by Angel Payne
An hour later, Dante looked at his watch again. Then rolled his shoulders again. Both actions did nothing to slough the tension that set on him like a vulture from the second his little surprise from fate had walked out the door. He’d watched every step she took on those goddamn gorgeous pumps, inwardly cursing himself for an idiot as she’d left. Every instinct in his body had screamed at him that stars really did collide, that he’d just been handed the fucking proof on life’s golden platter, and now he’d let that evidence walk out the door on him.
She’d left, he was certain, because of him.
Now things were developing into an even bigger mess.
His scowl literally hurt while he watched Lieutenants Pascal and Young bop by on the dance floor as the middle links of a conga line, fueled by three glasses of champagne apiece. Those were the drinks he’d witnessed them suck down. He wasn’t sure what other libations had gone into those girls since they’d headed to the dance floor with a pair of dashing young ensigns, but from the looks of it, they were experimenting in the neighborhood of the let’s-mix-our-alcohol-and-see-what-happens category now.
With their friend, none the wiser, waiting at a bar around the corner.
Just as midnight struck.
“Shit.”
Celina Kouris was a smart woman. That part was clear. He nodded, needing the move as backup for the reassurance. She was smart, and she also clearly had her friends figured out. She’d eventually discern what was happening and come back to the ballroom.
Wouldn’t she?
She hadn’t been able to get out of here fast enough. The certainty of it was a nail in his brain. Something about him acted like a single-pole magnet on her, repelling her despite all the signs she gave of wanting to come closer, of wanting to stay. But in the end, when she left, the move was final.
No, she wouldn’t come back.
So had she stayed at the Grill?
And if not, where the hell was she now?
“Shit.”
A tight sigh next to him wasn’t much help. “That’s about the twentieth time you’ve said that, honey.”
Meredith’s voice was still smooth as her Botox-injected skin. Dante swung a glance at her. “You’re right.” He didn’t relax, though she curved an anticipating smile. “You want to leave, don’t you?” As she drew breath for a flirty return, he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. At the same time, he beckoned his driver forward with a tick of his fingers. “Vincent will make sure you get home safely, darling. Thank you for your company tonight. I’ll call—”
The woman pressed a finger to his lips. “No you won’t, Dante.” For the first time tonight, real emotion entered her face. “It’s okay. Really.” She reached inside his jacket pocket and slid out his cell. “Call your damsel in distress, Prince Charming. I’m sure the Blue Sax is easy enough for directory assistance, even during the witching hour.”
He gave her a soft smile. He joined another kiss to it, this time to her cheek, as he waited through the four interminable rings it took for the information operator to pick up. With every number he pressed to click through to the Blue Sax, his anxiety ratcheted higher. Christ; he had no idea why, either. This was crazy, like one of those metaphysical premonitions the late-night TV psychics were always having. He knew the woman was named after a Pleiades star and had the eyes of a forest nymph. End of story. It wasn’t like her chi could call to his aura, sending messages clear up the street like—
“Blue Sax!” It was a scream more than an answer, given by some kid who couldn’t be more than twenty-three.
“Hello?” He didn’t hide the confusion in his tone. Like the other end could even hear him. Within seconds, a riot filled his ear. Crashing glass. Splintering wood. Flesh pounding on flesh. At least a dozen voices shouting different versions of the F bomb.
“Hello?” the kid shrieked again. “Is…is this the police? Shit, if you can hear me, please come now! Two guys decided to knock heads over some bitch, and now the whole place is going insane. It’s like a fucking Dirty Harry movie in here! We need—”
He barely took the time to click the line off before tearing out of the Hilton like the building had caught fire. Flames were almost what he expected to find as he whipped his gaze one way then the other down the block. Providing just as clear as a signal blaze was the melee on the sidewalk fifty yards down, starring a handful of brawlers bathed in aqua-blue light, who lunged at one another like rabid wolves after raw meat.
Dante broke into a sprint. He was glad he did, because he reached the front door half a second before a fleet of Chicago police cars arrived and screeched into a fantail pattern, closing off access to the Blue Sax from anyone else.
Inside, the dim lighting and the flying bodies created a war zone. The two behemoths who’d likely started the brawl now stood on opposing tables, shouting at each other in drunken slurs. Even if they made sense, it was likely nobody heard them over the screeches from the woman who stood at ground level between them, her black hair matted, fake eyelashes drooping with her distraught tears.
“Jesus,” Dante muttered. He took in a breath without trying to smell the air, and grimaced when he was unsuccessful. It smelled like a dirty locker room drenched in beer. Probably a fitting impression, anyway.
He lunged on, dodging a couple of flying bottles before warding off a couple of bloodthirsty guys with the force of his glare. “Fuck,” he growled. A gentleman’s act wasn’t going to cut it here. Time to go as primal as the rest of this mob. He let loose a full bellow.
“Celina! Celina, are you still here?”
Some poor jerk got thrown down the length of the bar at that second, hollering and smashing glasses as he went. That should have made it impossible for him to hear the moan, full of a female’s pain, that came from the stockroom at the back of the bar.
It should have, but it didn’t.
His senses sharpened with that surreal pull again, that feeling he’d gotten as soon as they’d met, then again when he’d called here searching for her. He knew, with furious certainty, the moan had been hers.
“Shit!”
He crunched and slid through broken glass and spilled booze as he ran for the stockroom. He slammed the door back, temporarily blinded by the bright light, and then—
“Fuck!”
She’d been pulled back into a corner by two huge guys in black T-shirts and jeans. They pinned her against the wall, one on each side, and had apparently just done so if the full bottle of Jack Daniel’s in her right hand was any clear sign. Her hair had tumbled from its pins, and her whole face was racked with fury, except if someone knew to look right into her eyes. Those deep green depths showed nothing but black now, betraying the terror she barely contained beneath that wildcat’s grimace. Dante swallowed hard, hoping like hell that the third hulk in the room, the one now approaching her flailing legs with a couple of lengths of twine, didn’t see the same thing.
Hell. The fuckwad noticed, all right. He told her so too, in every inch of his oily grin and every note of his lusty chuckle.
Dante took in her eyes once again, and the dark desperation of them reached out, clouding the edges of his own vision. The haze thickened as his rage did. “Take one step further, and your dick is going to become best friends with that twine.”
The guy flashed a smarmy smile. “Oh yeah, fancy pants? Says you and what army?”
“Army?”
For a split second, he had trouble comprehending that the ferocious sound had come from Celina. But he stared with a gape mixed of pride and shock as she backed it with a move clearly powered by her wrath. Using the beefy arms of her two captors as anchors, she swung her legs up and out. With one decisive kick of her miracle pumps, she caught Smarmy Smile in the center of his crotch. “That’s courtesy of the United States Navy, asshole. Don’t mix us up again.”
Dante didn’t need another invitation to move. As the bastard doubled over on a groan, he ripped away the twine and whipped a fast figure eight around the guy’s
thick wrists. He looped the second length of the thick rope through the middle of that bond, then joined the ends and pulled them down, beneath the asswipe’s belt line, and grabbed for whatever he could get in one lunge. From the high-pitched squeal he got in reaction, he knew he’d gotten enough. He cinched the bundle tight, then increased the torture by doubling the twine back on itself and finishing with another figure-eight knot.
Smarmy’s screams went instantly Dolby stereo in the small room, but they didn’t drown the clunks of thick glass meeting a couple of skulls. Despite the rage dominating his blood, Dante grinned. Sure enough, when he looked up, Celina was standing over one of the thugs, the whiskey bottle in both her hands like a baseball bat. The guy on the ground had gone full fetal, one hand clutching his crotch, the other gripping his black-and-blue jaw. The second thug raised his own arms at Celina in surrender, just before he whirled and sped from the room.
Her breath coming in heaves, her eyes still black with terror, she backed toward Dante. He saw the shivers start already, her system revolting from its nuclear blast of adrenaline. Her arms went slack. Her face looked lost. The bottle slipped from her hand and hit the bully under her in his gut.
She took two steps toward Dante. Then fell into his arms.
He’d never felt anything more right.
“I’ve got you.” He murmured it into her ear, never meaning three words more in his life. He tucked her into the crook of his arm. “Can you walk?” When she nodded, the movement strong and steady, he smiled and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Good, because we need to move fast. Out the back. The cops have swarmed the front like flies on shit.”
The back alley kicked them out onto Wabash, where he easily hailed a cab, then let Celina give the driver her address. She had a little house in a pretty section of Arlington Heights, decorated in all the colors he expected. Soft shades of cream, burgundy, and brown were complemented by sturdy pieces in the craftsman style. Her only indulgence in knickknacks was a large collection of photos in frames of various sizes, most depicting the same trio of men who all looked too much like her to be anything but brothers, along with several of a young girl around nine or ten years old. Other framed items included her law degree from Loyola and a flag in a triangle box with a name on the frame plate: Nikias Kouris.
“My grandfather,” she explained. “He was a pilot in ’Nam. One of the first grads of the TOPGUN program, though he still got shot down over the wrong lines, saving someone else’s bacon. They never found him.”
Dante pivoted his attention from the flag, looking down at her. She’d only turned on one light in the room, and now her face was bathed in soft gold light. Shit, she seemed even more a goddess now, mighty yet so damn beautiful.
He swallowed. And told himself to take a step back. Instead, noticing one of her hairpins jutting from a spot near her nape, he leaned in and freed it. He was close enough now to hear her shaky little breath of reaction. So much for moving back. Even an inch would feel too far now.
He held up the pin between them. Swallowed again. If he spoke now, he knew what it would sound like. A man entranced. A man aroused. He opened his mouth anyway.
“So you come from a long line of ass-kicking heroes.”
She laughed at that. Actually, truly laughed. His senses rejoiced in the husky sound of it.
“Something like that,” she said and lifted her gaze to fully meet his. The forests were now alive in her eyes again, though their depths now danced with something new. The verb itself was new. Yes, her stare danced for him. It moved and flowed across his face, as if rewriting the label she’d originally attached to him back at the party.
He scooted closer to her. Like his muscles were going to let him do anything else. “That’s pretty damn cool.”
The laugh softened to a smile. “Is that so?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t smile back. Clearly, she wrote his words off as smooth-talking bullshit. “It really is, Celina.”
“All right, all right.” She held up both hands, snatching the hairpin from him, then tossing it into a bowl with about fifteen others. “I believe you, fancy pants.”
He did a double take. She deliberately used the same nickname on him as the dick wad from the Blue Sax—again, an attempt on her part to lighten him up somehow. Dante didn’t back off. He didn’t feel so “light” right now, and he was damn determined she saw the same thing as he leaned forward, bringing their noses within inches of each other. “You didn’t like me very much when we met, did you?”
Her nostrils flared a little. But that was it in the way of tangible reaction. “Very observant, Mr. Tieri.”
“Anyone with a pulse would have noticed it, Lieutenant Kouris.”
She hitched a little shrug. “Let’s just say I usually don’t have a lot of patience for cavalier cash-tossers.”
Now he stepped back. Well, hell. That was one for the gut—in a breath-halting, not so fucking great kind of way. His jugular felt the force of it too, constricting as he brushed back by another foot.
“Wow. That one’s new. I have to admit, I’ve been prejudged as a lot of different things, but ‘cavalier cash-tosser?’ Hmm. That brings the game to a new low.” His mounting anger made his movements jerky as he yanked out his cell phone. “Sorry I’m still dirtying up your house here, Lieutenant. Just let me get Vincent on the line, and I’ll be out of your hair. Yeah, I have a driver. Sorry, but sometimes they come in handy for us cash-tossers.”
“Stop.” With reflexes that shocked him, she snatched the phone from his hand. “I’m going to add ‘shitty listeners’ to the list too. Did you hear me? I said I usually don’t have patience for—”
“For what? People like me? Or just guys like me? I’m wealthy, Celina. So what? I also have earlobes that are way too long, an unnatural obsession with Christmas, and I snore the roof off my bedroom.” He grabbed the phone back. “But I’ve also worked hard for my money, so if I want to toss it around a little, then that’s my fucking prerogative.”
Without taking his eyes off her, he punched in the speed dial for Vincent and the car. He remembered the moment, just hours ago, that he’d beheld her for the first time. He’d picked up on her discomfort. He’d pegged her as a certain kind of person too. A person who would be willing to put away her initial impressions, and would get to know what he was really like, and perhaps even like the person he was. But her dig—he was right. It was low. And it hinted at a mental wall against his status that ran miles high around her mind.
Her little wince almost did make him stop. But he didn’t. Not even when she glared at him and demanded, “Hang it up.”
“V? Yo, man, you get Meredith squared away? Thanks. Listen, I’m in Arlington Heights. The address is—”
He thought he was ready for her little lightning moves now. But the woman had the phone out of his hand, into hers, and at her ear with a move that made even her first frog tongue of a move seem slow. “He’s just kidding,” she told Vince. “Thanks for your time.”
In one move, she punched End Call and hurled the thing across the room, onto the couch.
Dante looked at her and, goddammit, actually fumed. “What the fu—”
“Are you going to listen to me now?”
He snorted. “Why? What good will—”
For the second time tonight, he was cut off from speaking by a kiss. But unlike Meredith’s embrace at the party, this interruption brought a cavalcade of sensation with it. An avalanche of sensations, violent and wonderful, incongruent to the soft, sweet, seeking lips that had brought it all with them. Celina’s lips. A mouth, he now realized, he’d been fantasizing about all night.
When her hand slipped up around his neck, he was officially buried by the slide. Suffocated. Cut off from the rest of reality. Lost.
As he pushed open her mouth with his, claiming her with every inch of his tongue and teeth, he prayed they didn’t find him for at least a week.
Chapter Four
Have you lost your damn mind?
/> Celina would’ve laughed at the irony of that, if she were certain her mind was responsible for the message. But this man made it impossible to access anything resembling logic. He’d ruined everything from the moment he stared at her at the party, hacking into her psyche with his gaze, gutting her like a black-steel knife. She’d even tried to escape, but look where that effort got her. He’d come barging back into her world with damn movie-hero timing, a knight in Armani, his bigger-than-life presence filling the storage room where those three jerks had nearly given her a reason to write off men for the rest of her life. Not that she hadn’t considered doing so before.
Oh yeah. That made complete sense now, didn’t it?
Now, she didn’t feel so sensible. Not at all. Actually, she hadn’t felt right-side up since she stepped through her own front door ten minutes ago and realized even these familiar walls and furnishings were transformed by Dante’s presence. All of it was more vibrant, yet none of it mattered at all. She barely cared about anything in the room, yet she was painfully aware of everything, especially him in it. Filling it. Electrifying it. Consuming it.
And she’d liked it.
Too damn much.
So she’d gone and thrown up her wall of sarcasm. He’d thrown back a volley of indignation. The phone had come out. The driver got hailed. And that was what she’d wanted, right? It was the perfect solution. He’d be gone and he’d be pissed, guaranteeing his eyes, his body, and his whole dark-knight magic would never tangle up her life again.
Then why did this feel like what she wanted instead? Why did his lips feel like heaven and taste like sin, making her crave both at once? Why did his tongue tempt hers into a hot, thrusting dance she couldn’t resist, twirling heat through every inch of her body, ending in a liquid pool right between her thighs? Why did his deep, rough groan coax a sigh from her that could only qualify as open, needy, lusty? She didn’t do needy! She sure as crap didn’t do lusty.
He turned her into a liar on both accounts when he finally pulled away, and she twined her grip into his hair to keep him close. Shit, his hair. Turned out “satin” was a damn good descriptor after all. Her action thickened his breathing. His hands bunched against her uniform at the small of her back. His biceps went taut, as if he held himself back from letting them do other things. Oh God…those other things. Celina’s mind filled with exactly what she wanted those things to be as his rugged beauty consumed her stare. What would those long fingers feel like on her backside…traveling up her thighs…hitching into her panties…and then…
