I pushed her off me, though every nerve ending I had was screaming for me to draw her closer. This wasn’t the place, with six cooks and a dozen waiters staring at us. As good as it would feel to flip our positions and piledrive Mina into the tiles, I knew better.
I climbed to my feet and offered her a hand.
Mina recoiled from my hand and stood on her own, smoothing her palm over the bottom half of her tight-as-hell dress, to remove wrinkles that weren’t there. With her upright, I noticed subtle changes that I hadn’t cataloged before.
Mina had lost weight in the six years since I’d seen her. The traces of baby fat that still clung to her slender frame when she was twenty had disappeared, polished into elegant planes by time and lifestyle. Still, with her angular thinness and distinctive hair, she put me in mind of a wily cat, circling a dog warily.
That impression was compounded by the slightly feral look in her wide hazel eyes as she clacked toward the back of the kitchen in her heels, not sparing me a second glance.
I barely made the conscious decision to follow.
“Fuck this. Fuck it. Fuck it all,” she muttered as she ducked into a hall I hadn’t even been aware existed.
I followed close behind her, irritation rekindling. What the hell was she doing here, of all places? She had to know that her parents were going to be here. After dropping off the face of the earth when the scandal broke, she’d rarely surfaced.
“Blakely, wait.”
I caught up to her halfway down the hall. It was barely lit, and probably just an emergency exit for the staff in case of a kitchen fire. An exit sign glowed at the far end. It was just enough light to see her profile, outlined in red.
I curled my fingers around her bicep and yanked her to a stop. “What are you doing here?”
“None of your damned business!” she snarled, and tried to yank her arm free.
When she found that feat difficult, she let out a growl that would have sounded at home in a dog fight. Her hand came up, striking hard and fast. Only the training that had been drilled into me during my years in the army saved me from getting Mina’s fist in the face.
Locking my free hand around her wrist, I held her fast.
She struggled against my grip, mouth set in a furious frown. My cock took notice.
It was really fucking sad that she could still turn me on, even like this. For years, I’d tried to find someone as dazzling as her, to wash the sour taste of rejection out of my mouth. But there was only one Mina Blakely, and somehow, I’d fucked up the one chance I’d had.
“It is my business. This party is invitation only, and I’m pretty damn sure you weren’t invited. Explain and I’ll let you go.”
One moment she was glaring at me, wheels turning behind those gorgeous eyes, and the next, she went soft and compliant, leaning into me rather than straining to get out of my grip. The sudden shift in attitude was so shocking my grip on her arms loosened.
Mina took full advantage and slid one hand up my bicep, letting it come to rest at the nape of my neck. The light scrape of her nails on the base of my skull sent shockwaves of pure pleasure down my back, raising goose bumps along my skin and making my cock impossibly hard.
“I came here for you,” Mina said, pressing her front to mine, giving me a better idea of just how much her body had changed. There was a firmness to her abdomen, I’d have bet money she’d been doing strength training.
A purely animalistic part of my brain wanted to peel the dress off her and explore the contours of her body with my tongue.
She guided her other hand—the wrist of which I had wrapped with my own—to her bared thigh, so that I could feel the warmth of her skin.
Before I could stop myself, I slid my fingers along her inner thigh in small, coaxing circles, the way I remembered she liked.
A soft, surprised mewl slipped from between her lips when I brushed my fingers along the edge of her panties. Her hips bucked into mine.
I wasn’t sure which of us leaned in first, but suddenly her hands were threaded into my hair, pulling to the point of pain. Our lips locked, and the sweetness of her glossed lips drew a groan from me. It was second nature to push the soaked material of her panties out of the way, exposing her to my fingers. To push her up against the wall to give myself more leverage.
She let out a sharp gasp as I pressed two fingers through her folds and into her entrance.
“Logan,” she breathed. Hearing my name on her lips—hoarse with the pleasure I was giving her—brought back a flood of memories. It felt just like the last time, all those years ago. “Logan, please fuck me.”
She’d said the same words to me a million times before. But this time, the crude request brought me up short. And just like that, the spell was broken.
I jerked back into reality. Stepping back, I abruptly broke contact.
Mina made a sound like I’d doused her in ice water.
Damned if that wasn’t how it felt for me as well.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Fucking hell, Mina. What did you do?”
“What did I do? You’re the one who shoved your fingers up my—”
“You wanted it,” I accused, fixing her with a fierce stare. “And what the hell was with that seductress bit, huh? What are you really after? ‘Cause I know it’s not me.”
Mina rocked back as though I’d just driven a foot right into her chest. It was hard to tell in the low light, but I thought I caught a glimpse of tears before she turned away.
Guilt locked me in a vice and I reach out to her without thinking. She didn’t want me touching her now, and I knew it. But I had to offer something, other than being an ass.
“Your parents are here. You should get out of here before someone tells the Senator you decided to crash the party.”
I didn’t want to see her go. If I had my way, I’d finish what I’d started—her riding my fingers until she came. Then I’d drag her into a private room and fuck her properly until her legs were jello and all thought was pleasantly sponged away from both of us.
What would inevitably follow stayed my worst impulses. If I was found fucking the daughter of the Senator, that would not be good for what I was trying to accomplish. The news would get out. One of the kitchen staff might tell a tabloid. An unscrupulous custodian might get pictures of us in the service hall, and what then?
It would be splashed across the news. The scandal would crucify Farraday Industries. The stock would plummet and Owen Mason would have the plausible excuse he’d been fishing for to pull out of my father’s company. My father would go into spontaneous cardiac arrest.
It was the thought of my father that gave me the strength to stop the train wreck we were hurtling toward right in its tracks.
“Come on,” I growled at her, seizing her by the bicep again.
“Where are we going?” she snapped, all furious indignation suddenly.
“Outside, to your car. I’m taking you home. You shouldn’t fucking be here and you know it.”
“It’s none of your damned business, Farraday!”
“It can’t be anything good. Are you here with some old buzzard, playing his whore? Or was this an attempt to embarrass your father again? You didn’t do a thorough enough job last time?”
This time the slap caught me off guard. My cheek stung viciously but I just clenched my jaw. I probably deserved that one.
Mina wriggled free of my grasp and seized her small clutch, muttering darkly to herself in French as she marched down the hall toward the exit—the Senator had insisted that she learn at least two foreign languages. I had a feeling that I was being threatened. The words burbled from her lips like poetry, and I barely quelled the desire to draw her back to finish what we’d started.
Christ. This was just fucking ridiculous. This woman was going to be the end of me.
It was probably for the best that I not lead her out of the party by the arm like an errant child. I compromised, sliding a hand down the slick material of her dress, settling it jus
t above the curve of her ass.
Mina stiffened beneath my touch but didn’t pull away.
I tugged back on her elbow when we reached the door and found that a large sticker read “Emergency Exit Only: Alarm Will Sound.”
“Hold on,” I muttered.
“I’m not going back the way we came,” she hissed. “You have about three seconds and then I’m removing these heels and taking my chances with security.”
I snorted. Mina was tall and thin. Even with the weight training that I suspected she employed, she wasn’t going to be any match for the Ritz-Carlton’s security. If I was smarter, I’d let her reap the rewards of her foolishness.
But she’d suffered enough at the Senator’s hands, and I didn’t doubt he’d relish the chance to make an example of her again.
“Be patient,” I snapped, and dug around in the pocket of my trousers, searching for what I’d need.
I found it settled at the very bottom. I’d had to make my own hasty exits from venues like this before when I’d been trying to dig up the blackmail Owen Mason had on my father. I’d come prepared for this eventuality.
Many emergency alarms worked on a system of magnets to trip the sensors. The trigger system on this door was attached to the top, and a tab attached to the doorframe would be pushed up by a spring if we tried to exit. The tab could be kept down by employing a strong magnetic pull on the switch.
I withdrew a heavy magnet from my pocket and fixed adhesive to the bottom of it. I slid it into place and pressed on the bar, exerting the least amount of pressure possible. The door creaked open an inch and was mercifully silent.
Mina glanced up at me in surprise. “Did you take up cat burglary while I was away?”
“Something like that,” I muttered. “Let’s make this quick. My absence has probably been noted.”
I got a good grip on her elbow and tugged her into the stairwell. Silence stretched taut between us, heavy with words unsaid and thick with desire unmet. It was a long, spiraling journey down to the bottom with a woman who would have gladly pushed me face-first at every landing.
A perfect fucking start to the evening, indeed.
Chapter Five
Mina
The tension in the Lexus was so thick it could have been spread on toast.
“Stop manhandling my car,” I snapped at Logan.
Logan’s eyes didn’t move from the striped yellow lines of the lane before us, but the corners of his mouth did slide down into an even deeper frown. He was choosing to ignore me, the jerk.
I whacked his bicep, wincing upon contact. Good God. What did he do, bench press a car? His muscles were even more solid than I remembered, and he’d been no slouch then.
His eyes finally flicked over to me. “What?”
“You’re about two seconds away from ripping the steering column out of my car. Do you mind easing up on the wheel for a second there, Hercules?”
He let out a short bark of laughter. “Hercules? That’s the best you could come up with? You’re slipping, Blakely.”
“Fuck you.”
“Eloquent too,” he remarked.
If he didn’t shut his mouth soon, I’d shove a heel so far up his ass he’d need pliers to remove it.
This was impossible. There was no way in hell that I was going to be able to keep this charade up for long. Of all the men in the world my blackmailer could have chosen, why this one? There was no way I could pry six million from him, even if I had a full year to do it.
Logan swatted my hand away from the air conditioning dial when I reached for it. The contact wasn’t harsh, but it still set my skin prickling with anger.
“Stop turning that up,” he said, glaring at the dial. It was already twisted into the halfway position and cold air blasted the side of my face from the nearest vent. “It’s like a deep-freeze in here.”
I wouldn’t be satisfied until the windows frosted over. No amount of artificially cooled air could sooth away the burn in my cheeks.
Pinpricks of shame needled my guts, sending my stomach into convulsions. The kebab I’d eaten was going to make a reappearance all over my nice, clean floor mats if I wasn’t careful.
I’d nearly fucked him. I hadn’t come here with the intention of fucking anyone. The thought had crossed my mind when I’d gotten ready for the party that I might have to, to protect my Hustlers. I’d been prepared to attach myself to the arm of a wealthy man and, if necessary, put out for him. I’d packed condoms in the clutch, just in case. I hadn’t had a proper date, let alone been on birth control for six years, so they’d been the best option.
The willingness to compromise my own rules made me a filthy hypocrite, but I didn’t have many choices. For six years I’d told my girls never to sleep with their clients. I wanted to believe that I could be spared some condemnation because of the circumstances, but the idea was still a rather sickening prospect, nonetheless.
But I hadn’t been thinking about that back in the hall. Hell, I hadn’t been thinking much at all.
If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the warm press of his mouth against mine, his tongue coaxing utterly indecent sounds from me. My back braced against the wall while he caged me, his hard body holding mine captive.
His hands, spreading me open and deftly taking what was his.
Had been his.
I gripped the seat beneath me so hard my nails made crescents in the material. I was my own person, damn it. Logan Farraday didn’t get to waltz back into my life with his magic hands and his overwhelming sex appeal to steal all my hard-won independence out from under me.
“What were you doing at the party?” he said finally, modulating his tone to make the words sound less like a demand. It was a testament to how much of a brutish bastard he could be that it barely worked. He still sounded like he wanted to shake answers out of me.
“I already told you, it’s none of your business.”
“You threw yourself at me, Mina. That makes it my business. So tell me the goddamned truth for once.”
The heat in my cheeks crept down my neck and to my chest. If he didn’t stop talking soon, I’d combust, leaving an unattractive scorch mark on the seat behind.
What was it about him that made me feel like a fumbling middle-schooler? He was a decade older than me, but age shouldn’t matter anymore. In the professional world, there was little difference between twenty-six and thirty-six. We were peers now.
But he still made me feel like the naive eighteen-year-old who’d been hopelessly infatuated with her stepbrother’s best friend.
A long hidden memory surfaced. I’d asked Logan to fuck me the night before I left for college, terrified I’d be made fun of if I showed up to my first sorority party as a virgin.
Logan snapped his fingers in front of my face, dragging me painfully from past into the humiliating present. “Did you hear a word I said, Blakely?”
“What, were you still talking?”
A sound rumbled in the back of his throat, the human approximation of a growl.
My insides clenched with unmet desire and I crossed my legs still more firmly. I was wet and uncomfortably aroused, and he had no right to be this ludicrously attractive barely two few feet from me.
“Cut the shit and answer my question. Did someone pay you to do...” He fumbled for the right word and couldn’t seem to draw it from the ether. “Whatever the fuck happened back there?”
He was too close to the truth for comfort.
“No one paid me to do anything.”
True enough. I wasn’t being paid. I was being blackmailed, and if I didn’t get six million by August, one of my girls would pay for it with their lives. I needed to get my head on straight and figure out how I was going to do this. Logan and I had only been reacquainted for fifty minutes and already we were hissing at each other like cats.
“I know what you do, Blakely. Everyone who’s ever cleared the one percent in this area has heard about or hired the Hustlers. I want to know who put you up to it.
I don’t need this shit on top of everything else.”
I winced. I knew that the Hustler name had been bandied about the upper echelons of the Hollywood elite, but it was concerning just how widespread our reputation was getting. It was hard to be discreet if everyone knew what you did for a living.
“If you’ve heard of us, then you know that we don’t operate that way.”
He continued driving as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “If I’d wanted a hooker, I’d have called for one.”
I recoiled so hard that the back of my head bounced off the cushion of the seat. Hurt stole my breath and anger brought tears to my eyes. A warm, salty tear fell before I could stop it, splashing into my lap. I wiped furiously at my cheeks before more could fall.
“Excuse me? What the hell did you just call me?”
Logan’s swallow rasped in the silence that fell between us. It was the first outright indication he’d given that this whole scenario had thrown him off of his game. He knew he’d just stepped in shit. Good.
“Okay, that was a little harsh.”
A mocking, cynical laugh burst out of me. “Oh, just harsh, huh? You’re still a fucking bastard.”
“You kissed me, not the other way around.”
Had I? Damned if I’d admit it.
“Remind me to pick up some Listerine so I can get the taste of arrogant asshole out of my mouth.”
Logan’s hands flexed around the steering wheel again. We were back to square one, it seemed.
I leaned my head back against the headrest and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get a handle on the fury that throbbed with every breath I took. I still had at least a half hour of this unpleasantness until we reached the Heights.
It was going to be a long ride home.
* * *
We got caught in traffic, and it took much longer to reach my building. By the time I stumbled into the penthouse I shared with Heather, it was after midnight.
I threw my heels haphazardly onto the shelf near the door, knowing full well I’d get a talking to about organization from Heather in the morning.
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