I stopped her there, turning so we were facing each other and took a quick glance around, just to be sure.
"Are we here for any reason in particular?" she sounded amused.
I decided to be blunt. "I need to frisk you."
Just about any other person would have been annoyed or insulted. No one got frisked at these parties, they were checked before they got this far. This woman was a little special, though.
"Is there any particular reason?" she murmured, looking up at me from under her lashes, but I thought her amusement only grew.
"I never saw your name on the guest list."
She gave a Gallic shrug. "Maybe I was invited last minute and my name isn’t on it."
I smiled tightly, repeating, "Just the same, Miss Abba, I'm going to need to frisk you."
"There's no reason you can't still call me Elda." She tugged her hand away from me and I didn’t stop her. "And of course, you can frisk me. For purely security reasons."
I narrowed my eyes on her. "Are you laughing at me, Elda?"
"I wouldn’t dream of it, Luke."
I was sure she was, though.
She took a step back and raised her arms from her sides, arching an eyebrow at me, her look practically daring me to go ahead.
I couldn’t help the suspicion. These parties had such tight security, even I was impressed. No one not on the list—prepared weeks in advance, should have been able to bypass it. How she got in, I didn’t know, but I didn't think asking would get me anywhere. She'd just deny, deny, deny.
Or, if she was especially good, she'd have an airtight excuse.
"You can frisk me," she told me when I didn’t immediately begin.
I moved closer, moving my hands and placing my fingertips on her wrists. There was no need, her arms were bare so there was no way she could have hidden anything there, but I ran my fingertips up her arms and to her shoulders. I followed the straps of her dress, sliding my hands down her sides and around her back, being thorough.
Of course, there was nothing on her. I also noticed the very conspicuous lack of a purse on her person. And what self-respecting woman, even in a crowd like this, wouldn’t have a purse on her? I didn’t see her coming in, so there was no way to know if she had one somewhere in the room. I'd have to leave her and go ask the guard outside the main entrance.
But I couldn’t think about that for long. I couldn’t really think of anything but slowly frisking her, all the time my eyes on hers.
When I got to her hips, I lowered into a crouch, craning my neck to keep her eyes.
"Widen your legs for me, just a bit." The words came out in a murmur, and I saw her swallow, felt her body shift under my hands as she moved to comply.
I'd looked at her body long enough to know every curve, even as I mapped them with my hands—for purely business purposes, of course—but I hadn't gotten a good look at her eyes. They were brown, like I'd guessed, but not a dull brown like I was used to seeing. Even in the slightly shadowed corner, they seemed to glimmer.
They were surprisingly familiar eyes. But right then, all I was interested in was how intently they watched me.
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