Dark Seduction: Millennium Mayhem MC

by Naomi West

  There was something intensely innocent about her too-big eyes, about the way her lips formed a pout that set every inch of Pierce’s body aflame. With a shy-looking smile, Felice inched forward. Pierce’s breath hissed violently through his teeth as he inhaled sharply. But that didn’t stop her.

  Tugging on his shoulders with her delicate hands, Felice bent Pierce to her will. No matter how much stronger he was, he couldn’t have fought Felice off if he’d wanted to.

  And right now, he really, really didn’t want to.

  Pulling her closer, Pierce picked Felice up into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist, holding herself up and pressing her perfect mouth to his. This kiss was much less gentle, the hunger of her lips, tongue, and teeth assaulting his common sense. He knew this was wrong, that a guy like Pierce didn’t belong in a world like Felice’s. But he couldn’t seem to convince his body of it.

  But then there was a knock on the door behind him, and it shattered whatever had built up between them.

  # # #

  Felice

  Felice was livid with whoever was on the other side of that door. God, Pierce was hot. Her whole body was on fire just from a single kiss, and she could drown a person in her panties right now. No one had ever made her feel this way with just a kiss, no one had ever made her so wet without even trying.

  Never in her whole life had she ever wanted to take someone right on the damned hardwood floor of her front room.

  Taking a deep breath, Felice untangled herself from Pierce, dropping back to her feet. She wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand, her eyes dripping fiery rage. Taking another, deeper breath, she tried to re-center and realign herself in preparation for whatever visitor was on the other side of her front door.

  Pierce stepped away, but not too far away.

  Felice braced herself, then opened the door. Her face slackened with surprise, her whole body turning into one giant piece of ice. Never in her life had she ever gone from being turned on to cold granite in a matter of seconds, but seeing Clay Patterson knocking at her door felt like a bucket of ice water being poured over her.

  She stood there, staring at her ex stupidly, a war of emotions twisting up her insides. He looked much the same as he always did: handsome, put together, and clean cut. Pale and proper.

  Felice waited for the rise in her pulse and the butterflies in her stomach that normally occurred when he was around, but instead she just felt empty and cold.

  Clay’s eyes ran up and down Felice’s body like she was a purchase he was considering. Then his eyes moved over to Pierce, whom Felice temporarily forgot was still there.

  “Can I help you?” she asked Clay, her feelings all jumbled up. She didn’t know what to think of him coming here.

  “Hey, babe. Did you miss me?” he asked like nothing had happened between them. His mouth pulled up in that familiar, wicked half-smile, the one that Felice used to find so completely charming.

  It didn’t look charming now. Felice crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I didn’t. And I’m not your babe anymore, so please get out.” The nerve of him! How dare he come into her house like nothing had changed!

  “Oh, come on, babe, I just want to talk to you.” Clay held out his hands, a beseeching look on his beautiful face. “That’s all. Just want to talk. Alone.” He was suddenly glaring over at Pierce again who was standing right behind Felice. She couldn’t see Pierce’s face, but she could feel the rage boiling up in him from here. Wincing, Felice took a step back, pressing against Pierce’s body. Suddenly, she felt a little better, and the world looked a little clearer.

  “Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of my bodyguard.” Felice lifted her right hand, putting it over Pierce’s which rested on her left shoulder.

  Clay snorted, rolling his eyes. “Babe, it’s me. You don’t need a bodyguard between us. Just let me talk to you for a moment, alone. Outside. Five minutes, Felice. That’s all I ask.”

  Felice wanted to open her mouth and tell him to screw off, that he didn’t deserve those five minutes, but the words caught in her throat. The expression on his face was one of pleading, and it was an expression that Felice always gave into.

  “Not happening.” Pierce’s voice came from over her shoulder, quiet but firm. There was no arguing with a voice like that.

  Annoyed, Felice turned back to Clay. She didn’t like Pierce assuming he could speak for her. She didn’t like it all. Sighing, she pushed those thoughts away. “Deal with Clay first, then talk to Pierce about his sudden possessiveness.”

  Clay, however, was a man used to getting his way. “Fine, Felice. I try to come here and stitch fences, and you act like a spoiled little bitch.”

  Felice made a face. “You mean ‘mend fences,’ Clay,” she said, automatically. She hadn’t meant to correct his idiom, but it was so incredibly wrong that she couldn’t help herself.

  Throwing his hands in the air, Clay just made a disgusted sound. Felice could feel Pierce’s hand tighten on her shoulder, probably in anger. “Seriously?”

  Felice cleared her throat, trying to get Clay to settle down a little. His anger along with Pierce’s was making the massive front room of her house feel small. She needed to defuse this situation before it got any worse. “Just tell me why you are here, Clay. Please. Calmly.”

  “Fine,” he snapped, turning to face her straight on, his eyes locked with hers. “I was hoping that you and I could talk about this misunderstanding and get back to where we had been. But I see there’s no point. Once you’re done sleeping with the help, you selfish cow, give me a call and maybe I’ll think about taking you back.”

  Felice felt hot, then cold, then hot again. Her skin crawled, her chest inflating with hot, angry air. Never in her life had she ever wanted to actually tear someone’s hair out, but Clay was really pushing the right buttons tonight. Taking a deep breath, Felice didn’t know what she was going to say, but it was not going to be nice.

  Unfortunately, Pierce had the same sort of idea.

  Before she could say anything or think to stop him, Pierce had thrown himself forward, grabbing both of Clay’s arms into what looked like a wrestling hold. It looked painful, but not in a permanent way. But one small movement of Pierce’s arms could pop Clay’s arm out of his socket or break a bone.

  Felice gasped, every muscle in her body locking up like someone had put her in a freezer.

  Pierce’s voice was void of all emotion when he said, “Take that back; that is the last time you show disrespect to Ms. Domiano.”

  Chapter Nine

  Pierce

  “There’s a right way to do things and a wrong way,” Felice said, her voice soft like she was talking down a rabid animal. “And this is the wrong way, Pierce.” Her beautiful green eyes were locked with his, her tone pleading.

  The worst part was that Pierce knew she was right. But more than anything in the world, Pierce wanted to break this little bastard’s arm and show him what disrespecting women got you where he came from.

  “If you do it, it will bring police reports and scrutiny, neither of which you can afford.” With a huff, Pierce twisted just a tiny bit harder, making the wimpy idiot cry out in pain before finally releasing him. He wanted to clock the kid in the face so badly, he had to force himself to take a step away from the sobbing bitch to keep from doing it. That pretty face of his needed a little rearranging, but sadly, Pierce was not going to be the one to do it.

  “All right now, if you don’t mind. Pierce, your job is to protect me from physical threats, not insults.” Her eyes are like fire as she stares him down. “Please apologize.”

  “I am sorry, Clay,” Pierce responded, sounding a little robotic. Although it was completely insincere, Clay seemed to take it at face value. Maybe he was just as bad at social cues as he was with everything else.

  Clay rubbed his shoulder delicately, a sulky look on his face.

  But Felice knew how to handle him. She was like a diplomat, able to get anyone to
agree with her, given enough time. “Now, Clay; you know there is no reason to insult me or the ‘help’ as you so brutishly referred to Pierce. He’s a man that works for his bread, just like your father was before he made all of that money. There is no shame in working, and I expect you will treat my employees as you would anyone else.”

  Looking slightly ashamed, Clay looked away from Felice but didn’t say anything. Pierce was shocked at the use of cajoling and stern talking-to that she used to turn both of their rages into faint shame. She defused the situation like a bomb technician, and Pierce knew he’d found a woman with an incredible talent. She didn’t yell or curse, even though the man-child in front of her had cheated on her less than a week before.

  By the time Clay left, Pierce was filled with a kind of admiration he’d never felt for another human before. Felice was one-of-a-kind. And, holy shit, was she hot.

  # # #

  Felice

  Closing the front door behind her, Felice locked the door and took a deep breath. Well, that was over at least.

  But now there was Pierce to deal with.

  She turned to face him, ready for a fight. Self-centered jerk was just staring at her like nothing had happened, a blank, almost bored expression on his sexy face. She kind of wanted to strangle him for causing all this trouble then having the nerve to look like he hadn’t done a single thing wrong.

  “You know that Clay has the right to press charges if he wants to.” She crossed her arms over her chest as she stared Pierce down. Anger honed his already sharp features, making the muscles in his jaw tense and making those sculpted features even more becoming. Felice wanted to run her hands over that face again, feel his skin under her trembling fingers as she kissed him. Wrapping her arms close…

  She had to shake herself to get away from the heated memories of Pierce’s body so close to hers. Turning on her heel, she headed into the kitchen, mostly because she needed some coffee, but also to keep her eyes off of Pierce’s beautiful body for just a few moments.

  “I am a wealthy woman in the public eye, Pierce. I can’t have my bodyguard assaulting people for insulting me. I’m constantly insulted. There are entire Reddit and Facebook groups devoted to how much I suck and how I should go die,” she said, putting fresh beans into the coffee grinder. She slammed the lid on a little harder than she meant to in her anger. “Insults aren’t why you’re here.”

  Pierce followed her into the kitchen, a silent shadow.

  “You’re here to make Clay jealous enough to beg for me to come back to him. There is a lot of money on the line here, and I refuse to lose this bet.” When Felice turned back to Pierce, she saw his mouth twisted in surprise. “Did I not tell you about the bet?”

  The blank look in his pretty, chocolate eyes was answer enough.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I need Clay to come back to me, and I need to remember that you are here for that and that alone. Okay?” The coffee began to brew, filling her white-on-white kitchen with the beautiful scent. There were only two things in the world that made Felice happy: the color white and the scent of freshly-brewed coffee. And that made her kitchen one of her favorite places in the whole world. Paula, the maid who looked after her home, had a way with keeping the whites as white as possible, no matter what Felice spilled or tracked into the house. She was a blessing.

  “I’m sorry, Felice,” Pierce said, looking sincere. “I don’t know what came over me.” Looking a bit like a puppy that was just kicked by an owner, Pierce disappeared up the stairs and into “his” room, closing the door behind him with a click.

  Felice watched him leave, enjoying the view, reliving the scene at the front door again in her mind. “It was sort of hot the way he jumped to my defense like I was a lady and he was my knight in shining armor.” But that sort of behavior couldn’t continue. Pierce wasn’t her knight, and his possessiveness was a little weird. They barely knew each other!

  Sighing, Felice poured some of the coffee into her favorite mug and poured in some cream. The milk swirled into her coffee like clouds, lightning the black brew until it was just the perfect shade of mocha brown. Just like Pierce’s eyes.

  Frowning, Felice pushed that thought away, taking a big sip of her brew. “No, I have to keep my eye on the prize. And the prize is not Pierce. It’s Clay. I can’t let Pierce, no matter how pretty his eyes are or how amazing his ass looks in that suit, get in the way of my mission.”

  And with that, Felice settled down in front of the TV. For a few moments, she wanted to forget Clay, forget the sexy man just upstairs, and forget the demands of her mother and her show. And some mindless TV was the perfect cure.

  Chapter Ten

  Pierce

  Mostly to keep up appearances, Felice had a state-of-the-art security system installed at her beautiful, white mansion in the desert. Once again, Pierce found himself absolutely stunned at the flagrant way Felice has of just tossed money around like it was nothing. It still shook him up that someone could have so much that they didn’t check the price of anything they bought. Cars, jewelry, clothing, security systems; no matter the cost, it didn’t seem to even put a dent in her bank account. Not to mention the exorbitant fees she was paying him to pretty much sit around and look “mean and sexy.”

  “I guess this is how pretty trophy wives feel.” He thought darkly, sitting in front of the monitors. The new security system was absolutely the most high tech thing he’d ever seen, and he mostly fumbled around with the buttons for fun more than having an actual goal in mind.

  There were three cameras focused on the front of the house; one showed the street immediately in front while the other two pointed at the driveway. After a second of fumbling, Pierce managed to get the street view to pop up on the TV screen attached to the system, watching to see how often cars actually drove by this little patch of desert. He was a little surprised at the sheer amount of traffic coming through this lightly populated part of town, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been. There were quite a number of other mini-mansions on this strip of land, and he doubted most of the owners made do with one or two household helpers like Felice did.

  More than likely, most of these people have whole sets of staff devoted to them.

  As he watched, a police vehicle drove by the house, not even slowing as it crossed in front of Felice’s house. Even so, his heart skipped a beat in his chest. “If the cops ever stop in here for me, what will I do?”

  Sighing, Pierce turned away from the screens, his head spinning. Half of him is sure he’d just be able to leave, roll right out of here and down to San Diego without a glance backward. But the other half of him wasn’t sure.

  “I’m getting too tangled up in a woman I’ll never have.” Visions of Felice slipped across his mind. Knowing when he left here, she would be wrapped in the asshole Clay’s arms made him want to put his fist through the TV screen. What was it about Felice that made him so crazy?

  He walked away from the security system, trying not to think too hard about Felice and utterly failing.

  # # #

  Felice

  Much to her delight, Felice found herself in Pierce’s arms again. Rippling muscles wrapped close, her heart thundering in her chest. Warm bodies, skin-on-skin contact. Beautiful chocolate eyes heated her whole body up from the tips of her toes to her scalp, sending delightful little shivers over every inch of her. A moan, a kiss, the press of tongues. A whisper, “I want to be inside of you, Felice.” The voice filled with lust. And then the sound of Felice begging, pleading for him to merge with her, just this once…

  When she woke, Felice had to fight her way out of her tangle of blankets and sheets. She could feel her thighs throbbing in time with her heartbeat, her underwear soaked after her racy dreams.

  And much to her delight, Pierce was pictured front and center in those dreams. “He’s so hot. If I was anyone else, I would have tackled him to the floor by now.” Sighing through her nose, Felice ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “But I’m not anyone. I
’m Felice Domiano, and I play by the rules. No matter how much I hate them sometimes.”

  Shaking herself, Felice realized what she had been thinking and cursed herself. “This isn’t helping, Felice,” she told herself in the huge mirror across the room from her bed. “Pierce isn’t the prize here. Clay and your pride are the prizes.” Felice forced herself to get out of bed, discarded her pajamas and hopped into the shower. A very cold shower. She hoped the icy water would wash away her dreams and ready her for a new day.

  Standing up straight, she looked into her reflection’s eyes. “Alright, Felice. You got this. You’re going to get Clay to crawl to you like your mother wants, and you’re going to be happy.”

  Repeating the word “happy” over and over to herself like a mantra, Felice skipped down the stairs, bounding into the kitchen to get herself a cup of coffee.

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs, her eyes going wide and her heart turning to ice inside of her chest. On the counters, there were three, huge vases full of white roses, each one tied in a gold ribbon. The flowers blended seamlessly with the kitchen; even the vases were white with gold leaf. They were perfect.