaving me handcuffed to the bed after using me, by the way.” I’d been all too willing to let her use me again, even knowing who she was, so the fault wasn’t only on her shoulders.
“I didn’t use you.”
“You sure?”
Giselle opened her mouth, but then that beautiful mouth shut and curled into a frown. She almost looked like she was pouting, which I found ridiculously adorable. Too adorable. The more time I spent with her, the more she burrowed under my skin.
I reached into my pocket, pulling out her black leather gloves. “I brought these for you. I was going to bring them to you in the hospital, but I figured you didn’t need more drama in your life then. I don’t need two pairs.”
She was slow in lifting her gaze off the leather gloves I’d placed on the table before us, once more meeting my eyes. “This isn’t drama. This is—it’s—” She sounded speechless, and I’d bet anything Luca couldn’t make her speechless like this.
In fact, I bet Luca had no idea just how nice she was between the legs. The sounds she could make. How tight she was. How fucking fantastic her core felt when it clamped down around your cock and milked it for all it was worth.
God. I could really go for fucking her again.
“What is it, princess?” I asked. “What would you call handcuffing me to a bed and fucking me before running away from me? If that’s not drama, what is it?” Normally I wasn’t so blunt, but when it came to Giselle, I knew my time was ticking. I had to get my point across.
She chose not to answer my question, instead saying, “It would do you well to forget everything I told you.”
“Why? Scared you actually told someone the truth?” I reached for her, touching the fabric of her white dress near her knees. “This isn’t you. We both know it.”
Giselle pushed my hand away, glaring. Glaring and pouting—and it took everything in me to not lean over and kiss that expression off her face. “You don’t know me, Cade, just like I don’t know you.”
“That doesn’t mean shit. You felt it. You still feel it.” Scooting a few inches closer, my whole body towered over hers in the booth. I set an arm above her shoulders on the booth, resting my other on the edge of the table before her. I was as close to her as I could be without dragging her onto my lap—and with her wound still bothering her, I couldn’t do that. “There’s something between us.”
A moment passed before she muttered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” When all I did was stare at her, Giselle scoffed at me, turning her head away. “You’re… you’re just—ugh. Why did it have to be you?”
“Sorry to disappoint, princess.”
Her head whipped in my direction, and one of her gloved hands curled into a fist, a single finger rising to point at me. “Stop calling me that, Cade. Just stop it.”