Rushe shook his head. ‘I’ve got it under control. Did you really think I’d let you out in public like that?’ he asked. ‘I don’t share my woman.’
‘I don’t understand. What should I do?’
‘Put on the coat and go to work.’
Rushe wasn’t one to get frantic, but Flick hadn’t expected such composure from him.
‘What if someone wants a dance, or tries to touch me, or—‘
‘It won’t get that far,’ he said. ‘I have a plan.’
‘If we’re a team now, shouldn’t I be party to the specifics?’
‘It’ll work better if you’re surprised,’ he said.
‘You don’t think I could act surprised?’ she asked. ‘What if I do the wrong thing and mess up your plan?’
‘You won’t. I trust your instinct more than your acting ability.’
Which she supposed was a compliment in itself. Rushe came over and picked up her coat to hang it on her shoulders.
‘Why?’ she asked him.
‘Because your instinct was to come to me tonight, and when things get tough, or you worry, you always come to me.’
‘What should I do instead?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘You should come to me; your instinct is to come to me, that’s why I trust it.’
‘Ok,’ she said letting him guide her to the door. ‘So I go downstairs to work, and you’ll take care of everything else?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m confused,’ Flick said, when Rushe opened the door. ‘Other men are going to see your girls.’
‘Not on my watch,’ he said while stroking her hair. ‘Get.’
Flick carried her confusion into the hallway, and Rushe followed her with the door. It closed so abruptly behind her that she was propelled the last few inches out.
Rushe didn’t share her; she had no doubt about that. But if Rushe thought another man might be thinking about touching what was his, he’d get himself into trouble – committing murder with that many witnesses wasn’t wise.
But for maybe the first time, Flick was going to do what Rushe told her. Then again, under the circumstances she had little choice.
Coming from the hotel, Flick had to traverse the width of the X-Lounge to get to the staff room. Wrapped in her wool coat, she earned herself a few double-takes. With the hair and the stockings and the shoes, Flick imagined that the customers would probably think she was naked beneath the coat, though it wasn’t like she was very far away from it.
She got herself into the dressing room, re-applied her lip-gloss from the tube in a drawer, and looked at herself in the mirror.
‘My appearance will not get Rushe killed or arrested,’ Flick said to her reflection, then began to unbutton her coat.
‘Flick!’
She hadn’t separated the fabric when the dressing room door opened, and Rosa hurried in.
‘What is it?’ Flick asked her flustered boss.
‘Joseph wants to see you, Joseph Galante.’
Joey’s father. ‘About what?’
Rosa took a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘You’ve been seeing that Rushe guy. Whyte’s been fuming up and down, but Joseph wants this guy involved.’
‘Rushe?’
‘Yeah, Lisa talked about him too,’ Rosa said. ‘Kimberly asked as well. He’s hot, but...’
‘Rushe has an intensity.’
‘Yeah, he’s dangerous,’ Rosa agreed. ‘We need a whole new word for bad boy. He’s panty-melting.’
Rosa’s beaming grin made Flick laugh. ‘Yeah, I suppose he is.’
‘He’s taken an interest in you,’ Rosa said, returning to serious. ‘Joseph needs him.’
‘I don’t understand what... if it’s money Galante needs, why not let Whyte—‘
‘Money?’ Rosa said. ‘Rushe tried to buy his way in, but he doesn’t have anywhere near the cash needed. Galante and Whyte, Davis, they deal in the millions.’
If Rushe wasn’t using his money, then he wasn’t being honest about his means.
‘So why is he here if...’
Rosa moved in close, folding her arms in the process. ‘Flick, things around here are serious, there’s serious shit going on.’
‘What do you mean?’ Flick played the innocent.
‘You’re not stupid, Whyte trusted you enough to bring you down here. You had no problem with the gentleman’s club... Why’d you break it off with Whyte?’
‘He got fresh, tried to force the issue.’
‘You told him where to get off?’
‘A knee in the ‘nads helped,’ Flick smiled when she noted Rosa’s partially disguised admiration.
‘There’s something wrong with him, in his head I mean. He’s kind and gentle one minute, then boom he’s a different person. Davis is worse though, he’s just mean. I don’t know why Eleanor puts up with him.’
‘You’ve known them all a long time.’
‘Yeah, unfortunately.’
‘How long have you known Rushe?’ Flick asked, though she was aware of the answer.
‘I guess you could say his reputation precedes him. Rushe did some work for a colleague of Joseph’s a couple of years ago. Recently, that colleague introduced Rushe and Joseph.’
‘You’re talking about Joseph Galante Senior, right? Joey’s father?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So why the introduction? If Rushe doesn’t have the cash to—’
‘He has other talents,’ Rosa said. ‘Rushe knows how to do things... he has useful skills.’
‘The dirty work?’
‘Yeah, but it’s nothing Rushe hasn’t done before. The stories of what he’s done... Joseph’s very rarely impressed.’
Rosa spoke with an awestruck tone, so proud to be discussing the man she was sleeping with, and if Flick needed further confirmation that Rosa was still having sex with Galante, the blush in Rosa’s cheeks provided it.
‘So he wants Rushe working for him,’ Flick said. ‘But why does Galante want to see me?’
‘He picked you, Rushe picked you.’
‘What for?’
‘What use could Rushe have for a woman like you? He doesn’t want you working down here; he wants you up in his suite.’
‘To service him sexually,’ Flick said, understanding now why Rushe was so nonchalant earlier. ‘I’m not very experienced in—‘
‘I think that’s why he wants you,’ Rosa said. ‘I heard about the virgin thing, I don’t give a shit whether it’s true or not, but you got Whyte’s attention and now you’ve got Rushe’s too. Maybe Rushe wants a rookie, or maybe he wants to piss off Whyte, I don’t know. I don’t care, and neither does Joseph. Whyte doesn’t like how Joseph and Rushe are getting along, but he’s a petulant diva at times; no one pays him any attention, Joey didn’t either. He’s been this way since high school.’
The moment of recognition Flick had experienced on first meeting Rosa swamped back – the yearbook. ‘You went to school with them, with Joey and Evan?’
‘I dated Joey all through school. I was a couple of years behind him; I thought he was a rock star, a rebel. Now I know that he was a loser, like the rest of them, he just knew how to hide it better. He screwed around with every skirt in the place.’
Flick noted that there was still some anger there. She would have thought that after more than a decade of continually screwing her ex’s father, Rosa would be over Joey’s infidelity by now.
‘Whyte?’
‘No! He’s creepy, he used to sneak around watching Joe and me have sex. He was caught peeping a dozen times; his dad got him therapy and everything.’
‘Watching?’ Flick gaped in appropriate shock. ‘That’s... I wonder when he grew out of that?’
Rosa’s eyes darted up and to the side in a deliberate act of telling without saying.
‘Galante is waiting to talk to you.’
‘He thinks he can purchase me? I asked you if I was expected to sleep with anyone—‘
‘You’re seeing Rushe anyw
ay, and he’s not like the sleaze balls we get in here with their grubby paws.’
‘So I should have sex with Rushe to persuade him to work for Galante?’
‘He’s already working for Galante,’ Rosa said, to Flick’s surprise, though she tried to mask it.
‘So why does Galante want to—‘
‘You’re a perk,’ Rosa said, with a re-emerging smile. ‘He’ll make it worth your while, trust me; these guys will pay to get what they want. You might not get treated well all the time, but you’ll be treated regularly.’
‘Perks of the work, diamonds, and flowers?’
‘Totally, clothes, apartment, whatever you want. It’s a compliment that Rushe picked you. You haven’t been here long; I guess you make an impression.’
Knowing herself as she did, Flick knew that pre-Rushe she would never agree to any sort of arrangement like this. Post-Rushe, if anyone made this kind of suggestion Rushe would land them in a pine box.
Technically, Rushe was making the suggested arrangement, and it gave both of them all the cover they needed.
With a short, shallow breath, Flick began to button her coat. ‘Where’s Galante?’
Rosa took Flick up personally. Galante welcomed the women into his white-carpeted suite, with its faux flame open fireplace and black leather furniture. He and Rosa whispered by the door, so Flick gave them their privacy and surveyed the room. The place was modern but functional, practical; there was almost no trace of personality.
‘Flick.’
At the sound of her name, Flick turned to see that she was now alone with Galante. ‘I’m supposed to be working,’ Flick said.
‘There’s no need for that now,’ Galante said. ‘Rosa made you aware of our request?’
‘Yes. I have to say that when I got my job at the Lounge I didn’t expect this.’
‘You’ve been seeing Rushe; he’s made his feelings about you clear to us. We believe it would be a generous gesture on our part—‘
‘Shouldn’t I be having this conversation with Rushe? If he wants things between us to become physical—‘
‘Presently you’re an employee of my casino,’ Galante said. ‘Rushe has made it plain that he doesn’t want his girlfriend working in that environment.’
‘So you’re firing me?’
‘You will remain on payroll for the duration of your relationship with Rushe.’
‘And when he’s finished with me?’
‘We’ll renegotiate,’ Galante said, making no promises. ‘You are free to walk out of here now. But we cannot say what Rushe will do in that instance.’
Flick didn’t know if that was meant to scare or reassure her. ‘Then I think I should talk to Rushe.’
‘I’m a perk,’ Flick said to Rushe, pushing past him to enter the suite where she’d left him not long ago. ‘You used me as barter, and what exactly is it that you’re doing for Galante?’
‘Perks don’t talk,’ Rushe said. ‘Perks also do as they’re told.’
Flick had heard the door close, but when his hands came around her body to unbutton the coat she paused.
‘Rosa said you’d make it worthwhile for me with diamonds and flowers.’
‘All you’ll get from me is sex.’
‘Why don’t you get naked,’ Flick said, when Rushe removed her coat. Straight away, he unhooked her bra and tugged it off to toss it aside; he didn’t linger to admire the costume.
‘I told you I’d handle it,’ Rushe said.
‘You do think of everything.’
Flick turned in his arms to unbuckle his belt. ‘I’m gonna get my money’s worth out of you, Kitten.’
‘I told you I’d be expensive.’
‘All mine.’
Rushe took her off her feet and Flick coiled her limbs around him. ‘You really do think of everything.’
Taking her toward a door in the corner, Rushe kicked it away to carry Flick into what she assumed was his bedroom. They had a lot of catching up to do.
Chapter Twenty
‘Get dressed.’
On coming out of the restroom, Flick hadn’t expected to see Rushe sitting on the end of the bed they’d just shared, tying his boots. It was still the middle of the night; she expected them to be inside, in bed, entwined until well after daybreak.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Work to do,’ he said. Finishing with his task, he looked up and took the time to admire her naked figure. ‘Never gets old.’
‘I’m so glad to hear it,’ Flick said. ‘Where are we going? I don’t have any clothes—‘
‘Drawers,’ Rushe said, nodding to the unit in the corner.
Despite not knowing what to expect, Flick went in the direction he indicated. ‘You bought me clothes?’
‘Brought not bought,’ he said, when she opened the top drawer. ‘Everything from your room downstairs.’
This included everything that she had salvaged from the apartment. ‘When did you do this?’
‘Staff did it when you went down for your shift. I think of everything.’
‘If the arrangement between me and you, as some random man, was real, I’d be offended.’ As it stood, she fumbled for underwear to don.
‘If the arrangement was real between you and some random man, you’d have bigger things to worry about.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’d already be dead,’ Rushe said, abandoning his seat on the bed to come toward her. ‘At least ten other guys I’d have bribed to look after you in that eventuality would be dead too. Plus, you entered into this arrangement voluntarily, but if it was real, then that wouldn’t have happened. So you’d be injured, or drugged, or incapacitated as well.’
‘In recap,’ she said, pausing to lean back against the drawer unit when Rushe came into her personal space. ‘The love of my life is dead, there’s an evil someone killing a bunch of other men, and I’ve been lobotomised...? Yeah, you’re right, bigger things to worry about.’
‘I think of everything,’ he said, bending to clasp her ass and heft her weight into his hold.
‘Is this work we have to do really important?’
‘It’s good to have you with me, Kitten. I didn’t like having you out there alone. It’s better I know where you are at all times. I’m taking you with me ‘cause you want us to be together, but don’t make a nuisance of yourself.’
‘We’re working together now.’
‘Get dressed,’ he said.
‘You’ll have to put me down first,’ she replied.
Reluctance rang from every fibre of his body, but he did put her down, and then turned his back to walk away. The action wasn’t about her modesty, this was about drought; Rushe turned his back so he wouldn’t have to watch Flick cover her naked form, in contradiction to Rushe’s true desire.
Flick dressed in jeans and flats. She didn’t know where they were going, but she imagined it would be a good idea to be ready for conflict.
‘Done,’ she said, tying her hair back.
‘Leave it down,’ Rushe said, choosing to face her and again check out her figure.
Flick was used to being short beside Rushe, now that she’d shed the X-Lounge uniform, it was nice to feel more like them again. For three months, they’d had nothing but time together, able to suit themselves. By establishing this cover, Flick was confident they would remain with each other throughout the rest of the mission, come what may.
Just in case she might need it later Flick looped the hair band around her wrist. Rushe threaded his fingers through her loose locks and combed downward. The relaxed look on his face, the look of wonder, told Flick that he felt the same way about being with her. Apparently he’d missed her hair as much as the rest of her body.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked again, interrupting Rushe’s moment of reflection.
His fingers fell from her hair and he took her hand, and tucking it into his back jeans pocket, he led her out of the room and out of the suite.
‘You’re going to stay c
lose to me,’ he said, as they travelled down in the elevator. ‘And you’re going to do what you’re told, Flick.’
‘Mm hmm.’
Unconvinced by her response, his glare lowered on her. ‘Out there, when we’re doing this, you’ve got to trust me.’
‘I do trust you,’ Flick said. ‘You’re the one who denied trusting me.’
‘Because of this, Kit. If I tell you to go somewhere, or do something, I have to know that you’ll do it. If you don’t, then I can’t rely on you, and we’ll both end up in trouble, or dead.’
‘You value my life more than your own. I don’t disobey you to be spiteful. I do it because I value your life more than mine. One of us has to be looking out for you, and you’re too busy looking out for everyone else.’
Rushe wasn’t pleased, but the elevator doors opened, bringing the conversation to a halt. Still clutching his back pocket, Flick followed her love to a grey sedan. Opening her door, he slung her inside, and then rounded to make his own entry.
‘Where are we going?’
‘We’ve got two stops to make,’ Rushe said, and Flick could tell he was still dwelling on what she’d said to him in the elevator.
Since Flick knew that receiving a street address actually wouldn’t aid her understanding, when he didn’t elaborate, she said nothing else. Rushe’s brooding extended to every aspect of his life. She recalled their previous escapades in cars and deduced that Rushe liked to use his driving time for thinking. Either that or he used it to practise ignoring her.
Recalling a past car journey that hadn’t ended with him ignoring her brought a smile to her lips, and it was at that time Rushe pulled to a stop.
‘What are you smiling at?’ he asked her.
The back door opened and after someone slid inside, it slammed shut. ‘What’s she doing here?’
Flick twisted to see over the shoulder of her chair. ‘Very nice to see you too, Eric,’ Flick said. ‘I am part of the team.’
‘The team?’ Eric said. ‘There ain’t no team.’
‘You two do know each other,’ Rushe said, merging back into traffic.
‘She didn’t...’ Eric glared at Flick. ‘You told him?’
‘I didn’t tell him anything,’ Flick said.
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