The tension climbed. No one spoke.
"She's got fire, Gabriel," one of the men on the table hooted, his eyes crawling over her exposed skin. "I wouldn't mind getting burned."
"You're welcome to die," Morana spit back at him.
Her father didn't address the man, but her. "Go cool yourself down."
Disgust plastered all over her face, she picked up her clutch and turned towards the corridor that led to the washrooms, not sparing anyone a single glance, her body trembling with rage.
She'd almost turned the corridor when her eyes locked with his.
r /> Her step slowed, as she took him in, that dark suit and open collar he always wore out before her disgust with the entire male population filled her. His eyes were watching her, completely blank of any look. The moment she let her disgust show, his eyes flared with something. She turned before she could linger and read what.
Entering the restroom, she placed her hands on the clean granite counter, watching her own self in the mirror, the cubicles at the other end empty.
What was she doing there? In the restaurant, in her life? Why was she even doing anything? Her father didn't care one wink about her. Nobody did. And it made her angry.
She was angry because a strange man had groped her right in front of her father and he hadn't said a word. She was angry because she'd messaged the man she hated and he'd prodded her to act rather than anyone else. She was angry because she'd left that glass wall and rainy night and yet something inside her completely refused to leave it.
She was angry.
And she could see it. On her flushed face, on her trembling body, on her heated skin.
She was angry. God, she was so angry.
The door to the restroom opened, and Morana looked down, hiding her eyes from whoever had entered. The last thing she wanted was a casual chitchat with some clueless woman.
She washed her hands and pressed the cool water on her cheeks, waiting for some sound behind her as the other woman moved about. There was no sound.
Stilling, her body alert, she looked up slowly, to find her eyes ensnared with blue, blue ones.
He was there, in the ladies' room, in a restaurant filled with men and women of both their families and guns and weapons ready to be fired. Was he insane?
Morana turned on her heels, heading towards the door, the rage inside her kindling, only to find him blocking her path.
"Get out of my way," she spit out, in no mood to deal with him.
"So you can go out to your father and that dickhead?" he goaded, his voice washing over her in a way she completely did not want in that moment.
Gritting her teeth, she tried to sidestep him, only to fail. The anger simmered.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Way," she enunciated, every word hard, her tone frigid.
He didn't budge.
And she let it out.
Her fingers circled his neck before she could blink, and she slammed her entire body into his. He fell a step back against the door, not because of her strength (she knew well enough to know not to fool herself into that), but because he wanted to. His eyes blazed on hers as he tilted his head, uncaring that she could strangle him. Her fingers flexed on those corded muscles, warm muscles, and the urge to let out all her anger, for some reason, assaulted her. Because whatever the reason, he was honest about his hatred of her. She appreciated that honesty. She needed that honesty.
But she was on the edge. On an edge she hadn't known she'd been walking. She was tiptoeing now.
"I asked for one simple thing," she ground out, her mouth trembling. "I told you to stay away from me. You agreed. You gave me your word. Then why is it that I find you everywhere I turn? I'm warning you, right now, I won't give a damn about the codes. You all can die for all I care. You. Stay. The. Fuck. Away. From. Me."
Before she could even blink, her front was pressed against the door, the hand that had been on his neck twisted behind her back firmly but not painfully, her other palm pressed flat on the wood as he pressed into her back, her completely bareback, the buttons of his shirt rubbing against the exposed line of her spine with each breath they took. A woodsy, musky scent she knew was him wrapped all around her as his other hand pressed on the wood beside her own. Her body shook as she turned her face sideways, her forehead brushing against the scruff of his chin as he leaned down, his lips lined against her ear.
Her heart thundered in her chest, blood pounding in her ears. Heat infused her body, the scent, the feel, the sensations heady.
"Get one thing straight, right now, Ms. Vitalio," he murmured right against the shell of her ear, that voice – that voice of whiskey and sin – rolling down her spine in waves, spreading throughout her body, pooling low in her belly. The sensation of those lips made her chest heave against the wooden door. The wooden door that was the only barrier between them and a restaurant full of people, including her father, who wouldn't hesitate to kill either of them.