by Aleah Barley
He looked so damn angry.
So hurt.
Daisy’s sense of humor died. She took a step forward and walked over to them. “Mr—” How many times would she screw up his last name? Wilson or DiNatto? She couldn’t remember which one was real and which was fake. For the moment, she didn’t care.
“Ryan.” Her mind scrambled, trying to think of a safe topic. “Have you made the final game?”
“Yes,” Ryan said through clenched teeth. He looked at her for a long moment before swallowing hard. His entire body relaxed, but she didn’t for a moment believe that the anger was gone. He’d just remembered to hide it better. “Stephanie, I’d like you to meet Daisy Adams. She’s my competition.”
“Really?” Stephanie gave Daisy a harsh look. “You play poker?”
Okay, enough of this bullshit. Daisy might not be able to ask what the hell was going on—she knew she wasn’t supposed to know about Ryan’s secret identity as a Knight of the Federal Round Table—but she was sick of being treated like a child because she was short.
Lily was always offering to take her shopping. Maybe it was about time to say yes.
Daisy crossed her arms. “You got a problem with it?”
“No.” Stephanie frowned. “Daisy Adams.” There was a long pause and then a light switched on behind her eyes. “You wrote a paper on statistical probability and code breaking. I read it last year.”
Daisy blinked in surprise. It always amazed her when someone had read her work. “It’s adapted from a chapter of my cryptography thesis.”
“Really?” Stephanie actually looked excited. “Is it published yet, or do I have to wait?”
“It’ll be a while.” Daisy sighed. “It’s my third PhD. I should be done, but this one’s got a foreign language requirement that’s kicking my ass.”
“Your third PhD?” Ryan was staring at her as if she’d just announced an upcoming trip to the moon. “You told me about the first two, but—”
“What?” She shrugged. “It’s the way my brain works. Statistics, mathematics, it’s all—” She waved a hand dismissively. “It’s not important.”
“It’s impressive,” Stephanie said. “I’m sure it gives you the edge in the poker tournament, especially since Mr. Wilson won’t be staying for the final game.”
Ryan was leaving.
Daisy’s head jerked upward. He couldn’t leave. He still hadn’t gotten what he needed from Blethins. And he hadn’t helped her figure out what was going on with the poker tables. He hadn’t done anything really…
Except hold her…
And now she couldn’t seem to let him go.
This wasn’t how they were supposed to end. They were supposed to have one more night. Daisy needed one more night.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ryan swore.
For a moment, it looked like Stephanie was going to drag him out by the hair. What was that about? But then she nodded. “I’ll let everyone know.” Her entire body straightened and she stormed away.
Daisy let out the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Want to tell me what the fuck that’s about?”
“The Bureau thinks someone’s trying to kill me,” Ryan said, like he was reporting on the weather.
And Daisy’s heart fucking stopped.
Chapter Sixteen
Ryan had never seen a panic attack before in real life—just in the movies—but he was pretty sure that was what had stolen the color from Daisy’s cheeks and left her gasping for air.
“Easy.” He bent to rest a hand on her back. “Deep breaths, sweetheart.”
Nothing happened. If anything, Daisy looked even worse. Her body swayed for a moment and then she pitched forward. Ryan caught her up in his arms before she could hit the ground.
“Easy.” The words weren’t getting through. He tried again, but this time his voice wasn’t calm or soothing. This time he was ordering her to listen. “Take a deep breath. Now.”
“I can’t,” Daisy objected, but at least she’d heard him.
“Take a breath and count to ten.” He probably shouldn’t have told her about the Bureau’s theory.
Daisy closed her mouth, swallowing hard, and blood appeared at the corner of her lip.
Okay, from the looks of things, he definitely shouldn’t have told her about the Bureau’s theory. “You bite your tongue?”
“My lip.”
“Hurt like hell?”
“Yes.” She buried her head against his arm.
“Concentrate on that.” He pulled her against him. If he could get her out of the poker room before anyone else noticed, maybe they could work something out.
But people were already staring in their direction.
Fuck Stephanie. The woman had called him five times, even though she knew he was at the tables. And, then she’d freaking showed up on the main floor of the tournament. Like that wasn’t going to attract any attention. Las Vegas was her turf.
People were going to notice her.
They were going to recognize her.
Talk about blowing his cover.
Ryan waited until Daisy was standing upright before leading her out of the poker room. “Hotel room or car? I can take you to get an ice cream.”
“I’m not five,” Daisy snarled.
“Good, because that would be awkward.” Ryan wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tighter against his body. “Let’s go upstairs and order some food.”
There was no leaving anything to chance. He didn’t let her get more than two inches from him the entire way up to their rooms.
They’d always gone to Daisy’s room before. It made sense. She had the king-size bed and he had confidential documents spread out on his bureau.
If she saw anything secret, he might have to kill her 007 style, drowned in a river of honey and sex.
Tough break. He slid his key card into the lock for 813 and let them both in. He’d feel better once he had a gun in his hand.
“How do people do it?” Daisy asked. “Date cops? Don’t they go insane?”
“Linda says it’s the call every LEO’s wife dreads—and waits for.” He nudged her toward the nearest bed, not giving her space until her ass hit the mattress. “LEO stands for law enforcement agent.”
“And Linda?”
“She’s my partner’s wife. My ex-partner.” He cleared his throat. “She got the call eleven months ago.”
Daisy’s entire body went stiff. The only sound in the room was her breath moving in and out of her lungs faster than it should be. “Your partner died?”
“Just injured.” Ryan frowned. He was going about this the wrong way. He turned and walked over to the open closet and the small safe inside. He’d set the code on his first afternoon in Las Vegas. Now he spun the dial to the date of his parents’ anniversary as he thought about what, exactly, he was going to say next.
“There’s a warehouse.” True enough. It was big and rough, the kind of place that was more rust and rot than steel and wood. “The mob uses it for transferring stolen property—they used it, anyway—and I got a tip about it from what was supposed to be a reliable source. So, Jack and I went to investigate.”
He cracked open the safe door and took out the contents. His badge. His gun. He put the badge in his back pocket and checked the pistol to make sure it hadn’t been touched. The 9-millimeter semi-automatic was heavy in his hands. It wasn’t a symbol of authority—that was the badge with his name printed on the front—but a weapon that could kill a man or leave him wishing he was dead.
“So, Jack and I went to snoop around.” He turned to face Daisy. “My entire life, I’ve been good at two things: sex and snooping around.”
Daisy flushed. “You’re really good at sex.”
“Yeah, well, I might be even better at snooping around.” He’d been on top of the world, a solid FBI agent doing what he did best. “So, Southy—my snitch—tells us there are going to be four men in the warehouse. He swears on his freaking mother, so we ge
t there, we scope it out, we locate the four guys and we go in. It was righteous.”
Her deep blue eyes went wide. “You sound pretty excited about a warehouse.”
“That’s what mob cases are like. The big things—Michael killing Sollozo and McClusky in the restaurant—that’s all fiction. It doesn’t happen, not as much as you’d think. To take down a mob guy, you put together a bunch of little things—Capone and his taxes, Victor Morelli and his fucking warehouse.”
It had all seemed so easy at the time. They’d bust up the warehouse, get a commendation, and celebrate with scotch and cigars. They’d be heroes.
Ryan tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants. “It was supposed to be our chance to take down Morelli. Only there weren’t four men in the warehouse. There were five, and the fifth guy had a gun.”
Daisy’s face was still pale, but she’d managed to resume breathing at a close-to-normal pace. “The scar on your shoulder? He shot you.”
“He shot me. He shot Jack. I made a full recovery. Jack’s going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. All because Victor Morelli wants to continue flooding half the east coast with his poison, gambling, drugs, and prostitution. He does it all.”
“And now he wants you dead?” Her voice was so freaking quiet.
He almost didn’t hear.
But when the words registered they felt like a punch to the gut.
“I don’t want you to be afraid.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to worry.”
She rolled her eyes. “Someone’s trying to kill my…friend. Of course I’m worried.”
“Morelli doesn’t know I’m here. There’s a cop car in front of Jack’s place and I’m undercover.”
“Hunting Blethins.” Daisy let out a deep breath. “An accountant. At least he’s not part of the mob.”
“He’s Morelli’s accountant.”
“Oh.” She glanced up at him, blinking wildly. Her cheeks flushed. Her lush pink lips pulled together in a kissable pout. “Motherfucker.”
Ryan laughed. He couldn’t help it. Daisy looked so cute, dressed in another geeky T-shirt and her usual faded blue jeans. The impression she gave was completely at odds with the curse coming from her lips.
His dirty angel.
“You lecture your students with that mouth?” he asked.
“Every Wednesday and Friday.” Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.
Ryan’s heart beat double time.
Here came the lie.
“Not that I care, but why are you still in Las Vegas? Why aren’t you making the FBI pay to fly you out to Hawaii?”
“Hawaii doesn’t have you.”
“You’re incorrigible.” Daisy shook her head. “Hawaii’s beautiful. You ever been? It’s got palm trees, white sand, and the best barbecue pork you’ll ever taste.”
“It sounds pretty good.” If Ryan could take Daisy—after destroying an east coast mobster—then it would be the perfect trip. Unfortunately, those little pleasures were only available in Las Vegas.
“I’m not leaving,” he said, and this time there was steel in his voice. He hadn’t left because Stephanie ordered him. He wouldn’t leave because Daisy asked.
He couldn’t leave.
Not even if he wanted to.
“I’m going to get Blethins’s books. With those, we can take down the entire Morelli organization—from soup to nuts—and it’ll take them years to rebuild. Then I’m going to turn Morelli into mincemeat. When I’m done, the guy’s going to wish he’d joined the fucking monastery instead of the mob. A lifetime of celibacy and quiet contemplation is going to look like heaven compared to Attica.” There must have been something hard in his voice because Daisy was looking up at him, a little awestruck, from under those long dark lashes.
“And,” he said, because what were a few extra goals when he’d already dedicated himself to taking down the entire east coast mob, “I’m going to help you find your poker cheat. And…”
And he wanted to promise to come back when it was all over, to tease her until she laughed and love her until she cried. He wanted to tell her they had a future past the casino doors, but he couldn’t do that.
Not when he’d seen the terror in her eyes at the thought of his death.
She hadn’t cried, thank God—Linda had cried when she’d gotten the call—but he couldn’t take that risk. Until he took out Morelli, his life was going to be in danger and he couldn’t plan for anything beyond that.
He shook his head, trying to think of a more realistic goal, something they could achieve within the safety of the hotel room.
He grinned.
“And I’m going to strip off all your clothes and taste every inch of you. You’re going to be so wet, you’re going to beg me to take you. But the next time you come, I’m going to be buried inside you…and you’re going to be begging for more.”
Her breath was coming faster. Her dark blue eyes gleamed. She looked so lost and he wanted to tuck a dark curl back behind her ear. He wanted to reassure her that everything was going to be okay.
Instead, he took the gun out of his waistband and placed it purposefully on the desk that was already covered in FBI files and confidential folders.
They’d come this far.
He wasn’t about to turn back now.
Not when everything he wanted was finally within reach.
Chapter Seventeen
Things were getting pretty intense, so Daisy took a mental break to do a little math.
It was what she did best.
As far as she could tell, there were three sides to Ryan: the funny, sweet goofball who made her laugh, the sexy man who’d promised to make her beg, and the vengeance-hungry FBI agent with the spine of steel and a gun.
She definitely liked the sweet goofball and the sex…
The sex was red hot.
The vengeance-hungry FBI agent was new. It was a persona that Ryan hid well, and up until this moment, she’d never caught a glimpse of it. Still, it made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She could understand hunting down criminals—being angry about the shooting—but she couldn’t fathom why he was so intent on putting his life at risk.
The thought that something could happen to Ryan—that he could die—had her gasping for air.
But it wasn’t just the future that scared her.
It was the knowledge that Ryan could have died almost a year earlier. The scar on his shoulder was big and bold. What if the bullet hadn’t gone straight through? What if it had hit something important? What if it had traveled a few inches over, tearing through his mighty muscles and slamming into his heart?
They never would have met.
Daisy didn’t give a lot of credence to fate, faith, or string theory. She’d consulted on a physics project a year earlier where one of the grad students had gone on and on about time streams and multiple universes. It had all seemed insane at the time.
It was insane.
But the thought that there might be an alternate reality, one where she’d never met Ryan—never felt him move against her or slept in his arms—left her cold inside.
She needed to feel the heat.
She needed Ryan.
“I don’t beg.” Kicking off her tennis shoes, Daisy pushed herself onto her feet and tugged her T-shirt up over her head. The shirt hit the floor a few feet away and she reached for the waist of her pants.
Ryan’s lips quirked up into a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m happy to teach you something new.”
The man was definitely a goofball. Daisy rolled her eyes, even as a soft laugh bubbled through her. How did he do that? No matter how tough things got, he always knew exactly how to put her at ease. She popped open the top button of her jeans and pulled down the zipper. The soft denim rolled off her thighs.
“You’re going to just stand there while I get naked?” she asked.
“I’m enjoying the show.” He reached out to rest a hand on her hip, the hard callus on his fingers making
her shudder. “Of course, I was looking forward to stripping off your clothes, but…” His fingers hooked into her panties and he shimmied them down over her hips. “Very nice.”
“Ryan—” Daisy didn’t know what she was going to say, but then Ryan was lowering himself to his knees in front of her and her mind stuttered. “What are you doing?”
“I’d think it’d be obvious.” He laughed and his mouth was so close to her body, she could feel hot air moving across her skin. His tongue ran across the soft divot that was her belly button. “I’m tasting every single inch of you.”
His grip tightened on her hips.
Not that Daisy wanted to move.
Fuck, she might never move again.
Not if Ryan kept nuzzling against her pelvis, teasing her flesh with his tongue and his teeth, tasting her like he was a starving man and she was one giant hot fudge sundae.
He nibbled at her skin for a long moment before bowing his head even farther and…
Oh, God. Daisy reached out to steady herself against Ryan’s broad shoulders as his tongue licked at the tender skin on her thigh before burying itself between her legs.
The slow heat that had been building since she stripped off her shirt suddenly burst into a full-blown fire. Holy shit! Sensation wrenched its way through her body as he teased her clitoris.
And still her fingers clutched at the cotton fabric that covered Ryan’s shoulders. The juxtaposition between her mostly naked body and his fully clothed form should have been humiliating. Instead, it made her feel worshipped and desired.
He wanted to please her so badly, he couldn’t even bother to undress.
Ryan’s tongue kept moving faster and faster until Daisy was gasping for air… almost about to explode… and then…
Nothing.
His head lifted up and he paused for a moment, just long enough to keep her orgasm at bay before burying his teeth in the tender flesh of her belly. Not hard enough to hurt, but there’d be a mark in the morning.
“Ryan,” Daisy gasped. “Oh, God. Ryan.”
“Not yet,” Ryan said. One hand moved from her hip and he reached down between them. The sound of his zipper being pulled down filled the air and he freed his erection. He stroked himself once, twice. When he looked up at Daisy, his eyes gleamed forest green with lust.