A Thousand Cuts – Underworld Kings Read Online Anne Malcom

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Erotic, Mafia, Romance Tags Authors: Anne Malcom Advertisement

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My thighs had been pressed together for the entire hour, my skin damp with arousal. It was insane. That I was having this reaction to a stranger fucking staring at me.

I watched as he paid his check, holding my breath, wondering how I was going to continue if he walked out of here. I didn’t know him, but I was suddenly overcome with the notion of surviving without hearing his voice, without his skin on mine.

My heart pounded in my ears as I watched him move. Fluidly. A man sure of himself. Utterly in control of his every movement, in control of everything and everyone around him. It wasn’t just me marking his every movement, others watched him—not just the women but every soul in the restaurant. The waiters skirted around him in a way that told me they were afraid of him. A couple of men dressed in sharp suits had tried to approach him throughout the hour, and he’d barely looked at them when he dismissed them before they scuttled away.

It was as if everyone in the restaurant were holding their collective breath as he stood, fastened his jacket and started walking.

Toward me.

I didn’t do a single thing as he approached. I couldn’t even control the expression on my face. My lips were parted ever so slightly, my breath shallow and rapid. A man who knew how to read a woman would see how interested I was. How fucking desperate I was for him. And he was a man who knew how to read a woman. The knowing twitch of his mouth and the glint in his eyes told me he knew exactly how wet my panties were.

Then he was there, standing in front of my table, towering over me, swallowing me with his shadow.

He smelled of sandalwood and leather.

I was terrified to look him, but my eyes moved of their own volition, like they were magnets merely complying with the laws of physics.

The fire inside of me exploded the second my eyes met his.

He didn’t say anything, this man, this stranger. He stared for much longer than was appropriate, which was wonderful since I wanted him to do very inappropriate things to me. Maybe for other, normal people, the prospect of having sex with a complete stranger was terrifying and fucked-up. But I was not normal.

So when he held out his large, long fingered, masculine hand, without saying a word, I took it.

We didn’t speak as we walked out the restaurant, his hand in mine, his presence making my body thrum with need and anticipation.

I figured he must’ve paid my bill because no one chased us as we walked purposefully out the door. Then again, it would take a formidable waiter to confront him. This tall, handsome, powerful man who seemed to own everyone in the room. The man who could walk up to a woman’s table, extend his hand without a word and walk out with her.

Maybe it wasn’t every woman who would take the aforementioned hand. Maybe I was the only woman on the planet fucked-up enough to do that.

I didn’t care in that moment.

Some need inside of me, a hunger that I’d been ignoring, took hold of me, and I didn’t have the power to deny it. Deny him.

Like most women my age, I was obsessed with true crime documentaries and was fascinated with murder and serial killers. I was an intelligent woman who took all precautions, knowing that a woman was assaulted in this country every ninety-eight seconds. I was aware that I had to actively avoid situations that could get me raped or murdered on the daily. Because if I didn’t and something happened to me, there would always be questions, comments about what I was wearing, why I was running with headphones in, why I didn’t get a taxi home instead of walking two blocks.

I made all those bullshit concessions because it was easier to make women live their lives to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape and murder women.

All my adult life I’d done that, and I was now making this decision? I was willingly getting in a car with a much older and decidedly dangerous stranger without a word?

Without a fight?

As we walked out the door, the maître di opened it for us, and the man in question leaned in ever so slightly, resting his hand on my lower back to guide me out.

The touch was feather light. Barely there. But I had to stifle an audible gasp. That simple, intimate touch electrified my very bones. The reaction made no sense, his hand was gone in mere seconds. Then again, it made no sense I was following him to the car idling at the curb where a man got out of said car wearing all black and opening the door for him.

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