Mortal Danger Read Free Page B

her gaze was drawn to one spot, near the curving wall of windows.
    Rule was there.
    She couldn’t see him. Lily had inherited her father’s lack of inches, and there were too many people between them. But she didn’t have to see him to know precisely where he was. She always did, if he was close enough… within one hundred twenty-nine feet, to be exact. The effect became imprecise after that. Last week she’d made him test it.
    That’s how it was now, anyway. Three weeks ago she’d been unable to be that far away—literally unable. She’d nearly passed out when she put too much distance between them. Rule claimed that was normal for a newly mated pair.
    He had some weird ideas of normal. But the bond had relaxed, just as he’d said it would. She wasn’t sure how far their tether would stretch now, but she meant to find out. Soon.
    The music ended, and some of the couples started to leave the floor. In the gap that opened up, Lily saw the man who’d recently moved into the center of her life. Or, according to Rule, had been shoved there by his Lady.
    He’d been dancing with someone Lily didn’t know. A member of the groom’s family, probably, as the woman looked Chinese. She was about Lily’s age, with very short hair and a sleek blue dress that set off her figure admirably.
    Not a puke-green bridesmaid’s dress. Lily grimaced. The mate bond made it impossible for Rule to stray, but his thoughts could still wander, couldn’t they?
    The woman’s hand rested on Rule’s arm. She was smiling in a way that was becoming all too familiar. Lily wondered if she looked like that, too, when Rule’s head bent toward her the way he inclined it now, listening to his dance partner.
    It was an elegant head. Its dark hair was too long for fashion, but it suited him. His face was narrow, the skin taut over cheeks that might have been sculpted by the wind. The angle of those cheekbones was mirrored by the dark slashes of his eyebrows.
    He wore black, of course. He always wore black. The expensive suit covered a body that never failed to fascinate her. It seemed somehow more focused than other bodies. Watching him now, she had the fanciful thought that he attended to the world with all of him—listening with thighs and biceps as well as ears, observing with scalp and eyes and nape, with the soles of his feet and the backs of his knees.
    The backs of his knees… she knew how his skin tasted there.
    His head turned, and their eyes met.
    Oh . She put a hand on her stomach. That didn’t usually happen, not since the first time. But every once in a while she got this little jolt when their eyes met. Like being stroked by a feather, she thought. Startling because she felt it in a place she had no name for. A place she hadn’t known could be touched.
    Why did it hit sometimes and not others? She grimaced. Mate bond mystery number three hundred seventy-six.
    As if he’d read her mind, the corner of his mouth kicked up. Those rakish eyebrows lifted, asking a question. She made herself smile back and shook her head: No, I don’t need you right now. I’m fine .
    “Not like that, dummy,” a voice said at her elbow. “Like this.”
    Lily turned. Beth was making kissy faces at Rule.
    Rule grinned and blew Lily’s little sister a kiss.
    “See?” Beth turned to her. “You have a hunk like that hanging around, you don’t scowl him away.”
    “That was a smile, not a scowl. This is a scowl.”
    Beth studied her. “By golly, you’re right. The difference isn’t as obvious as it ought to be, though. What’s wrong?”
    “It’s such a pleasure to be asked that by someone I can tell to mind her own business.”
    “The rellies been giving you a hard time? Rhetorical question,” she added, hooking an arm through Lily’s. “Of course they are. You’ve confounded everyone’s expectations again. C’mon. Let’s see if there’s anywhere to hide on the patio.”
    It was either go with Beth or be tugged wholly off balance. Lily