Lust (Vegas Nights #2)

by Emma Hart

  To me, I knew it wasn’t.

  Sam tapped at his phone and looked at Perrie. She pulled her cell out, and I frowned.

  “Did you just text her?”

  “Yep,” he said, looking at his screen. “I told her I wanted to see the dress that has you acting like a thirteen-year-old with a hard-on.”

  I stared at him flatly.

  He grinned. “Kidding. I told her to get on with it.”

  Watching Perrie, it was obvious she was trying not to look over in our direction. The tender brought her change over to her, and when she’d tucked it into her purse, she stood and reached for her belt.

  I groaned, knowing what was coming.

  Slowly, with her body turned in the direction of Daniel Duvall, she undid her coat carefully and slid it down her shoulders to reveal the dress that would be the death of me tonight.

  I saw the exact moment he noticed her.

  “Holy shit,” Sam breathed. “Now I feel like a teenage boy.”

  “Yep.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Perrie

  I could feel their eyes on me.

  It sounded insane, and I felt like this dress was a mistake. I hadn’t even thought this through when I’d put it on. I just wanted to make sure Daniel Duvall would notice me so I could hook him quickly and then get on with my night.

  It was ridiculous when I considered that it’d taken me hours to get to sleep today thanks to Adrian last night. Never mind blue balls—I had a purple clit.

  And the way he’d looked at me when I’d taken my coat off in the parking lot, all raw hunger and desperate restraint, I’d wanted to tell him to screw this night and do the very same thing to me.

  Now, I had to brush off those feelings amid the numerous sensations of being watched to seduce a man who, from last night, appreciated the female form but not the person inside it.

  I was gonna need a lot of wine when I was done here, that was for sure.

  I folded my coat and set it on the bar over my purse. Glancing the way of Daniel Duvall, our eyes met for the briefest second. I pulled my attention over to my phone.

  I knew that the best way to really get his attention was to pretend that I was waiting for a friend and been stood up. They were the prey I’d preferred to pick out—they were actively looking for company. Company I used to give for a pretty price.

  Now, I wanted Duvall to believe I was looking for that.

  I’d rather separate us with a ten-foot pole, but whatever. I wasn’t in a position to be picky about it.

  I smoothed loose curls behind my ear and unlocked my phone. Pretending I was waiting for a friend was not only ridiculous but also totally mind-numbing. The amount of texts I’d have to “send” until I could “call” and sigh in annoyance was stupid.

  Why had I agreed to this? Surely there was some young rookie officer I could have trained to do this.

  God. This was awful.

  I was going to give Adrian and Sam a mouthful when I got done here. They had to know that I wasn’t going to do this again. I’d rather spend the night in jail.

  My phone buzzed with an actual message, and thank god. That made it easier.

  Sam: You should try to smile.

  The urge not to look for them was overwhelming.

  Me: You’re offering me as a piece of meat, how’s a middle finger for a smile for you?

  Sam: Save it. I assure you Adrian’s in far more distress than you will be all night.

  Me: Tell him to stick his distress where the sun doesn’t shine.

  I flashed a dark glare their way. Sam’s coughing laugh was loud and obvious, even to me, and I turned my back to them. Goddamn them. That wasn’t who I wanted the text to be from.

  Again, my phone buzzed, and this time, I sighed.

  Adrian: Can I offer you some advice?

  Me: Don’t reply to Sam’s texts again?

  Adrian: Yes, but no. Don’t wear a black thong with a white dress.

  How did he… oh shit! This dress wasn’t the thickest material in the world. I’d been so frustrated by the prospect of this that I’d pulled the biggest rookie move in the book.

  Light clothes must equal light understand.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  Me: Fuck.

  Me: At least DD will think I’m up for it if he notices.

  There was always a silver lining.

  Adrian: Zac is with my sister tonight.

  Me: I don’t know where you’re going with this.

  Adrian: The longer I sit here seeing your underwear through your dress, the more likely I am to fuck you blind tonight.

  The lump in my throat was thick.

  Me: We’re working.

  Adrian: I’m working on all the ways I can make you come.

  Oh my god.

  My cheeks burned.

  Me: You’re being ridiculous.

  Adrian: My fingers, for one. I have a pretty skilled tongue. And an eight-inch cock that will make you cry.

  Me: Are you sexting me when I should be seducing another man?

  Me: Bc if you are, I don’t know what to say about that.

  Adrian: If it looks like sexting and makes you squirm like it’s sexting, it’s sexting.

  Adrian: Are you squirming?

  Internally.

  Me: No.

  His response didn’t come immediately, and that made me squirm. I needed to be focusing on Duvall, but here I was, sexting with a hot cop with some serious self-confidence.

  Ugh.

  The next buzz of my phone alerted me to his response. I sipped my drink and gathered myself before I opened the message.

  Adrian: You will be.

  “You will be.”

  That was it.

  That was the message I’d waited at least five minutes for.

  Me: Send my call to voicemail.

  I dialed his number probably before he even had a chance to read my message. I flicked my hair back over my shoulder and sighed as it ticked over to voicemail.

  “You are the most irritating person I know,” I said in a low voice. “Leave me the hell alone because you’re not helping at all.”

  Then, I hung up.

  I could have texted him, sure, but then if I had, he wouldn’t have heard how much I wanted him to shut up.

  I peered at my screen and put the phone face down on the bar with another sigh.

  With any luck, that little show would have attracted the attention of Duvall.

  A glance over my shoulder showed he’d disappeared.

  I snatched my phone back up and opened the message thread with Adrian. I’d just started typing when a shadow fell over my screen. Instinctively, I tilted the phone away from the presence next to me and tilted my face toward it.

  The dark brown eyes of Daniel Duvall stared at me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I couldn’t help noticing that your glass is empty. Could I get you another?”

  I glanced at my glass. He was right. Huh. I’d created the opening without even realizing it.

  I turned my attention to him. Making sure to give him an obvious once-open, I said, with only mind interest, “You sure could.”

  “Do you mind?” He waved a hand toward the stool in front of me.

  “My date isn’t showing up anytime soon, so go ahead.”

  His ass had barely touched the seat and he’d flagged the tender without taking his eyes off me. He ordered another of what I was drinking and whiskey for himself.

  “Date stood you up, huh?” His eyes roved over my body. “His loss.”

  Bingo.

  ***

  Ninety minutes later, I’d created an entirely fake persona under the name of Lilah Beaumont. Lilah grew up just south of Los Angeles and came to Vegas for university. While here, she found great work in a bar owned by the Fox family—it was all I could think of, okay?—and moved up until she became a manager. Single and dating, she lived in a quiet neighborhood in the north of the city.

  I’d
created her everything from a flaky best friend to an ex with commitment issues and a currently-dating gentleman who kept getting held up at work, so currently was about be no-longer.

  Daniel Duvall listened with rapt attention. He asked all the right questions and said all the right things at the right times, but I could see the falseness of it all behind his eyes. With every word I spoke, I made myself more and more vulnerable to someone like him.

  The longer we chatted, the closer he got. The more predatory his touches became. The lower his voice was. The smoother his lines became.

  He was a master of it, I’d give him that. It was easy to see why he could get women to give in to him. Hell, if I were rich and needed to pay to get laid, I’d be writing his ass a check right about now.

  Fortunately for me, I wasn’t attracted to him. Or rich.

  Well, I was rich, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t like I could touch the money, which made it all a moot point.

  “What about you?” I rested my chin on my hand. “You’ve barely said a thing about yourself. What’s a handsome guy like you doing out by himself? Don’t you have a girlfriend looking for you somewhere?”

  He laughed, leaning in. “No girlfriend. One hundred percent single.”

  “That’s good to know.” I inserted a purr-like tone into my voice. “Were you planning on staying all night?”

  “As long as it took for me to find a girl like you.”

  Smooth. “Well, then, here I am. Are you staying at this hotel?”

  His eyes glinted with the hint of success. “Across the street. Are you finally giving up on your date?”

  “I gave up on him a while ago.” I gathered my purse and my coat, holding them to my stomach. “Shall we leave?” I stood, hoping this wasn’t for nothing.

  He stood, reaching down to cup my hip. His mouth came close to my ear, and he said in a low voice, “You know my time isn’t free, don’t you, Lilah?”

  “It’s—what?” I gasped, leaning back.

  He raised his eyebrows. “I’d hate you to go all the way to my bed and realize…”

  “You…Oh.” I touched my hand to my mouth. “You’re…”

  “A prostitute,” he said wryly, lips twisting.

  I swallowed hard and ran a finger down his chest. “Well, Daniel, since you approached me, why don’t you sit here for a minute while I visit the bathroom and see if you can’t cut me a little deal, hmm?”

  “A bargainer. I like that.”

  I leaned in close, trying not to cringe at the slight over-application of his strong cologne. “You’ll like what’s under this dress a whole lot more.”

  My fingers brushed his chest for a second longer with my meaningful look. I passed him, heading for the bathrooms. Trying not to look at Adrian and Sam was the hardest part of it.

  I pushed my way into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked the same as I had when I’d left my house, except for my hair being a little bit more mussed up. Turning to check my ass in the mirror, I saw Adrian was right. My panties were totally visible through this dress.

  Oh, well. All I could do at this point was sigh it off.

  I gathered myself, slipped my coat over my arms, and headed out of the bathroom.

  And almost slammed right into Daniel Duvall.

  “I thought you looked familiar,” he said in a low voice, eyes devoid of any of the softness from earlier. “And it just clicked. I’m pretty sure you worked at a Fox club when I did, except, you weren’t a manager. You were behind the scenes and paid me my check every week.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied, my heart thumping furiously against my chest. “I just met you tonight.”

  Where the hell was Adrian? Where was the entire team?

  “You sure about that?”

  “Positive. Actually, this is a bad idea. I’ll take a raincheck on this.” I made to step to the side, but his arm shot out and stopped me.

  “No, you won’t. You’re coming with me, Perrie Fox.” His hands closed around my upper arms.

  Maybe, I should have felt fear. Maybe the anger in his gaze should have terrified me. Maybe I should have been shitting myself because the people who were supposed to have arrested him by now, hadn’t.

  But, I didn’t.

  I felt anger.

  Anger that he knew who I was. Anger that I hadn’t been careful enough with my appearance tonight.

  Anger that he dared put his hands on me.

  “I’m going to say this once,” I said, looking into dark eyes that now seemed the epitome of cruel. “Get your hands off me.”

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “I absolutely am not.”

  He tugged at me.

  A familiar flash of blue-green eyes caught my attention from several feet away.

  Angry, hard, blue-green eyes.

  I beat Adrian to it.

  I lifted my knee and rammed it into Daniel’s thigh. It shocked him enough that he stilled and I could lift it again—this time, into his groin. The impact made him release me, and for good measure, I rammed the heel of my hand into his nose.

  I told him I wasn’t going away.

  Adrian grabbed hold of me, yanking me close to him. His eyes searched my face and my body. “Did he hurt you?”

  I glared at him. I wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer. In fact, I was so mad he’d left me for so long.

  Sam wrenched Daniel’s arms up and behind his back, cuffs jangling. “Rory Peterson, you’re under arrest for the solicitation of sexual services and attempted kidnapping. You do not have to say anything…”

  Attempting kidnapping?

  I jerked my heard around to see Daniel—Rory—glaring at me.

  “I hope you’ll be arresting her for assault!” Blood dripped onto his mouth.

  “Ms. Fox acted in self-defense. However, if you’d like to make an official complaint when you get to the statement, you’re more than welcome to. I expect the CCTV footage will prove your attempts fruitless,” Adrian said in a dry tone, releasing me. “Get him out of here.” He nodded toward Sam then turned to me. “Let’s go make your statement. And do that fucking coat up.”

  I slammed my purse into his chest so I could. Then, I snatched it back, and stalked off ahead of him.

  My goddamn wrist hurt.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Perrie

  Giving my statement was relatively straightforward. Adrian obviously realized I had no desire to talk to him, so Sam took it. When the interview was done, he shut off the recorder, sighed, sat back, and rubbed his face.

  “Can I go now?” I asked him.

  He looked at me with tired eyes. “Humor me for five minutes?”

  “I’m not in the mood for stand-up comedy.”

  He held his hands up. “I get it, you’re pissed. But when he followed you, we knew he’d recognized you. He hadn’t clocked onto us, but we had to see if we could get more on him.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and stared at him. “I was here as an informant, Sam, not a hooker-magnet. I was all for snaring him until I was potentially put in a path of danger.”

  “You were never in danger.”

  “Yeah? Tell that to his nose.”

  “It’s broken, by the way.”

  “Good. It should have been his neck.”

  His lips quirked to the side. “I won’t argue. Trust me when I say nothing would have happened to you. But, you gave us what we needed.”

  “Which was what?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “No, fuck you.” I sat up straight and glared at him. “I literally went out there and risked myself tonight. You arrested him on attempted kidnapping—you all literally put me in danger and waited until the last possible minute to arrest the guy. I had his admission for five minutes before he found me. At least be honest with me.”

  Sam rubbed his jaw, glancing at the door a few times before sighing with resignation. “All right. We think he’s
a major player in a sex trafficking ring here. We’ve been trying to get him on something for months but he always evaded us. When we said he was new to us yesterday, the only new thing was his alias. He changes them on a regular basis to avoid being caught.”

  “He’s—what?”

  “He’s one of a few scouts. They reel in women, take them back to their rooms under pretense of being a prostitute, then drug them. We already searched his car and found a couple grand’s worth of ketamine in there.”

  I blinked. “You lied to me.”

  “By omission.”

  “A lie by omission is still a lie. Don’t you think you should have been honest with me? It would have changed it.”

  “You wouldn’t have done it.”

  “Damn right! I have a seven-year-old daughter. I’ve taken enough risks with my life over the past few years. I don’t need it in an environment where I’m supposed to be safe!” I buried my face in my hands. They’d omitted a huge piece of information in an effort for me to snare their guy.

  I should just go become a cop. Clearly, I’m already better than these pieces of shit are.

  I took a deep breath and dropped my hands, looking at Sam with an eerily calm expression. “Are we done here?”

  “Adrian said he’ll take you home when he’s done.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of calling a cab. Are we done here?”

  “Adrian said—”

  “Adrian can swivel on a steel spike. Are. We. Done?”

  Sam swallowed. “We’re done. Will you let me call you a cab?”

  I pulled my phone out of my purse and got up.

  I had the number dialing before I’d even left the interview room.

  It wasn’t the only number I needed to call.

  ***

  I twirled Dahlia Lloyd’s business card between my fingers. I was sitting on my sofa wearing the same dress I’d been wearing all night, the half-empty bottle of wine sat, uncorked, on the coffee table in front of me.

  The wine had been for dutch courage, but all it had done was make me overthink. I probably should have gone straight for the vodka.

  Calling The Scarlet Letter right now would be useless. It was late and they were, no doubt, busy. That would be my first move in the morning, and that wasn’t quite as daunting as the prospect of calling Dahlia and saying a few short words.