Rich Dirty Dangerous (Bad Billionaires 3)

I let out a breath. I’d spent a lot of time explaining the club life to my mother, and I didn’t tell anyone in Portland about my past at all. The people here saw the new Dani, the pretty young married woman who was training for a career. They had never seen the woman who had stood half-drunk in a parking lot at four in the morning, wearing smeared makeup and her only pair of heels, after making a lot of bad decisions. But Cavan had seen that woman, and he loved her anyway. Cavan knew the life. I never had to explain anything to him.

“This had nothing to do with the Lake of Fire?” I asked. “Or with me?”

“No.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“Ben,” my husband said. “Devon’s lawyer. It’s good info, Dani, from within the club. The fact is, McMurphy is gone.”

It was a door closing on my old life. Final, irreversible. Without McMurphy, there was no going back. I’d never wanted to, never considered it, but now I couldn’t. Not ever.

“Where are you right now?” Cavan asked me.

“In a coffee shop,” I replied.

“Go home,” he said. “Get some rest. Leave a key at the front desk.”

My heart, my stupid crazy heart, leapt in my chest. “Why?”

“Because I’m coming.”

I could barely get the word out. “When?”

“You’ll know when it happens,” he said. “Soon. Just be ready.”

I slammed the textbook closed, so loud the people at the tables near me turned to look. “Get here,” I said.

He laughed, the sound intimate in my ear, just for me. “I’ll get there,” he said. “Go home.”

Twenty-Seven

Dani

I was asleep when he came in. It was two o’clock in the morning, and I heard my apartment door open and close, his quiet footfall. I knew exactly who it was.

I rolled over in bed. “Cav?”

“It’s me.” His voice, in the quiet of my apartment, gave me a thrill. I moved to sit up, but he said, “Don’t move.”

I couldn’t see him in the dark; he was just a shadow. He came into the bedroom, dropped a bag on the floor. Kicked off his boots. Then I saw him pull his shirt off over his head, his skin beautiful in the shadows.

I pushed the covers down, off my body.

“Do not move,” he said again, his hands dropping to his belt, unbuckling it. I sucked in a breath as he pushed everything off and kicked his clothes across the floor.

I had put on pretty lingerie, because I was hoping for him: a pair of flimsy panties and a bra, pale pink trimmed with black lace. Now I felt the panties go damp between my legs as Cavan crawled onto the bed with me. I wanted to see him. I reached for the bedside lamp.

“What did I say?” he said, his voice rough.

I paused. “Not to move.”

He came over me, resting on his arms. This close, I could see his face, the gray eyes, the cheekbones, his soft tousled hair. His beard was soft against my palms when I cradled his face.

“You’re here,” I said, amazed. In bed with me, his scent, his incredible body. I wasn’t alone. Six months. Six months.

“You’re stuck with me for good now,” he replied.

His skin was naked and hot against mine, and it distracted me for a minute, until I remembered we’d talked just over five hours ago, and he was driving, not flying. “How did you get here all the way from Colorado?”