Maybe he could help her see that all her family wanted was the best for her. Except he had the feeling she was right—and all they wanted was for her to be out of the way.
“I’m sorry to dump her on you.”
Rocco tensed, clenching his teeth together hard. Dumped? Dani wasn’t a piece of junk to be tossed from one location to another. He forced himself to relax. “It’s no problem. Sleep well.”
There was a muttered imprecation from Logan before he rang off.
He turned his phone off. No more interruptions. He needed to get through the night. One night defying temptation.
But he’d just signed up for another few?
What had he been thinking?
The silence in the suite worried him. The television was switched off. The door to his bedroom closed. Had she really gone to sleep?
Never. Not Dani, not when she’d planed to torment him for the night. She wouldn’t have let that idea go so easily. She had too much of a mischievous imp in her.
He eyed his bedroom door like there could be a raging inferno on the other side of it. Doubt gripped him. He wanted her to be in there. Wanted her not to have let him down. She’d said she’d stay, that he could trust her.
Bracing himself he turned the handle and opened the door.
The bed was empty.
Rocco stormed out of the room. He’d call security and review all the security footage of the corridor for the last hour. But he couldn’t cause a scene like that. No matter how discreet his staff. That he couldn’t keep tabs on his own woman?
He screeched to a halt. Breathed in. Out. Resumed moving.
She wasn’t his woman. Couldn’t be.
He glanced around the lobby, then went to the bar. Surely not. Surely she wouldn’t—
She would. She was walking through the middle of the mostly empty room. Stopped as soon as she saw him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Checking up on you.”
And a good thing he was too—she was looking luscious in her skimpy tank top, her hair was loose, her eyes bright. His gut tightened. He wanted.
“Don’t you have a crisis to manage?”
She was his crisis.
“Not anymore.” He walked to meet her. To get close. To make sure there was no one else getting close. There better not be.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He gestured to the empty glass she was carrying. She’d downed that one already? Was onto the next?
Why was she here? What—or who—was she looking for?
“Just helping out.” She shrugged, frowning as she looked up at him. “Look, I didn’t run away. I didn’t leave before. Haven’t you learned yet that you can trust me?”
It wasn’t her he didn’t trust. It was himself. Right now he was fighting harder than ever to stop himself from pulling her into his arms. He ached to feel her softness against him again.
“Stop acting like I owe you something.” She lifted her hands in a wide gesture. “You’re not my brother. You’re not my lover. You’re not even my friend.”
“Not even that?” Why did that hurt like a paper-cut? Way more than it should.
“No.”
“Well too bad,” he snapped. “I’m not going to let you get drunk and let some asshole take something that’s precious. If you’ve hung onto it this long… it’s not worth throwing away now in a fit of pique.”
Her jaw dropped. “I’m not getting drunk. You know very well I’m not allowed to drink in here and anyway, I wouldn’t want to get your oh-so fine establishment in trouble. I’m helping out.” She tossed back her hair. “Did you really think I’d come down here to find some guy to fuck?”
He winced at her words. That mental image killed him.
“You think you’ve wounded me with your rejection? You think I’ve come out to drown my sorrows and that I’m going to end up in bed with some random?” She stopped to draw breath, staring at him—mad and sad. “You really do think I’m a kid.”
She walked right up to him, fiercely whispering in his face. “Do you honestly think I’d still be a virgin if I acted that rashly all the time?”
Uh. Yeah. Maybe he’d over-reacted a little. That didn’t make him any the less pissed off. Or ache any the less. “If you’re not drinking, or trying to find a guy, what the hell are you doing?”
“I told you, helping out,” she sighed. “Although yes, it’s not like the barman really needs me to. There was me thinking this place was the ‘bomb’.”
“It’s fifteen minutes past closing,” he pointed out. It was so late, she should be tucked up in her bed, alone and asleep already. “Dani, what are you doing down here, really?”
The attitude dropped from her gaze. “You left me alone in a hotel room for ages and I was watching that scary movie.”
Scary movie.
He rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand and tried not to laugh. She was going to be the death of him.
Her eyes narrowed, like she’d spotted his amusement. “I was creeped out. And there wasn’t going to be a happy ending to that movie.” She crossed her arms, a rueful smile curved her mouth. “Now you do think I’m a kid.”
No. He didn’t. Impetuous, yes. But definitely not a kid. If he were to pull her into his arms, it wouldn’t be a comforting kind of embrace he’d be offering.
So he had to stand back.
“I’m used to living in a boarding hostel or a hotel,” she added. “Being near lots of people. Sometimes the noise is nice.”
Yeah. Sometimes he liked the weird isolation that came with sitting in the corner of a crowded room. Just watching, knowing he’d helped provide the good time for them.
He took the glass from her and pointed to the table in the corner. “Go sit. I’ll get you a drink.”
He needed a drink. He needed something to get a grip on himself.
As he approached, the bartender looked worried.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice as soon as Rocco got near enough. “She just wanted to help. I knew she was staying with you. She was bringing up glasses before I could stop her. I didn’t want to upset her.”
Rocco placed the glass on the bar. “Don’t worry about it. I know what she’s like.” She could get any guy to do anything if she put her mind to it. She just didn’t quite realize it yet. “Get me a whiskey, double. And a hot chocolate. Lots of sugar, lots of cream.”
He took a second to try to calm the burn of adrenalin he’d felt in that insane moment of jealousy. The thought of her finding someone else? Touching someone else?
Hell’s teeth. The sooner she was out of his space the better.
He took a gulp of the whiskey his barman had poured for him and then turned back to take on his temptation.
Chapter Eight
DANIELLE STIRRED HER hot chocolate and watched Rocco down his drink. Then he called for another.
“What are you doing?” she asked, after the bartender had refilled Rocco’s glass.
“Drowning my sorrows.”
“Your sorrows?”
“My torment.”
“What’s tormenting you?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.”
She put her spoon down before she dropped it. “This is stupid, you should be asleep.”
He shouldn’t be storming down here and looking so damn steely. So damn sexy—all shadow on his jaw, shadows in his eyes. He was her walking forbidden fantasy.
“You’re the one wandering down to the bar at two in the morning.”
“I can’t sleep.” It wasn’t the horror movie. Okay, yes, she’d been freaked being alone for a few minutes, but really it was all the energy building in her body just from being near Rocco. It was like being plugged into an emergency power generator and she was buzzing from the intensity.
That one kiss could do this? Could set her alight—she had enough zing in her to power the entire state for all of the winter. And all she wanted, was more.
“Nor can I.”
He glared at her. “Why didn’t you go all the way with the guy you fooled around with?”
Whoa. That had been preying on his mind? Her sex-life was on his mind?
She was so glad she was sitting down because her whole body just turned to jello. But she eyed him levelly. “The guys. Plural.”
“Whatever.” He frowned and knocked back that next drink.
“Well I had to try a couple of times,” she shrugged. “I wanted it to work out.”
“And it never did?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want him to ask more. The sad truth? Her heart had always been his. Her body had wanted none but his.
Maybe he was right. She hardly knew him. Maybe she’d built him up in her head. Maybe she needed to have this time to get to know him. To smash the rose-colored glasses and get over him.
Except the longer she spent with him, the hotter she became. And the more infatuated. Because it wasn’t just the raw sex appeal that oozed from him.
It was his damn ‘do-right’ determination too. That he was so loyal? So strong?
It made her want him all the more.
“Come back upstairs,” he said standing and stretching in a way that melted her muscles more. “We need sleep.”
Dani swallowed, trying to pull herself together as she followed. He lifted a bottle of whiskey from behind the counter and took it with him.
“What’s that for—to render you incapable?” she asked with a sideways look as he guided her into the elevator. “So you can’t get it up?”