Wounded Beast (Gypsy Heroes Book 2) (2 page)

T
he first sensation I have at the sight of him is one of pure disquiet. Like stroking a cat against the lie of its fur. Something perfectly silky and smooth has become ruffled. It neither feels nor looks right. 

My brain processes what my eyes see in disjointed bits.

Tall, broad, flat stomach, narrow hips. Serious swagger. Fit, but not gym fit: combat fit. A fighter. The long, prowling strides with which he is eating the distance between us gives the impression of coiled tension. A slowly stalking animal about to spring on its prey.

As he moves out of the gloom, his face catches the light.

His hair is damp from the rain and longer than in the photographs I found on the net. It curls around the collar of his leather jacket. And his face is ruggedly beautiful with the kind of tense jaw and five o’clock shadow that must leave delicious burns on a woman’s inner thighs. Whoa! Where the hell did that come from? I suck in a harsh breath. A word I hardly ever use pops into my mind: rideable.

Not a good word, Ella.

Not a good word.

Oozing aggression and male strut, he comes to a stop in front of the table I’m sitting at and stares down at me. The sheer height and breadth of him is so overpowering, it actually makes me feel oddly shaky.
What the hell is Rob still doing in the toilet?
My skin tingles. Masking my unease, I return the angry alpha’s stare coolly.

The light is directly above him so I cannot be certain of the color of his eyes, but they are light, and as fierce and intense as an eagle’s. His chin tilts a fraction higher, and I see the gleam of his irises between his hooded lids.

They are blue: hot blue.

As if the sun had shone onto the ocean’s surface and made it sparkle with reflected light. The unblinking orbs work their way over my face, lingering on my mouth, then sliding down my neck, and coming to rest on my breasts. I take a shocked lungful of air at the blatant arrogance.

His lips twist cynically at the rise and fall of my chest.

Even though I’m wearing my customary cotton shirt and a buttoned-up jacket, and only the suggestion of the shape underneath is on show, I flush deeply. His eyes sweep upward back to my scarlet face.

‘Miss Savage, I presume,’ he intones. His voice is deep and sexy. It feels like something warm melting down my back.

I straighten my spine and try to look unaffected. ‘And you are?’

‘Let’s not play games, Miss Savage. You know exactly who I am.’

‘I’m not playing games,’ I reply calmly. ‘I’m trained not to make assumptions.’

He doesn’t smile. ‘Except one?’ His voice is acid.

I raise a coldly disdainful eyebrow. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You operate under the assumption that there is always an underlying intention to cheat.’

‘If I’m involved there usually is.’

The shockingly blue eyes flash with temper, but his voice is tightly controlled. ‘If you’re implying what I think you are, Miss Savage …’

I let the corners of my lips twitch upwards in a deliberately fake smile. ‘If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear, Mr. Eden.’

‘I wasn’t aware I had anything to fear. I thought you were investigating the restaurant. I’m just an employee of the company that owns this restaurant.’

‘Just an employee?’ I repeat disbelievingly.

‘Just an employee,’ he insists softly.

I look at him steadily. ‘In that case, you are not qualified to give me the information I require. Where is Mr. Broadstreet? This meeting is supposed to be with him.’

‘Nigel has been delayed. Trust me when I say I
am
qualified to give you the information you require,’ he informs, and begins to remove his leather jacket.

Underneath the blue shirt—
Is that silk? He definitely didn’t get that off a store rack. It screams custom
—all kinds of eye-wateringly lovely muscles are rippling up and down his torso and upper arms. I watch him fit the jacket over the back of a chair and start rolling up his shirtsleeve. His forearm is brown, thick, and populated by silky, dark hairs.

My heart skips a beat; then begins to race. There is something incredibly erotic about being alone in an empty restaurant while a full-on, hundred percent certified alpha strips down under a pool of golden light. I catch my wandering thoughts and concentrate on the gold watch on his wrist. Of course, a Rolex. Just an employee, huh? A dishonest, lying, cheating dirtbag, more like.

He slides into the chair opposite me, and suddenly he is too damn close, the smell of his cologne punching me in the middle of my chest. The moment becomes charged. Somehow strangely filled with … oh fuck … sexual tension! Last thing in the world I need.
Where the bloody hell is Rob?

Feeling flustered and awkward, I drop my gaze to the file in front of me. I’m a tough cookie. I’m here to do a job. I’m here on behalf of the Queen and country.

Resisting the impulse to turn around and look for him and so betray my intense discomfort, I take a deep breath and meet Dominic Eden full on, at close quarters.

And Oh! My! God!

The sexiest man in the entire fucking world is staring straight at me with
hunger
in his eyes. My mouth falls open. His eyes zero in on my lips. The air around us becomes electrified.

Whoa! What the …!

I want this man to fuck me raw right here on this table in the middle of this darkened restaurant. The sensation vibrates down my spine and ends in a dull ache between my legs.
The intensity of my desire for him shocks me. Doing this job, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to hide, and even deny my sexuality, but it has always been there, lying in wait. Waiting for the right man to awaken it.

Knowing that doesn’t make my reaction or my unprofessional behavior any less embarrassing. I have to pull myself together. Dominic Eden cannot know how affected I am by him. Taking a deep breath I raise my eyes and look into his. It’s like a zebra trying to outstare a lion.

From the shadows comes the sound of a door opening. Someone is approaching us. I swallow hard unable to pull my eyes away from his, but before whoever it is can come up to our table, Dominic Eden breaks our stare, lifts his hand and holds his thumb and forefinger in the way that you would do if you wanted to show someone the measurement of an inch. I have been investigating restaurants long enough to know that the gesture means espresso, short.

The waitress goes away silently.

I cough. ‘Er ... When do you expect Mr. Broadstreet to join us?’

‘Fifteen minutes or thereabouts,’ he murmurs and nonchalantly leans forward. I can’t help it I flinch back as if avoiding a bullet, my hands grasping the edge of the table, and my heart galloping madly.

At that moment the waitress comes back. I look up at her, grateful for the distraction. On her tray is not a small espresso but a small liquor glass of some colorless liquid. Neat alcohol for breakfast? Wow!

She puts the glass on the table and immediately slinks back into the dim of the unlit restaurant. He leans back, completely relaxed, his forearms resting on the table. His eyes never leaving me, he reaches for the glass and downs the liquid in one swallow. He places the glass back on the table and smiles, the smile of a shark.

Not a shark smiling at a human, but a shark smiling at another shark.

It’s a ‘come out and play’ smile from one predator to another.

Freaked out by my unexpectedly strange and intense reaction to him, I clear my throat. ‘Shall we … um … start?’ I stammer. I desperately need to regain some control over this situation. In a strange reversal of roles we are reading from the wrong scripts. It is he who should be fearful and respectful, and it is I who should be playing the part with all the power and authority. I am the tax inspector. He is the tax cheat.

‘By all means,’ he says, his eyes plenty hostile.

‘Look, Mr. Eden, we need to collaborate, work together on a cooperative, non-adversarial basis in order to resolve this situation.’

‘Non-adversarial? Is there a way to diplomatically throw someone under a bus?’

‘I’m not here to throw you under a bus.’

‘No? Aren’t you here to screw as much money as possible out of this company?’ A cold menace is in his voice.

‘No,’ I say firmly.

‘You’ll be telling me next I can eat a shit sandwich and not have brown teeth,’ he says rudely.

But I refuse to rise to the bait. I am too professional for that. ‘We are here to establish whether this restaurant is paying the correct amount of tax that is due.’

He hits the flats of his palms on the table and makes a hissing sound of disbelief. ‘Do
you
even believe that bullshit?’

I jump, and for a millisecond I experience a sense of searing shame. He’s absolutely right: I am here to squeeze every last drop of money possible. In fact, I wouldn’t even be here if we had not already assessed that a substantial sum can be gleaned from this establishment. And the moment we find a flaw we’ll be piling on interest charges and fines on top of any amount deemed to be owed to cover the cost of our involvement.

Then I remember my honest, hardworking parents. How proud they were that they paid their fair share even though all around them people were gaming the system. And yet now that they’ve both stopped working because my father is ill and my mother is his primary caregiver, their combined pensions are barely enough to get them through the month. And the reason there isn’t enough is because of people like him. People who refuse to pay their fair share. Corrupt, devious people who get away with it just because they have expensive lawyers and accountants who arrange all kinds of sweet schemes for them.

Well, I took this job with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) because I believe in the good we do and I’m here to make the world a fairer place.

I meet his eyes head on. ‘If it transpires that you’ve paid the correct amount of tax, we will not harass you in any way.’

Before he can answer, the restaurant door opens and Rob comes in. We turn to watch his progress across the room. As soon as the light hits him, I see that he looks a sickly shade of green. I raise my eyebrows enquiringly at him. He shakes his head imperceptibly at me, and turns toward Dominic Eden.

‘Sorry about that. I think I’ve picked up some kind of stomach bug. Can we reschedule this meeting for another day?’

‘Of course, Mr. Hunter,’ Eden says. There’s a taunting smile in his voice.

I gather up my files, stand, and take a couple of steps forward so Rob’s body is between him and me. Eden unfurls himself and stands, towering over Rob and me. Rob extends his hand, but he refuses to shake it, and Rob retracts his hand awkwardly.

‘Right,’ Rob says. ‘We’ll be in touch to make another appointment.’ He turns around and starts walking toward the door.

Eden turns to me.

I nod and quickly follow Rob without looking back, even though I can feel Eden’s stare like a dagger in my back. Rob holds open the door and I step out into the entrance foyer. My heart is racing. What happened in that empty restaurant was so crazy and so unlike anything I have ever encountered that I can’t even think straight.

I look at Rob as he enters the foyer and closes the door behind him. There’s a pinched look about his mouth, and his chubby face is shiny with perspiration. I must admit he doesn’t look too well.

‘Rude cunt,’ he mutters disgustedly.

My eyebrows shoot up. Rob is never so crude. He must be feeling really unwell—or Dominic Eden rubbed him up the wrong way.

‘Are you all right?’ I ask cautiously.

‘No, I feel bloody awful, but I’ll survive. I just need to get home. Will you drive?’

‘Sure,’ I say, opening the street door. Outside it is still raining steadily.

Rob turns toward me. ‘Damn, I left my umbrella in the restaurant. Will you be good enough to get it for me?’

I look at him in dismay. ‘Me?’

‘I’d go myself, but I’m not well, Ella,’ he says irritably.

I continue staring at him. I really don’t want to go back into that restaurant alone.

‘Can’t you see that I’m suffering?’ he asks through clenched teeth.