Read Online Aces Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 5 by Jenn Stark - Free Book Online
Authors: Jenn Stark
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with the cloak and dagger?” I pounded my chest with my index finger. “This is me, Armaeus. Is there anything about me that suggests to you I couldn’t be bought? My entire livelihood depends on me being willing to trade my time and skills for money. Why lie to me? Why make me think that—”
I broke off too late, but could see instantly that the damage had already been done. I’d strayed dangerously close to revealing the true reason for my sense of betrayal at Armaeus’s cold treatment of me. Not that I could have died, not that I’d been injured in the course of working for the Council. That was to be expected for the amount I was being paid.
But Armaeus had become more than my employer. Much more, I’d thought. And that reality had made me incredibly weak when I most needed to be strong.
His next words confirmed my misstep. “So, is that your issue, then, Miss Wilde?” he asked. He’d somehow moved toward me, or my own traitorous feet had drifted me closer to him, the spider in the center of a glittering web. “You wish to know how I feel about you?”
“I couldn’t give a crap how you feel about me anymore,” I said, but my words were not as convincing as I wanted them to be. “I simply don’t understand why you couldn’t keep it all business. We had an arrangement. A good arrangement. I would have happily taken more money to push my abilities.”
“You would have.” Now Armaeus did move deliberately. As he stepped closer to me, the very air charged with electricity, and my breath seemed to grow thicker in my throat. I couldn’t get enough oxygen, yet every one of my nerve endings was lit on fire with each foot he erased between us.
Then suddenly he was there in front of me, close enough to touch.
“Do you feel this current between us?” he murmured. He lifted his hand, and I flinched reflexively, causing his lips to curve into a cold, hard smile. He drifted his fingers along the side of my face.
Electricity sparked wherever he touched. My heart thundered, my hands went damp and clammy in their bandages, and my knees turned to milk. It was all I could do to stay upright, despite the anger building up inside me.
“This is exactly what I’m talking about!” I hissed, holding myself perfectly still. “None of this is necessary to accomplish your goals.”
“Do you know so little about me, then, that you truly believe that?” Armaeus dipped his head so his eyes were nearly even with mine, and I couldn’t break contact with their smoking depths. “My magic is born of the physical, Miss Wilde. The heat and electrical connections between two people is the most natural wellspring to fire it. And I needed it to be fired to understand you.”
He leaned closer, so close that when he spoke, the whorls of his breath caressed my skin, teasing and tempting. My mouth opened of its own volition, and though I told myself it was merely to prepare to scream, I knew better.
I wanted Armaeus Bertrand. I wanted him with every fiber of my being. I’d somehow been exactly calibrated to match his frequency, so that when he was this close, everything within me hummed.
“You feel it,” he murmured, and there was a roughness in his voice that skittered through me, flipping every switch to go. “That’s what I needed, in order to build you up and tear you down and lay you open for my understanding. None of my research would have been possible without it.”
“You could have simply asked,” I said miserably, the desire racing through my veins impossible to ignore, the heat soaking through me as real as life itself. “You didn’t have to trick me.”
“If I’d asked, I never could have had this,” he murmured.
Then he leaned the final few inches and brushed his lips against mine.
Chapter Six
There was no denying the hot, electrical surge that jolted through me, setting my nerve endings on fire. There was also no denying the anger that erupted on its heels.
“So you used me!” I shoved the
I broke off too late, but could see instantly that the damage had already been done. I’d strayed dangerously close to revealing the true reason for my sense of betrayal at Armaeus’s cold treatment of me. Not that I could have died, not that I’d been injured in the course of working for the Council. That was to be expected for the amount I was being paid.
But Armaeus had become more than my employer. Much more, I’d thought. And that reality had made me incredibly weak when I most needed to be strong.
His next words confirmed my misstep. “So, is that your issue, then, Miss Wilde?” he asked. He’d somehow moved toward me, or my own traitorous feet had drifted me closer to him, the spider in the center of a glittering web. “You wish to know how I feel about you?”
“I couldn’t give a crap how you feel about me anymore,” I said, but my words were not as convincing as I wanted them to be. “I simply don’t understand why you couldn’t keep it all business. We had an arrangement. A good arrangement. I would have happily taken more money to push my abilities.”
“You would have.” Now Armaeus did move deliberately. As he stepped closer to me, the very air charged with electricity, and my breath seemed to grow thicker in my throat. I couldn’t get enough oxygen, yet every one of my nerve endings was lit on fire with each foot he erased between us.
Then suddenly he was there in front of me, close enough to touch.
“Do you feel this current between us?” he murmured. He lifted his hand, and I flinched reflexively, causing his lips to curve into a cold, hard smile. He drifted his fingers along the side of my face.
Electricity sparked wherever he touched. My heart thundered, my hands went damp and clammy in their bandages, and my knees turned to milk. It was all I could do to stay upright, despite the anger building up inside me.
“This is exactly what I’m talking about!” I hissed, holding myself perfectly still. “None of this is necessary to accomplish your goals.”
“Do you know so little about me, then, that you truly believe that?” Armaeus dipped his head so his eyes were nearly even with mine, and I couldn’t break contact with their smoking depths. “My magic is born of the physical, Miss Wilde. The heat and electrical connections between two people is the most natural wellspring to fire it. And I needed it to be fired to understand you.”
He leaned closer, so close that when he spoke, the whorls of his breath caressed my skin, teasing and tempting. My mouth opened of its own volition, and though I told myself it was merely to prepare to scream, I knew better.
I wanted Armaeus Bertrand. I wanted him with every fiber of my being. I’d somehow been exactly calibrated to match his frequency, so that when he was this close, everything within me hummed.
“You feel it,” he murmured, and there was a roughness in his voice that skittered through me, flipping every switch to go. “That’s what I needed, in order to build you up and tear you down and lay you open for my understanding. None of my research would have been possible without it.”
“You could have simply asked,” I said miserably, the desire racing through my veins impossible to ignore, the heat soaking through me as real as life itself. “You didn’t have to trick me.”
“If I’d asked, I never could have had this,” he murmured.
Then he leaned the final few inches and brushed his lips against mine.
Chapter Six
There was no denying the hot, electrical surge that jolted through me, setting my nerve endings on fire. There was also no denying the anger that erupted on its heels.
“So you used me!” I shoved the
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