Page 22 of Savage Promises
So I’m here at her club to make an impossible request. Liam Riley, the bouncer, a guy I’ve known forever, lets me in, no questions asked.
The mixing scents of vanilla and amber greet me when I step inside Club Echelon. Music vibrates beneath my polished shoes as I stride toward the bar. Several high-top tables made of dark mahogany wood break up the bar area from the dance floor. Soft votives flicker from the center of every table.
The club ispacked. But not in any way that alarms me. It’s Saturday night. A nightclub should be thrumming and humming. A soft chatter from the crowd floats like a fog. I feel it in my chest. But stepping foot in Lennox Donnelly’s club drowns me in a tension I can’t shake.
Before last week, I hadn’t seen Lennox in six years, but I’d kept track of her. More than I want to admit.
She pulled it off, got her dream. She wrestled her father’s sad old tavern from him. In one year, she turnedit into a great hot spot. Club Echelon is most certainly her domain now.
I’d heard the rumors around Astoria. Lennox Donnelly grew up and is now a knockout beauty running this club with the same fire I remembered from her eighteenth birthday. The night I never should have kissed her. But it was also the night I wished I’d taken it further.
Liam Riley, who followed me inside, tells a barmaid to escort me to a VIP balcony. Connor had offered to come along, but I don’t need backup or a shield for this mission. I’m not here for trouble. Except, with Lennox, it always feels like trouble because my heart is involved.
I didn’t realize I’d put up a wall around the barely-beating dead weight in my chest because of her until we were in the same room. And now I might end up leaving here tonight more wounded than I’m prepared for.
Lennox is here somewhere. I feel her presence. I breathe in, searching for her perfume. The floral scent nearly collapsed my heart last week.
How can a woman affect me like this? She’s got power and that turns me the fuck on. Neve is a kid. A virgin with an enemy’s last name I’m being told to collar as mine.
Lennox is way more than that. Wouldn’t it be more impressive to parade around a lion on a leash than a tea-cup poodle?
I adjust my cuffs, scanning the entire club from high above the dance floor. Strobe lights paint flashes of violet blue and white across the polished mirror surface.
When I catch a whiff of her scent, it’s like euphoria. Lennox, my feisty lioness, struts into the bar area below. When I see her, my heart goes into a free fall. She’s fucking stunning. Gone is the soft, lovesick girl who begged me to keep kissing her. Replaced with a stunning woman who’s got a steely spine and the kind of backtalk that gets my dick hard.
I absorbed every facet of Lennox last week after exchanging only a few words with her. Now, I can’t stay away.
Confidence radiates from each deliberate step in those lethal black high heels she has strapped to her feet. Her ample tits are poured into a purple satin blouse that hugs her full breasts. A black pencil skirt frames her hips in a way that rouses my blood to an uncomfortable heat level. Her deep chestnut hair, smooth and straight, with darker hues underneath is breathtakingly glossy. She’s pinned her mane into a bun low at the base of her neck. It’s sleek and professional, but a few loose strands frame her face, softening the edges and her shoulders.
The way her ass moves in that tight skirt has my mouth watering and my cock thickening.
Oh Christ.
But she’s engaged. To Rafael Marchant. The name burns in my throat. That’s who is fuckingmy Lennox.
She moves with the kind of grace women can’t fake, all while keeping an eagle’s eye on everything around her. The bartenders. The bouncers. The servers. And the customers.
She isn’t just commanding the space. She’s the pulse of it.
My eyes track her as she weaves between tables, stopping to check on customers with a radiant smile that knocks the breath from my lungs and leaves me wrecked. She has sucked in every man’s attention without even trying. I see hunger in their eyes.
A powerful man wants a powerful woman. But the wrong powerful man wants to conquer one. Put her on her knees and throat fuck her into submission. I’m whacked with a vision of Lennox naked, hands tied behind her back, taking a cock down her throat...
My cock... Shit, I’m hard as steel.
I wipe those images away.
As if she feels my eyes bearing down on her, Lennox finally catches sight of me. She freezes for half a heartbeat and meets my gaze. The floor shifts beneath me. Lennox’s lips part slightly. Then, with perfect control, she schools her expression. Her face settles into cool neutrality as she climbs to the VIP level. Cold. Careful.
Just like me.
Her delicate hand brushes the steel banister with her fingers wrapped around it. Now I can’t unsee those hands around my length.
Standing in front of me, chin lifting, and arms crossed, she stares like she doesn’t think I’m real. “Shane?” Her voice is steady and smooth.
But I caught the slight tremor in her lower lip saying my name.
“Lennox,” I greet her back the same way.
