Dancing With the Devil (The Devil #2) Read Free Page A

and spoke so only she could hear.  “So we meet again.”  He glanced back at everyone.  “Now, to make things official, I will now kiss my bride.”  He leaned toward Harleen, but just as his lips were about to meet her lips, she turned so he kissed her cheek instead.
     
    The audience didn’t know how to respond.  Some chuckled nervously, while others gasped.  The women Harleen grew less and less fond of smirked, as though they knew he wasn’t going to get lucky tonight which would let them get lucky.  Harleen didn’t care.  He could go do as many women as he wanted.  He wasn’t doing her; that was for sure.
     
    But, when his lips touched her cheek, something happened to her.  Goose bumps flared out and her heart slowed and yet maintained its fast speed at the same time.  It was hard to explain.  She didn’t understand…  He chuckled against her cheek at her reaction, and glanced out at the sea of people.
     
    “She’s playing coy,” he stated as if he knew her.  Pshhh.  Like Harleen would let him find out anything about herself.  “Hopefully, she won’t follow suit in the bedroom.”  The audience laughed along with him as her heart dropped.  The bedroom.  Sex .  She cringed.  She had forgotten about that.
     
    He tugged gently on her arm.  Harleen seemed to have been entrapped within her worries when she realized she stared into nothingness.  Her gaze began to mist; the audience became blurry beings that had no faces anymore.  She could make no one out.  Before she realized it, she slipped into unconsciousness, falling… falling… falling…
     
    Until strong arms wrapped around her middle and caught her.
     
    That was all she remembered until she woke up, later that evening.  For a moment, Harleen had forgotten where she was and what had happened a few hours ago.  She knew she was not in her previous bedroom; her sheets were not as soft as these.  Blinking once, twice, before her eyes encountered the strong back of the man that was now her husband.  His muscles rippled as he reached down from the edge of the bed to grab something, or slip a sock on his foot.  She couldn’t tell.  Harleen was captivated by him.  Her thoughts were blank; her shame was temporarily postponed.
     
    “I told you desire would come shortly,” he said, as though he knew she had been staring at him.
     
    Her face crawled with the impending blush that was about to devour her, but she scoffed, her brow furrowing as low as it could possibly go.  Surprisingly, he pushed back until he was lying next to her, his head resting in his open palm, his elbow resting on the bed.  She wouldn’t let herself look at him.  Damn him for remaining shirtless.  She was uncomfortable.  His lips curled into a small smirk, as if he could read her thoughts, and he looked at her blatantly, unabashedly.  Harleen’s red face only turned redder.
     
    “You were out for a while, you know,” he told her in a soft voice, and her heart flip flopped.  Damn that accent.  She hated the way her body reacted to him.  He leaned closer to her and she felt herself stiffen; he reached up and brushed a stray strand of her hair from her face and curled it around her ear.  “You’re afraid of me.”  It was a statement, not a question.
     
    “Obviously,” she murmured.  “Now that I know who you really are.”
     
    “Is that all you’re going to say to me?” he asked, looking at her with an amused smile on his face.
     
    He set himself up for another ‘obviously’, but Harleen opted to remain silent and look away from him.  Though she would never admit it, she started to feel as though she couldn’t trust herself when she looked at him, and she hated herself even more for it.
     
    “How can you be afraid of someone you don’t even know?” he asked her.
     
    “I do know you,” she spat, her eyes narrowing into his.  “Or did the past month mean nothing to yo?.  I just don’t know you as this.”  She