Authors: Maureen Smith
“You don’t need any advantages. Those people
are lucky to have someone of your talent and ability working for them. If they
don’t realize it, there are a hundred other law firms that would snatch you up
in a heartbeat.”
Cherelle gave her a grateful smile. “Can I
take you to the office with me every day?”
“You could,” Rebecca said with a grin, “but I
don’t think that would go over too well with the senior partners.”
“Probably not.” Cherelle turned away to stack
plates in the cabinet. “By the way, you never answered my question. When are
you going to start moonlighting at a male strip club?”
Rebecca laughed. “You just don’t give up, do
you? Like I told you before, the bulk of my research comes from survey
responses provided by female exotic dancers at several different clubs around
the city. But, yes, to present a more balanced study, I do plan to spend at
least a month waitressing at the Spectrum to get the male dancers’ perspective.
Bruno has already spoken to the owner, who’s a good friend of his, and set it
up for me.”
“Uh-huh, I bet he has. And you say there’s
nothing going on between the two of you.”
“There isn’t. I’m not interested in Bruno
that way.” Rebecca paused for a moment. “Besides, I met someone.”
Cherelle whirled around so fast she nearly
dropped a plate. “
What
did you say?”
“I met someone. At the club.” Rebecca grinned
wryly at her friend’s wide-eyed expression. “Damn, girl. You don’t have to look
so surprised. It’s not like I’ve never dated before.”
“Yeah, but you know it’s been a
long
time.”
Which would probably explain how insatiable
she’d been with Vince, Rebecca mused. She still couldn’t believe how many times
they’d made love yesterday. She’d stopped counting after the fourth or fifth
mind-blowing orgasm he’d given her.
“So tell me about this someone,” Cherelle
urged, abandoning her task to give Rebecca her undivided attention. “You say
you met him at The Sultan’s?”
Rebecca nodded. “Now, you know how I feel
about men who get off on watching women strip in public. I generally think
they’re borderline perverts. But something about this guy was different. I got
the feeling he doesn’t visit strip clubs very often.”
“What’s his name?”
“Vince,” Rebecca answered, remembering the
way she’d moaned and screamed his name into the wee hours of the night. “He’s
an investment broker, and girl, he is
beyond
fine. Tall, dark, and too sexy for his own damn good. Picture the buffest male
stripper you’ve ever seen—big shoulders, rippling muscles, a six-pack you
could bounce quarters off of. Well, Vince’s body is all that and
then
some.”
Cherelle raised a finely sculpted brow. “How
do you know so much about that man’s body?”
Rebecca grinned. “Let’s just say I had an
up-close-and-personal encounter.”
Cherelle’s eyes widened in shock. “You little
hussy! No, you didn’t!”
“I did. Over, and over, and
over
again.”
With a squeal of delight, Cherelle grabbed Rebecca’s
hand and practically dragged her over to the small oak table in the sunny
breakfast nook. “Details! I want details!”
Feeling like a naughty schoolgirl, Rebecca
told her friend everything that had happened from the moment she met Vince Gray,
starting from the unexpected summons to the Platinum Suite that had led to
their first kiss, and ending with an account of the way he’d taken her roughly
against the refrigerator when they’d finally emerged from the bedroom to have
dinner last night. The memory of each erotic encounter was enough to make her
body throb with renewed desire.
“
O-M-G!
”
Cherelle exclaimed when she’d finished speaking. Grinning broadly, she fanned
herself with her hand and shook her head at Rebecca. “You never cease to amaze
me. Just when I think I’ve got you all figured out, you go and do something
crazy like this.”
Rebecca grinned. “Believe me, I shocked the
hell out of myself. I hardly even know this man, but that didn’t matter to me
the moment I saw him again. All I could think about was how damn hot he was,
and how his deep, sexy voice was making me weak in the knees. Before we even
stepped onto the elevator, I knew I was a goner.”
Cherelle laughed. “Not even
I’ve
had sex on an elevator, and you
know I’ve done some wild shit in my time!”
Rebecca flushed, curling her bare toes over
the bottom rung of the chair. “I can’t explain what came over me, Cherelle.
It’s like I was someone else. A woman with no inhibitions, no fears.” She
frowned. “No morals.”
Cherelle snorted. “Morals have nothing to do
with this. There’s a freak in all of us, Rebecca. It just took you twenty-nine
years to find yours.” She grinned lasciviously. “Better late than never, I
always say.”
Rebecca chuckled. “I guess you’re right.”
“I
know
I’m right. And based on your description of Vince Gray, you chose the right man
to unleash your inner freak upon. So when are you going to see him again?”
“I don’t know.” Rebecca bit her lower lip.
“When he left early this morning, I was still in bed and kinda out of it. We
didn’t really discuss any future plans.”
Cherelle smiled gently at her. “I’m sure he
wants to see you again, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried,” Rebecca said quickly. Hearing
the note of uncertainty in her own voice, she added, “I’m not looking for a
serious relationship. If what Vince and I shared was just a one-night stand,
then I’ll just chalk it up to the best one-night stand I’ve ever had, and leave
it at that.”
Cherelle stared at her for a moment, then
shook her head. “You haven’t seen the last of him. If you rocked his world as
much as he rocked yours, trust me, he’ll be back for more.”
Rebecca didn’t want to admit, even to
herself, how much she wanted Cherelle to be right. She told herself it was
because the sex had been so phenomenal, but she knew there was a little more to
the story than that. She’d felt a connection to Vince that she’d never
experienced with any other man. Beyond his physical attributes—and there
were plenty—he was warm, smart, funny and thoughtful. He’d ordered enough
Chinese food to feed an NFL football team just to make sure he got something
she liked, when it would have been more practical for him to wake her up and
ask her what she wanted. Instead he’d chosen to surprise her with dinner. And
she would never, ever forget the deliciously erotic way he’d awakened her.
Have
mercy
.
Cherelle rose from the table. “Maybe
I
need to start hanging out at The
Sultan’s if Vince represents the kind of customers you’re meeting in that
place.”
Rebecca smiled, but something told her Vince Gray
was one in a million.
“See anything interesting yet?”
Vince glanced up from the video monitor he’d
been watching off and on as Frank Sciorra grabbed the chair beside him and sat
down with a soft grunt.
“Not yet,” said Vince. “All he’s been doing
for the past two hours is paperwork. Not exactly must-see TV. What’d you get
us?”
“What else? Crab cake sandwiches and French
fries from O’ Doherty’s.” Frank reached inside a grease-stained paper bag and
pulled out his food before sliding the bag across the table to Vince, who
eagerly helped himself.
He hadn’t eaten since his midnight meal with Rebecca,
and even then he’d been too distracted by her beauty to swallow more than a few
bites of sesame chicken before he set out to devour her again.
She’d risen slowly from the table, a naughty
little smile on her lips as he’d backed her into the kitchen. Once he cornered
her against the refrigerator, she’d wrapped those long, luscious legs around
his waist and welcomed him inside her tight, wet pussy as if it were the first
time.
Just thinking about the way he’d drilled into
her like a jackhammer got him so hard he ached.
With a mental shake of his head, Vince bit
into his crab cake sandwich and returned his attention to the video screen,
which was filled with a live image of Bruno Rossi’s large, opulent office at
The Sultan’s.
The club owner sat behind a gleaming mahogany
desk, his dark head bent over a mound of paperwork. He was oblivious to the
hidden video camera that enabled two undercover cops to spy on him from a
nondescript police trailer parked on the other side of town.
“I don’t understand this guy,” Frank
muttered, shoveling a thick French fry into his mouth. “He’s rich enough to
hire a whole team of people to do his filing and bookkeeping, yet he insists on
handling those responsibilities himself.”
“Maybe he doesn’t trust anyone else to do the
job right,” Vince suggested. “You said yourself he’s a major control freak.”
“Yeah. And maybe he knows he can’t trust
anyone with confidential information about his business dealings. The fact that
one of his very own ‘bouncers’ is running surveillance on him is proof that he
shouldn’t
trust anybody.”
“Must be a damned lonely existence.”
Frank snorted. “Small price to pay for being
filthy rich.”
“Yeah,” Vince muttered. “It’s the ‘filthy’
part I’m worried about.”
Frank gave him a long, appraising look. “Have
you ever considered the possibility that Rossi’s clean?”
“No.”
“Come on, man. Not even once?”
Vince hesitated, then gruffly admitted,
“Maybe once.”
“Yeah, me, too. I mean, I just find it a
little hard to believe that after five years of investigating this guy, the
feds haven’t been able to build a case against him.”
“That’s not unusual. It happens more often
than we’d like to think.”
“I know, but after all the time and money
that’s been spent on investigating Rossi, the only ‘evidence’ we’ve come up
with are a few questionable transactions to an account in the Cayman Islands
and his long-ago connection to the leader of another money laundering
enterprise, who Rossi hasn’t been in touch with for years. Even after the guy
served his time and got out a couple of years ago, Rossi made no attempt to
contact him, and vice versa.” Bemused, Frank shook his head. “If you ask me, Rossi
pissed off the wrong person at the top of the food chain, and now he’s doing
penance for it.”
Vince said nothing, though the same thought
had occurred to him on more than one occasion. Frank was right. They had very
little evidence on Bruno Rossi. His phone records were cleaner than the Pope’s,
his financial holdings had held up under intense scrutiny by the IRS
and
FBI, and hours of surveillance tapes
had failed to reveal any clandestine meetings with shady “business associates.”
But Vince had learned from his own father that nothing was ever as it seemed.
Vince McCall, Sr. had been a vice cop with
the Chicago Police Department for nineteen years. Frustrated with getting
passed over for promotions year after year, he’d yielded to temptation and
joined his partner in a money laundering operation that netted them over
$200,000 before they were eventually caught.
Were it not for the slick-tongued,
high-priced attorney who’d defended them during the trial, Vince’s father may
have spent his remaining days on earth behind bars, instead of in a cold
hospital bed at Northwestern Memorial, his body ravaged by lung cancer. He’d
died without benefit of a stately police funeral, leaving a legacy of shame and
corruption that tainted the lives of his surviving wife and children. Three
years later, Vince’s mother succumbed to depression and quietly wasted away.
After that, Vince and his older sister dispersed—she to Los Angeles, he
to Baltimore, both desperately in pursuit of new lives.
Oh, yeah. Vince definitely knew a thing or
two about not judging a book by its pretty cover. If anyone had told him that
his father—devoted family man and pillar of the community—was a
common criminal, Vince would have knocked the unlucky bastard’s lights out.
Now he knew better.
If Bruno Rossi was engaged in illegal
activity, Vince considered it his personal duty to uncover the truth and bring
him to justice.
Nothing less would do.
“I’m not just defending Rossi because he’s a
fellow Italian,” Frank was saying around a mouthful of food. “I really
think—” He broke off, distracted by something he’d seen on the video
monitor.
Vince turned to look, and in silence they
watched as a tall, voluptuous blonde in a tight T-shirt and leather miniskirt
entered Rossi’s office and sashayed over to his desk. As she leaned over the
edge, the short hem of her skirt lifted to reveal her bare, milky-white ass.
“It’s Giselle,” Vince and Frank said in
unison. They glanced at each other and grinned before returning their attention
to the video screen, where the dancer had slowly rounded the desk to sit on Rossi’s
lap. Smiling coquettishly, she slid her fingers through his thick hair and
lowered her face to his for an openmouthed kiss.