Midnight Play

by Lisa Marie Perry

  “If only I could add a few more days to the week, hmm.”

  Nellie smiled, subtly pointing to Dex. “He was a nice surprise. Did you put him up to dropping in?”

  “No, that was all on him. He’s exactly that. A surprise. Preconceptions, they trip us up.”

  “Whoa, that’s heavy. What do you mean?”

  Danica spied Dex up ahead, handing the football to Kiefer, who jogged ahead to the main building. “Take Dex. Before I met him I was sure I had him pegged. He’s more than his nickname and his reputation. He’s…a nice guy.”

  “I’ll say. To come here and play football with a bunch of kids on his birthday. If that’s not the mark of a ‘nice guy,’ then—”

  “Rewind.” Danica stopped Nellie with a light grip on her wrist. “Today is his birthday?”

  “Google seems to think so. When y’all headed out here, I called my sister to tell her about his visit, and she nearly punctured my eardrum with this cray-cray girl-meets-boy-band scream. She insisted that today’s his B-day, and I looked up his bio on the internet.”

  Danica met Dex’s eyes as she and Nellie stepped inside. In unspoken agreement he waited while the kids, then Raoul, then Nellie left. The cleaning crew had arrived and was flipping on lights until the entire main floor glowed. Outside, the sky was darkening into a wash of deep reds and purples as daylight wilted.

  Once she’d retrieved her dessert—the neatly packed cupcake she’d decorated with a poor attempt at a calligraphy D—from the kitchen, she joined Dex at the reception desk.

  “A ‘happy birthday’ is in order. Guess you’re going to celebrate Vegas-style?”

  “No plans.”

  “Shut. Up.” Danica shook her head. “I mean, how can that be?”

  “It’s not that. I’m more selective about who I roll with these days. Fair-weather friends serve a purpose, but it’s not to have my back. Real friends don’t take off when shit hits the fan. My boy Russo’s got an away game tomorrow, Shaw and his wife are still decompressing from their daughter’s birthday, the Samuel Adams Utopias from Samantha already arrived…and I’m with you now.”

  She made the cut? The instant satisfaction was just as quickly doused with guilt. It was ironic that his birth date slipped her mind when she could recall so many minute details of his employee file—such as he was a chess player and had completed light community service for speeding when he was at LSU. “I ought to tell you, then, that I forgot your birthday. Nellie clued me in.”

  “You’re on my side, Danica. The rest isn’t important.”

  “Your birthday is important. That sexy, cavalier grin thing isn’t going to change my mind. Birthdays are miracles. They shouldn’t be forgotten or ignored. They should be shared with people who care about you.” She lifted the container. “I was going to save this for after dinner, but…um, I’d rather share it with you, Dex. The cupcake and your birthday.”

  *

  Danica had a talent for saying things without actually saying them. Tonight she’d insisted that his birthday should be shared with someone who cared about him—and then nominated herself. If she cared, he wanted her to strip away the games and just say so.

  She was a woman of action, though. Words, promises, she didn’t trust.

  Dex was transfixed by this woman as she led him into her house—if anyone could call the imposing structure that. More like an architect’s wet dream.

  “Damn. A castle in Las Vegas,” he commented, drawing a rich chuckle from her.

  “A castle? Not quite.” She deposited her purse on a fat club chair and dropped her keys into a crystal leaf-shaped dish on a side table. She hung on to the airtight plastic container that held her cupcake.

  “There’s a turret, Danica.”

  Another laugh. “Well, okay. Castle-esque.” She fiddled with a bank of switches, and in moments the room was awash in soft gold tones. The textured mahogany coffee table glowed as deeply and richly as a full-bodied wine.

  “Bamboo stalks,” he said, recognizing the ripples in the high-glossed surface. “Where’d you get this?”

  “A friend of a friend of a friend knows an artisan in Europe. It was a wedding gift that I didn’t send off to Christie’s for auction.” She neatened the fan of magazines atop the piece. “Become a music idol, and this, too, could be yours.”

  Dex watched her scan the surroundings with a frown. Classic beauty and luxury—everything a woman who appreciated the finest things in life should want. Yet she looked troubled.

  “It’s haunted, you know.”

  “Haunted?”

  “Not really.” She shrugged. “It was never exactly my vision of a home. It was made for entertaining. Now it doesn’t serve even that purpose, since I work too much to take on hosting any get-togethers.” She ran a finger over the top of a framed picture of a woman in a trench coat stepping out of a car, holding a gigantic umbrella against the rain. The shot looked as though it was pulled straight from an old Hollywood movie.

  “Is that—” he stepped closer “—Tem? Your mother?”

  “Give the man a prize,” Danica said with a teasing smile. “Yes, it’s her. The car she’s getting out of? My sisters and I were in it. I remember this exact moment.” She traced her mother’s image lovingly. “I thought, if I could be so perfect, so adored…but I can’t. Too many flaws. Too much to juggle.”

  “Faith House was started before the Blues bought the Slayers franchise. Why put so much on your plate?”

  “I don’t see it that way,” she said. “My parents insisted that my instincts and specific skill set made me a perfect fit for GM. It’s a position of power, and I’m not sorry I took it. My parents wouldn’t entrust this level of responsibility to just anyone, and they want the best. No one’s more committed to protecting my family’s interests than I am.”

  What he wasn’t hearing was what she wanted.

  Danica patted the food container. “I’ll put this on a dish.” She vanished through an arched entryway. When she returned minutes later, she said, “Faith House is something I can call my own. It’s really taking off, with the college counseling and the crisis shelter. Good things ahead.”

  There was pride in her voice, but wistfulness in her eyes.

  “It helps me remember Faith.”

  “Was she a friend?”

  “She attempted to mug me.”

  Dex stilled, then crossed his arms. “I’m gonna need some help connecting the dots, Danica.”

  “She was a sixteen-year-old who was so desperate for a way out of a gang and prostitution that she tried to mug a stranger for enough money to outrun her pimp. She said she had a weapon, I called her bluff and it turned out that she was just an unarmed, scared girl.

  “I saw to it that Faith got help. An incredible difference it made, too. But in a few months, she was in a car that wasn’t as safe as it should’ve been. It blew up on the highway.” Danica cast her gaze at the cupcake. “The news referred to her as just another unfortunate kid whose life jumped the rails. She was more than that, and I took a chance because I believed in her. I still do.”

  Was that the same way she believed in him?

  Danica extended the plate to him. “Couldn’t find a candle small enough not to topple the cupcake. I figured since it’s your birthday I’d give you the whole thing. It’s a great, great sacrifice for a sweets addict such as myself.”

  “Have some,” he said, and she didn’t hesitate before swiping her finger through the crooked calligraphy D and scooping the frosting into her mouth.

  She sat on the sofa, putting the coffee table between them as she swirled her tongue around her finger. Dex couldn’t pry his stare from the slow, slick movement of her tongue curling around the digit. “Dex.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t forget to make a wish.”

  He looked directly in her eyes and swept his tongue over the frosting.

  Her eyelashes fluttered. “What’d you wish for?”

  Dex set the dish on the table
. “A cold beer.”

  “Beer. I can do that. Fresh out of Utopias, though.” Her head tilted, and her deep chocolate gaze stroked him. “I thought you’d wish for a kiss.”

  “If I had, would you have given it to me?”

  Danica didn’t blink for several heartbeats. Then she suddenly sprang off the sofa and vaulted herself onto the coffee table. The extra elevation had her hovering a few inches over him. She snaked one arm over his shoulder while the other hand cradled his jaw.

  So many secrets swirled in her eyes, and he wanted to unlock every one.

  Danica’s body swayed into his, and as if on command his groin tightened. Another intimate gyration. Then an almost tortured moan sawed through her full lips before she brought them down to his.

  He met her with his tongue, licking into her, savoring the sounds of their mouths tasting and taking. With a small sigh, Danica closed her lips around his tongue, sucking him to the tip before she withdrew from the kiss.

  Fluidly hopping down from the table, she strutted from the room. “A cold beer. Coming up.”

  Every centimeter of Dex’s body vibrated with need so intense it was audible, surging in his ears. The house was quiet except for the cadence of Danica’s shoes striking the floor. The sound lured him to an expansive kitchen that was set in shadows except for the lone light pouring from the open refrigerator.

  Danica emerged, shutting the door with a bump of her hip and smoothly moving toward the entryway. She stopped when she saw him filling the space. “Hey.”

  Accepting the drink, he turned the bottle up for a long swallow that quenched absolutely nothing. He set down the bottle and twisted back around.

  When he banded an arm around her waist, she went willingly, pressing that taut body against his. One step backward. Then another. Then more. Like drumbeats, he felt them in his core as he walked her backward across the room.

  Danica’s back met the refrigerator, and he braced his arms on the cool surface, one on either side of her head. He went for her mouth, taking her warm tongue in deep as he peeled away her jacket. Roughly he ridded her of shoes, top, bra and pants, then grasped the crotch of her thong and stretched it so that the silky strip grazed her smooth folds. Finally, he slid it down her legs.

  Danica’s hand roamed down her body, and he almost came in his jeans at the sound of her finger exploring her wetness. Dex rolled his tongue over her nipples, learning their texture, before he took her hand and sucked her damp finger into his mouth. He let her taste coat his tongue, instantly addicted. “If you’re going to turn back and grab on to those rules, now’s the time to do it, Danica.”

  She shifted her hips forward to meet his, giving him an answer. He pulled a condom from his pocket and unzipped his jeans to free himself. Danica’s hands gripped his shoulders as he grabbed her ass and boosted her high against the refrigerator. Magnets popped off the stainless steel, clattering onto the floor. Papers crumpled and floated down.

  Dex speared her tight, wet heat. The answering moan she made against his lips almost unraveled what little restraint he had left.

  She spoke, just two words, punctuated with the whimpers his thrusts pulled from her. “I’m…yours…”

  Then, in a wave of hard spasms, she broke. Deep inside her, he fed off her pleasure, and in moments he followed her release with his own.

  Eventually he was able to let her go, setting her gently on her feet. Dex got rid of the condom, then wandered to the counter where he’d left the beer. He damn near drained the bottle.

  Not enough. Claiming her against a refrigerator wasn’t enough. Not by a goddamn long shot.

  He heard a rustle of fabric as Danica kicked her clothes across the floor and moved through the shadows. All of a sudden, light engulfed the room. Squinting to adjust his vision to the brightness, he whirled away from the counter.

  Danica waited near the entryway. Naked. Mouth swollen. Hair a sexy mess. Honey-brown skin shimmering with sweat. “What now?”

  “Now—” Dex wound his arms around her, sweeping her up slowly until they were eye to eye “—I take what’s mine.”

  Chapter 11

  As hot as refrigerator banging was, Danica knew it was only an introduction to what limits they could push. A warning of a potency that was rawer than screwing, deeper than lovemaking, more complicated than sex.

  She wanted him to touch her until she was thirsty, starved and too spent to move. Now that she was in his arms, digging her heels into his ass, gauging his readiness for more by pumping her body tight onto his crotch, she thought she was off to a good start.

  “This is the second time I’ve been naked in this kitchen today,” she confessed.

  He exhaled onto her throat. “God. Is that a habit?”

  “Uh-uh. Could make it one.”

  “Move in with me.”

  Danica angled herself to kiss his temple. “No.”

  Dex carried her out of the kitchen as if she were a Fabergé egg—precious, tiny, delicate. She loved that he could hold her. It was a longed-for change; even she grew weary of standing on her own two feet all the time. But she wasn’t a jeweled egg, and tonight she didn’t want to be handled with caution. She wanted the full force of his passion. They might be mismatched in height, size and brawn, but she was looking forward to taking him on.

  Abruptly, she threw her arms up.

  She slid an inch or two down his body and he tightened his hold to keep from dropping her. “What the hell was that?”

  “Put me down.” Danica wriggled out of his embrace, grabbed the front of his shirt in her fists. “Come after me. Up the stairs. Let’s go.”

  Dex was a step behind her the entire way to her bedroom. At the door, she grunted as he suddenly bent to squeeze her bum.

  “I don’t know which I like more,” he muttered. “Your ass…” He spread her cheeks, shook them. “Or your breasts…” He dragged his hands up to pinch her nipples. “Or what about down here?”

  He twisted first one, then two fingers into her. Danica shut her eyes, sighing in dirty delight. The authority he had with her body was unexpected, yet it shouldn’t have been. Hadn’t the way he’d taken her with his eyes on the balcony at Slayers Club Lounge put her on notice?

  Danica clumsily opened her bedroom door—only to remember how messy she’d left it this morning, as though her closet had upchucked clothes all over the bed. She snatched the door shut. “New plan. We can’t go in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not fit for guests.”

  “I’m not a guest. I’m a man who wants you. If we go in there, I swear I’ll be looking only at you. And I’m not after a perfect woman. I’m after pushy, klutzy, sexy-as-hell Danica Blue.”

  Sexy as hell was flattering. Pushy, not so much—even if it was true. Klutzy, that was uncalled for. “I’m not klutzy.” She preceded him into the bedroom, making a dash for the designer-label pileup on the four-poster bed.

  “Argumentative. I should’ve added that one,” he said, and when she pivoted to give him a profane gesture, he whipped off his shirt. At his collar was a cross on a silver chain.

  Danica was struck dumb by the definition of muscle and bone and the symmetry of his body. She wished she could zap her mattress clear and push him onto it.

  She turned to scoop up a handful of garments, but misjudged the distance. Clotheslined at the thighs, she landed bent over on the bed with a stunned “Oooppphhh!”

  Great way to prove his point.

  Dex was on her, flipping her onto her back, taking full advantage of her position. The abrasion of the scruff on his jaw was a marriage of pleasure and pain on her sensitive flesh. Spreading her legs wider, he lapped her moist slit.

  A very improper oath slipped past her mouth and she dropped her hands onto her face.

  “No, Danica. No holding back. First, to take care of this…” Dex helped her off the bed. He yanked the four corners of her comforter toward the middle of the bed, trapping all the clothes inside, and slung the bundle
onto the floor. “Now say what you want.”

  Danica boldly stared him down. “You—naked and inside me.”

  Dex stripped swiftly, and the sight of his rigid cock had her lowering to her knees. She went for his balls, tested the weight of them in her mouth, before she feasted languidly on his erection.

  “Your mouth,” he growled, withdrawing from her. “Definitely your mouth is what I like best.” Then he went completely still. “Crap. I don’t have another condom.”

  Danica almost fainted in relief. “I’m all over it.” She crawled across the mattress to her nightstand and fished for the party favors from Veda’s bachelorette party. She dumped the contents onto the bed and counted the foil packets. Six. Well, that might get them through the night. “I want to use everything in this bag. Think you can help me do that?”

  He responded with a kiss that sucked the sense out of her. Bringing his sinewy body down on hers, he watched her face. His smoldering gaze trapped hers. Driving slowly and deeply into her, he held her.

  *

  Three foil packets, a silk blindfold and a shower that had been more dirty than cleansing later, panic caught her. Danica had pulled on the first article of clothing she saw—a ruffled red shirt that was long enough to cover her hips—and was untying the blindfold from one of the bed’s posts when it dawned that she was in it deep.

  With each climax, each stroke of his talented hands on her body, she only ached for him more intensely. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. They were on borrowed time together; neither had the right to expect the passion they found—or created—in each other to bleed into the real world. Danica’s carefully structured life had no room in it for a spontaneous man who coaxed her down from the pedestal she’d been perched on for so long. She had no plan in place to guard herself against the consequences of yearning for more than one night.

  What a fantastically dumb-ass mistake it was to let lust lead them this far. Because now, as Danica lowered to all fours in search of her Valentino pumps—where were they, anyway?—she was finally afraid of something. Afraid that lust might abandon her on love’s doorstep.