Читать книгу Undercover with a SEAL - Cindy Dees - Страница 12
ОглавлениеHank stood at the bar, yawning. The combination of jumping at every sound outside and jangling nerves leftover from her intense encounter with Asher Konig had added up to a basically sleepless night for her.
The bartender was just filling her tray with beers when she felt his presence. It raced across her skin and sank into her awareness like hot sunshine before she could register dismay that he was back. What the hell was Ashe trying to do? He was going to mess up everything!
It was a busy Saturday night. Football season had started and Vitaly had installed a bunch of flat-screen TVs a few weeks back. The customers could toss back a brew, watch football, and get a lap dance from an underage girl. What more could a guy want? It also meant Vitaly would be watching the bar closely. He wouldn’t fail to notice that the patron who’d shown an interest in her last night had returned tonight. Crap, crap, crap. She had to ignore Ashe and hope he caught the hint and ignored her back.
She studiously avoided even looking at him until it dawned on her that she might be avoiding him so much that her body language would draw Vitaly’s attention, anyway. Damn. She hated trying to outthink her diabolically smart boss. What to do?
Her dilemma was interrupted as she passed close to the doorway into the lap dance lounge.
“Psst,” someone hissed.
Startled, she glanced at the door. The usual bouncer wasn’t there. He’d probably gone to the bathroom for a minute.
“Psst.”
She stepped close to the door. A girl stood there, dressed in a pair of skimpy satin boxer shorts and an even skimpier tank top that her large breasts all but spilled out of in multiple directions. The girl’s mascara was almost clown-like on ridiculously long false eyelashes, and a generous helping of mascara was running down her cheeks.
“Have you been crying?” Hank asked in alarm. “Are you all right?”
The girl patted her cheeks absently as if they had no feeling in them. “Oh. That. Huh. Can’t feel my face...” Her voice trailed off. Then she asked abruptly, “Have you seen the blue man?”
Hank frowned. “What blue man?”
“In the bowler hat. He’s all blue and his suit is melting. And his tie was purple, but it turned green...”
Wow. This girl was high as a kite on something. Hank ducked inside the lap dance lounge, backing the girl up, out of sight of the main bar. She leaned close to whisper, “Do you need me to get you out of here?”
“Out?” The girl stared blankly. “What? No. You got more juice? Need my juice.”
The girl looked plenty juiced up already. “What’s your name?” Hank asked.
“Sveta. You likey? Call me Jane. Or Grrmblahhumbugama...” Sveta dissolved into laughter. Assuming that was her name. Hank whipped out her cell phone and took a quick photo of the girl.
“Do you want to take a walk with me, Sveta? Maybe outside? To clear your head?” And call an ambulance and the cops?
“Wanna go to my room. Sleep.” And all of a sudden, the girl drooped like she was on the verge of passing out.
“Umm, okay. Let me help you.” Hank wedged her shoulder under the taller girl’s armpit as Sveta sagged.
She’d taken maybe a half dozen awkward steps beside the staggering girl, guiding her toward the back of the lap dance lounge and the emergency exit to an alley, when a sharp male voice bit out from behind them, “What are you doing down here, Sveta? You know that’s against the rules.”
Crap. Vitaly.
The girl whimpered and shrank against Hank’s side. “She was on her way out into the bar in search of a drink,” Hank explained lamely.
Vitaly moved swiftly to Sveta’s other side, pulling the girl toward the stairs that led upward into the bowels of whatever went on up there. “I’ll take her from here, Hank.”
“I can help you get her upstairs.”
“No!” She started at the harshness of Vitaly’s tone. “You are never to go up there. I don’t want you getting near any of what goes on up there. You understand?” He stared at her intently over the nearly unconscious hooker’s head.
“Uhh, sure,” Hank stammered.
“You stay away from that place.”
She frowned, confused. The guy almost sounded concerned for her. Like he was trying to protect her from upstairs, not urge her into it. He all but lifted Sveta off her shoulder, muttering under his breath in Russian to the hooker, “C’mon. Let’s get you some candy. Let’s find you a sugar daddy to love you, baby. Does that sound good? Say goodbye to the real world, baby doll...”
He and Sveta disappeared around a corner in the stairs.
“Hey? Whatchoo doing back he’uh?” another male voice demanded from behind her.
The bouncer. Back from the restroom or wherever he’d disappeared to.
“You ain’t s’posed to be in he’uh.” His Cajun accent was so thick she could barely make out the words.
“Yeah, well, a girl came out looking for some juice. Vitaly just took her back upstairs.”
The bouncer pulled a face. “Dang ho. How she git loose?”
Loose? As in the girls were locked in or restrained in some way? Horror skittered down Hank’s spine. She managed a reasonably unconcerned shrug and pushed past the bouncer into the main bar. She paused for a moment to catch her breath. God. That poor girl. She’d been stoned out of her mind.
“You okay?” yet another male voice asked from behind her.
Ashe.
Vitaly was upstairs for the moment and the bouncer back at his post. She hurried over to Ashe’s table and spoke fast and low. “I just saw one of the girls from upstairs. She was high on something psychedelic. Vitaly’s taking her back upstairs. We’ve got to shut this place down. Now.”
“Patience, Hank. Let the cops do it right.”
“But they’re on it? They’re getting everything in place?”
“Yeah.” He glanced over her shoulder and bit out, “Bring me a vodka, neat.” Under his breath, he added, “We’re on camera. We’ll talk later.”
Vitaly moved up beside her. “Everything okay here? My girl taking care of you?” He gave her backside a stinging slap that she expected was meant to serve as a warning to keep her mouth shut about what she’d just seen.
“Yes, she’s doing fine,” Ashe answered easily. He looked over at her, letting his gaze roam boldly up and down her body. Heat burst through her. Even her face grew hot. Great! How in the heck was she supposed to convince Vitaly she had no interest in Ashe if he made her freaking blush?
She headed toward the bar and was alarmed when Vitaly followed, crowding her against the wood and brass counter. He leaned in close and muttered, “Forget what you saw, Hank. You’re a good kid, understand? You don’t want any part of what goes on up there. The clients would mistake you for someone you’re not.”
Once again, he sounded genuinely concerned for her. She half turned to look him in the eye. “Thanks for looking out for me, Vitaly. I appreciate it.”
He nodded tersely and headed into his office. Son of a gun. Who’d have thunk the SOB would look out for her like that? Or was he just trying to get on her good side to prevent her from telling anyone about Sveta? Man, she sucked at all this undercover stuff. She was by nature a straightforward person, and subterfuge of any kind messed with her head. Although her family hadn’t been exactly the most forthcoming bunch to grow up around. Maybe her honesty was a twisted form of youthful rebellion.
Or maybe she was just overthinking Vitaly’s motives. Maybe he really did want to protect her. Cripes, this place was making a cynic out of her. But then, she got to see the worst humanity had to offer in this den of iniquity.
The next two weeks couldn’t pass fast enough for her. When they talked later, she would ask Ashe to move up the timetable of the FBI raid...or whatever it was he’d arranged with his girlfriend on the phone last night.
She’d been startled by the surge of jealousy that had swept through her when she’d realized that was a woman he’d been flirting with so comfortably on the phone. She’d give anything to have a man like him flirt with her like that. Maybe someday when this nightmare passed.
Assuming she survived it.
The bartender plunked a glass down in front of her and poured a sloppy shot of vodka into it. “For your boyfriend,” he announced.
She snapped back, “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“He’s watching you like he is. Guy’s warning off every dude in the room with his glare.”
Was that why no one had been groping or swatting her tonight? Except, of course, Vitaly. Crud. Ashe wasn’t helping matters by protecting her. He had to ignore her...or at least just treat her like one of the other girls. He mustn’t give any sign that she was anything special to him. Vitaly saw everything that went on around here. The man was like a spider sitting in his web.
The other waitresses whispered that Vitaly had secret cameras in the club and spied on them. Hank had even seen him sitting at his desk from time to time, studying his computer screen intently. But any time she’d had an excuse to go into his office, he’d turned off his monitor before she could glimpse whatever had been on it.
Hence her need for caution now. She ignored Ashe’s whiskey on the bar and instead delivered a tray of drinks to a table full of regulars. They were Russians, but just customers who came in for the good vodka Vitaly stocked.
“Hey, Hank,” Vitaly called from the doorway of his office. “Your boyfriend is waiting for his drink. Go serve him...and be nice to him.”
She winced. Drat. He’d seen her skip giving Ashe his drink. She’d hoped another one of the waitresses would want to flirt with the hunk in the corner and take his vodka to him in her place. No such luck.
She nodded in Vitaly’s direction without making eye contact with her boss and swerved toward Ashe’s table. He took the shot glass directly out of her hand. Their fingertips brushed, and she gasped as her pulse jumped. Lord, he had a crazy effect on her.
“Can I get you another drink?” she asked him mechanically as he handed the empty shot glass back to her.
“Do you carry Kauffman Vintage Vodka?”
She stared at him in surprise. “You know premium vodkas?”
“I like to think so.”
“I don’t know if we carry that. I’ll ask the bartender.”
“If not, I’ll take a shot of Russian Standard or the best the house has got.”
She headed for the bar and got raised eyebrows from the bartender at the request for Kauffman. He commented, “That stuff runs over two hundred bucks a bottle. Maybe Vitaly has some in his special stock. You’ll have to ask him.”
Hank poked her head into her boss’s office. “The guy from last night is asking for some vodka called Kauffman. The bartender told me to come ask you for it.”
“Kauffman, eh? Perhaps I should meet your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she retorted in exasperation she didn’t have to fake.
“You a lesbian or something?” Vitaly asked.
She bit back a snappy reply and merely mumbled, “Nah. He’s just not my boyfriend.” Sometimes it was a struggle to keep up her charade of not being the brightest bulb in the box.
Vitaly got up from his desk and moved to a tall locked wooden cabinet in the corner. She moved a little to have a sight line into the cabinet and was stunned to see several big honking weapons standing in the case. They looked like machine guns. Holy cow—
“Here we go.” Vitaly pulled out a fat spherical bottle with a big silver cap that reminded her of a parrot’s beak. Clear liquid filled the round belly of the bottle. She shifted back to her original position and pasted a look of dull disinterest on her face as he locked the case and turned to face her.
“Bring us two of the good vodka shot glasses in a bowl of ice,” he ordered as he herded her out of the office and headed for Ashe’s table. Planning on checking out the new patron personally, was he? Sheesh, Vitaly was paranoid.
She dutifully brought the men a deep bowl with two crystal shot glasses nestled in crushed ice. She set the bowl on the table and Vitaly ordered her brusquely, “Go away. My new friend and I want private conversation.”
Every now and then, Vitaly’s flawless American accent slipped a little and took on a faint Russian tinge like it just had. But that usually happened only when he was furious or under stress. Alarmed, she glanced between the two men. Dammit, there was no way to warn Ashe that Vitaly was on high alert.
She made brief eye contact with Ashe, who merely looked vaguely irritated that she was still hanging around. Frustrated, she retreated to the bar. “What’s Kauffman, anyway?” she asked the barkeep, even though she knew full well what it was. Her brother used to drink it from time to time.
“One of the best Russian vodkas on earth. They only make it in years when the wheat crop is of especially high quality.”
She sniffed. “Sounds snooty to me.”
“It’s not the stuff regular guys order, that’s for sure. Who’s that dude Vitaly’s sitting with?”
“No idea. Just some customer.”
“Isn’t he the one who broke up the fight last night?”
Crap, crap, crap. Ashe had called attention to himself—and now to her—by coming back tonight. “I dunno. I guess so.”
“Looks like he and the boss are hitting it off.”
Great. Ashe was horning in on her investigation. She’d kill him if he messed it all up. What could Ashe and Vitaly be talking about so intently anyway?
“He hot for you or something?” The bartender’s blunt question quickly derailed her curiosity.
She rolled her eyes at the bartender. “As if I’d date any of the slimeballs who come in here.”
The guy guffawed and poured her a plain soda with a twist of lemon, the way she liked it. She sipped at the drink for a few seconds, her back pointedly turned to Ashe and Vitaly and whatever bromance the two of them were having.
She moved around the club, serving patrons and enduring their lewd comments. Just another night in downtown hell. Except that it wasn’t. She couldn’t shake her hyperawareness of Ashe sitting in the corner with her boss. Her dangerous mobster boss. Their heads were close together, and they laughed uproariously now and then like they were trading war stories.
Vitaly called for a refill of crushed ice, and when she approached the table, she was stunned to hear them conversing in Russian. Ashe was freaking fluent? Bastard. Unreasonable jealousy surged through her that he was getting further with her boss in one lousy hour than she had in months.
It wasn’t fair. She was a no-account female, and Vitaly ignored her existence for the most part. But Ashe could stroll in here and order some hoity-toity vodka, and just like that, Vitaly was hanging on his every word.
The level of vodka in the parrot-beak bottle dropped steadily over the next hour, and Vitaly demanded yet another refill on the ice. But this time, when she approached the table, her boss grabbed her rear end under her short skirt and gave it a humiliatingly familiar squeeze through her panties.
It was all she could do not to pull away from his hard fingers digging into her tender flesh. “Evgeniya the Ice Queen,” he drawled in Russian. “Needs a man to screw her lights out. I tell her the pay is much better in the lap dance lounge, but always she refuses.”
“Maybe a real man hasn’t offered to do the job right,” Ashe replied drily in the same language.
It was all she could do not to stick her tongue out at him. To date, Vitaly thought she understood only a few words of the simplest Russian, and she needed to keep it that way. She’d been able to eavesdrop on countless conversations between him and his associates because of it.
“You think you’re man enough?” Vitaly hooted. “I’ll give you a bottle of this vodka on the house if you convince her to do it. Make a lap dancer of her if you can. I’ll earn a fortune on her in the lap dance lounge if I can get her back there. Get a load of those legs. And just feel this ass...”
Ashe glanced up at her for just a moment, his eyes mirroring regret for just an instant. But it was enough for her to know he was not enjoying this any more than she was. “Come over here,” he drawled in English. “Vitaly says you have a great ass. I want to check it out.”
Was he kidding? Apparently not, for he stared at her expectantly. Silently livid at her boss, she stepped away from his invasive grip and moved to Ashe’s side, standing so close that her knees rubbed his thigh. “Go ahead, buddy. It’s not like you’ll ever get more than a handful of this action.”
Vitaly hooted with laughter. He sounded more drunk than not, but she never could tell with him. He held vodka like nobody’s business.
Ashe’s palm cupped the back of her knee, sliding up the back of her thigh with maddening slowness. With light pressure, he pushed her leg until she took a step to the side, turning so her back was to the room. What? He didn’t want the other patrons to see him checking out her posterior regions? If the man weren’t feeling her up, she might actually think his action was chivalrous. But as it was, his hand headed inexorably toward her rear end.
His fingertips traced the seam of her stockings up under her miniskirt, up to the swell of her backside, paused, and then continued higher until her entire cheek was cupped in his big, warm hand. Her glute muscles clenched involuntarily.
His hand kneaded her gently and he murmured cajolingly, “Relax, baby. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
No, but he was embarrassing her to death. It was one thing to have random drunk strangers grab her as she passed by them. But he was no stranger, and this was no random grope. It was a full-scale invasion. His fingers dipped into the tight crevasse between her cheeks, in the same place Vitaly’s had, but where her boss’s grasp had been rough and impersonal, Ashe’s fingers were beguiling. Intent on winning her acceptance. They stroked and probed gently, asking and waiting for her to relax and give him access to her most secret places. Something hot and liquid erupted low in her belly, startling the hell out of her and momentarily distracting her long enough that she did relax her tush.
Ashe’s hand dipped deep between her legs immediately, and she tensed up once more. But the damage was done. His hand cupped her lady parts with shocking intimacy, and any move she made would rub said parts against said hand. She froze, staring down at him in shock. It was one thing to go along with Vitaly’s misogyny for the sake of gaining the guy’s trust. It was another thing entirely to embarrass her in public. Although, truth be told, the worst of her embarrassment stemmed from the fact that she was a little turned on by Ashe’s hand cupping her like she already belonged to him.
“Trust me, Vitaly,” he declared in Russian. “She’s no ice queen. She’s all woman. And hot for me.”
She didn’t stop to think about it. She went with her reflex reaction and slapped Ashe’s cheek with all her might.
Vitaly surged halfway to his feet, swearing and apologizing as words tumbled out of his mouth in a garbled jumble. But it was Ashe’s reaction that shocked her. He stared up at her in stunned disbelief for a heartbeat and then threw his head back and laughed. Heartily.
“Sit, sit, Vitaly,” he chortled in Russian. “I like my women a little wild. It’s more fun that way to tame them.”
Her gaze narrowed. As if he would ever tame her. Hah!
Vitaly sank back into his chair, but he was looked genuinely angry and glared at her with a grim promise of serious retribution when Ashe left this place. So much for looking out for her best interests. Heck, for all she knew, her boss might drag her upstairs by the hair and let the clients do their worst to her. Her insides turned to jelly and her entire being quailed at the thought of what could happen to her up there. They could shoot her up with heroin until she was hooked, lock her into a room in the brothel...
Who would come looking for her? There was no one to rescue her from the hellhole Vitaly could throw her into. She would be lost. And now that Max was gone, not a living soul would care.
“...don’t let women slap me without punishment,” Ashe was saying in Russian. He leaned back in his chair, tossed back a shot of the expensive vodka and grinned at Vitaly. “How do you propose I do that, my friend?”
Vitaly scowled. “I’d beat her until she couldn’t sit for a week.”
Ashe tilted his head to one side and studied her while she defiantly glared back at him. “Nah. She’s got fair skin. She would bruise like mad. Someone would call the cops on you.”
Vitaly jerked his chin at her. “What would you do to punish her?”
A slow smile unfolded on Ashe’s face. “You want her to work in the lap dance lounge, yes?”
Aghast, she stared at him. He was not actually going to throw her to the wolves like this, was he? Ashe was supposed to be one of the good guys! Worse, she wasn’t supposed to know Russian, so she couldn’t respond in any way to this little exchange between the men.
“Yes, of course,” Vitally answered a little too eagerly. Apparently he wasn’t so drunk that he’d missed where Ashe was going with his line of reasoning, either. Dammit.
Ashe asked in English, “How about I teach her how to do a decent lap dance?”
It was Vitaly’s turn to throw back his head and laugh. “Done.”
“No way—” she began.
Vitaly surged to his feet and grabbed a fistful of her hair at the back of her neck, yanking her head violently and forcing her to endure his fetid breath in her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ashe tense. “You make my friend happy, or I will take you upstairs and put you to work up there. Understood?”
She tried to nod, but even the smallest movement of her head caused her hair to pull painfully against his fist. He leaned in closer to growl, “Do what this man says or I’ll make you pay.”
Terror roared through her. It was her worst nightmare. She was going to get sucked into the abyss and never escape Vitaly’s clutches. And it was all Ashe’s fault, damn him. Why, oh, why did he have to show up here and mess up everything?
Ashe surged out of his chair, his big fist suddenly encompassing Vitaly’s at her neck. “Let the lady go.” His voice was low and cold and dripped with violence.
Vitaly shoved her at Ashe. “Be a good girl and show the nice man how very sorry you are.”
Ashe caught her as she half fell against him. He set her gently back on her feet and loomed close beside her, never releasing her arm just above the elbow. “Come along, naughty little girl.” His words might be what Vitaly wanted to hear, but his tone was soothing.
Without further ado, he led her over to the lap dance lounge’s entrance. The bouncer opened it, grinning, and Ashe ushered her into what surely was a special corner of hell.
What little lighting there was in the lounge came from red bulbs shrouded in colored scarves that hung from the ceiling and fat black candles dripping in sconces around the walls. Necklaces of bones, snakeskins, animal skulls and braids of herbs decorated the kidney-colored walls. The place reeked of incense and pot and sweat, and maybe a hint of blood. A rooster even clucked quietly in a small cage on a table off to one side of the room. More drippy candles, dried chicken feet and knives lay on the table beside the live chicken. Small curtained alcoves lined the room, and a row of chairs filled its center.
Ashe led her to an alcove with the curtain pulled back and ushered her inside. He yanked the cloth shut behind them. A low armless chair stood against the wall, and he smirked at her before turning her arm loose and plunking down on it.
She whispered furiously, “You don’t seriously expect me to do this, do you?”
He murmured back sotto voce, “I seriously expect that there are cameras in here, and that your boss will be watching. I’m not exactly thrilled about the position you’ve put me in, either. You really shouldn’t have slapped me. At least not in front of a misogynistic chauvinist like your boss.”
“What did you expect me to do?” she said with a hiss. “Let him manhandle me like that and treat me like a piece of meat he can give to whomever he wants?”
“I expected you to trust me. I’d have seen to it the bastard gets what’s coming to him and I’d have gotten you out of there without this little detour.”
She swore under her breath. He was, of course, right. It was her own impulsive nature and stupid temper that had put her in this pickle.
“I’ll fake it if you will,” he muttered.
“Right. Fake it.” But fake what? As if she had any idea how to do a lap dance. The subject had not been covered in any of her art history classes in college. Scowling, she scooted forward until her knees bumped against his shins.
He smiled. “Go for it, baby.”
“You’re going to hell for this,” she grumbled.
His grin widened, and he leaned back in the chair a little. “Ahh, but what a way to go. I dare you. Give me your best shot.”
Oh, a dare, was it? That changed things. Glaring fiercely at him, she threw her leg across his hips and plopped down on his lap. He tensed beneath her as her lady parts passed across the zipper of his jeans.
Crud. Now what? She was undoubtedly supposed to engage in some sort of bump-and-grind routine next. After all, it was called a lap dance. But that left a whole lot to the imagination by way of technical details.
Experimentally she tilted her hips forward and then back. Oh, my. That felt rather nice. She tried it again. Her nervous tension eased a little, and this time it felt even better.
“That all you got?” Ashe murmured in obvious amusement.
Concentrating intensely, she tried circling her hips to the left. Ooh, that was interesting. And better, unwilling heat flared in Ashe’s eyes. Quite a bit of heat, in fact. If she wasn’t mistaken, the region behind his zipper was getting harder. More enthusiastically, she circled back to the right.
“This may not be the right moment to mention it, but most lap dancers do it facing away from the guy. It costs extra to get a full frontal. I expect the girls don’t want to get their chests grabbed, nor do they want to be tongued or kissed.”
She sprang to her feet, outraged. “You let me writhe all over your lap the wrong way?”
“I didn’t say it was wrong. Just more suggestive than usual.”
“You are such. A. Jerk.”
His voice dropped so low she could barely hear it over the Jamaican music blaring from hidden speakers overhead. “No, baby. It’s called protecting your cover. Vitaly’s going to be watching us when we leave here. And I’d better have a hard-on and you’d better be embarrassed all to hell when we walk out of here if you want either of us to make it out of this club alive.”
Of course he was right. Darn it. “How in the heck do you know so much about this stuff, anyway?” she demanded, chagrined.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’m not exactly a teenaged virgin. Of course, I don’t generally have to pay for what I want from women, either.”
She glared at him a moment more, then whirled around and backed onto his lap. Her toes barely reached the floor, and she overbalanced slightly. His hands came up to clasp her hips. He didn’t do anything crude like pull her down onto his male parts, but he did steady her until she regained her balance.
Ashe shifted beneath her. Abruptly, warm breath caressed her neck. He must have taken pity on her because he murmured, “Most girls squat over the guy and keep their weight on their feet, which is why this chair is so low and has no arms. That way, the girl can pull away if the guy gets fresh with her. Then the girls twerk a little.”
“I don’t know how to twerk,” she wailed under her breath.
“It basically involves relaxing your rear end and shaking it up and down. Don’t worry about it. The view I’m getting is fine just the way it is.”
Thank God she had a skirt on. And stockings. And panties. This was embarrassing enough without her having her rear end hanging out of a skimpy thong.
“My thighs are burning.”
“Then sit down on me, silly.” He gave a little tug, and her tired legs gave out. She plopped down unceremoniously on his lap. She lurched, but he held her in place with that easy, overwhelming strength of his.
“I cannot believe you’re making me do this.” Her mouth was saying one thing, but her body was starting to say something else entirely. It wasn’t all bad having her hips nestled in his lap. His zipper bulged against parts of her she’d never...rubbed...against anyone before. The intimacy of it was staggering.
She’d had sex, of course. She was twenty-five, after all. But never like this. She’d never been the type blatantly to take control of the sex, or to be...naughty...about it. Okay, so she was a prude. There. She’d said it. Or at least thought it very loudly.
Ashe relaxed beneath her, seemingly completely at ease with having a woman squirming around on his lap. But she felt vulnerable. Terribly exposed. Even though her miniskirt flared around both of their hips, hiding most of what was going on underneath it.
“Move your hips like this,” he instructed, guiding her hips through a slow figure eight. “You can rock like before or do those circles you were doing, too.”
“This is hard,” she complained.
A low chuckle rumbled behind her. “I believe hard is the point.”
She looked over her shoulder to roll her eyes at him.
He grinned. “Just sayin’.”
“Behave.”
He shrugged. “It’s not like either of us has any choice here. If I don’t have a grin on my face or a pronounced limp, Vitaly’s going to try to hurt you. And since I’m not about to let him do that, all hell will break loose.”
“So you’re not enjoying this?” She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
“Well, now, I didn’t say that,” he drawled. “I think if you put a little enthusiasm into it, maybe pretended I was your boyfriend, you might have a future in the profession.”
Imagine him as her boyfriend, huh? That wasn’t much of a stretch. The memory of his magnificent naked chest in her apartment last night popped into her head. Nope. Not a stretch at all. Let alone the steamy dreams of him that had disrupted her sleep.
She realized with a start that she was moving more sensuously against him, enjoying the feel of him growing restless beneath her. Tense. Hungry.
He was faking it, of course, which was really sweet of him. Warming up to the ruse a little more, she let her mind wander into a pleasant fantasy of the two of them together.
They would be in a beautiful old room with antique furniture, hardwood floors and white gauze curtains. The big four-poster bed would have fat pillows and white linen sheets. A fan would turn lazily overhead, stirring the sultry air. They would make love slowly. Easily. With aching tenderness that gradually turned into raging, sweaty passion...
“Okay, then,” Ashe ground out. “That should be enough to shut up your boss.”
She stilled abruptly. Ohmigosh. Her hips had been undulating all over the place. She’d been riding him like a total hussy.
“I’m sorry—” she started.
“Hush,” he muttered, cutting her off. “Vitaly will be delighted.” A pause, and then he added wryly, “Too delighted. Bastard’s gonna want to put you to work back here after that performance.” He swore quietly as he lifted her off his lap.
She turned to face him, surprised that he hadn’t stood up already. But a quick, unwilling glance at his lap revealed the source of his delay. His zipper strained to contain the raging erection behind it. He’d been genuinely turned on by her lap dance? “I didn’t suck, then?” she blurted.
A short bark of laughter slipped out of him. “You did not suck.”
He gritted his teeth and visibly reached for self-control. Sympathetically she suggested, “Think about your grandmother. Church. An ice-cold shower.”
Another laugh, this time a little pained. “I’ve got this, thanks. Just give me a second.”
She turned her back to give him a little privacy to get his body under control. It was more like a minute, but he eventually rose to his feet behind her. He leaned close, his big body radiating heat against her spine. “Don’t argue with me when I talk to Vitaly. I have a plan.”
Now what on earth did that mean?
