by Jackie Ivie
She took this third job from this same shady company because it was very expensive to live after Rod’s death wiped her out and nobody else offered, no matter how many times she reworded her resume, or how many places she submitted it to. She was already working two minimum wage jobs; both part-time, one handling night-shift at the local convenience store, because nobody offered full time work with benefits anymore.
This time her employers had even thrown in travel expenses, to Key West of all places, Florida per diem rates which were exorbitant, and they gave her a big enough advance she splurged on Italian spectator pumps to wear with her one good suit. Easy money. Perfect for her qualifications. If she turned a blind eye to things like cash transactions and amounts that never went above nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine dollars. For a law-abiding, uptight American, it didn’t seem possible she worked to help launder money. And if she didn’t watch it, her conscience would be helping her call the FBI, or something. But…not just yet. She’d be homeless if she didn’t do this. It was just better to ignore the implications, follow instructions, and collect her pay.
Nobody had factored in a pissed-off, pretty-boy, ex-jock, though. And she hadn’t even told him she wanted to buy his place yet.
When she’d first asked for the owner and watched the waitress go over to the most gorgeous man in existence, she’d actually got cold hands. And cold feet. And then everywhere else on her body had experienced the same sensation of ice cold chill. And excitement. Good heavens! There wasn’t a guy like this in existence. Even seen at a distance, he was so perfect he looked photo-shopped. Every bit of opening conversation she’d practiced disappeared. It was difficult to breathe. The words probably didn’t matter anyway. Her tongue wasn’t going to work properly. Blinking hadn’t muted the effect of looking at him, either. The guy was a walking piece of art with sex appeal tossed in. No wonder the place was crawling with women.
A moment ago, he’d acted ready to leap across the table and create some hot and heavy action with her – even with the crowd of people about them. And now? Now he looked like he’d just as soon rip her head off. And enjoy it.
“Uh…”
She’d been right. Her tongue didn’t work. Neither did her voice. Her throat wouldn’t even move on the dry swallow she sent there. He didn’t need to put a finger up to stop her. That was just overkill.
“Don’t say anything. Not yet. Please?”
Vangie added to her complete self-disgust by nodding. Some corporate CEO she was going to make. Someone set a tall glass in front of her, so wet with frost it darkened the napkin. She dragged her eyes from the guy across the table and managed a breath as a waitress winked at her.
“Tonic water and lemon. On the house. Sam figured you’d need it.”
She did. Vangie lifted it and drank until the cold hit her brain, stopping her. When she put the glass back in place, nothing else seemed to have moved. She could feel the flush happening and didn’t have anything to draw on to stop it. An introvert by nature, she’d had to work at getting to the front of her class. Speaking in public. Putting herself on display. She’d didn’t want to be the center of attention. She’d always suspected it would be embarrassing. Now, she knew it was.
“Oh, everybody get back to partying! Jake, call CJ from the back. Looks like we just lost a barkeep, and I’m still needing some drinks! You? Move. You don’t want me to start the boys early, do you?”
“You got this, Morgan?” That was a deeper, male voice.
The absolute god across the table grunted what might be assent. He didn’t take his eyes off hers. Vangie returned the favor as if glued in place. The crowd might be moving, might even be dissolving. She couldn’t say.
“All right! You were warned. Get me the boys! You’re on early tonight. And make it loud!”
Laughter followed the statement. It was followed by voices, and microphone buzz, and then drumbeats invaded the entire area, reaching out from beneath the roof onto the beach beyond, pumping a rhythm that dragged her pulse with it. The beat was accompanied by a thread of melody from a reed instrument she couldn’t place. Not without moving her eyes to check. Oboe, maybe? Sax? She didn’t believe in magic or spirits, or mysticism, but there was something very stirring and hypnotic about the spell being woven around her. She sensed movement as shadows flitted across the span of table between them. His customers were probably dancing. Vangie didn’t check that, either. The experience of gazing into his blue eyes wasn’t just something magnetic, it was downright mesmeric. Tantalizing. Alluring. Enthralling. And vaguely threatening. She knew now what a rodent must feel when facing a hooded cobra.
“You ready?” he asked.
Wow. For the images that small statement caused! Beneath this suit, she wore plain white cotton briefs, white bra, nothing fancy about her slip, and yet views of red lace and naked tanned skin assailed her, coming in a rapid-fire mélange as if frames from old reel-to-reel movies were getting interspersed with reality. Vangie blinked several times, licked her lips and pulled in a breath that shuddered.
“For what?” she finally replied.
He grinned, stole her voice and her breath, and then her next heartbeat.
“Name’s Dane. Dane Morgan.”
Dane. Figures. It couldn’t be something reasonable like John, or Albert. Or Henry. Oh, no. It was a name conjuring Vikings and plunder and pillaging and ravishment – as if he needed the advertisement. He put his hand out as if she’d actually touch it. And then his grin relaxed, adding stranger vibes to the mix. Vangie looked at his outstretched hand and then back at him.
“You going to tell me your name?” He dropped his hand.
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
Vangie gulped again. She should have taken another sip of her drink since her throat was so dry it scratched. She’d been naive, too. Instead of visualizing a nondescript rodent, she should have fancied herself a mongoose. Weren’t they a cobra’s natural enemy?
He looked away, the release granting her time to breathe, blink, and then take a gulp from her drink. In that order. This is ridiculous, Vangie. The guy wanted her name, not her body. Or her soul. Nothing scary about that. She’d practiced this a thousand times. Every business transaction started with the basics: Greetings. Name exchange. Handshake. She’d even been taught the correct way to shake hands. Use just a slight touch of pressure with her thumb and she wouldn’t come off as a pushover or wimp. Using that method controlled “hand-crusher” types, too. They wouldn’t pump her arm if she had the recurrent branch of their median nerve beneath her finger.
Besides…the worst thing that could happen is he’d tell her no. Right?
Vangie squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and stifled her own reaction to this guy. It was ridiculous. She wasn’t the type to attract gorgeous young guys, especially rich gorgeous, young guys, who looked like they spent every available moment in the company of women and more women. Surf and sand. Fun and sun. Parties and more parties. That lifestyle looked to suit him perfectly…looked really good on him, too. The tawny stripes in his hair were probably sun lightened. Or he spent a lot of time in a beautician’s chair for the effect.
He didn’t seem to notice her perusal. He wasn’t moving. It didn’t even look like he breathed, but it would be hard to note that beneath the loud colors of his shirt. It wasn’t hard to define really nice pecs, wide shoulders, or the bulge of biceps in his sleeves, though. And his forearms weren’t lacking in muscle, either.
She was caught as he brought his attention right back to her. There wasn’t much she could do about it. It was in the warmth stealing up her breast and into her lower cheeks, but she kept her eyes on his. It felt…safer. And that was just ridiculous. She couldn’t knock the sensation, though. She felt like the room spun in a wide, slow circle, trapping her in the center with a predator just hovering. Waiting. Watching. Her heart even decided to act up, dropping to somewhere within her belly, so it could pump beats from there to match the drums.
“You want to take this to my office?”
“Evangeline Harper.”
He could raise just one brow at a time. His right one. And that little quirk, combined with a killer grin, was really going over the top. The room spun faster, the heart swoop happened again, only this time it took her pulse with it, starting a distinctive ringing tone in both ears with the rapidity of it. There wasn’t much sense to any of this.
“E vangeline.”
The way he said it, with the emphasis on VAN sounded like a full skin caress. Her eyes went wide at the instant impression of fingers sliding along her knee…gliding up her thigh. They couldn’t have put something in her drink…could they?
“Come on. We’ll take this to my office.”
“Your office?”
“Yeah. My office. Private. Quiet. Unless you like all the attention we seem to engender?”
The chair disappeared somewhere as he got to his feet, offering his hand to her again. Vangie studiously ignored it and slid her chair back. The sight of him stole her wits. She really wasn’t willing to move toward touching. Not just yet. She didn’t give a flying hang about polite behavior, or business etiquette, or corporate strategy, either. It was self-preservation.
Maybe she shouldn’t go anywhere private and quiet with Dane Morgan. Crowds were safer. She’d read the paper, watched the news. Bodies were washing ashore lately, with shark marks that didn’t disguise the bullet holes.
What was she thinking? There wasn’t really an option. If they stayed here, she’d have to yell her proposal at him, and that’s if she could make out his expression, since they’d started to dim the lights. She’d come down here to be exactly where she was, talking to the bar’s owner and working out a deal. In fact, she was more successful than she’d dreamed. His office was a good option. Clearly. Vangie shouldered her purse strap and stood.
Dane Morgan was over six feet tall. That figures, too. He hadn’t looked that big before. He wasn’t hugely muscled like a body builder, but he wasn’t far behind them. She probably reached to his shoulder. Even wearing these three inch heels. Vangie took a breath and moved her gaze upward, willing the strange sensation from existence before she reached his eyes. It didn’t work. She might as well be floating, along with the spinning sensation that restarted the moment she locked gazes again. She’d never felt so out-of-sorts. Disconnected. Uninhibited.
“Take my hand. Please?”
That right eyebrow lifted again, and he tipped his head lower to speak just to her.
“I—”
“I don’t bite. Not on a first meeting, anyway. Promise.”
Mongoose, Vangie. Make like a mongoose. What a stupid idea. Mongoose moved lightning fast. That’s how they avoided being caught by a cobra’s stare. Or she hadn’t paid enough attention to those nature films back in grammar school. Nothing about her felt like moving at all, let alone quickly.
“Did they put something in my drink?”
His lips twitched, but at least he didn’t smile. “Why?”
“Because I feel….” Her words dragged into nonexistence. There wasn’t a description to this. She’d never taken a mood enhancement drug. She’d been around those who did, though, back when she tried to fit in and failed miserably. It had been a learning experience. She never wanted to be out of control of her own body. Like now. Just great Vangie. Great. She not only appeared to be easily influenced, she looked mindless as well.
“Take my hand.”
“I’ll follow.”
That got her another grin. “In this crowd? I’ll lose you. Come along. I promise you’ll be safe.”
“Right.” He might lose her, but he’d be impossible to mistake.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Should I?” Good. Her mind still worked, and it controlled her words. She almost let the self-satisfaction show before catching it.
“Did you wish to speak with me, or not?”
Trust a man to find the loophole. He was right. She was being paid to be right where she was. Privacy would be perfect, quiet even better. And he was offering both. She took his hand, got a jolt all the way through to the tips of her pinched toes in her shoes and back, and it was followed by such a sensation of heat, she almost snatched her hand back. He may have known, too, for the next moment found her entire form against what she’d suspected was a rock hard physique. Now, she knew it was.
They’d definitely put something in her drink. Otherwise, how could they be in a near-embrace and surrounded by writhing bodies in a crowded darkened club one moment, and the next out on shadowy open beach spliced by moonlight through palm fronds? And why wasn’t she finding it the slightest bit difficult to walk in wet sand with these heels?
Vangie glanced down.
She wasn’t touching the sand. He had her in his arms, and was moving so fast, they might as well be flying. She slammed her eyes shut and swallowed over and over. She was going to be airsick. Nobody had thought of that. The thud of steps on wood startled her, and worked at settling her belly. Good. He’d reached wood. Solidness. And he wasn’t flying. She peeked.
They were at the end of a dock. He owned a sleek, black boat, very hard to see at night. She thought they were called cigar boats. At least, that’s what she remembered from the movies. She probably should’ve spent more time in pursuit of a social life, and less time with television and her imagination, because whatever they’d given her was really warping reality, and she had a lot of imagination to draw from. Either that or he really did own a boat so fast, it flew, too. Without lights. Without much noise. Without even making a drop of sea spray. She didn’t have time for seasickness before a large black shape loomed out of the night sky all about them, sending a wave to rock the boat as they neared.
“Where the hell are we?” Forget etiquette and protocol. She was angry, and it showed in her words and her voice.
“My office.”
“Bologna.”
“Eric! Hit the running lights! Starboard!”
“Got it!”
Dane leaned back in order to send the commands up at more black shapes atop a railing. She couldn’t see his movement, but the way he had her plastered to him, she didn’t need to see it. Or anything else. She hadn’t imagined all that muscle and hard ripped body, either. She got a full onslaught of it all along her.
She heard the sound of chains scraping, a hiss of noise, some shouts, and then one side of the most enormous yacht she’d ever seen up close came into view, lit by blue-enhanced lights. The entire side facing them was black. Sleek, shiny black. And way at the top were large painted white letters along with his call numbers. It wasn’t hard to read them, even from this angle.
My Office.
“You see?”
Jerk. He should just keep his mouth shut. Dane Morgan wasn’t just a pretty-boy, rich, surfer dude. He was a complete and total jerk, too. Vangie cleared her throat to give her best “we can’t come to an agreement” spiel. She was usually very good at it.
“Look…Mister Morgan. We got off on the wrong foot. I’ve changed my mind. I want to go back to shore. I’ll save my words for another day. When you’re not so busy. So…say you just turn this little boat of yours around and take me back. Okay? I’ll be back tomorrow and we can—just what do you think you’re doing?”
Leaping upward without one bit of assist, and then walking into an enormous salon place with her was what he did. He deposited her onto an overstuffed leather sofa, and then took a seat right beside her. Then he turned toward her as if she was the most important thing in the world. And if she didn’t do something to stop this, she’d probably be assailed with the hypnotic sensation again. Vangie sucked in a breath, held it, and then slammed her eyes shut. She wasn’t making eye contact with him. No way. The man was pure drug to her, and she was acting like a full-fledged addict.
He put a finger beneath her chin and lifted it, sparking something right through her that had nothing to do with prior experience. Nothing. Vangie started silently counting. S
he got to three before he picked up her right hand within his, sending flurries of shivers with the contact. She was never trusting another man. Ever. Never. Ever. And if she got out of this, she was never ever taking another job without checking every single bit of their credentials, either. And she was calling the feds.
“ Frja? I cannot believe it. You exist. And you’re here. With me.”
She cracked open an eye. He had his one eyebrow cocked up again and the strangest expression on his face. Vangie opened the other eye to view what looked like tenderness and something else. Something akin to awe. Reverence. Wonder. The moist sheen atop his eyes seemed to reflect it, as well. And damn everything, she got to turn into his willing prey again, immediately drawn to the bottomless blue of his eyes.
“Finally. I simply cannot believe it. I can’t.”
“I…shouldn’t be here.” It was her mouth speaking, but she couldn’t truly feel her lips and throat making the sounds.
“You fear me?”
Fear? What a word for so vast an experience. He upset the very elements, altered them, and then reassembled them back in such a haphazard fashion, she didn’t know what to think or believe.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Should I?”
“You’re perfectly safe with me. You will always be safe.”
“After a trick like you just pulled, how am I supposed to believe that?”
“What trick?”
He actually had the gall to look confused. Vangie blinked around the blurred aura that seemed to surround them, but couldn’t move her eyes from his. Damn everything! She’d known not to lock gazes with him!
“This…is not your office,” she whispered.
“It is.”
“It’s a yacht.”
“What does that matter? It’s quiet and private, just as I offered.”
“Exactly. Perfect for all kinds of things…like—”
Red lace and entwined limbs. Naked, tanned skin…. Candlelight. Satin sheets.
The same images assailed her again in disjointed snippets that had perfect clarity to them. It was worse than before, and so much better. Her head tipped back slightly while her eyelids drooped. Her lips parted to pant for breath. His fingers about her hand tightened. Everything about him looked to have the same affliction – all taut and muscled and ready to spring – and the shirt wasn’t hiding one bit of it.
