by Lisa Hughey
“We also have a strict no-weapon policy here.” Their escort said, “I need to pat you down.”
John stepped in front Rissa. “No one touches my wife.” The rage that blossomed in his gut wasn’t feigned. He did not want this guy touching Rissa.
“I’m sorry sir,” the guy said without an ounce of remorse. John took note of the small ear bud in his ear. “If you want to go upstairs, then I need to check you for weapons.”
“This is ridiculous,” John blustered. Maybe they could get a line on the boss. “I want to talk to your manager.”
“That is not possible.” The guy stood in front of John hands held inches from his body. “May I check you?”
The guy behind the desk glanced at his watch, then nodded to the escort. Interesting, they must time the appointments so that clients didn’t run into other clients.
John thought about stalling but he didn’t want to call too much attention to them, and the cameras everywhere would be recording their images. John bet that came in handy if they had clients who got out of hand.
“It will be fine, sugar,” Rissa cooed and curled her fingers around his forearm.
“Go ahead,” he ground out.
The guy began his very efficient weapons check. He faltered when he hit John’s prosthetic leg. Rather than put the guy on alert, John said tightly, “Car accident.” His hair was long enough that it wasn’t clear he was former military.
The guy nodded. “Thank you, sir. Ma’am.”
Rissa took off her sunglasses and set them on the counter and spread her arms wide. John wanted to kiss her. He was pretty sure she’d aimed the camera at the guard’s computer monitor. The angle wouldn’t give them everything but it should at least capture some partial screenshots. “Frisk me, sugar.”
Guillermo very efficiently skimmed his fingers over her body. John could feel his gorge rising. He hated that this thug had his hands on his woman. He clenched his fists and held back his anger.
Rissa smiled provocatively. “Well, sugar, I think we should be on a first-name basis after that little interlude.” She ran a red-tipped nail over the guy’s shoulder. “Are you on the menu?”
He flushed a bright crimson. “I can take you upstairs now.”
The guard behind the desk held out his hand for their phones. John discreetly pressed a button to send a prearranged text to a burner to let Jack know they were on their way up to the room. Even though Jack was busy searching for the person threatening Shelley, he’d requested that John and Rissa keep him apprised of any developments.
“I’m locking my phone,” John said, before handing it over to the guard even though if he tried to access it there wouldn’t be any usable information on the device.
Rissa was already standing by the elevator. As the bell dinged, she said, “Oops.” She had “forgotten” her sunglasses. She sauntered to the counter to grab them. “Very difficult to replace.”
He could only hope that they might get some usable pictures. The camera had a WiFi connection and was transmitting the video to Con’s laptop.
The guards waited impatiently for Rissa to get back to the elevator.
Within a minute, they were whisked up to the eighth floor. Guillermo knocked on the door brusquely. As soon as their appointment opened her door, the guard hustled back to the elevator. They had definitely thrown off the schedule.
The girl ushered them inside.
John and Rissa had already laid out what services they wanted when they’d made the appointment. Then they had discussed their plan in detail.
After they entered, John discreetly observed their surroundings.
The apartment was furnished with high-end antiques. And although the décor was somewhat impersonal, the room had the feel of an occupied space. It wasn’t just a place to conduct business. She actually lived here.
“Hello, I am Anna.” Her voice was cultured, low, melodic. She held out her hand. “Welcome to my home.”
If John hadn’t known that they had come here to pay for sex, he would have thought he was in a formal social setting. Her outfit was sexy without being too suggestive. The wrap dress would likely come off easily. He was pretty sure she was wearing garters and stockings underneath.
“It’s a pleasure,” Rissa purred, then lifted the girl’s hand to her mouth and pressed a short kiss on the back. “To meet you.”
John didn’t let his surprise show but it was difficult. He was used to covert in terms of slinking along the desert floor or stealth in movement, not this game of moves and counter moves.
They’d agreed that Rissa had more undercover experience and she should be the one to lead the mark. She sank languidly on to the sofa, and pulled John with her.
Rissa squeezed John’s hand three times.
Cameras.
Shit. So the girls, and their clients, were watched. John had to assume that not only were they being watched but that they were being taped.
Fuck.
The original plan was to take pictures of her and transmit them to an offsite location. Then John would inform her that unless she cooperated she would be arrested. Basically they were going to blackmail her to get her to talk.
Rissa’s palm brushed over his shoulder. If he weren’t so freaked out by the fact that there were cameras and this was going to have to go a lot further than he’d planned, he’d be amused at the fact that she was trying to comfort him.
They were going to have to shift their operation parameters.
John’s body temp began to rise. He was going to have to let this…girl touch him.
While they’d discussed this contingency, knowing that he might have to get partially engaged with the girl in order to get her into a compromising position, he’d really hoped that this wouldn’t happen.
Murphy’s fucking law.
Anna sat gracefully in the chair across from them, spreading her legs just slightly, and it was clear she wasn’t wearing underwear. Her neatly trimmed pubic hair was visible in the low light, the lighting set up to highlight her lack of undergarments.
She was gorgeous, all swarthy skin, big doe eyes, long thick lashes and an X-rated mouth. But he couldn’t even garner a reaction. He was limp and flaccid. And to think he’d been more worried about getting a boner in front of his partner, and the woman he’d had sex with two nights ago. The thought of letting this girl—prisoner?—touch him made him want to throw up. But he needed to grow a pair.
Shit. They were going to have to work his lack of erection into their script.
“As you can see, my husband has…issues.” Rissa cut an intense glance to his crotch. John wanted to laugh but he kept his expression stern.
“My wife—” he lifted her hand to his lips and ran his tongue over her palm “—likes to watch me with other women. It gets her off.” He nipped the heel of her hand.
“So true, sugar.”
“And that gets me off.”
The girl nodded and stood. “Would you like to unwrap me?”
John swallowed his dismay. He could not let on that this situation was not what he wanted. “You do it.”
She sauntered toward them on the sofa, her hips a sexy sway. He could tell she wasn’t at all interested by the scene setting, she was acting. She clasped the tie that held her dress together, pulling it slightly so that the dress began to gape.
Sweat beaded at his hairline. The tie was completely undone. Her plum-colored dress gaped open and exposed her bare breasts, clearly surgically enhanced. They were ridiculously perky, and as she sauntered toward him, they didn’t move. John couldn’t help but compare them to Rissa’s round pillowed form, a place to find comfort.
The girl let her dress slip off her shoulders and fall to the floor. She was clad in only a very skimpy lace garter the same color as the dress and old-fashioned stockings. The stockings nearly matched her skin tone. Clinically John analyzed her. Skin buffed and moisturized and slightly oiled, her pubic hair was tightly trimmed and landscaped.
The colors of
both the dress and the undergarments were coordinated to complement the decorating. Did they use a freaking stager?
Anna slid her hands up to cup her fake breasts and squeezed her nipples, walking slowly, seductively toward them.
Except John couldn’t even muster a semi in the girl’s presence.
All he could think about was the cameras, and protecting Rissa. Which he knew was dumb. Rissa would take care of herself. Hopefully she was taking as many pictures as she could while the girl was focused on him.
Anna finally stood right in front of him. The heat from Rissa’s body warmed his right side, but the rest of him was stone cold.
He took back his wish to work for Jack. If that made him a pussy, then so be it but the thought of touching this…child was so far outside his comfort zone that he’d wandered into bizarro land.
Anna hesitated so briefly John might have thought he’d imagined it. But then she crawled over his lap, knees on either side of his hips, her position exactly like that of Rissa’s the other night. Except then he’d been climbing out of his skin with need.
Now John’s cock was still limp beneath his khakis.
“Seems as if he’s going to need some more…enticing,” Rissa said from beside him.
What the hell?
This scene was too close to the other night. The travesty of what he was about to do hit him in the gut. He was this close to lifting the girl off his lap and running for the door.
“He’s shy.” Rissa had injected a note of amusement in her voice, and right then he wanted to kill her. Not literally but when they were back at the suite, she was definitely going to get an earful.
Rissa covered his crotch with her hand, drawing his gaze from the girl whose tits were literally in his damn face. If she shifted the wrong way, she was going to put his eye out with her permanently pert nipples.
The familiar heat of Rissa’s touch sparked his libido, and his dick, which had been very conspicuously limp, hardened in an instant.
John glared at Rissa and hoped the damn cameras couldn’t see his expression or they thought they were having some sort of lover’s spat.
“Let me do it, honey.” Rissa tugged his zipper down while Anna rubbed her tits literally inches from his mouth. The scene should have been a guy’s fantasy—two women, there for his enjoyment. Instead, he just wanted out.
This was awkward as hell.
Rissa’s scent drifted toward him and his dick started to rise as she lightly caressed him through his cotton briefs.
He was not going to have sex with this girl. He wondered if there were cameras in the bathroom. Maybe he could take her in there and they could continue on with their plan.
“I’ve got it.” Anna decided to assert herself.
She leaned over and pulled his cock out. Rissa had to move, otherwise she would have gotten a face full of Anna’s breasts.
The girl wrapped her cool hand around John’s dick and tugged. He immediately went limp again.
Before he could make up some stupid excuse, there was a loud banging at the door. “Police. Open up.”
“What?” John practically jumped up from the sofa. “Shit.”
What the hell was going on? The cops were here?
“What is happening?” Anna stood there, naked as a jay except for the garter, stockings, and high heels, a bewildered expression on her face. Her gaze shot to the camera strategically aimed at the sofa.
The door flew open.
And everyone froze.
Anna clapped her arm over her breasts.
John lifted his hands in the air. He hadn’t survived four tours with the Marines in order to get shot in an upscale bordello by the LVPD. His pants gaped open, his dick hanging in the wind, although hopefully the tails of his button-down shirt covered him up.
Next to him, Rissa glared haughtily at the cops, her expression the perfect mimicking of a wealthy woman who thought she was above the law.
John only dimly listened to the cops mirandizing Anna. She shook violently, appearing terrified and completely out of her element.
“John Walker.” The uniformed office placed his arms behind his back.
“Now see here, I think there’s been some sort of mistake.”
“I don’t think so, sir,” the cop sneered.
John knew he had to play the part. But he damn well hoped he could get these charges dropped. “At least let me zip up my pants.”
The officer shook his head curtly. “No can do.” The officer cuffed his hands behind his back. “You are under arrest for the solicitation of prostitution.”
“Don’t you think we could…work something out here?” John cajoled. Trying desperately to bribe the damn cop. Just like Mr. Walker would do if he was actually Mr. Walker.
“No, sir.” The tone was just a little bit more snide.
John hung his head.
Meanwhile, the cops had gotten Anna some clothes and she stood meekly, an expression of complete terror on her face.
He’d have to guess that getting arrested wouldn’t go well for her once she was out. Shit.
“Can you at least zip my pants for me?”
“This is unacceptable,” Rissa said haughtily. “I have done nothing wrong. Why are you doing this to me?”
“You’re going to have to come along and give a statement, ma’am.”
“Are these handcuffs really necessary?” she whined. Then she shifted her approach and started to flirt with the cop. “I suppose under the right circumstances they could be fun.”
Rage began to burn underneath his breastbone, pulsing in a relentless ache. He knew she was just playing her part. He knew it. But still. “Shut up, Rissa.”
“You shut up.” Rissa gave him a disdainful look. “If you didn’t have problems getting it up, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
The cops behind him snickered. And John suppressed a laugh. But he was only partially amused, because if Jack didn’t come through on the one phone call, they were screwed.
Chapter 11
Rissa opened the door to the suite and trudged to a stool at the breakfast bar. God, she really wanted a shower. Spending the past seven hours at the police station was not her idea of a good time.
The door slammed as John stalked in behind her. He was pissed. He had pretty much steamed silently beside her the whole way home, like the volcano getting ready to erupt at The Mirage. Everyone knew it was coming.
If Jack’s cop friend hadn’t kept up a running banter, discussing where they would go next in this case, then Rissa was sure that John would have been yelling at her.
She had no clue why.
Could she help it if she was the tiniest bit pleased that he hadn’t been able to get an erection even with the totally gorgeous, skinny young girl nearly naked and in his lap? It wasn’t lost on her that the girl had been in the exact same position as Rissa two nights ago.
So that wasn’t the problem.
As soon as Rissa put her hand on his zipper, he’d gotten hard.
And that fact thrilled her down to her very bones.
Now the only thing she was particularly happy about was that Maria wouldn’t be able to hear when this fight started.
After they’d been arrested, they’d called Jack. Except he’d been in the middle of dealing with the capture of Shelley’s stalker, so he’d palmed them off on Jack’s LVPD buddy.
Thankfully Keisha and Shane were in town for the wedding. The GHR employee and the freelance pilot were now a couple. Keisha had taken Maria under her wing when the whole confrontation with José Fernandez went down. So when they knew they wouldn’t be back for hours, John had asked Keisha to pick up Maria and bring her back to the Palazzo.
John wrenched open a kitchen cabinet door and plucked out a glass. With his teeth he tugged out the cork in the scotch bottle, spit it onto the counter and then poured and poured and poured until the glass was full to the brim.
He held the glass in his hand, the other balled into a fist and propped on his hip w
hile he stared blindly at the microwave over the stovetop.
He slugged down half the glass, then prowled toward her. She shouldn’t be turned on, but damn he was a study in hard angles and pissed-off alpha male. His shirt was partway unbuttoned, revealing the fuzz of chest hair that she personally knew led in a happy trail straight down to his impressive erection.
“What. The. Hell?”
That was all he growled. His hazel eyes glowed with an unholy light. His lips were sheened with the remnants of the scotch. Rissa inhaled deeply taking his essence in as if she could taste him.
Her panties went damp. Primal. Prey. She was in his sights and she loved it.
“We had to make it look good.” She kept her voice steady but it was difficult. All she wanted to do was lean forward and unzip his pants and devour him.
He jerked her to her feet. Rissa slammed against his chest. John wrapped his arm around her back, fisted her hair in his meaty grip, and yanked her head back. He exhaled scotch breath against her lips.
“We didn’t have to go that far.” John was breathing hard, his chest expanding and contracting against her breasts. “I was going to protest the cameras. Find a way to get us out of there.”
“Not as effective,” Rissa countered. God, his erection was prodding her in the belly, her knees were this close to going weak, and all she wanted was him inside her.
The adrenaline rush from being undercover, improvising, even the cops barging in, banged through her in a flood of endorphins.
Could he tell that she was on the edge?
Rissa gave in to her lust and kissed him. She ate at his mouth, tasting the sweet, smoky flavor of his drink before he broke away from her kiss. “You handled it.” Please, please handle me.
“You handled me.” John nipped the shell of her ear.
Shivers cascaded over her spine. And she wanted to handle him again. This time with her mouth.
She dragged her hands up his chest and fisted his hair just as tightly. He was as hot as she was, even if he didn’t want to be.
Rissa scraped her teeth along his throat and sucked at the hollow at perfect mouth level. She rubbed against him, his cock hardening even further, and Jesus, she wanted him inside her. Now.
