Strip Search

by Shayla Black

  "Back in Florida, just before you left, right?"

  He nodded again and turned away this time, meandering across the room.

  If Nicki had a pair of Elvis's blue suede shoes, she'd bet them that this dumb-ass woman was one of the main reasons Mark had left Florida. She'd love to say that the other woman's loss was her gain, but Nicki wasn't having a relationship with an employee--or anything other than her fledgling business or her vibrator.

  Still, she couldn't resist asking, "Want to tell me about it?" "No."

  His soft, swift reply somehow made his point more emphatically than if he'd yelled. He did not want to discuss it.

  Nicki tried to be mature and understanding. Of course the man didn't want to spill his guts. They weren't dating. In fact, she was trying, however halfheartedly, to end the fling. Mark had only known her for a few weeks. Guys weren't into sharing emotions unless forced. She shouldn't expect otherwise.

  But a part of her did. She was expected to happily take a man into her body, even if it was temporary, give of herself, and he didn't have to share anything in return except an erection and a little semen?

  "Any chance she's back in your life? Or coming back?" "No."

  Well, that made her feel better ... and worse. Based on what Mark said and the bit of digging she'd done about him, this relationship had to have ended a year ago, give or take a few weeks. He still wasn't letting anyone near him, at least not more than physically. Nicki knew she should be happy about that. Thrilled, even. Now was not a good time for her to be preoccupied by romance, even if the sex was wonderful.

  A loud electronic beep filled the room a few moments later, startling her.

  Mark, on the other hand, looked really relieved. Saved by the bell ...

  "What was that?"

  "Dinner." His voice came out in a low rumble. "It's ready. I made lasagna for you, along with salad and garlic bread. I really want you to stay so I can prove that I didn't mean to insult you."

  Lasagna. Her favorite. How had he known? Lucia? No, she wouldn't spit on Mark if he was on fire right now. Blade? The idea was so ludicrous, she nearly laughed. Had to be Zack.

  Damn. She didn't want to stay. Trying but not succeeding to mentally relegate him to the one-time-fuck category made her feel spineless, a feeling she just hated. But Mark had gone to the trouble to ferret out her favorite food and--had he made it himself?--so that she wouldn't feel hurt or slighted by the fact he'd shut her out in self-defense, and it only made Nicki want to kill the bitch who'd made him gun shy.

  Then she wanted to slap some sense into Mark.

  But he wasn't ready to hear it today. It really wasn't her business, anyway. Even if, despite everything logical, she wanted it to be. Still, she knew her stubborn streak too well. She wouldn't keep her feelings about this to herself for long.

  "Okay, I'll stay," she assured him. "It smells great. Thanks."

  The set of his shoulders visibly relaxed. Gosh, he really didn't want her mad at him. Was he interested in more than one night? If he was, it didn't matter. If he wasn't, that didn't matter, either. But she had no reason or desire to hurt his feelings. He apparently had gone to a good deal of trouble to soothe hers.

  Against her will, Nicki was touched.

  "If you want to wash up in the bathroom, I'll get everything out," he said into the awkward silence.

  Her smile felt stilted, but she flashed it at him anyway. "Beats the hell out of my fast-food salad."

  Mark hesitated. "That's what was in your bag?"

  "Along with a gooey piece of chocolate cake." She smiled sheepishly.

  He turned toward the apartment door, opened it, then returned a few moments later with her bag. "Thanks for bringing dessert!"

  Laughing, Nicki headed to the bathroom, realizing that was the first time she'd done more than snarl or cry in days. Lucia had called her surly. Even Blade had been taken aback by her sour attitude. But Mark ... Fifteen minutes with the man, and suddenly she was wearing a smile, forgetting about the fact she was still short a dancer, still had her finances in a jumble, still worried she wouldn't finish her second year in business successfully. Why did he always manage to cheer her up?

  Nicki walked into the bathroom and looked around. He'd done absolutely nothing with the place. White walls, white soap. He hadn't done anything beyond hang a blue plastic shower curtain. No pictures, no candles. He didn't plan to stay, obviously. That fact shouldn't bother her.

  But she felt the smile sliding into a flat line. A glance in the mirror reflected her own disappointment. She looked away.

  Turning the stainless tap, Nicki ran warm water and washed with the soap gracing the pedestal sink. It was only after she'd rinsed and turned off the taps that she realized he didn't have a towel handy.

  Cursing, she turned to the hook on the back of the door. Empty. Spinning the other way, she spotted the little linen closet that was a replica of the one in her bathroom. Hands dripping as she made her way across the room, Nicki opened the accordion-style door and found a towel.

  She also found Mark's "missing" Viking costume shoved underneath. She didn't have to be a member of Mensa to know that he'd hidden it on purpose, because the idea of dancing in public made him anxious.

  As she stared at the silky black shirt and the thigh-high boots, the ones that made him look like a walking wet dream, Nicki knew she should be furious with his duplicity. Absolutely pissed beyond description.

  Instead, a smile curled up the sides of her mouth. Poor guy. He really was afraid.

  "Chow is on!" he shouted.

  Drying her hands on the little towel, she set it aside, debating what to say to Mark about the costume he'd clearly stashed where he hoped no one would find it. Mentioning it now, as much as she wanted to, wasn't her best plan. They had bigger fish to fry at the moment, and it would likely turn into another confrontation. While that might be great in helping her keep their fling down to a single night and trying to forget the exact feel of him buried deep inside her, she neither needed an unhappy employee nor wanted to hurt a man who'd already been hurt before.

  Thoughts racing, Nicki wandered back to the kitchen nook. She wouldn't keep the knowledge to herself long; it wasn't in her nature. In fact, remembering his initial audition for her gave Nicki an idea ... for later.

  Back in the apartment's main area, Mark set a pan of lasagna--homemade, there was no question now--on the table, lit a candle, and turned to her with a wide, sexy smile.

  Nicki gulped. Someday, some woman was going to fall madly in love with Mark Gabriel. The kind of love she would never recover from. Nicki was so glad she wasn't that woman.

  Mark held out her chair, grabbed a bottle of wine, and sat across from her. The scents of basil and tomatoes wafted in the air. Candlelight glowed between them, as he took her plate and dished up a he-man sized portion of the layered pasta. He treated himself to a helping double that size. A leafy, vegetable-laden salad rested on the table between them. Garlic drowning in butter scented the air around them, wafting from the foil-covered sourdough in the middle of the table.

  She took one bite of lasagna ... and nearly died. Could a woman have an orgasm from sausage, cheese, noodles, and tomato sauce alone?

  Lord, Mark had charm, was great in bed, and could cook like a master chef? He was the complete package, and for a moment, Nicki resented Girls' Night Out and what a demanding mistress she was.

  "Good?" he asked.

  "You don't ask about the sex but you ask about the food?"

  He shrugged. "Guess I don't share the usual insecurities of my brethren."

  That got a laugh out of her. "Obviously. It's wonderful!"

  "Glad to hear it," he said, smiling smugly.

  "But there's a problem," she said, unable to resist toying with him and that grin.

  "Oh?"

  "Did you fail your Neanderthal lessons? Last I heard, you're not supposed to drag a woman back to your cave to feed her. Or is this the modem version?"

  "Any Neande
rthal worth his salt wants a woman well fed before he has his way with her. If he's doing his job right, she'll need the energy."

  Nicki arched a brow. "So the meal is just to butter me up for sex?"

  The idea that he'd try to use her taste buds to manipulate her should piss her off, be unappealing, at least. Nope. She liked the idea that Mark wanted her enough to pull out all the stops to impress her, even if feeling that way was on par with walking across a Manhattan street blindfolded.

  He took a sip of the heavy red wine, then set his glass aside, his hazel eyes suddenly serious. "No. It really was to apologize. If fringe benefits follow, I wouldn't turn them down. But I have no expectations."

  Mark smiled. Dimples creased the sides of his face. Only his slash of a nose and blunt, square jaw saved him from being pretty. Nicki found herself far more interested in the fringe benefits than was wise.

  Don't go there! They'd had their one night. Beyond the tumultuous end, it had been amazing, orgasmic, devastating in its pleasure. Nicki didn't think she'd ever been so sated.

  But good things weren't meant to last, especially with heartbreakers who would distract her from keeping her business afloat and growing.

  "That's probably wise," she said finally, hoping he would drop the matter there.

  He didn't.

  "You know, I understand why you think continuing to sleep together is a bad idea. I don't like it. But I understand it.

  "One of the things that first drew me to you was your independence. You do things your way. I hear you argued with your family over starting this place. You followed your vision, made yourself a success. I'm sure you sacrificed to make it happen, gave up time and money and energy that could have been spent elsewhere."

  Their knees bumped under the little table. A jolt of fire screamed its way up her leg, right to where it counted. She nearly choked on the bit of salad in her mouth. Damn it.

  "I did use most of my inheritance to open this place. I've also had to do without some autonomy since I took Uncle Pietro on as a thirty-percent owner. And I gave up the rest of the family's approval." She shrugged. "My stepmother is still in shock, I'm afraid. When Lucia told her mother she was coming to spend the summer with me, I got two hours of lecture over the phone about protecting her baby."

  Nicki didn't touch his intimation that she'd given up men and dating and hours of sex in order to open the club. Truth be told, it hadn't bothered her much. Until Mark.

  Right now, he was bothering the hell out of her. He gave her an itch she really, really wanted to scratch.

  "And you started all this at twenty-four. It took guts and intelligence and, if you don't mind me saying, it took balls."

  Dangerous pleasure suffused her, both from his words and from the tasty pasta sliding down her throat. He didn't seem to judge her for her choice of business and recognized that it hadn't been easy. Yes, Mark likely had ulterior motives for his pretty speech that involved parting her from her clothes, but she liked the words all the same. At least he knew her better than to try to seduce her by saying she was pretty or had a nice rack.

  "I couldn't go from party to party like my mother. I wanted to do something. But I'm not like my genius sister. I barely finished high school. After my upbringing, the only thing I could be a professor of was partying. So I used it. I knew people in New York, Paris, and London. I used the connections to come up with a place I thought would cater to women's fantasies. So, here we are."

  "You've done a great job. Not every woman has the vision and the determination to make something like this happen. I love my sister to death, but Kerry would never do this. She's a helper and a pleaser. She'll have her teaching certificate soon, and it will be the perfect job for her."

  Nicki heard the love in his voice, and she was envious. Not in the way that she might be jealous of another lover. Instead, she suspected Mark would never share his feelings as completely with anyone else as he did with his beloved sister. Women like Nicki ... he would fuck her if she let him. He might even respect her determination and independence to a degree and like her a little.

  He would never love her.

  The sadness that elicited all but drowned out the voice in her head that said it didn't matter. She knew it didn't, not in the long run. But tonight, that fact bothered her for some reason.

  "I often wished growing up that I was more like your sister. Forging your own path just tends to piss everyone else off."

  Hoping the subject--and the mood--would pass, Nicki drowned her odd sorrow in a swallow of the rich, dry wine and another bite of lasagna. She looked down to find her plate nearly empty.

  "I'm sure it does. Do you ever bend?"

  "Not easily," she admitted. "I'm stubborn. Growing up, my mother often called me Mule."

  "Now I know why I find you such a delicious challenge." He flashed her his million-megawatt grin.

  Nicki nearly swallowed her tongue.

  "Don't try to tame me or conquer me--or whatever verb it is that runs through a Neanderthal's head."

  His knee brushed hers again, and she started, first at the contact. Then at the blaze that zipped right up her leg once more, to deepen the ache between her thighs.

  This was not good. Not good at all.

  Mark's smile merely widened. "Baby, that's like asking me not to remember you naked and writhing underneath me. Impossible."

  "Try to forget. It's not going to happen again."

  His hazel eyes sparkled, as if he relished the thought of making her eat her words. Apparently, Mark liked being challenged. Lucky her. Nicki wished she'd known that before she opened her big mouth.

  "Whatever you say," he answered in a breezy voice that held just a hint of laughter.

  Clearly, he didn't believe she had the willpower to resist him. Unfortunately, Nicki wasn't sure she did, either.

  The Saturday night crowd over Memorial Day weekend had been a terror. Mark swore he'd never seen so many drunk women under one roof in his life. While that might be a frat boy's fantasy, it had become Mark's nightmare. His feet hurt from waiting tables all night, and his ass hurt from being pinched so much.

  But finally, they'd shut the doors to Girls' Night Out. Now the fun stuff began--cleanup.

  Mark began picking up empty cocktail glasses and lipstick-smeared napkins from the tables. Around him, some of the others did the same. One of the dancers, Josh, left immediately after closing, one hand lifted in a halfhearted wave, the other clutching his stomach. Not twenty minutes later, another dancer, Ricky, did the same. Mark had to wonder how much of it was a stomach bug and how much of it had to do with the fact Vegas was one huge party during Memorial Day weekend.

  Behind him, Mark heard Nicki enter the main room of the club from the door behind the bar and greet the bartenders. Against his will, he turned to stare. A short red dress hugged the curve of her breasts and hips, lay against her flat belly, dipped low to show downy cleavage. A pair of black heeled sandals graced her feet, complete with laces that wound around her ankles.

  A glance--that was all it took for Nicki to have him standing at attention. Damn it.

  Prying his eyes away, he wiped off nearby tables and willed his erection away. Why her? Why, even knowing that she'd most likely deceived him, that she'd probably whored herself to assist in a crime, did he want her so bad he clutched a chair in a white-knuckled grip?

  There was only one answer: He was a stupid bastard. All of her chatter at his place last night about putting an end to their night together because he was a distraction? Bullshit. How could he be so desired one minute, then be in the way the next? None of it added up, not her excuse, not her behavior ... not his insane need to bury himself inside her and pound away until she confessed and swore not to do it again. Until she promised not to lie to him anymore.

  Yeah, the lying bothered him most. Mark winced. Her deception actually hurt, if he was entirely honest. For the first time since Tiffany, he'd wanted something besides a female body to help him relieve the tension. He'd wan
ted Nicki's mind and her laughter. He'd wanted to make her smile.

  And she'd probably been playing him.

  Moving to another table, Mark cleared away the glasses, then wiped the surface down.

  Unable to resist, he snuck another peek at Nicki. And caught her staring. For an instant, their gazes locked, and Mark felt the connection like a punch to the solar plexus. Nicki sucked in a breath, and her gaze skittered away.

  Damn, he wished they were alone. It was probably for the best that they weren't. No telling how many milliseconds before his feigned indifference would crumble. He might even set a new world record for undressing and begging.

  Several dancers finished putting away their equipment and signed out, waving as they went. Zack ran past.

  "My grandfather has fallen--"

  "Go," Nicki told him instantly.

  Zack squeezed her shoulder in thanks, then left.

  Mark shook his head. Not only did she look good, but she clearly wasn't all bad on the inside. He knew she loved her sister. She seemed to care about Zack's issues with his grandfather. Though she ran a tight ship, she did her best to make the people who worked here feel valued--except him.

  Maybe he just had a KICK ME sign on his back.

  Both of the bartenders locked up and headed out, followed by the waitstaff. Other than Lucia, he and Nicki were alone.

  After glaring a dagger or two his way, Nicki's sister said, "I'm off to bed. Lots of research to do tomorrow. I want to wrap up early in case my friend Ashley can visit in a few weeks. You don't mind, do you?"

  Before Nicki could say a word, Bocelli breezed in the side door, dressed head to toe in black.

  He looked like the GQ model of the thug underworld, sporting a hundred dollar haircut, two days' growth on his jaw, and a black leather jacket to ward off the desert wind. And all that money had come from somewhere, starting right between Mark's ex-wife's thighs.

  When the asshole spotted Nicki, his strut became a stride as he crossed the room.

  Much to Mark's satisfaction, Nicki turned her back to the jackass. Maybe there was trouble in paradise ...