Authors: Maureen Smith
“I’ll take it off when my shift ends,” she
told him firmly.
He smiled indolently. “Ah, a woman of
mystery. I love a good mystery.”
Rebecca cleared her throat and crossed her
legs, then wished she hadn’t as Vince’s heavy-lidded gaze followed the gesture
and lingered on the curve of her thighs. She tugged discreetly at the
abbreviated length of her shorts. She would have given anything for a pair of
pants, or a floor-length muumuu.
“What do you do for a living, Vince?” she
blurted, eager to divert his attention from her exposed body parts.
He leaned back, lazily spreading his arms
over the back of the overstuffed cushions behind him. “I’m an investment
broker.”
“Really?” That surprised her. A man like Vince
Gray seemed too edgy, too dangerous, to be confined to such a tame profession.
But then again, what did she really know about him? Zilch, obviously.
“Do you enjoy your work?”
“Sure. It pays the bills.”
Rebecca grinned wryly. “Pays for a few
extras, too,” she pointed out, gesturing around the luxurious room. “Only ballers
can afford the Platinum Suite.”
Vince chuckled, idly stroking his chin
between his thumb and forefinger as he gazed at her. “So what about you, Rebecca?
Is this your full-time gig?”
“Not exactly. I’m also a student.”
“Is that right? What are you majoring in?”
“Women’s studies.”
That sensuous mouth curved in a lazy grin.
“We have something in common, then. I enjoy studying women as well.”
Rebecca felt the whisper of a smile tugging
at the corners of her lips. “Ah, but somehow I suspect my studies are a bit
more, shall we say, research-driven.”
“I assure you,” Vince said, his eyes glinting
wickedly, “I conduct
plenty
of
research on my subjects. But what I enjoy even more than the research is
actually testing my theories in a real environment. On willing participants, of
course.”
“Of course.”
“For instance, I like to explore chemistry
between men and women, to find out what attracts members of the opposite sex to
one another.” The slow, wolfish smile he gave Rebecca made her think of a
predator intent on cornering its prey.
Her pulse thudded. “Researchers have
performed a vast number of studies on that topic,” she managed weakly.
“I know.” His hooded gaze drifted to her
mouth. “But I’m one who likes to test-drive my own vehicles.”
At that, Rebecca uncrossed her legs and
stood. She didn’t need to see sharp, bared fangs to recognize imminent danger.
“It’s time for me to get back to work. If you’ll excuse me—”
Vince unfolded his long body from the sofa
with the fluid grace of a panther. Before she could take another step, he was
in front of her, blocking her path to the door. His dark eyes smoldered in the
soft glow of the room.
“I want to kiss you, Rebecca,” he said
huskily. “It’s all I’ve thought about since you showed up at my table to take
my order. You have the most incredible mouth I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been
driving myself crazy wondering what it’d feel like against my own.”
Her knees almost gave out. The look in his
eyes and the provocative things he said were nearly her undoing.
Shaken, she stared up at him. “This isn’t a
good idea. We’re not supposed to get…intimate with customers.”
“No one has to know.” He leaned closer, his
warm breath fanning her cheek and making her shiver. “Just one kiss,” he
whispered against her mouth. “A short one. No longer than ten seconds, I
promise.”
Rebecca gave a tiny nod as the last of her
resistance melted away, and then his lips touched hers. She went still, holding
her breath as her temperature spiked under the sudden onslaught of sensation. Vince’s
mouth was soft and warm, gliding silkily over hers as his hand lifted and sank
deep into her hair. When he touched her bottom lip with the tip of his tongue,
she responded by opening her mouth.
His tongue slid inside, hot and tantalizing,
and desire shot like a lightning bolt through her body. His fingers tightened
in her hair, tilting her head backward as he deepened the kiss. His mouth moved
over hers, their tongues tangling in an erotic little mating dance. He drew her
bottom lip between his teeth and suckled, making her pussy throb with need.
Moaning softly, she pressed against the
muscled hardness of his chest, wanting to get as close to him as possible. He
smelled so good and tasted so damn delicious that she couldn’t get enough. It
was like her fantasy, only better.
When his hand crept to her mask and slowly
began to remove it, sanity returned like a bucketful of ice water to her face. Rebecca
pushed her hand between them and broke free, breathing hard.
Vince gazed at her through heavy-lidded eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured lazily. “That was a little longer than ten seconds.
Math was never my strong suit.”
“I have to go,” Rebecca said in a breathless
rush.
Before he could utter another word, she
turned and fled from the room, hurrying past the startled bodyguard posted
outside the door. Paulie followed on her heels as she flew down the stairs and
headed straight for the locker room to retrieve her belongings. Thankfully, no
other waitresses were around to question her disheveled appearance, and when
she reemerged a few minutes later, Paulie was nowhere to be found.
On her way out, she encountered Bruno coming
from his office located in the rear of the building.
He smiled when he saw her. “Hey, Edmonds—”
“I’m leaving, Bruno,” she told him without
breaking stride.
He frowned. “But your shift doesn’t
end for another—”
“Good night, Bruno.” She pushed open a glass
door and exited the building without so much as a backward glance.
Standing in the shadows of a deserted parking
lot on the other side of town, Vince McCall smoked his first cigarette in six
years. With each toke of nicotine, his frustration grew until it simmered like
the tiny embers bristling at his feet.
He had no business smoking. His father had
chain-smoked himself into an early grave, dying of lung cancer at the age of forty-seven.
After that, Vince had sworn to himself and everyone else—God, mother and
priest—that he wouldn’t end up like his old man.
At the rate he was going, he’d be on his
third pack by dawn.
Shaking his head in disgust, Vince took a
long pull on his cigarette and sent a puff of smoke into the wind. The chilly
night air had done nothing to cool his raging body temperature, which hadn’t
returned to normal since he left The Sultan’s Gentlemen’s Club thirty minutes ago.
But an exotic dancer wasn’t responsible for the lust pounding through his body
and boiling his blood.
No, he could thank Rebecca No-Last-Name for
that.
With a surly grin, Vince let his mind wander
back to the moment when he’d first laid eyes on the sexy, mysterious waitress.
He’d noticed her even before she came to his table, as she was waiting on other
customers. The sight of her sweet, curvy body poured into scraps of black
leather had made him instantly hard. When she leaned down to hear a customer
over the loud music, Vince got an eyeful of a delectably round ass that nearly
sent him into cardiac arrest. Her leather shorts barely covered the swell of
her butt cheeks, and the stiletto pumps she wore accentuated long, shapely legs
with killer calves.
His mind had been instantly filled with
carnal images of those legs wrapped around a pole as she swung around seductively,
hips undulating to the sensual music. Then, holding Vince’s riveted gaze, she
spread her legs into a perfect
V
and
slowly began sliding down the pole…landing right on his hard, waiting dick.
He’d still been enjoying the wicked fantasy
when the waitress suddenly began walking in his direction. When she reached Vince’s
table and introduced herself, he’d thought the Fates were smiling down on
him—or playing a cruel joke designed to drive him completely out of his
mind.
Even with the lace mask concealing most of
her face, he could tell that she was beautiful. Her mouth was lush and
incredibly sexy, curving in a smile that took his breath away. Her high, round
breasts—though not as large as he usually preferred—spilled just
enough from the top of her bustier to make his mouth water. Her jet-black hair was
cut in long layers that skimmed her smooth bare shoulders.
From that moment on, Vince’s single-minded
focus had been finding a way to get her alone and naked. If not naked, then at
least unmasked.
The fact that her identity remained a mystery
to him made her all the more alluring, and made him more impatient—hell,
desperate
—to see her again. And
the next time he saw her, he wouldn’t let her get away so easily. He fully
intended to finish what they’d started tonight.
A brisk breeze carrying the crisp scent of
fall leaves penetrated the cotton fabric of his shirt to reach his heated skin.
He closed his eyes and turned his face up to
the starry night, welcoming the chill. If the natural elements didn’t cool his
libido, his next resort was a cold shower.
A damn cold shower.
He opened his eyes as a pair of approaching
headlights cut through the darkness. He straightened slowly from his Durango as
a black SUV pulled up beside his. The door opened, and Detective Frank Sciorra
aka Paul Colangelo stepped out and walked around to where Vince stood waiting.
Without a word, the burly Italian passed him
the nine-millimeter Glock he’d “confiscated” from him earlier that evening when
Vince arrived at the club.
“Thanks,” Vince muttered, the cigarette
dangling from the corner of his mouth as he cocked open the magazine to check
the ammo.
Frank gave a derisive snort. “What? You think
I put a cap in someone on my way over here?”
“With you, Frankie, anything’s possible.”
Satisfied that no bullets were missing from the weapon, Vince returned the
Glock to his hip holster, then drew a deep lungful of nicotine. He watched
Frank through twin curls of smoke released through his nostrils. “No problems
getting away?”
“None whatsoever. Told him I was taking one
of the girls home to make sure she didn’t get hassled by her prick of a
boyfriend.” He nodded toward the half-smoked cigarette in Vince’s hand. “Rough
night?”
Vince chuckled humorlessly. “You wouldn’t
believe.”
Everyone in the Baltimore Police Department
knew Detective Vince McCall’s long and bitter history with nicotine. Every year
he commemorated the anniversary of his father’s death by buying a pack of
Marlboros—the brand his father had smoked religiously—then lighting
a match to the cigarettes and watching them slowly burn. It was a private
ritual no one questioned or interfered with. Cops, like anyone else, had demons
that needed exorcising. Vince’s comrades respected his right to exorcise his
demons any damn way he saw fit.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten around to
torching the last pack of Marlboros yet, hence the cigarettes were readily
available when temptation came calling. Who knew that a scantily-clad waitress
in a strip club would be the catalyst that finally pushed him over the edge?
Frank frowned. “By the way, what’d you do to Edmonds?”
Vince gave him a blank look. “Edmonds?”
“Rebecca, the waitress. What’d you do to her,
man? She came flying out of the room like a bat outta hell. By the time I went
back up there to ask you what had happened, you’d already left.”
Rebecca
Edmonds
. Vince silently
mulled over the name, even as he answered, “I didn’t do anything to her.”
Not
yet, anyway.
“Well, you’d better not,” Frank advised.
“That’s Rossi’s favorite waitress. He’s got a thing for her.”
That piqued Vince’s interest. “Did he tell
you that?”
“He doesn’t have to. I can tell by the way he
looks at her when he thinks no one else is watching. He lets her get away with shit
that no one else can. Not that she pulls any crap, mind you, but if she wanted
to, she could. The point is, if you wanna get in good with Rossi, leave his
woman alone.”
Vince shook his head, taking a slow drag on
his cigarette. “If that was
my
woman,
there’s no way in hell I woulda left her alone in that room with another man.
But when I asked for her, Rossi didn’t seem to mind.”
“He’s a businessman. You’re a paying
customer. He’s not gonna mess with that. Money talks. And speaking of money,
why’d you have to blow half a grand on the Platinum Suite? That wasn’t in the
budget, man. The brass ain’t gonna be too happy about that.”
“I know,” Vince blithely agreed. “But it was
worth every damn cent.”
Frank groaned. “Just because you can
have
any woman you want doesn’t mean you
should
, McCall. And I’m telling you
again—stay away from Edmonds. She’s a sweet girl, and really smart. She’s
even working on her Ph.D.”