"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked, as he held my arm in a vise grip and led me toward the back. Across the room, I saw Evan standing beside Cole, their expressions unreadable.
I drew in a breath, and hoped to hell this had worked.
I relaxed just slightly as he led me into the employees only area. Tyler said nothing as he dragged me down the hall to his office. He shoved the door open. "In," he said, that single syllable managing to convey a whole menagerie of emotions.
I complied.
"I'm sorry," I said, when he shut the door and stalked toward me. "I wanted--"
I didn't get to finish. His hands fisted around the lapel of his jacket, and he yanked me toward him, then crushed his mouth over mine, effectively silencing me. Not to mention making me forget what the hell I was trying to say anyway.
He twirled me around, then slammed us both up against the wall in a violent, wild claiming.
The kiss burned frantic and hot and had my head spinning and my body humming, although that might have had more to do with the fact that he'd spread the jacket wide and his hands were over my breasts, touching and stroking as if he couldn't get enough of me.
I knew damn well I couldn't get enough of him.
I closed my eyes, my body melting beneath him, as my mouth claimed him, as our tongues tasted each other, teased each other.
He robbed me of thought, of reason. And as I stood there, trapped between him and the wall, I could barely remember my name, much less why I'd come to Destiny. In that moment, he was my entire world, and even as something in my mind screamed for me to get a grip, to remember that he'd conned me--that he was a criminal--all I wanted to do was lose myself forever in this moment.
And then he pulled back, leaving me gasping and, dammit, very turned on.
"I already said no," he said. "So why exactly are you dancing on one of my stages?"
I didn't trust myself to speak quite yet, so I concentrated on buttoning his jacket before lifting my head. "I came to negotiate," I said. "But a negotiation is only as good as the information on the table."
He moved to the small sofa where he'd fucked me, then sat down, his arm stretched along the back. "This isn't a negotiation," he said.
"Everything's a negotiation. You're a businessman."
"And you're a cop."
"I negotiate all the time. Plea bargains. Immunity deals." I smiled prettily as I settled myself behind his desk. "You know all about immunity deals."
He chuckled. "And there's the cop," he said. "Control. Confidence. Determination. It was always there, but now it's in context. So tell me, are you good at what you do, Detective Watson?"
"Yes. I am."
"I believe you. You were good on that stage, too," he added, with a bolus of heat seasoning his voice. "Sexy. Confident. A woman with a mission."
"I was on a mission. I want to dance at Destiny. And now I've proved that I can," I rushed to add when he opened his mouth to reply. "I can dance, I can satisfy the customers. I can blend. Bottom line, I can be one of these girls."
"I've no doubt that you can."
I cocked my head, wondering at his game. "Really?"
"I'm more interested in why you want to."
"I told you. I want to find Amy."
"Mmm." The sound was thoughtful, and he stood up, then moved to stand behind the chair I was sitting in. He put his hands on my shoulders, then slowly slid one down, over the material of his jacket to brush my chest.
My breath hitched as the stroke of his fingers on the swell of my breast sent fresh desire coiling through me. "There's something I want you to see," he said, bending down so that his mouth brushed against my ear.
I trembled, squeezing my legs together as I imagined his hand traveling lower and lower.
But that wasn't what he had in mind. Slowly, he withdrew a card from the interior pocket of the jacket, letting it trail teasingly over my nipple before he pulled it fully out and tossed it on the desk.
He brushed a soft kiss over the top of my head, then moved to sit on the edge of the desk, his thigh right beside my hand. "Take a look."
I picked it up, then saw that it was a postcard from Caesar's Palace. It had a Las Vegas postmark and was addressed to someone named Darcy, care of Destiny.
D--
Couldn't say no to Vegas!
XXOO
Amy
"I talked to the girls today," he said. "Most didn't know where she'd gone, but apparently she told Darcy she'd been offered a desk job here--Chicago, I mean."
"So she changed her mind at the last minute," I guessed. "Probably a guy involved--and sent Darcy a postcard so she'd know." All in all, it seemed clear cut. Though it still bugged me that she hadn't gotten in touch with Candy, too.
"You're welcome to talk to Darcy tomorrow. She worked the lunch shift today, so she's already gone. But I don't really see the need for you to play undercover operative. Unless you're thinking about it in a bedroom role-playing capacity, in which case we can keep negotiations open."
"Funny," I said, turning the chair slightly so I could see him better. "But I still want to dance."
"Why?"
Because I wanted to learn the truth about who Tyler was and what he did. But I didn't say that. Instead, I turned to a different truth. "Because I liked it."
"Did you?" He slid off the desk and put his hands on the arms of his chair, caging me in. He pushed it back, giving him room to kneel in front of me.
My pulse kicked up in anticipation of his touch, but all I said was, "Tyler."
"I liked the way you looked up there," he said, then moved his hands to rest them on my bare knees. "I liked the way you looked at me."
"All those men," he continued, his voice low and intimate as he gently spread my thighs, making me just a little crazy. Making me just a little wet.
"Watching you. Wanting you. And you wanted me."
"Yes. Oh, god, yes."
One hand began to gently stroke my thigh, teasing me, but moving no higher than where the hem of the jacket brushed my skin. With his other hand, he reached for the jacket, and cleverly flipped open the top button.
"That's your opening offer, isn't it?" He popped the other button open. "The deal you came to negotiate? I let you dance at Destiny, and you let me touch you?"
He used both hands now to push apart the lapels of the jacket, revealing my breasts, my abdomen, and those pretty silk panties. "Isn't that like making a deal with the devil?" he asked, as his hand trailed down, making me tremble, then over the panties to find me so very, very wet.
"Or maybe you just like playing with the bad boys," he said, as he slipped a finger deep inside me.
I arched back, gasping.
"Hook your legs over the chair's arms," he ordered.
"Tyler, no--"
"Do it."
I did, and he lowered his mouth to my sex, using one hand to pull the panties and G-string aside, and the other to tilt the chair back until it seemed like I would fall. I was head-down, completely at his mercy, open and wide and essentially helpless.
And I was desperately, hopelessly, turned on.
He ran his tongue the length of me, and I shook as a storm of sparks rocketed through me, the sensation all the more spectacular because of the way the chair rocked with my arousal.
"This won't work," Tyler said.
"No," I moaned. "Don't stop."
But he was opening the desk drawer, pulling out scissors. "I need both hands to keep the chair from toppling," he said, then cut the panties right off me before tossing the scissors onto the floor with a metallic clank.
I laughed, the sound a burst of shock and pleasure. He met my eyes, his grin mischievous and deliciously sexy. "You taste good," he said, then once again sank between my legs.
His hands stayed on the chair, so that he was touching me only with his mouth. He teased me, licking and sucking, playing and tormenting.
And with each touch, each stroke, the pressure inside me built and built.
I was open to him--wide and open and I wanted this. Wanted whatever he had to give. Wanted to lose myself in whatever pleasure he could share, whatever wicked, sensual torment he could devise.
In that moment, I think I would have done anything if only he would swear that this feeling would never stop.
Little tremors shot through me, making my body shake, the chair tremble. Precursors of an explosion that was close, so close, so close--
And then the world shattered, the chair rocking, my body clenching. I cried out for him to stop because I didn't think I could take it anymore, but he was relentless, taking everything from me, pulling every drop of pleasure out of me, taking me so high I was breathless, then crashing me back down to earth again where he scooped me into his arms.
"Wow," I murmured, finding myself curled against his chest, my body bare against his shirt, the jacket hanging open around me. "Wow."
"Very wow," he said, as he carried me across the room and laid me on the couch. "I may have to put one of those chairs in every room."
I laughed. "I wouldn't object."