“So, how would you come to know things like that, big boy?”
I grab her ass. My heart hammers on contact with her. “Maybe I’m your guardian angel.”
“I doubt it,” her pelvis rocks hard on my hot, lengthening and distinctly un-angelic hard-on.
The elevator car dings. The doors slide open. We take two steps out. Her lips and mine collide and my arms are full of her. Our tongues meet and dance., Hungry and savage. I feel like the world rotates and fades around us.
As the doors are closing, she jumps back into the elevator car. I leap to get a hand between the doors, but she timed it too well.
I’m alone in the dark with the memory of her wave and the sexiest smile I ever saw.
There’s no point trying to chase her. She could get off at any floor, take another elevator. The hotel casino is huge. And she’s smart.
Her car is probably down here. Four levels, it won’t take long to check. Stroll in the shadows around the dimly lit parking areas. Take some time to remember what her body felt like. How she tasted.
If I know her, though, and I think I’m getting to, she won’t come back for her car. Not tonight.
First she’ll relax. Chill for an hour or two in a quiet bar upstairs. When she’s sure the coast is clear, she’ll stroll out of the front entrance into a cab.
That’s if she hasn’t already wound some high-roller round her little finger.
I’m raging thinking about it. Surging, I want to take an iron bar and smash every windshield in sight.
But I’m a professional. Rage is part of the toolkit in my line of work. It comes up; you feed it. Train it. Keep it.
And there’s her smart SUV. In the shadows, but right by a ramp.
Yes, Mia. I am getting to know you.
Chapter Four
Mia
That kiss did not go to plan. I need a drink. I need to sit down. My knees are shaking.
The move, getting him out of the elevator, timing the jump back in, that all went so well I could have clapped and danced.
The kiss? Not so much. The kiss went wrong in every way.
The plan was, a big, fierce, wet, hot, face-melting, hungry, devouring, sloppy kiss.
Which was what I got. But it was supposed to be me devouring him.
Not me having my soul sucked out, spun around, turned to smoke and owned. Not me getting blitzed, swept away in a tornado of emotion and scattered.
Then I jumped free, into the elevator. Only to find I left everything behind, outside. On the other side of the closing doors.
As the elevator rose, I felt like I left the whole of myself in his arms on the parking level. Like I was with him. Fading. And all that was in the car was a dried out, echoing husk.
I dissolved into smoke and dust while my trembling body flew up, sickeningly fast, leaving what’s left of me ripped in two.
The burger cafe is about the only place I can find in the casino where Giovani won’t think of looking for me. The table is as far in the back as I can get. I sit facing the entrance, though, and I have two paths to exit.
I order Scotch and coke. Separately. I drain the Scotch, leave the coke, and ask for another Scotch.
What if the guy comes looking for me? The knot in my stomach squeezes out guilty thrills, all the way through my body. I want him so fucking much now.
Poppy is the only person I can talk to. When I call and tell her what happened in the poker room and the elevator, she sounds breathless. Excited.
“Looks like you found your hero.”
“Or more likely, my killer. He did rescue me. Or at least, he got me out of Giovani’s way. But I know that wasn’t random. He’s not my white-knight, stepped off a cloud to rescue poor Mia. This guy has an agenda of his own. I felt it the moment he stepped into the poker room.”
Damn, he can play poker, though. Another couple of hands and he would have skinned me alive. He has the most beautiful black shirt. And a leather coat, cut like a suit jacket. They’re popular with certain kinds of mob guys. I never saw one look good before, though. Definitely not as good as the one he wears.
I even wonder if he was the guy who was in the fabric store. Then it hits me.
Of course he is.
How else would he have been so certain I’d follow him to get away from Giovani? I was working on the assumption that he knew who I was, but there’s more to it than that.
He had to have known that I was hiding out from the family. And I’m sure nobody knew that. The Morettis aren’t going to take out an ad in the Las Vegas Sun and the Review-Journal, Lost daughter. Much loved. Reward offered.