Maverick (Elite Ops 2)

“To give you a break,” Kira sighed. “Even facing off a few dozen piranhas in the ladies’ room is sometimes preferable to sitting in the middle of a restaurant and feeling their eyes on you.”

Risa shrugged. “The wine has its own saving grace,” she said with a smile.

Kira didn’t smile back. “Are things going okay with Micah?”

“Fine.” Risa nodded. She wasn’t into sharing girlish confidences in the ladies’ room.

Kira nodded. “Good then. I guess we better return before the stampede begins.”

It began as they were leaving. Risa almost smiled at the group of women bearing down on them as they moved back into the hall. Several of those women frowned in consternation as Kira and Risa passed them. Foiled again, ladies, she thought a bit snidely.

She knew every one of them. This little outing was turning into a damned farce.

Taking her seat once again, she stared up at Micah with what she hoped was a pleasant smile and said, “Next time, I pick the restaurant if you don’t mind.”

“I’m not much into the local drive-thru,” he murmured at her ear. “I have my manly form to think of, you know.”

She almost snorted at that. “The local drive-thru is much more polite.”

“No doubt,” he agreed. “But not nearly as enjoyable.”

He took his seat once again, his hand lingering on the back of her chair to play with her hair. Risa wanted to groan at the sensation of his fingers tugging restlessly at the strands. The sensual, seductive feel washed over her, tingling beneath her skin as she attempted to make small talk with Kira.

Unfortunately, the woman seemed to be well aware of what Micah was doing to Risa.

“Gentlemen, I’m ready to dance,” Kira finally announced. “And I’m certain the band is just waiting on me and Ian to add some excitement to the dance floor.”

Ian chuckled at that, but both men came to their feet, helped the women from their chairs, and led the way from the restaurant to the small arched tunnel that led to the connecting nightclub.

The music pulsed around her. Risa was certain she could feel the rhythm of it filling her blood.

She had once loved to dance. She had danced with her friends, other young women considered the less acceptable or less pretty of their social set. They were always invited to the parties, but they were always the ones huddled along the wall in boredom.

It had been Risa’s idea that last year, for them to hit the dance floors together. They had all loved to dance, and they had been able to enjoy the hours they were stuck at those parties that way.

For once, Risa had enjoyed the parties as well. Until the kidnapping. Until Jansen had laughed at her during that plane ride where she had found hell.

The ugly little bitch, she can’t even get a man to dance with her, he’d sneered, let alone actually fuck her.

She’d been eighteen. She had never had a boyfriend, never had a date. She’d been a virgin, and that night she’d learned how evil a father could be.

The wine was still affecting her, Risa told herself even as she crossed one leg over the opposite knee and twirled her foot to the club beat.

She wanted to dance. She wanted to give herself to the music. She didn’t have to worry about what her face looked like then, or why her lover wanted to be rid of her. She didn’t have to worry about dying; all she had to do was live within the music.

She rose to her feet, felt Micah’s hand slide down her arm until his fingers were loosely gripped around her wrist as he stared up at her.

“I want to dance,” she told him, hungering for the freedom the music had always given her. The freedom to be more than the ugly little girl she had always been.

His expression tightened, his black eyes grew impossibly blacker, sexier, as he rose from his seat. He shrugged the leather jacket he wore from his shoulders and laid it on her seat, atop her purse and wrap, as though protecting them, hiding them from view. Then he took her hand and led her to the dance floor.

MICAH HAD KNOWN that the day would come that Risa would find a way to completely blow his little mind. She’d already taken control of his cock; it stayed hard for her, and for her alone. But on the dance floor, amid dozens of dancers vying for attention, she stole another part of him. He had a feeling there was going to be very little of himself that he owned by the time this mission was over.

She danced liked a dream. The chocolate silk tunic dress shifted and shimmered over her gracefully as she moved. It did nothing to hide the heat of her flesh as he touched her, did nothing to hide the sensual, sensuous woman who lurked beneath her quiet exterior.

He watched her nipples bead harder beneath the silk, watched as her light blue eyes became leaden, sensual. Her face flushed, her lips parted, and he knew she was the center of his world at that moment.