Four Seconds to Lose (22 page)

With one hand lifting to curl around the back of my neck, Cain’s head dips to seal his mouth over mine. There’s no hesitation, there’s no doubt. There’s certainly no shyness, his tongue coaxing my lips apart and then diving in to claim my mouth as if it belongs to him already, skillfully stroking in a way that makes my knees weak and a low moan rumble in my throat.

It takes a few seconds for my shocked brain to fully grasp what’s happening but my willingness is immediate when I do, falling into him, my hands crawling up his stomach and chest—relishing every hard ridge that I’ve envisioned touching for weeks. He deepens the kiss, his arms pulling me tight to his body, trapping my hand over the spot on his chest where his heart rests. I feel it beating more wildly than my own and I marvel that I may be doing that to him.

His lips steal my breath completely, kissing me with demanding thirst, as if he’s been waiting forever to do this and he’ll be waiting forever to do it again. But I can’t ignore the tremble in his body, this close to him.

Cain is shaking.

This game we’ve been playing doesn’t feel like a game anymore and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Just as suddenly, he breaks free of me.

chapter nineteen

■ ■ ■

CAIN

“Cain!” Nate’s fist pounds on the steel door of my office so hard that the picture frame hanging on the inside crashes to the ground. Normally I have a hard time hearing anything because the walls aren’t soundproofed and the music from the club resonates loudly. But I hear the unnatural shrillness to his natural boom and it sets off alarms.

Sprinting to unlock the door—I always lock it when the safe is open—I meet Nate’s ashen face, his eyes wide, as he stares down at the ground, mumbling, “I tried to get here. It all just happened so fast.”

I follow his gaze.

And I stop breathing.

Penny’s crumpled, frail body sits in a heap, facedown. I can see the gaping gash along the back of her head, the blood flow darkening her blond hair.

The blood trail starting five feet down the hall tells me that she managed to pull herself a fair distance. And the way her hand lays, stretched out toward my door . . . I see the streak of blood along the bottom half of the steel.

Finger smears.

Reaching.

The smudges of blood around my handle.

I can’t keep my hands off of her.

The second I saw Charlie’s face—her eyes shut tightly against the coming blow from her attacker—my fear exploded.

It could have happened. Again.

“Cain, are you all right?” Charlie’s voice brings me back to reality, a sweet song to remind me that she is not Penny. She is not dead. She is right here, in front of me, my forehead pressed against hers as I grip her arms, as I struggle to calm my ragged breath.

I just kissed her.

I
needed
to do it. I
needed
to be close to her, to feel her heat, her life, against me. And now, as I focus on that beautiful face so close to mine, her soft pants caressing my skin, her ever-perceptive eyes watching me with unguarded apprehension, I’m fighting myself to keep from doing it again.

No. Not in a fucking V.I.P. room, where hundred of guys have gotten off for a nominal fee, after she’s just been attacked, you asshole!

I grit my teeth against the consuming urge but I know that if I remain this close, my self-control will lose. So, I pull away. Just far enough that I can get a good look at her face, my hands cupping her chin in a gentle grasp. “Where are you hurt?”

“Just my cheek.” A tiny scowl flashes over her face, as if remembering the pain, “and my scalp, when he pulled my hair like a fucking little girl.”

I slip my hand around to the back of her skull—through her silky hair that is
not
matted in blood because she’s not Penny, I remind myself—and let my fingers rub gently. Soothingly.

She closes her eyes as her lips fall apart, clearly enjoying the attention, and I yet again fight the urge to bend down and kiss that wide mouth. I’ve been watching her on the stage for weeks, thinking about her nonstop, telling myself a thousand different ways that
this
can’t happen.

It almost doesn’t seem real.

“Better?”

“Hmm . . .” Her hand reaches up to steal mine from where it rests on the back of her head, pulling it down to sit laced within her fingers. I don’t know that I’ve ever held a woman’s hand like this. It’s making my nerves short-circuit. I wonder if she feels it too, or if it’s just me. Vibrant eyes open to skate over my features, settling on my mouth. “You’re shaking.”

She’s right. I
am
shaking. I hadn’t even noticed.

I exhale deeply, trying to regulate my pounding heart. We’re standing so close that I wonder if she can sense it. “When I came in and saw that guy ready to hit you—” My voice cuts off with a crack. “It reminded me of someone. Of something that happened, years ago.”

Charlie’s cool fingers crawl over my neck, tracing the letters of my tattoo, as if showing her understanding without uttering a word.

Keeping my eyes locked on her I ask cautiously, “Who was he, Charlie?” I try to keep the bitterness from my voice but it’s impossible. Even thinking about the bald fucker makes my fists clench. As happy as I am here with Charlie, a small part of me wants to run out to the parking lot to cripple him. I know Nate will likely rough him up a bit in warning, but it’s not enough.

Her hand finds its way to my cheek, her delicate touch smoothing over my light stubble. I instinctively turn in toward it, letting her fingers graze over my mouth. “I told you, he thought I was someone else,” she purrs, feigning disinterest. But by the sudden tensing in her body, I know it’s all an act. She leans in to rest her cheek against my chest, snaking her arms around my waist, and I selfishly accept the affection, wrapping my arms tightly around her warm, strong body once again, while I let my chin rest on top of her head.

And I marvel at how fast things can change. Ten minutes ago, my cock was throbbing as I watched Charlie’s perfect body torment me onstage, wondering what the hell I would say to her tonight. Wondering if there was anything more to this than an irrepressible physical attraction.

Three minutes ago, I watched someone try to break that same perfect body and the ground opened up beneath me, reminding me how easily I could lose my chance to find out.

And in just seconds, I’m sure that something more profound than strip shows and physical attraction is beginning to develop between us.

In seconds.

I shouldn’t have waited this long. I should have swept her off her feet when she walked through my door. Every second since then, I’ve been losing precious time and possibilities, repeating the mistakes of my past. Nate is right. I can’t change anything that’s happened. I can only learn from it.

But what if this is nothing more than a game for Charlie? I know she’s lying to me about that guy. The only reason I even found out she was in there was because Jeff—one of the bouncers—said something about her going in over the earpiece and Nate caught it.

I thought I was walking into a completely different scene when I barged through that door and yet I barged in anyway, like a jealous freak, ready to scream at her for toying with me the way she has. A part of me is relieved by what I found instead. Knowing that makes me nauseous.

So what the fuck should I do now? Pushing her to tell me who that guy really is won’t get me anywhere. I sense that by the way she’s acting. But I also can’t have her under a spotlight, having more guys “mistake her” for someone else.

Maybe that’s why the command slips out. “You’re not going up on that stage again for a while.” I hear the tone—the possessive, controlling one that I hate—creep into my words and I immediately recognize that command for what it
really
is: an excuse to stop her from stripping.

Her arms loosen their hold of my waist as she starts to pull away. “I need the money, Cain.” Her refusal sounds half-hearted, as if she’s saying it because she feels she has to.

I can’t say I’m not fucking ecstatic about that. I want her to hate the stage and hate stripping.

For anyone but me, that is.

Pushing a strand of hair that’s fallen across her forehead back, I don’t hesitate to offer, “I’ve got some administrative stuff around here you can help me with. It’s easy and I’ll pay you the same. And you’ll be with me.”

Nodding slowly as if processing that possibility, she murmurs, “I guess that will work . . .” In her calculating eyes, I catch a flicker of softness. Relief? “For how long?”

“We’ll see.”
Yeah, we’ll see, all right . . .
My gaze can’t help from drifting down to the two firm mounds pressed up against my rib cage. If I have my way, this body will never see the stage again. I want these long, muscular limbs, and these perfect tits, and this soft, silky skin to be for my eyes only. I want all of her to myself . . .

A light gasp escapes her lips. Her big brown irises begin to sparkle as she looks up at me and I realize just how close she’s standing to me. By the ghost of a smile touching her lips, she felt that movement.

Exhaling slowly and heavily, I move my hands to grip her waist and force myself to step away from her before this goes from zero to naked in sixty seconds. There’s wasting time and then there’s wasting the first time. Taking Charlie in one of my V.I.P. rooms right now would be just wrong. “Come.” I loop my arm around her waist and pull her close to me. “Let’s ice that cheek.”

Charlie remains quiet as I lead her into my office. In fact, she hasn’t said a word aside from thanking Ginger, who—after forcing details out of Ben—ran to us just outside the hall to the private rooms with a bag of ice.

Now she suddenly seems nervous. Or unsure of how to act around me.

That makes two of us.

I pull up a chair and motion for her to sit. Leaning back against my desk in front of her, I pull the chair forward until her bare legs—looking long and sexy in that tiny skirt—butt up against the side of my thigh. Practically, it will allow me to hold the ice against her cheek for her. Greedily, I need to touch her. The fact that she doesn’t shift away tells me she’s okay with that.

The angry red mark will likely be a bruise in a few days, but nothing to damage that gorgeous doll face of hers. Charlie is perfection. She has a face I could lose myself in. And I do right now, settling my gaze on her lush mouth. I can’t help myself from dragging the pad of my thumb along her bottom lip. Her lips are so much softer than I had even imagined.

Glossy eyes look up at me, waiting expectantly. And I still my hand. I don’t know where to go next. What’s right? What do I allow to happen? Do I just let things happen? Do I unload my past on her as I did on Penny, so she knows the kind of man she’s getting involved with, the kind of violence I’ve seen, the kind of company I’ve kept?

Or perhaps Nate is right. Should any of that matter? It matters to me, but will it matter to her? I know Charlie’s coming with her own bag of secrets. But, frankly, as long as she’s not willfully doing something immoral, I don’t give a shit what she’s done. I just want to help her get away from it.

She lifts her hand to press mine against her mouth tightly.

Are we really doing this?

“I don’t know how to do this, Charlie,” I say, barely above a whisper, hoping she understands me. “I’ve never done . . .
this
.”

After a long pause, her lips tickle my skin as she whispers, “I think you’re doing just fine.”

I feel my lip curl up in a smile, her attempts to build my confidence charming. I’m learning quickly about Charlie and the more I learn, the more I like. She doesn’t ask a lot of questions and yet she always seems to know what to say.

She drops my hand, allowing me to tend to her cheek with the ice again. “Are you sure you want me doing office stuff for you?” she asks. “I have no experience.” She squeezes her eyes shut, adding in a rush, “With office stuff. I have lots of other experience.” Then her cheeks explode with color.

It’s such a rare sight to see Charlie flustered that I can’t help but chuckle, which makes her cheeks burn brighter and a giggle escape her lips. And that giggle is music to my ears.

Parroting her earlier words, I tease, “I think you’ll do just fine.”
I, on the other hand, trying to keep my hands off of you while you’re in my office, will not.
“How about you come in at four tomorrow afternoon?”

She smiles and dips her head in assent. “Charlie Rourke, administrative assistant, at your service.”

Hmm . . . I like the sound of that
. “You know I’m looking for a female manager, right?”

“To do what, exactly?”

I shrug. “To help me manage this place. It’s a lot to do on my own.”

She bobs her head slowly as if considering it.

“Think about it.” Lifting the ice bag off her, I inspect her cheek. If I look hard enough, I can see where his knuckles made contact.
If I ever see that guy again . . .
My fists clench in anticipation. “Does it hurt?”

She waves her hand dismissively. “It’s just a bruise. Nothing’s broken. Trust me, I’ve had
plenty
of them.”

“Your father?”
Fuck.
Did I just ask that out loud?
I hold my breath, hoping Charlie missed it.

“No, from . . .” She pauses, her brow furrowing deeply. “My father?” She swallows. “What do you mean?”

Ah, crap
. What is it about Charlie that makes me say stupid shit? I never say stupid shit! Quickly trying to cover my tracks, I clear my throat and say, “Nothing. I mean, a lot of girls working here have had abusive fathers and I just assumed—”

“Cain.” The edge in her tone is unmistakable. It’s sharp with equal parts wariness and panic. She adjusts her body so that her legs no longer touch mine and her back is rigid. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Charlie is too damn perceptive. No one but Storm and Nate knows about John and how I have him basically burglarize my employees’ private lives. Now Charlie’s going to know because, though I’ve never done this relationship thing before, I’m smart enough to realize that it won’t work by lying to someone’s face.