by Stacy Gail
The last straw had been delivered in a truly cruel way. Man-Baby’s senile grandmother had held onto an antique rose-gold watch as if it were a lifeline in a never-ending sea of emptiness. She held it, kissed it and told everyone at the nursing home her wonderful husband had chosen to forego vacations for a decade just so he could buy her that watch.
Then one day, it went missing.
The elderly woman died within hours of its disappearance, fading into darkness without uttering another word. The home’s surveillance video revealed Man-Baby had come to visit, and as he’d pretended to adjust her pillows, he had slipped the watch right out of her gnarled old hands. He then blew what money he’d gotten for that irreplaceable memento on a new gaming system and a two-day bender at his new distraction, The Toy Box.
Jon-Jay Horowitz had bawled as he’d been dragged away in cuffs. When bail had been set, it came as no surprise when Man-Baby’s mother—“He doesn’t know any better, he’s just a baby!”—put her tiny house in Coconut Grove up as collateral. The moment she’d been distracted, Jon-Jay was out the door with his mother’s 1950 first-edition hardback autographed copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Stealing from his helpless grandmother was horrific enough. Threatening his mother with homelessness was equally heinous. But disrespecting Narnia was the last nail in Man-Baby’s coffin, as far as Kyle was concerned.
In addition to the hefty bounty, the family had matched it with a private reward, so the payoff wound up being a cool fifty-grand. Every bounty hunter in Florida was on the scent, but another sweep of the bar told Kyle that luck was with him. He was the only hunter who knew Jon-Jay enjoyed the dubious delights hidden within The Toy Box. All he had to do now was bide his time, wait for the perfect moment to drop the net, and walk away fifty-thousand bucks richer, while also helping a blindly loving mother out of a bind.
It might not be demon-hunting, but it wasn’t too shabby.
“She’s the woman who makes the grade.” The announcer’s nasal-whine of a voice almost drowned out the order of a beer Kyle gave to a waitress, who tottered so precariously on her high heels it sucked every ounce of sexiness from her corset uniform. “Step out of line and she’ll tie you up in detention, but if you please her you might become her pet. Gentlemen, if you’d ever had a teacher like this, you’d never have ditched a day in your life. For your viewing pleasure, please welcome The Toy Box’s very own Sex-Ed teacher, Ms. Sparkle Spanksalot!”
Outstanding. Kyle laughed as he took his beer, gave the waitress a generous tip for the courage it took to work in this dive, and settled back to enjoy the show. His quarry seemed to have the same idea, half out of his seat so he could tug his wallet out in preparation to flash some cash. He’d let the stripper get paid by the useless Man-Baby; it was the least he could do for having to put up with a ridiculous stage name like Sparkle Spanksalot. But then it’d be curtains for not-so-little Jon-Jay and his rampage of petty self-indulgence.
The heavy throb of “Hot for Teacher” pulsed through the club. On cue, a woman erupted from the cheesy tinsel curtain. Appreciation for how she took instant command of the stage curled the corners of his mouth, and he couldn’t help but sit up straighter as she paused, unmoving, to survey the room as if she owned both it and everyone in it.
Hello.
There was an unyielding power in her eyes hidden behind ugly horn-rimmed glasses, the kind of power that made a man beg to be punished, as long as that punishment came from her hands. Her dark hair—either brown or black, he couldn’t tell under the glare of the spotlights—was pulled back into a tight bun. Kyle had no doubt that every man in the room wanted to pull it loose to let it tumble through his fingers. Her body was long and rangy, covered in a heavy gray tweed skirt suit that grudgingly showed a bare minimum of wrist and calf.
She was a shrouded masterpiece begging to be unveiled.
“Take it off!”
Kyle didn’t bother stifling a disdainful scoff. It came as no surprise that Jon-Jay, a towering moron who understood nothing but instant gratification, was the first to yell his head off. That oaf had zero appreciation for savoring the almost-painful build-up of anticipation, or delaying that moment of satisfaction until a strong man screamed for sweet release.
Ms. Sparkle Spanksalot, though, could probably write a book on the subject.
She had a ruler in her hand, and she pointed it at Man-Baby before swatting her own tweed-covered ass with a flash of polished wood. It wasn’t bad, as far as asses went, firmly packed into a heavy costume that looked ridiculous in Miami, but he had to admit he was as curious as Jon-Jay to see what was beneath the wrapping. Before he could think better of it, Kyle let loose a whistle when she put the ruler in her mouth and twirled around the nearest pole, one hand holding the thin bar while the other ripped open the fastenings of the tweed coat and prim, high-collared shirt beneath.
When NASA introduced the world to Velcro, they probably had no idea of the gift they were giving to strip joints everywhere.
There was a black scrolling tattoo running down her spine that was familiar, but as the dark gold of her skin brought his brain to its proverbial knees, he wasn’t interested in figuring out why it struck a chord. All he wanted now was for her to swing around in his direction so he could see what the acres of tweed had been hiding.
The coat and blouse were tossed away as her stilettos touched the catwalk. Briefly he pondered how a real teacher’s feet would be turned to hamburger in those shoes by the end of the school day. Then that wayward thought sank under a rush of desire-spiked male appreciation as she turned his way once more. The woman was a goddess. Her breasts were covered in a spangled white bikini top, and just full enough to have a hint of shadowed cleavage. Willowy arms honed with fine muscles moved gracefully as she toyed with the fastenings of the school-marmish skirt. A charm in her navel flashed, bringing attention to a lush stretch of honey-hued skin. Her torso was long and lean, and the ridge of rib cage showing with each sweet gyration hinted at a fragility that made his hands itch to explore.
Holy hell, he wanted to touch her.
The heavy calf-length skirt loosened. With a move akin to drying off one’s backside, the stripper stood right in front of Kyle’s target and shook her tweed-veiled ass until Man-Baby erupted with a raucous hoot. Satisfied, she tossed the skirt aside, and revealed a heavily spangled white bikini bottom. It wasn’t the dental floss G-string he’d been expecting, but nevertheless it was a sight that turned his mouth into a desert and his blood into a wild flow of molten lava. The liquid heat pooled in his lower regions until he had to shift, the raw hunger pulsing through him so feverishly he didn’t have to look down to know he’d grown hard.
Mystery solved as to why Jon-Jay Horowitz was such a fan of The Toy Box. If this was the caliber of talent employed at this unassuming establishment, then Kyle really had no choice but to become a repeat customer himself.
With a half-smile that would have seduced a ninety-year-old monk, the woman onstage repositioned the ruler in her ruby-red mouth so that it stuck straight out. Then she sank with a ballerina’s grace to her knees and offered the opposite end of it to Man-Baby.
Damn it, not him. He’s not worthy of you.
Kyle glared at the lummox’s expansive back while Man-Baby upended his chair in his haste to accept the woman’s challenge, and the ruler passed from her mouth to his. Then, still on her knees, she sat back until she was resting on her heels, her head tilting all the way back as she slid her hand down the center of her lean torso. And down. And down. And down...
A harsh sound grated out of Kyle’s clenched throat when her fingers slid boldly under the edge of the spangled panties. Her hips arched and rocked, a fluid sex-motion that he could picture her doing as she rode a man until he cried out for mercy. As he watched, so mesmerized by the unrepentant vision of sensuality, he didn’t realize he’d reached for the b
ulge behind his zipper until he groaned at the pressure of his squeezing fingers.
She was the embodiment of carnal pleasure, a fantasy men wove in the darkest part of night when sleep was impossible and the bed was empty. It almost crushed him when she withdrew her hand, as her ecstasy hadn’t yet been reached...and pulled out a shiny pair of handcuffs.
Oh, hot fucking damn, YES.
The other patrons seemed to agree. The noise level trebled as she swung them tantalizingly in front of Jon-Jay. He let out another whoop and gave her a fistful of money before he offered up his wrists. A strange, out-of-place expression flashed across her face for a split second. It looked almost like...like...
Triumph.
“Wait a minute.” But even as suspicion slammed into Kyle with all the force of a sledgehammer, she slapped the cuffs on Jon-Jay and hopped off the stage in a no-nonsense manner, pulling a badge out of one of the spangled bra cups of her bikini top as she went. Then, when she flashed it in front of Man-Baby’s disbelieving eyes, took off the big, ugly glasses and shook out the long waterfall of wavy dark hair, Kyle wished to any powers listening that he had the flexibility to kick himself in the ass.
“Damn you, Nikita.” And, to add insult to injury, Kyle found he didn’t have the strength to peel his hand away from his rock-hard dick.
Chapter Two
“Nikita, I’m going to tell your tía on you.”
In the process of slipping on a pair of sunglasses, Nikita glanced up in surprise to find the one and only Kyle Beaudecker leaning against the black SUV she’d left parked in the Miami-Dade County Jail visitor’s lot. She adored her ride. It was tricked out with a bench-style backseat positioned too far away to kick the driver’s seat, a thick steel grating between the back area and the driver’s cab, locks controlled solely by her, and black-tinted rear windows. Not to mention it had a smoking-hot sound system that made it sound like The Gypsy Kings were in the car with her.
“Don’t get your nasty ass-prints all over my baby, cabrón.” It was a tough job, injecting irritation into her tone when simply looking at Kyle was one of her all-time favorite things to do. It had been that way for as long as she’d become a licensed bounty hunter at the age of twenty-one, and her very first solo bag-and-tag had gone sideways when he’d beaten her to the punch. Ever since she’d lost her first bounty to the man she’d come to think of as Hurricane Kyle, he had been on her radar as the number-one man in her universe to watch.
And watch him she did. Though she was on the tall side of five foot ten, Kyle towered over her by at least half a foot. That alone would have made him stand out, but the shoulder-length tangle of sun-bleached hair, heavy-lidded blue-gray eyes and sun-kissed golden skin stretched tautly over a lean yet muscular frame was just what her inner doctor ordered. For years she’d suspected Kyle could be a cure for whatever ailed her—or any other woman with a pulse. In fact, he’d be downright perfect if he didn’t have an irksome habit of showing up when he wasn’t wanted.
Like now.
“What are you going to tell her?” Nikita shook her unruly hair back as she hit the button to remotely unlock the tailgate. “She’d probably love hearing how you missed making an easy fifty-grand today. Especially since I was the one who got there first.”
“I doubt Yolanda would be thrilled to hear about how you did it, Sparkle Spanksalot.”
“Like I had any choice in that stupid name Dodie chose,” she began, then screeched to an abrupt halt in the process of dumping her bag and paperwork into the neatly organized car-crates in the back. The crates had been where she’d grabbed an extra pair of jeans and a T-shirt to slip over the spangled bikini, and she couldn’t wait to get its itchy material off her body and into the nearest open flame she could find. “Wait.”
“Yes?” Ever-helpful, Kyle propped an elbow on the roof of the car and grinned at her like the Cheshire cat. She hated cats.
“What did you just call me?”
“Sparrrrrrr-kle.” He leaned forward until they were almost nose-to-nose. The breeze brought his scent to her—the familiar after-a-storm fresh scent...and the smoke-polluted sex of The Toy Box. “Spanks. A. Lot.”
She’d kill him. No court in the land would convict her. “You were there? You saw?”
“Oh, yeah.” His heavy-lidded eyes, always lazy and smiling as if with some secret joke he wasn’t about to share, were alive with an avid light. “I saw everything.”
“Not everything.” More appalled than she’d ever admit, Nikita lifted her baggy T-shirt and flashed the heavily disc-spangled undergarment at him as if it were Mardi Gras and she wanted some beads. “Nobody saw these.”
“Isn’t that a crying shame.” The way his distracted gaze lingered on her breasts had her pulse stumbling over itself. But when he reached for what he was looking at, she slapped at his hand before she’d consciously thought the action through. “Don’t get excited. I just wanted to see how you managed to hide your bounty hunter’s badge in there.”
“Stripper’s motto—look with your eyes, not with your hands.” The faint sting of the hand-slap made her fingertips tingle, and part of her regretted the reflexive action. The thought of Kyle’s hands exploring her body was never far from her mind whenever he was near. That was understandable. When it came to her tastes in men, Kyle hit every one of her must-haves—quick-witted, killer smile, tall enough to make her feel delicate and a sexy body he clearly knew how to put to good use. The man was practically made for her. Was it any wonder she went into instant heat whenever he was near?
It was strange, though. She had an active libido and was comfortable with following it wherever it led her. But usually those needs were of the moment. Once someone who had attracted her attention was out of her sight, they were also out of her mind. That was as it should be.
It wasn’t that way with Kyle, though. Lately he’d begun to linger on the outskirts of her thoughts, even when he was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t sure why her brain had decided to get hung up on him, though she recalled the moment she’d realized it was happening. Spring Break was usually a craptastic time in South Florida for bounty hunting. Finding jumps while half of North America came to party it up in her city became the definition of impossible. Amazingly enough, however, she’d managed to get a lead on her jump—a meth freak she’d tracked down to the Butterfly Garden in Coral Gables. A weird place for a junkie to enjoy frequenting, she’d thought at the time, but the unlikely lead had turned out to be pure gold. She’d found her jump making like a statue in the gardens, with butterflies lighting on him as if he were manna from heaven. His pimply, drug-ravaged face wore an almost transcendent expression, and she’d stumbled to a halt under the bizarre sense that she was intruding.
In that moment and with a strength that had shocked her, she’d wished Kyle was there to share the pure what-the-fuckery of what she was seeing. Even after she’d startled her target into running—right into Kyle’s waiting handcuffs at the other end of the garden—that weirdness persisted.
She wasn’t the clingy type, by any stretch of the imagination. When her mother had died in the crossing from Cuba to Florida when Nikita was a girl, she’d learned to shut down the need for human contact, with the possible exception of her aunt. She relied on no one, and she was happier for it. How could she not be happy, when she lived as hard and fast as she could? Tomorrow the world could end, and that would be fine as far as she was concerned. No worries meant no ties. No ties meant no grief. And no grief...
Echoes of screams and terror whispered in the darkest pit of her memory. Ruthlessly she slammed the door on it and hardened her heart. A no-grief lifestyle was definitely for her.
That was why her preoccupation with Kyle was such a massive pain in the ass. Her brain shouldn’t keep snagging on him. Yet, no matter what she did or where she went lately, he mentally tagged along for the ride. Maybe she was getting paranoid about him. C
onsidering they were professional rivals—the two best bounty hunters in all of South Florida, no less—paranoia was as good an explanation as any.
An amused noise escaped him. “Stripper’s motto, huh? Learned that in The Toy Box, did you?”
“I learned a lot in The Toy Box.” Dropping her shirt, she closed the back hatch. Then in one smooth motion, Nikita stepped into his space until there was no more than a breath between them. Maybe the only way to get him out of her thoughts was to physically work him out of her system. “I was stuck in that hole almost a week, slinging drinks and getting my ass pinched before Man-Baby showed up. Where were you?”
“What matters is I got there eventually.” He turned with her movement, his back once more leaning against the SUV as he watched her with an unwavering attention that spiked her blood with delirium-inducing fever. “I’m curious. What else did you learn?”
“Lap dances have very little to do with actual dancing.”
“You didn’t know that already?”
“Nope. But after seeing how it’s done a few dozen times, I feel like I’m an expert on all the important points.” In a move she had seen countless times in the past five days, Nikita shimmied her body against his, bending her knees and slithering back up the same way. The heat that sparked between them, however, was something she didn’t know was waiting for her until it was too late to put out the fire. “Want to see?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“No tricks.” She placed her hands against the sun-warmed SUV on either side of him and tilted her face up to his. “Just treats. If you’re up for it.”
“Nikita.” Oh, so slowly his head drifted downward, as if he was caught in her gravitational pull. She shuddered in anticipation when his tongue moistened his lips. “You’re my worst fucking nightmare when you’re in the mood to tease.”
“Who’s teasing?”
