Shadow Keeper

by Feehan, Christine

  “Our server is too busy flirting her ass off with the Ferraros to bother with us,” Tom said.

  Alan glanced at his watch. “I don’t know when she would have had time to do that, sir. We keep strict watch on all servers and she’s more than meeting the requirements to keep drinks on the table, but if you want to file a complaint …”

  James cursed and shook his head, turning away to start up the stairs after Sasha. She was very conscious of the two men coming up fast right behind her. She could actually feel hot breath on her neck as she neared the top. They were deliberately harassing her and she wasn’t certain why. As she gained the top tier she spun around and faced them.

  “Did I do something to offend you?” she asked James deliberately, looking him straight in the eye. Let him defend himself for a change. “As I recall, you were the one who was all over me the other night, and in fact, you sent me chocolates to make amends. What changed between then and now?”

  “You didn’t even bother to look around you at any other men,” James accused. “You set your sights on Ferraro, yet you flirted your ass off with Aaron, making him think he had a chance. You also made certain I was looking and so was Tom.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “I didn’t. I didn’t flirt with anyone that night. You were all drunk, and I thought all of you were a bunch of wealthy players with far too much money and no manners. None of you impressed me.”

  Tom narrowed his eyes at her. “Yet you’re wearing Giovanni Ferraro’s ring.”

  She supposed that was a bit of damning evidence against her. She shrugged. “I did nothing to either of you, or Aaron. If he wanted to see me outside of the club, he gave no indication. I appreciate that you’re both his good friends, but I’m a little tired of you acting as if it’s your right to persecute me.”

  She swung away from them and went to the table where the four men waited for their drinks. One smiled at her. “Are they giving you a hard time?”

  The question sounded casual enough, but something in the man’s voice caught her attention, as if he was really asking, not just being nice. She had the feeling that if she answered in the negative, he—and possibly the others—would jump up, pummel the two men and throw them out. She hadn’t noticed just how fit these men were beneath their flawless suits. More, they weren’t dancing. In fact, they weren’t even looking at the women on the club floor. She had put the table down to out-of-towners, businessmen looking for relaxation. Now, she wasn’t so certain.

  “Seriously, honey,” another said. “If they’re giving you a hard time, say the word and we’ll take care of it.”

  She flashed a quick smile and pocketed their generous tip. “Thanks, really, but I can handle them.” She turned away, hesitated and then turned back. They had to know, just to keep them safe. She didn’t want them taking matters into their own hands. “They’re mixed martial arts fighters. All of them at that table, and I believe most have won championships in their divisions. I really appreciate the offer, but security is excellent here. You just enjoy yourselves and the evening.” She gave them her high-wattage smile and moved to the next table.

  Two gentlemen gave her smiles. They’d gone down to the dance floor twice the entire evening, but not at the same time. Both had been respectful as well as being generous tippers. She put their drinks in front of them and turned to go back down the stairs. Her stomach sank. Aaron stood waiting for her a few feet away.

  “Ma’am”—one of the men stopped her, his voice pitched low—“if you need help, just shout out.”

  Did she look that fragile, or worried? She didn’t like to think so. She wasn’t a woman who depended on others to defend herself. She flashed a smile and shook her head. “No problem, really. I’ll be fine.” She hoped she wasn’t lying to them—or to herself.

  “Mr. Anderson? Is there something I can do for you?” She went straight up to him, deciding to get it over with.

  “Aaron. Call me Aaron.”

  She nodded. “Aaron then. What can I do for you?” She walked past him to his table, ignoring James and Tom.

  Aaron leaned close to her. “I need to talk to you. Somewhere private.” He kept his voice to a near whisper, as if just standing there with her wasn’t going to cause undue attention.

  “I’m working.” Sasha pointed out the obvious, setting his drink in front of his seat. She turned to go.

  Anderson caught her wrist, a wad of bills in his other hand. “I’m serious. It’s for your own good. I’m not trying to be a dick, but someone needs to warn you.” He pushed the cash into her hand. “Please, just give me two minutes. And take your tip.”

  Sasha hesitated and then nodded. “I’m heading to the bar to grab more drinks. You can either walk with me and talk, or be down there and talk while I get the drinks.” She was firm about that. She wasn’t going anywhere alone with him. She just didn’t trust anyone.

  Giovanni was close, but that didn’t mean he could get to her if some crazy man with too many fantasies tried to hurt her. Sandlin needed her alive. It was possible—even probable—she’d been too stubborn about working this soon.

  Aaron followed her as she made her way around the tables toward the stairs. There was just enough room for the two of them to walk side by side as they descended. She didn’t so much as glance at Giovanni. She had the feeling he wouldn’t like Aaron walking so close to her. She didn’t like it, especially every time his body brushed against hers. She was fairly sure Aaron was sliding up against her deliberately every chance he got.

  “He’s a player,” Aaron announced.

  Sasha glanced up at him. It wasn’t what she expected. Not at all. She’d braced herself for something different, something to do with the picture of her breasts exposed. She’d been getting a few propositions, and after what James and Tom had said to her and the way they’d treated her, she was expecting the same from Aaron.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Giovanni. He’s my friend. I’ve known him a long time, if anyone knows a Ferraro, but he’s a player. Straight up. A good man, but a player. He’s never going to go through with the wedding.”

  She continued down the stairs, keeping her eyes on where she was going. He put his hand under her elbow and gripped, as if helping her down. She didn’t like to be touched when she hadn’t invited it, and after that ghastly, very public picture in the tabloids for the world to see, she really didn’t like it. Too many men, as she served them their drinks, had brushed against her body as if they had the right. It wasn’t anything she could call security over, but it made her skin crawl. His friends had been the most disrespectful, and that seemed to be on his behalf.

  When she didn’t reply, Aaron continued. “Look, I know you’re going to think I have an agenda, and maybe I do. I noticed you right away and tried to get your attention. I was drunk and went about it wrong, but it was genuine interest. Giovanni knows that. He’s competitive. Do you think this is the first time we’ve competed for a woman?”

  She hadn’t paid attention to anything he said until the last. It made sense given what she knew about Giovanni. He was competitive, and he detested the way women threw themselves at his brothers, cousins and especially him. She couldn’t help the sideways glance she gave Aaron. She knew immediately he would take that as a go-ahead to continue.

  “End it. Give him the ring back. Tell him you don’t want anything to do with him.”

  She didn’t know what to say or how to react. She wasn’t someone who doubted herself. She knew she was good-looking. Okay. More than good-looking. She also knew quite a few men thought she was sexy. She had curves and confidence. She wasn’t a shrinking violet. She liked sex and what’s more, she enjoyed giving her partner pleasure, in particular Giovanni.

  “Give me a chance.”

  “This competition you and Giovanni are supposed to have. Does it involve money?”

  He shot her a quick glance and then shifted his gaze away, nodding. She couldn’t judge his voice by his nod. She had to hear the lie, s
he couldn’t see it.

  “So, you bet whether or not you could lure me away from him?”

  “No, God, no. Of course not. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yet you have money on the table between you. How exactly did the bet go?” She stopped and turned so she was right in front of him, challenging him. She wanted to hear his voice. “And look me right in the eye. If you’re betting on my downfall, the least you can do is look me in the eye when you tell me about it.”

  He sighed. “He bet me a thousand he could wrap you up before I did.”

  Her churning stomach settled. He was lying. She saw it in his eyes and heard it in his voice. Why he was lying, she didn’t know, but he was definitely trying to break up her and Giovanni.

  “We’re done. Please don’t talk to me again,” she said. “And I hope Giovanni realizes you aren’t his friend at all.” Deliberately she turned her back on him and went to the bar to get the drinks for her other tables.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A half hour later, Sasha finally got a well-deserved break. Nancy was supposed to cover her tables much earlier, but she continued to have headaches and had lain down in the lounge to try to combat the one she had, so Sasha had taken both tiers. The Ferraro family sat in full force at their table, which made it just a little intimidating to approach. Still, the ring on her finger gave her an added boost of confidence.

  She went right up to the table, stood across from Giovanni deliberately between Geno and Salvatore, his two cousins who had played their game. She smirked at both of them and then locked eyes with Giovanni. “Would you care to dance with me, Giovanni?” She sent him a sultry smile, her voice pure seduction.

  Geno groaned. “I don’t think this is going to be a fair competition.”

  “No one had better be competing at all,” Francesca decreed.

  Giovanni’s lashes lifted and his dark eyes met Sasha’s. She felt the impact right down to her toes. He couldn’t possibly fake that kind of desire. The sensual lines carved in his face deepened. Lust rose, sharp and terrible to settle wickedly in her deepest core. He could do that to her with one look. He rose immediately without a word.

  Sasha dropped a hand on either cousin’s shoulder. “Perhaps there is a lady or two ready and willing to ask you to dance.” Smiling, she took Giovanni’s hand, threading her fingers through his as they walked away together.

  “Was that a challenge?”

  She laughed. “Of course it was. I know you lost a good deal of money to that awful Geno. He was bragging. We’ll have to see just how many points you earn tonight.”

  “It’s late, baby. We’d have to hurry if we were going to win back all our losings.”

  They moved down the stairs together. Around them flashes went off as the paparazzi went crazy trying to get photographs of the two of them together. A couple had managed to sneak up to the top tier—although to do that she was fairly certain security had to have cooperated. They managed to take pictures quickly before they were escorted back down the stairs. She’d noted no cameras were taken away from the photographers. In fact, everyone had been polite.

  Once on the dance floor, Sasha let him guide her through the mass of writhing bodies to the darker edges where she let the music take her. She’d always loved music and dancing. She found the rhythm in the pounding beat immediately and began to move her body to it. Giovanni came up behind her, his body against hers, following the same beat so that they moved almost as if they were already joined, skin to skin.

  His hands came up to her hips, guiding her more intimately into him so that she felt his erection pressed tightly against her buttocks. Every time she moved, she rubbed her body over his. She reached down and brought his hands up to her breasts. The moment his warm palms covered her, her nipples pushed against him, begging for attention.

  Her breasts felt swollen and achy, hungry for his touch. Her panties were damp, her body going hot and slick. There was something about the pounding beat of music, the dark, his body, so hard and masculine up against hers, just a thin layer of clothing between them. Heat blossomed in the pit of her stomach and spread like wildfire through her veins.

  His thumbs strummed her nipples, rubbed through the thin top until she wanted to scream in an agony of need. Her eyes were closed and she found herself sinking deeper into a haze of desire. She took his hand and slid it along the seam of her blouse. It wouldn’t be easy to slide his hands under the camisole, but she should have known he would be able to figure it out. The zipper whispered and the camisole loosened, allowing his palms to slide up her rib cage to the sides of her breasts.

  She sighed and pressed back into him again and again, rocking her hips. He kept one hand around her waist, locking her to him while his other cupped the weight of her right breast, his fingers and thumb busy, stroking and caressing, kneading and tugging. Rolling and pulling. Lightning streaked from her breasts to her clit. Her body pulsed with need. For him. She was wrapped in a web of sheer physical hunger.

  His breath was warm against her ear as his teeth tugged at her earlobe. More lightning. More fire. Her sheath spasmed. Clenched. Went hotter and slicker. “Baby, you have to ask me to put my hands on you.”

  She wanted that more than anything. Skin to skin contact. Her entire body felt as though she was going up in flames. But … a tiny little part of her hesitated. She could have this moment—this intimacy, locked with him surrounded by a sea of people, but it was only the two of them. If he really was playing her, was this moment going to be enough for her? Would she look back on it with regrets?

  “Sasha?” His hands went from moving over her body to swinging her around to face him. His palms framed her face. “Look at me.”

  Butterflies fluttered in her stomach when she raised her gaze to his. It was impossible not to see the worry in his eyes. The emotion. Stark. Intense.

  “We were playing a game here, but for me it’s real. Touching you. Kissing you. The moment my body is next to yours I heat up. Catch fire. I thought this was fun for you, too, but you’re not into it.” He zipped up her top and enfolded her immediately into his arms, his body tight against hers.

  She was into the game. She had been. She’d initiated it. She had thought to put the game to rest. The worry she had that he was playing her long term. She didn’t believe Aaron. In fact, she knew he lied, but still, that little nagging worry told her this was all happening too quickly. How could Giovanni fall in love with her so fast?

  For her, it wasn’t about his looks. It wasn’t about the money. She’d fallen because when her shadow had touched his, she’d known him. She’d “seen” him. That first night when he’d taken her to the pizzeria, then walked her home, she’d felt him. His sincerity. His need to protect and care for others. Giovanni was many things, but beneath that mask he wore in public, the playboy, he was something very different. He said things, things she normally wouldn’t believe, because everything between them had happened so fast, but she knew he was sincere. She knew he was telling the truth because her innate ability to hear lies told her she could trust what he said and did.

  Still, she doubted herself at times. She didn’t understand how it happened so fast for him. For her, it made sense. She was alone. Everything around her was crumbling. Her brother—that beautiful man she loved so much, her last relative—had little time to live and barely knew who she was from one day to the next. Need was a strong motivator even for love.

  That pulled her up short. Was she with him only because she needed someone to help her get through the terrible fears she had over Sandlin? She pressed her face deeper into Giovanni’s immaculate jacket. Was she that shallow of a person that she would cling to a man she barely knew, convince herself that she was falling in love?

  “Baby, stop.”

  She knew he was moving them through the couples, but she didn’t look. She just went with him. She heard herself sobbing, but she was disconnected, and there was no stopping anyway.

  Giovanni took her to the edge of the dance
floor and was immediately surrounded by his family. He didn’t know how Stefano was always aware of each and every one of them as well as their state of mind, but he was. He had the bodyguards there as well, so they moved easily through the crowd toward the back hallway where the offices were located. No one was the wiser that anything was wrong. Even the paparazzi was used to the family walking from place to place together.

  The moment they got to the hallway door, Giovanni yanked it open, took Sasha on through and, still holding her to him, brought her into the family’s office. It was large. They each required space. Maybe it had to do with spending so much time in the shadows, but they all preferred wide-open spaces if they could get them.

  He sank down onto the plush couch, taking Sasha with him, cradling her close to him. Maybe if she hadn’t spent hours serving drinks and being brave, or if she hadn’t set out to seduce him using his own game, her tears wouldn’t have gutted him the way they did, but the longer she sobbed as if her heart was breaking, the more he wanted to fight someone, slay dragons, do whatever the hell he needed to do to get her to stop.

  He massaged her scalp and rocked her, holding her to him, the entire time murmuring soothing reassurances in Italian. He let her cry, wracking his brain, trying to think of what could have happened. He’d been careful to keep them in the shadows, so much so that at times, the pull on his body had been tremendous and his leg had ached until he thought it might shatter. Still, every second of her seduction had been worth the pain to him.

  He loved her all the more for her courage and sense of fun, for her willingness to forgive his stupidity and turn his game into something beautiful and intimate between them. He rubbed his jaw and then his cheek along the top of her silky head. Strands of hair caught in the five-o’clock shadow that had seemed to be a part of him since his late teens.

  She hiccupped. Coughed. Clearly made an effort to stop. He kept her head pressed against his shoulder, knowing she wanted to hide from him. He was content to let her, as long as she was in his arms.