“Right in there is fine.” Dani frowned as Jimmy carefully maneuvered the box of top-shelf liquors into place. He’d been backing the bars throughout the club for two solid weeks, looking more and more haggard every time she’d seen him. But the club was blessedly quiet tonight—which wasn’t surprising. Club Noir was hardly the place you’d choose to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your one and only. It was like taking your prize roadster to a car show; there was way too much bodywork and shiny paint on display here to make anyone feel comfortable.
Which made her doubly pissed off to see Jimmy on the floor tonight. “How long is your shift, anyway?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Pulled a double.”
“Are you nuts? No. You’re not leaving Katie home with a freaking baby on Valentine’s night. I don’t care how bad you need the money.” Dani looked around for Lou. The man could be a bastard, but he was a romantic bastard. And surely he owed her something. She’d been running enough side jobs for him lately to finance a third-world country. She spotted him at the bar on the second tier and waved. He cheerfully waved back.
Asshat.
She turned back to Jimmy and took in his long face, his slumped shoulders. They’d been dancing around this conversation for the last few weeks, but enough was enough. “C’mon, bro,” she said, and his flinch at the change in her voice was telling. “What’s going on?”
He blew out a long breath, but he didn’t speak right away. When he did, his voice was a little too careful, a little too measured. “I sort of ran into some trouble. Expensive trouble. Nothing I can’t handle, and nothing you have to worry about.”
Dani felt herself go cold inside, watching Jimmy lie. She didn’t know what he was holding back from her, but it had to be bad for him to even make the attempt. Trouble. She’d been with him since he was a six-year-old crybaby, all arms and legs and mouth, and he’d been lousy at lying all the way back then. He hadn’t gotten any better. But she had to know the worst of it. “Drugs?” she asked. “You throwing all your money away on drugs? And now you got bills you can’t pay, maybe people you can’t pay?”
His mouth twisted into a grimace, and his face shuttered a little. “That’s one way of putting it, I guess.”
“Ahh, shit.” Dani shook her head, her mind going a mile a minute. “Why didn’t you tell me this up front? And is that all of it—you know, never mind.” She cut herself off, seeing his face turn mutinous. “We’ll get you covered, but tonight you need to get home to your freaking wife. No excuses.” She finally caught Lou’s glance, and speared him with a look. “You wait here for a minute. If someone comes up and wants something more complicated than a beer, tell them I’ll be right back.”
“Well, cool.” Jimmy looked up with a sudden, unexpected smile at the offer, glancing around the bar like his six-year-old former self again. “I’m a bartender!”
“You’re a menace. Don’t break anything.”
She slid out from behind the bar and stalked toward Lou. There was no doubt in her mind that her boss knew about Jimmy’s problems, and that had been why he’d given Jimmy a job on pretty much zero notice. Lou knew everything. And he knew how to turn it to his advantage, too.
The place was only about half-full tonight, but Dani still caught herself looking into the shadows, searching for things—people—that weren’t there. So stupid. But hey, at least she was only doing it once every few hours at this point, so that showed she hadn’t completely lost her head over Silver Spoon. Just a little bit of her free time.
Despite his intensity that night in his office, Rand Sterling Winston IV had not reached out to her after her arrest. He hadn’t called, he hadn’t trailed her—and she knew better than to ask Erin if he’d shown up at the gallery. Like that information wouldn’t have come up over coffee already. And that was all just fine with her. Rand had had his fun with her, and she’d enjoyed herself as well. She’d conned him—twice—and that was all she could ask from anyone. Besides, it wasn’t like she hadn’t stayed busy in the meantime. Between the club and Lou’s odd jobs, she’d barely had time to sleep.
Never mind the kind of dreams she had when she did finally catch some shut-eye.
But it was absolutely getting better. It’d been two weeks, and the weather had turned even uglier, heading into the last hard, six-week stretch of pain before April arrived with at least the promise of spring, even if the temperatures outside didn’t quite sustain that hope. Things were good with Erin and Zander, her military man, in the brownstone, from what she could tell. In fact, all the domestic bliss was making Dani a little itchy to move. Maybe it was finally time to cut her ties with Boston and head south. Or west. Hell, just about anywhere but farther north. Boston winters were bad enough, thank you. She didn’t have a ton of money, but she had enough to get lost.
She just needed to get Jimmy squared away first.
Dani reached Lou and leaned against a nearby booth top while he finished his conversation with a couple of regulars, their eyes only slightly coked-up tonight. From Lou’s broad smile, he wasn’t surprised to see her, and there was nothing he liked more than being asked for a favor. Because paybacks for him were always sweet.
“I need you to give Jimmy the rest of the night off,” Dani said, once her boss finally got up and ambled over to her. “It’s Valentine’s Day—night, whatever—and he’s got a wife and baby.”
Lou spread his hands. “He wanted to work!”
“And we’re dead in the water. I can stock my own chardonnay, Lou. You really need him to pull a double?”
“If he doesn’t pull it, then you need to.”
Dani narrowed her gaze at him. “To make sure we don’t run out of alcohol at two A.M. on the slowest night of the year? You’re kidding me, right?”
“Maybe I have other jobs that have to get done, yeah? Maybe your second shift doesn’t need to be here, exactly.”
“You want me to do a job on Valentine’s night? I doubt it.” She sighed, knowing that Lou hadn’t deliberately conned Jimmy into working a twofer just to get her into a situation where she’d feel beholden to him. And yet. “Whatya need done, Lou? And seriously, there’s no way you need it done tonight, whatever it is.”
He shrugged. “Tonight, tomorrow, whatever. Just don’t wait too long. It’s an easy job, empty house. Brownstone on Charles Street. Jewelry kept out practically on display, from what I hear. No safe.”
“Uh-huh. How do you know it’s empty?”
“Because, as you’ve so ably pointed out, it’s Valentine’s Day, sweetheart. Couple’s gone for the week to somewhere that ain’t here.”
“And they left their jewelry behind? Seems unlikely.”
“Trust me, if they miss anything—and they won’t, because you’re good at your work—they’ve got insurance. No babies are gonna starve on this deal.”
Lou’s words hit a little too close to home, and Dani instantly thought of Jimmy’s little one, waiting for her daddy to come home. She hadn’t seen the baby in a few months, but they didn’t stay tiny for long. “Okay, I’ll do it. Not tonight, though. Even I have feelings.”
“You got all week, babe.” Lou’s smile was broad. “Kind of a swank neighborhood. You need a getup, you know where to go.”
“Yeah, like I’ll need a getup to steal shit in the middle of the night.” She rolled her eyes. “Now, when can I tell Jimmy to take a hike?”
“Have him hang in till midnight,” Lou said. “We get a bunch of lonely hearts, I don’t want the bartenders in an uproar. He can go as early as eleven thirty.”
“Eleven thirty! Mom and Baby will be passed out way before that, Lou.”
“Yeah, well, life is pain. But that’s my best offer, take it or leave it.”
She scowled at him. “Fine. But full night’s pay, then, for him.”
Lou sputtered, but she was already turning away. “Now you really owe me!” he called after her. Dani just waved him off.
The evening turned out so slow that Dani even started helping Jimmy, both of them having overstocked every flat surface in the club by eleven o’clock. Now they were hanging out at Dani’s station, waiting for Lou to turn away so Jimmy could split. “He’s giving me the full night’s pay?” he asked dubiously. “That seems…very un-Lou-like, and I haven’t known him that long.”
“It is, and the fewer questions asked about that, the better,” Dani said. Lou would be expecting a heck of a payday from the brownstone, but it was worth it. Jimmy was worth it.
Her brother was a good kid, a solid kid, and he sure as hell didn’t act like he was still using. In fact, she suspected—hoped—that he’d cleaned himself up already, that his past had somehow just come knocking on his door. Pasts had a way of doing that. So, yeah. If he’d gotten in with the wrong crowd and had a debt to pay, fine. But she’d watch him. The first time she caught him flying on something, she was out. She’d find some other way to take care of the wife and kid. “Now why don’t you get out of here?”
A commotion at the front of the club caught her attention and she glanced up—then froze. A new gaggle of women were entering the dance area. They were dressed to the nines, clearly stopping in after a night doing something much higher-shelf. Still, that was nothing surprising, even on a night as dead as this. Club Noir was located just off the harbor, on the outskirts of one of the trendier dining districts. But in the middle of the well-dressed women was a man she knew all too well.
Rand Sterling Winston the fucking Fourth.
Even better, the man clearly had no interest in dancing. Instead, he was heading straight to the back of the club toward the VIP suites with six of the women—six!
As he moved, Golden Boy must have felt her gaze on him. He glanced up and their eyes met across the wide space. The effect on Dani was instantaneous. Her heart seemed to lurch into her throat, her stomach pitched, and her body was rocked with a wave of heat so strong that she would have gripped the counter if he hadn’t been watching her. Then his glance dropped to take in Jimmy and shot up to meet hers again. The accusation and irritation in his eyes were clear.
Dani just smiled. “Well, hello yourself, dickhead.”
“Dickhead, who?” Jimmy looked up, glancing over at Rand, and Dani didn’t stop her lips from curving into a smile. Jimmy was a good-looking kid, only a few years younger than she was. If Rand wanted to think she’d picked herself up a boy toy, that worked for her.
Rand didn’t change his expression however, for all that his gaze blazed into hers. He and his posse continued toward the back of the club, and Dani could only imagine what he planned on doing once he got there. Back in the maze of VIP suites, he might as well be in Switzerland: He could do whatever he wanted with whomever he wanted for however long he wanted. They’d had people stay in those rooms ’round the clock, for enough money. And some of the suites were pretty deluxe from what she’d heard. She’d never sampled such rooms herself, at least not here. Now she was regretting that. She didn’t like not knowing exactly what scene was being set for Richie Rich and the giggle gang.
The door had no sooner swung closed behind Rand and his crew than Jimmy looked back at her and grinned. “Friend of yours?” he asked. “Kind of up the food chain for you, isn’t he?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dani snapped, tossing her fall of black hair over her bare shoulder. “And when did I even ask you?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Down, girl,” Jimmy said, laughing and raising his hands. His mood had definitely lightened at the prospect of getting home early, and with extra money to boot. Needling his foster sister clearly rounded out his evening. “I’m just saying that it seemed like you two, you know—connected.” He waggled his brows. “And that he doesn’t seem like your type.”
“He isn’t my type.” Still, Dani crossed her arms, glaring at the now-closed door. As cold as it was outside, Club Noir was always a furnace, and her dark tank top was pretty standard gear for her. But now she felt self-conscious about her bared arms and their lines of sinuous tattoos that trailed up from her elbows to crest around her shoulders, then drape down her back. She’d had that ink for years, but she was careful about where she showed it. Tattoos were distinctive, even given their current popularity. If the wrong person saw her at the wrong time and identified her, she’d have a lot more than a night in jail to worry about. And she never bared her arms around people like Rand Sterling Winston IV. Polite women didn’t sport tattoos in places where polite people could see them. “Why don’t you get out of here before I reconsider my good mood.”
“Hey, Dani, you got supplies back there?” Shae stopped at Dani’s station, blowing a long ruby-dyed lock out of her eyes. She was bright-faced and smiling, and her goth attire still managed to look more fresh than freak show, which boded well for the tip jar. Still, Dani eyed her tray with irritation. It was loaded with shot glasses and a shaker, plus a bottle of cinnamon whisky.
“I’ve got a full liquor store. Whattya need?”
“RumChata and amaretto, mainly. Bourbon, too. Extra shaker full of ice if you have one. I don’t know who all just went into the back, but according to Lou we’re supposed to act like they stocked us ahead of time and they’ll settle the tab later. Judging from what they’ve asked for, it’s just a bunch of girls looking to drown their hearts.”
“Something like that, I’m sure.” Dani looked up as another sound from the front drew their attention. More of the lovelorn finally showing up. She scowled at Jimmy, whose attention was also focused on the front. After a few weeks stocking the bars of Club Noir, he knew the sound of incoming customers as well as anyone. “You get the hell out of here, unless you plan on working the rest of the night.”
“I’m already gone,” he said, slipping off the stool.
“And, Shae, you can handle the new guys up front—I’ll take this to the VIP suites. If there’s any tip to be had from it, it’s all yours.”
Shae snickered, but she gave up the tray easily enough. “Well, thanks, but I have a feeling they’re going to be a little busy for a while to tip.”
“Right.” The cocktail waitress headed off, and Dani leaned down, pulling out the requested bottles. Fair enough, she thought. If Rand and his chick posse wanted to get busy in front of her, she didn’t have a problem with that.
Actually, she didn’t have a problem with it at all. Watching Rand naked and working what she suspected was a remarkably hot body wouldn’t be a hardship, no matter who else was in the room with them. She could handle that and then some.
“Sick,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. But as she shouldered her tray, she couldn’t help smiling, thinking about what she was heading toward on this frozen Boston night. No doubt about it, the guy was black ice.
Rand leashed his anger ruthlessly into submission. The room was perfect, the women content enough to do everything he asked of them. In fact, the more adventurous of them had even offered quite a bit more than he needed on this particular night. When he’d learned Dani worked at this club, he’d been surprised that he knew of it, surprised further that he’d actually been here before, though it had been a few years. It wasn’t his usual scene, and he didn’t recall ever seeing Dani bartend here. Not that he necessarily would have noticed before these past few weeks, of course.
But to walk in and see her so intimately involved with another man—that he hadn’t expected.
His temper ratcheted up another notch.
Fortunately, he had chosen his entourage for tonight with care. The women were, in every way, the opposite of Dani Michaels. Soft, busty blondes; petite, porcelain-skinned brunettes; even a redhead. They would have been a worthy distraction on any other evening, and if he had miscalculated in some way, he fully intended to use them to their fullest capabilities tonight. Even now, behind the closed door of the VIP suite, they’d already peeled his shirt half off his shoulders, the touch of several different hands and mouths waging a sensual assault to which he half-wanted to succumb. Nevertheless, tonight he had only one purpose for them. A purpose they were about to fulfill at any—
A discreet knock on the door made him tense, but he willed his gaze to focus on the woman sighing against his mouth. She was lovely, her cool hands now flat against his abs, her fingers stretching up toward his chest. Two additional women busied themselves with his pants, while the others—he didn’t even know what they were doing, but he could hear them giggling across the room. This suite could be locked from the inside, opened only to allow other guests or servers carrying drinks and food. A locked door meant stay out, and only management ever overrode that directive. He wasn’t interested in locking anyone out, though. Not yet, anyway.
A second knock sounded, and Rand deepened his kiss against the blonde’s full lips as he heard a small group of his guests go to the door, their squeals of delight indicating that the drinks had arrived. Despite his best intentions, Rand turned just slightly to see—yes—Dani enter with her tray. All the waitresses in this place, and she was the one who pulled this job? That wasn’t a coincidence.
He savored the surge of triumph in his blood. He’d just notched his first win, and she had to know it.
Sure enough, Dani’s gaze zeroed in on him with irritation and he straightened, sliding the blonde to the side as she curved into the protective lee of his arm, her face against the plane of his chest. Another woman draped herself over his left shoulder, indolently staring across the room at Dani.
Dani calmed her expression quickly, but not quickly enough. A hot spurt of surprise, even rage, had flooded her face, and her eyes flashed with a heat that echoed in Rand’s own body. Hell, he could barely resist grinning as she forced a chilly smile to her lips. Definitely a second win for him. His own gaze raked over her long, lean body—so different from when he’d last seen her, and yet with all the best parts just as he remembered. Better than he remembered.
“Your drinks,” she said unnecessarily, striding to the center of the room. “Is there anything else you need?”
“Please wait a moment,” Rand drawled. He turned his face toward the blonde at his chest, and, knowing Dani was watching, kissed her long and thoroughly. Tilting her head back, he nuzzled the woman’s ear, whispering his directions to her. She pulled back with confusion and looked sharply at him, but he just smiled the kind of smile he’d been working since he’d been twelve years old. A smile of promises to be kept and rewards to be given.
Still, she hesitated, pressing her not-inconsiderable assets up against him. On his other side, as if sensing a quarry about to escape, the second woman did so as well. “We don’t mind adding to the party,” she said, her words carrying just enough for Dani to hear.
“I’ve got to get back to the front,” Dani said in turn, too loudly.
“And I’ve asked you to wait.” Rand’s voice was like a whip cracking, and it had the desired effect, not only driving Dani to rigid, furious attention but reaching through the alcohol-hazed fog of his entourage. He took his time, then, leisurely kissing the second woman as he led her and her friend across the room toward the door, collecting the others along the way. They pouted and stroked him as Dani’s annoyance built into an almost tangible force in the center of the room, which only made him linger over their goodbyes. He opened the door to the suite to let them out, and their final round of caresses took another few minutes—rendered excruciatingly more pleasurable by the knowledge that Dani stood behind him, watching other women’s hands sample what she’d already denied herself once.
Then the women were gone and he shut the door, turning to look back at Dani as he settled against the wall. Need thrummed through his veins as she stared defiantly at him, but he knew better. She hadn’t been obligated to follow his directive when he’d demanded she stay, and yet she had. Win number three for him—and he was only just getting started.
Rand lazily reached over and flipped the lever on the VIP suite door, locking them in.
The woman didn’t even flinch.
“You want me to continue with this?” she asked instead, holding up the shaker. “They really are the world’s finest shots.” She didn’t move as he stalked toward her, but he could sense her tension now that he was near enough, the slight stiffness of her shoulders, the twitch of her hands as she poured a shot glass full of liquor he didn’t need. All he required to blunt his thirst was her. And he would have her, too. The fact that she wasn’t sprinting for the door now was all the response he required.
“You’ve missed me,” he said, and Dani’s laugh was short and harsh as she finally met his gaze.
“Not so much.” She smiled, settling against the table. “You didn’t call, you didn’t write…” This close, even with the lights dimmed, he could see the trail of ink along her arms—birds. A flock of birds raced up the sides of her arms and disappeared over her shoulders, the supple line of their flight seeming to set her in motion as well. Her gaze went to the door, then slid back to him. “Maybe you’re the one who missed me?”
“Perhaps.” He took the shaker she still held out of her hand, and set it on the table beside her. “You’re officially off duty.”
She raised her brows, challenging him. “I think you’re mistaken, Mr. Winston. I don’t work for you.”
He shrugged. “You can speak with your boss if you’d like to confirm, but I should warn you, I’m not especially a fan of women walking away from me. And you seem to make a habit of it.”
“As I recall, I was being arrested at the time.”
“A situation you could have easily rectified.”
“Like I could ‘rectify’ this situation?”
“Exactly like that.” He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek, and both felt and heard her sharp intake of breath. She smelled like heat and amaretto, and her skin was warm, sensual, her breasts full beneath her thin tank top. The tattoos may have surprised him; the fuck-me boots didn’t. Even with their height, Dani more than fit against him. She inhaled again deeply, then let the breath out, her hands reaching forward to grip the table.
“I actually do need to get back to work.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He pulled her around to face him, then dropped his mouth over hers, finally tasting her again after so much time apart that he’d begun fantasizing about the texture of her lips, the curve of her mouth. Amaretto and heat were replaced by cola and mint, and he drank in the sensation, feeling her hands go around his shoulders, the warmth of her skin branding his. He growled as she stroked her strong fingers down his back, his muscles tightening in the wake of her touch. When her hands slid to his trousers, she stopped, shuddering slightly. He grinned against her mouth. “Something you want, Dani?” he murmured. “Because there’s something I want very much. And I generally get what I want.”
“This is stupid,” she muttered, but she didn’t protest as he slid his own hands around her waist, his fingers finding the smooth skin of her belly before slipping up to the full roundness of her breasts. Her bra was a thin scrap of silk, unpadded and unlined, and he let his fingers play over the softness of it, reveling in the way her breath hitched as he explored.
She reached out and pulled his shirt out of his pants and slid her fingers up his back. He knew the moment she learned something new about him, something that she hadn’t expected. Her eyes jumped to his, recognition sharp in her glance. That surprised him. The textures and whorls that were scattered lightly over his back were not recognizable to most women, and for that he was profoundly grateful. For Dani to know what they were immediately was—intriguing.
Or it would have been, if she hadn’t placed her palms flat on his back and pulled him roughly toward her, her breath now a hiss in her throat. It wasn’t excitement or pity or anger or—anything like that. It was the sudden, almost violent recognition of a kindred spirit that made desire roar through his blood, demanding to be sated.