He shuffled to face me when he rekindled the fire and I took in the way his muscles bulged every time he moved his arm. Most men I knew would actually have to tense and flex. His arms just did it naturally.
There was no way he was single with a body like that. Or, maybe he was and the kind of guy who kept himself open so he could have all the women at his beck and call. I was pretty sure he could choose whichever and it would be fine.
“Jia?” He said my name like he’d asked me something previously.
Too busy checking him out and ogling him, I hadn’t heard anything.
I widened my eyes and was grateful for the cover of darkness to hide the blush that crept up my cheeks.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear,” I confessed. I couldn’t even think up some lie or excuse on the spot to say.
He smiled at me and that sucked me in too. “You mentioned camping in Italy. I was asking if you did that a lot.”
“Oh, not so much and more when I was a kid.”
“Before the heels?” he teased.
“Before the heels.”
“Well you seem more like an indoor girl.”
I frowned. “What? I’m here aren’t I? And I haven’t complained once about being outside.”
“This is hardly outside, we’re just sitting by the river.” He chuckled.
“Do you want me to go camping with you?”
He looked at me and didn’t answer.
“Well?”
“Not sure how to answer that.”
“It was a yes or no question,” I pointed out.
“Well, I’m pretty sure if I say yes and do it, it would be one sure way to get my dick chopped off.”
I burst out laughing.
“What? You think it’s funny? Me with no dick… Jesus.”
“Oh my God, just stop talking.” I gasped trying to contain my laughter. Once I had I swallowed hard. “What on earth would make you think that?”
“Well your Pa isn’t exactly St. Peter so I’m gonna have to go with a no on the camping, or anything overnight related.”
We were joking around but it wasn’t exactly a joke, and a little bubble of disappointment fluttered into the pit of my stomach at the confirmation that there would be no camping or anything overnight related.
I looked at him and gave him a pointed stare. “I’m not a child you know. I don’t have to get my father’s approval for everything.”
“And there’s that fiery personality of yours again that could get you in trouble.” His eyes in the flicker of the flames looked darker but I could sense the desire. It reminded me of that night at the club.
“What now?” he prodded. “You tend to stare at me a lot and I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking of the massive coincidence of seeing you at the club. It’s the only thing that doesn’t fit.”
“Why doesn’t it fit?”
“Everything so far has been about my father, but not that. He wasn’t at the club.”
“No, he was not.”
“So, are you going to tell me it was a coincidence. Seeing me there?”
He gazed at me and gave me that sexy half smile that made my nerves scatter.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Did you follow me?” I asked because that was the obvious question.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe again? Why would you follow me? It wasn’t me you were working for.”
“Curiosity.”
My focus went straight to his lips as he leaned closer and said that.
“You watched me that night.” The same way he was watching me now.
“You weren’t exactly hard to miss. Is that the way you dance for all the guys you flirt with?”
I shook my head. “Nope, just the ones I like.”
My inner desire had made a return despite the shit from this morning. It was him. He brought it out of me no matter how forward I sounded.
He shook his head. “No Jia, you shouldn’t like me.”
“Because you don’t like me?” I wouldn’t ask a question like that if I didn’t already know the answer and I wouldn’t ask it if I thought he might tell me he didn’t.
“Never said that.”
“You seemed to like me well enough when you watched me dance. Unless you got in trouble with your girlfriend later for the obviously sexual way you stared at me.”
He chuckled and focused on me, his eyes seemed sharper. “Wow, I’m not sure if I should be impressed with your over confidence or thrown.”
“It’s not confidence, it’s truth. Except the girlfriend part. I don’t know if that’s true yet.”
“No, I don’t have a girlfriend, Jia,” he stated in a matter of fact tone. “That’s the question isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I can’t be blamed for my creativity.”
“No you cannot.”
I straightened up and stared at him. In the spirit of forgetting the shit from today I homed in on my inner self. Who knew what tomorrow would bring or what I’d be going home to? The way things looked it could be a human girl sized cage just for me.
Maybe Pa would lock me inside and I’d never see anyone again.
So right now I didn’t care if I was forward.
“What were you thinking when you looked at me? Back at the club I mean. It was the only time over the space of days that you’ve seen me when I was me.”
Unlike the camping question he seemed to be thinking a lot more carefully about his answer.
“I thought a lot that night,” he replied.
“Tell me one thing.”
Again he stared, holding my gaze and capturing my attention. “I …wanted to touch you.”
The declaration stilled my heart and drew me in to the allure of him even more. It was the first sign he’d given away of any sort of interest in me.
“You … you can touch me,” I told him.
We just stared at each other.
He was the first guy I’d been around that didn’t hit on me. The first guy I’d been around that I wanted to hit on me and hadn’t.
“I shouldn’t touch you Jia.” He sounded like he was saying that more to himself than to me.
“Why not? You said you wanted to.”
“I want to, but that doesn’t mean I should.”
“Because you’re off limits.” I thought I’d lighten the tension that had filtered into the space between us.
“No… because you’re off limits.”
It was good to hear that because I figured the only person who made me off limits was me.
We were sitting close, but I moved closer until I was right next to him.
Right next to him so that the bare skin of my thigh brushed his jeans.
His eyes practically drank me up as I did so. His gaze raked boldly over my body from my eyes, then down to my breasts, my hips and down my legs.
Since he wasn’t off limits and I wanted to touch him too, I decided I’d make the first move.
I pressed my hand to the hard muscle of his chest. Hard like rock, and solid like it too. The skin never even gave under the weight of my palms.
Guiding my hand over his t-shirt, I felt the rigid planes, peaks and valleys.
When I touched the trace of his bare skin in the deep v of the shirt, he cupped my face and I smiled.
I met his gaze and saw the longing in his eyes. I was moving to kiss him even before he moved to me.
When our lips met in the middle, a blast of heat washed over my skin, sweeping through my soul. It started with the brush of his lips and flushed over my body in a full sweep that made all my nerves tingle from the inside out.
I moaned into the hot, wet kiss he gave me and he took advantage of the moment to sweep his delicious tongue into my mouth and smooth his hand to the back of my head, angling me so he could kiss me harder.
Harder and deeper, giving me a taste of him and luring me to accept the invitation to get lost in him. I took it. I took the lure and the invite and rode t
he flames of emotion that coursed through my body into my soul.
I’d never felt such want and desire, not from anyone. It beckoned me to take more so when the kiss turned hungry, I found myself tugging on his shirt in a desperate need for him to take me.
Claim me the way he claimed my mouth. I wanted to feel it all over my body. Everywhere.
His hand moved down my neck, down my shoulder and cupped my right breast. The touch made me wet instantly and intensified the ache for him to touch me everywhere.
Through the silk fabric of my camisole top he ran his finger over the taut peak of my nipple while he caressed my breast with his palm.
I pressed into his hand, arching into the tender, yet needy touch, savoring and enjoying him touching me in such an intimate way.
Then he pulled away from my lips and released me, dropping his hand.
“It’s okay, you can touch me,” I assured him when I noticed the worry in his eyes.
“I can’t,” he answered breathlessly. He ran a hand over his beard and stood up.
“Why?”
“Jia, I should take you home now.” His eyes became guarded and he resumed that reserved look, as if the last few minutes had never happened.
I stood up too, feeling foolish. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing… I just can’t.”
Before I could say another word he put out the fire, extinguishing the break I’d had in my time spent with him along with it and the doom came rushing back on me.
Chapter 12
Xander
* * *
I was such an idiot sometimes.
Sometimes I got myself in all manner of shit because I didn’t think first, or at all.
And, here was the fruit of my lack of thought. Reality.
My good friend reality was always there, knocking on the door.
We drove to her place in silence and I swear to God when I pulled up at her house and saw the men waiting outside I nearly, very nearly, continued driving past.
Like fuck, I very nearly did and I worried what I was bringing her back to.
It was late too, so not good, but it would have been much later if I’d lost my mind by the lake and taken her on her hands and knees like instinct told me to.
I wouldn’t have taken her to her home if that had happened. No way.
Right now though, it felt like a bad idea regardless of what had happened between us.
I was about to get out of the car when I pulled up but she got out and Armand came and took her, giving me a hard stare as he took hold of her arm.
She didn’t look back to me. I never expected her to because I’d shot her down the way I did.
“You can go now,” Vinny barked. He came up to my car and fisted the door.
Idiot. One of the worst things about this stupid job was having to put up with the shit.
If I didn’t have to, I would have gotten out of the car and rammed his face down his fucking throat. These guys – all of them – were complete pricks. Lucky for me I was a prick too. Just one who had to wait.
As soon as I drove off the phone rang on the dashboard.
Giovanni again.
I answered.
“Is she okay?” he asked. His voice seemed calmer now than earlier when he was barking at me.
“No,” I replied.
“You’ve been gone all day. Did something happen between you two?”
I had to laugh. This guy was something else. He really was. “You strike her down so hard it leaves a mark and you’re worried I defiled your daughter. Really?”
“Did you?” he asked, ignoring the rest of my comment.
“No,” I answered flat and held off saying that I wanted to and enjoyed the good feel I had of her breasts.
That fucking asshole. I nearly blew this mission out of the water when I saw him hit her. If so much hadn’t been at stake I would have. If I’d had some damn idea about where he was keeping the fucking prints I would have given him a taste of his own medicine and knocked him back. No matter that the man was twenty years older than me and I was twice his size, he would have deserved it.
“What did she say about me?” he asked. “She upset with me?”
“Look Giovanni, you haven’t exactly shared much with me but asking me if your daughter is upset with you because you hit her is very stupid. What do you think the answer is?”
“Fuck, Xander, I know what the fucking answer is. Of course she’d be upset with me, but I was hoping you’d share more of what she might have said.”
“There is nothing to share. I suggest you ask her yourself if you want to talk.”
He sighed. “There are things I need to be mindful of and Jia needs to know I live in a dangerous world. I rule with a heavy hand but be assured it’s with love.”
Now it was my turn to assert my authority. “Giovanni, I don’t give a shit what type of hand you rule with, if you use that hand on her again I’ll cut it off.”
I actually meant that.
He gave me a crude laugh. “You know what kid, you have some balls, but I’m gonna tell you I’d allow you to cut my hand off because I should never have hit her.”
Good for him to come to that conclusion without me having to guide him to it.
“No you shouldn’t have.”
“Goodnight Mr. Cage. Make sure you’re not late for work tomorrow.”
He hung up and I sped up down the road, pushing my car twenty miles faster than the speed limit. I wanted to get back as quickly as I could.
Wes was waiting for me. He looked worried.
“Man where the fuck were you?” he asked.
“Don’t ask.” I just wanted to roll into bed.
However when Ethan stepped out from the sitting room, I knew bed might be a long way away.
“Jesus Ethan. It’s been a long day. I can’t tonight.”
Ethan held up his hands. “Just come to check in. This is an off the record visit. I won’t even stay long.”
I nodded. That seemed okay.
“I ordered pizza,” Wes chimed in with a smile. “It should be here in about ten minutes.”
Since I hadn’t eaten all day pizza sounded good.
It would help to get the taste of temptation out of my mouth. The taste of Jia.
Fuck, I really was such an idiot.
I didn’t know how I’d gone from my self-caution not to go there with her to filling my palm with her breasts and wondering what her nipples would taste like, then very nearly finding out.
I just about lost it when she told me it was okay to touch her.
God, did I ever want to.
The pizza came and we ate. Wes talked his usual shit then got on the phone to talk to a woman. It left me with Ethan and suddenly it was like I was transported back to the good old days.
This felt like back then— the point in my life when I’d reached the destination that direction guided me.
I was happy working in the unit. It felt like I was in my element for the first time in my life.
“You really look like you had a bad day,” Ethan stated.
“It was just difficult.” Difficult for many reasons.
I didn’t want to get close to Jia. It wasn’t fair. It was just that the more time I spent with her, the more I saw that desperation.
Today was filled with it.
She wasn’t like her father. Nothing like him. However that didn’t give me a hall pass to shake the nest.
“This whole mission is difficult, Xander.”
“And the days are going by. I’m none the wiser about where the prints are. And something is up with Giovanni. I mean something more. That attack on his men has him riled up real bad and he’s taking it out on his daughter.”
That was what it was. He was worried for her safety and worried he couldn’t control her.
“Remember he has a lot to lose if shit goes down. I’ve been thinking, based on what you said yesterday about the Castle and the vaults, it does seem like it could be a pla
ce where he’d keep the prints.”
“You think so?”
“Yes.” Ethan nodded. “Under his nose. There’s no point having them someplace far away if he’s got all the security he could ever have right there at the hotel. It’s perfect for it. What got me thinking is what you said about him taking a year to show his guys his secrets and you getting access straight away. It suggests he has something worth protecting.”
I straightened up and contemplated it. It seemed plausible.
“I’m gonna focus there then.” It was good to know that my initial assumption might be right. Over the last few days I’d been watching everyone’s movements. Someone was always around the Castle area. “The secrets are in the vaults sounds like the kind of place they might be.”
“If you find it Xander…” He paused. “Let’s just say it would be really good.”
“It would be. Game over.”
Game over for the mission, but not for everything else.
Jia…
I really shouldn’t have kissed her.
It made me feel for her and I wondered how things would play out.
There she was.
Like a breath of fresh air she walked into the conference room and I swore all eyes diverted to her.
Every man stopped what he was doing, stopped mid-conversation no matter how serious the discussion was. They all looked at her.
Dressed in a long gold gown tonight, the blond looked like she’d just stepped out of a dream. The dress hugged her body, caressing her the way I wanted to, like the taste I had last night.
It was a sleeveless dress that made a perfect show of her fully rounded breasts, the deep curve of her waistline and the taper of her slim hips.
With her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail she commanded attention to her high exotic cheekbones and those eyes she’d done in a smoky shadow.
She came in with Giovanni, walking beside him, clearly doing as she was told. He looked to me and cut me a hard stare. I hadn’t seen him all day.
Hadn’t seen her either and I was hoping I wouldn’t see her tonight.
Not when I’d been told they were going to be hosting one of the high stakes poker games I’d only been informed about yesterday.
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