It had been so hot when Ice had touched her on the dance floor, rubbing the cheeks of her bottom, and then in the doorway of the ladies’ room, pulling down the top of her dress. She almost wanted someone to see. It was just hot. He’d been so frantic, as if he couldn’t resist her. As if her body were so incredibly seductive, he had to have her right there, right in front of the world to show them she belonged to him. She loved that. She’d always wanted that. Craved it. She wanted to show the world he belonged to her. He was everything she’d ever wanted, and all she had to do was work it a little. Finesse a bit. Flirt. Drink.
She rubbed at her temples, wishing her life had been different. Wishing just once she had the chance to do things over, to do them differently. Winston wanted her dead. He was going to kill her. Sooner or later it would happen. She hadn’t had a chance to live her life at all. To be herself. To laugh and be ridiculous, to ride off with the hottest man in the bar. To do one single thing she’d dreamt or fantasized of doing. She was going to die, and it was going to be ugly, and she was going to do that with all kinds of regrets. She was tired of always doing what was right; it hadn’t gotten her anywhere.
She had no one to turn to. This could very well be her last chance to have anything that remotely resembled anything she wanted. She found tears running down her face and wiped them away. She didn’t deserve to cry, not when she even contemplated for one moment the idea of matching Ice drink for drink, knowing she wouldn’t be drunk, seducing him and trying to get a ring on his finger. She’d lost her mind. She was as bad as Winston.* * *“You sure about this?” Maestro asked. “She’s a fuckin’ innocent, Ice. She isn’t like Breezy, who grew up in the life, or even Anya, who grew up in a shelter and bartended rough crowds. Blythe knew what she was gettin’ into. This girl . . . she’s like some sort of—” He broke off, shaking his head. “She doesn’t belong, brother.”
“She belongs with me,” Ice said as they made their way back to the game room. “She absolutely belongs with me. She’s scared out of her fuckin’ mind. Someone’s hurt her, and they’re still after her. She needs protection.”
“We can give her protection, Ice,” Keys reminded. “Without seducing her. Or gettin’ her drunk. She needs it, she’s a woman, we’ll give it.”
Ice shook his head. “You’re not hearin’ what I’m sayin’.”
“A woman like that, Ice, you take her on like this, there’s no goin’ back,” Maestro reiterated. “You’ll end up watchin’ over her for the rest of your life. No more women. No more women in the plural. She’ll be your only. Hell, she doesn’t even get that she’s sexier than hell. She walked into a place like this wearin’ that dress and lookin’ like a fuckin’ angel. Everywhere you go, someone is going to be challengin’ you for her.”
There were nods all the way around. Ice shrugged. His hand closed into a tight fist. “I have no problem with giving up other women. I was fuckin’ tired of tellin’ my cock to cooperate. Woman goes down on me, the damn thing won’t work until I tell it to. With her, my cock is going to stand up all on his own. Fuckin’ happy to see her. To feel her.”
“We all got that problem, Ice. You don’t take on a woman like that just to put a little steel in your dick,” Keys pointed out.
“You don’t get it, it isn’t about my cock, it’s about feelin’ something. Actually being alive. She makes me feel alive.”
“Fuck her, then, Ice,” Player said. “But you tie yourself to her and she tries to walk when she finds out we aren’t the band of merry men she thinks we are, or that you’re not Mr. Nice Guy, you’re going to really lose your shit.”
“I wouldn’t let her leave,” Ice said. “She makes that commitment, she’s mine. All in. She doesn’t get to walk.”
“She won’t understand the consequences,” Absinthe said. “You know she won’t. She’s probably walked away from everything difficult she’s ever run into. She’s got money. Anyone can see that.”
“It doesn’t matter if she understands or not. There’s a code we live by. She takes me on, she lives with the code,” Ice said. His voice turned hard. Dripped with glacier cold. His eyes had gone hard like twin blue diamonds. He meant what he said.
“It’s a trap,” Maestro said. “You’re fuckin’ putting that girl in a trap and she doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting free.”