One-Click Buy: September Harlequin Blaze

by Jo Leigh

  She found hers a second later and wrapped her legs tightly around him to ride it out.

  As if knowing the floor was hard against her back, Nick scooped her in his arms and lay down, dragging her on top of him. They were both panting, gasping for air, and he kissed her temple, smoothing her hair away from her sweaty face.

  “Izzie? I have to tell you something.” His words were rushed. Choppy.

  “Yes?”

  Closing his eyes, he dropped his head back onto the floor.

  “I’m going to call you Cookie until the day I die.”

  6

  FUNNY. Nick had once thought that having absolutely mind-blowing sex with a woman would make her friendlier. At least more approachable.

  No. Uh-uh. Not Izzie Natale. Because within minutes of their incredible lovemaking in the back of the delivery van, she was back to freezing him out, trying to act like nothing had changed between them.

  After sex like that, he’d kind of expected to be invited in for a cup of coffee…if not dessert. Oh, man, he was never going to look at a cannoli the same way again.

  But she hadn’t invited him in. Hadn’t answered him when he’d asked if she wanted to go get a bite to eat somewhere. And over the next couple of days, hadn’t returned his calls. Hadn’t even met his eye in the past couple of days.

  The woman was killing him, she really was.

  When he’d finally confronted her on the sidewalk in front of the bakery Friday afternoon, she’d erupted. “It was a one time thing, Nick. It was fabulous, I loved it, but it’s not going to happen again. Because if it does, then you’re going to be more of a pain about wanting me to go get a pizza with you, or go visit the folks, and then the whole neighborhood will be congratulating poor little Izzie for finally landing her man.”

  She’d stalked inside without saying another word. She hadn’t needed to. He got the message, loud and clear. She’d loved the sex, she just didn’t want all the stuff that went with having a sexual relationship. Or any relationship whatsoever.

  He thought about proposing that they just set up a weekly sex-buddy meeting in the parked van behind her shop, suspecting he could have her on those terms if he wanted her.

  He didn’t want her on those terms.

  “Hell, admit it, you want her on any terms,” he muttered aloud as he walked out the back door of Santori’s that night. He hadn’t even realized anyone else was there until he saw his brother, Joe, who’d just parked his pickup in one of the empty spots in the alley. Fortunately, Joe hadn’t heard Nick talking to himself and so wasn’t dialing for the rubber-walled wagon.

  “Hey, where you off to?” Joe asked as he hopped out and pocketed his keys. “I was going to take you up on that pitcher you owe me.”

  “I’m not very good company right now,” he admitted.

  Joe, who was the best-natured of all of the Santori kids, threw his arm around Nick’s shoulders. “Then what better time to share a beer with your brother?”

  He had a point.

  “Okay. But not here,” he said, looking back at the closed door to the kitchen. “I really need someplace quiet.”

  Joe’s smile faded and he immediately appeared concerned. “Everything okay? Is there a problem?”

  “No problem. Just a case of family overdose.”

  “I hear ya. Come on, let’s go across the street.”

  Following Joe into a neighborhood bar on the corner, Nick ordered a couple of beers and paid the tab. If Mark had been sitting across from him, Nick knew he’d be getting one-liners aimed at making him say what was on his mind. Lucas would be doing his prosecutor inquisition. Tony would throw his oldest-brother weight around and try to browbeat him into talking. Lottie would jabber so much Nick would say anything to get her to shut up.

  Joe just watched. Listened. Waited.

  “Thanks again for pointing me toward the job,” Nick finally said, filling the silence. The bar was pretty empty-it was too early for the weekend regulars, who’d be drifting in for a long night of drinking and darts before too long.

  “How’s that going?”

  “Pretty well. I’ve only worked the past two weekends but the money’s good.”

  “You still haven’t told the rest of the family?”

  Nick shook his head. “Just Mark.”

  Joe nodded. “Probably just as well. I know Pop and Tony are talking nonstop about you coming in on the business.”

  Yeah, they had been to him, too. Nick couldn’t prevent a quick frown. Because managing a pizzeria was not the way he saw himself spending the next six months, much less the rest of his life.

  “It’s okay, Nick. Nobody can force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “Guilt goes a long way,” he muttered.

  “Don’t I know it. But guilt didn’t stop you from enlisting. It didn’t stop me from picking up a hammer and learning construction. Didn’t stop Mark from strapping on a gun or Lottie from…well, from doing whatever it is Lottie does.”

  “Like marrying a man who killed someone?” Nick asked dryly, still not having gotten used to the idea that his new brother-in-law, Simon, had killed a woman, even if in self-defense.

  “Let’s not go there,” Joe said with a sigh. “She’s happy, and he’s crazy about her.”

  True. Lottie and Simon’s recent marriage had contributed to the 95 percent marital success rate in the Santori family.

  “The point is, you can live your life the way you want to live it, and nobody will try to stop you.” As if realizing he’d left Nick with one major argument, he added, “Except for Mama’s crying. Which we’re all used to and you can get past. You just need to figure out what you want to do, and go after it.”

  Good idea. And lately, Nick had been figuring out what he wanted to do, especially since he’d been working at the club. “An old buddy of mine from the service is putting something together with a couple of the other guys. They’re talking about opening up a protection business.”

  “Professional bodyguard?” Joe asked, looking surprised.

  “I have the military background for it and I like what I’m doing at the club.”

  Joe smiled. “Especially when the people you’re guarding are very easy on the eyes.”

  “Like you’d ever look at another woman.”

  The twinkle in his brother’s eyes confirmed that. “Hey, I’m not you. You’re the single one. Have you met anybody, uh…interesting?”

  Nick felt heat rise up his neck. Because that was a loaded question. He had definitely felt interest in the Crimson Rose. But now that he’d had Izzie-tasted her, consumed her, made love to her-he knew he didn’t want any other woman. But he couldn’t very well explain that to Joe…without hinting about what had happened with Izzie. She’d never forgive him if that little tidbit became common knowledge. “I guess.”

  “Their star performer?” Joe sipped his beer. “I hear she’s one-of-a-kind.”

  Clearing his throat, Nick sprawled back in the booth. “She is that.”

  “Have there been any more problems with her?” Joe sounded only casually interested, but Nick’s guard immediately went up.

  “Problems?”

  “Threats, freaks trying to grab her?”

  Nick sat up straight. “No. What are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t Harry even tell you why he hired you?”

  He had, but only in the most general terms. Nick didn’t realize Rose had actually been threatened. “What do you know?”

  “Just what the guys were whispering about when we were working at the club. That there had been a few incidents that had disturbed Harry and scared the dancers. Especially the featured one.”

  Harry Black had said almost nothing about any specific threats. Rose had said even less. Why would they hire him and then tie his hands by not giving him all the information he needed to do his job? He just didn’t understand it.
“Maybe whoever was causing the problems got caught and the threat has been eliminated,” he murmured, speculating out loud. “Because I haven’t gotten any kind of specific heads up.”

  Joe kept his eyes on his beer, for some reason not looking Nick in the eye. Which made him wonder about his brother’s interest in the stripper.

  He immediately discounted any suspicion that Joe was interested in the woman for himself. He was married to the sexiest kindergarten teacher ever born, and he adored her and their baby daughter. Besides, of all the Santoris-who’d been raised to equate cheating with a mortal sin-Joe was the very last one who’d ever stray.

  “Well, if I were you, I’d stick close to the featured attraction at Leather and Lace. I think she might be more of a target than she or Harry would like to admit.” Shaking his head, Joe added, “There are some really sick guys out there who like stalking vulnerable women.”

  Suddenly feeling on edge, Nick nodded, anxious to get to the club and question Harry Black. He didn’t particularly want to confront Rose-not alone, anyway-but one thing was sure. He had been hired to do a job: protect her. It was about time he stop letting his physical response to the woman interfere with doing that job.

  And it was well past time for him to stop letting his feelings for Izzie Natale consume so much of his attention that he didn’t even realize a stalker might be threatening someone he’d been hired to protect.

  That had to end. Starting right now.

  So it looked like Izzie was finally going to get what she wanted. Him…out of her life.

  “HEY, SOMEBODY SENT you flowers.”

  Izzie hesitated, her hand on the doorknob of her dressing room. One of the other dancers, a young blonde with a sweet smile and a killer body, approached her. “They were waiting on the stoop at the back entrance when I got here. Had your name on the envelope. I put them in your dressing room.”

  Izzie’s first reaction was a tiny little thrill as the image of Nick’s handsome face filled her mind. But it quickly dissipated. Nick had no idea she worked with him every Saturday and Sunday night.

  Damn good thing. Because if he found out now, after she’d had such incredible sex with him, he was going be mad. More than mad-irate. Especially because of how insistent she’d been that it was a one-shot deal.

  Boy did she wish it didn’t have to be a one-shot deal. She still got shaky and shivery and weak and wet thinking of that amazing interlude in the van. It had been the most intensely sensual experience of her life.

  But not to be repeated. Never.

  Not as Izzie. Not even as the Crimson Rose. Because now that he’d had her naked in his arms, it was all too possible that he’d recognize her as Rose. Dancing and interacting with him at work was going to be difficult enough. If she let him get close-the way she’d invited him to that night in her dressing room-there was no way she’d be able to keep her secret.

  So tell him the truth.

  The idea had merit and Izzie knew it. Part of her truly wanted to-it wasn’t easy maintaining a double life with no one to talk to about it. He’d listen-she knew he would. And she even suspected he wouldn’t judge her about what she was doing. Given the things he’d said about feeling so hemmed in by his own family and their expectations, she thought he might even understand. A little.

  But telling him-bringing him in to her alternate life-would mean involving him deeper in her real one. Each secret shared would be another rope tied to her body, holding her down, dragging her back into the world she’d fought so hard to escape.

  If he knew she was Rose, there would be no reason they couldn’t get more involved, at least at work. That, however-a secret, sordid affair conducted in dressing rooms and closets at Leather and Lace-wouldn’t be enough for him. She knew it down to her very soul. He’d insinuate himself in her daily life, start tangling her in the ropes of a relationship, make her fall for him even harder…so he would be even harder to leave.

  No. She could not tell him.

  “Rose? Didja hear me?”

  Realizing the other dancer was waiting expectantly for her reaction to the flowers, Izzie nodded. “Yes, thanks Leah.”

  “Not a problem. It was pick ’em up or trip over ’em,” she said with a cheery smile. Without the stage makeup and the sequins, the young woman looked so fresh-faced and wholesome an average set of parents would have asked her to babysit.

  She’d been the first of the dancers to befriend Izzie when she’d first taken the job at Leather and Lace. The others had been slower to warm up, especially Harry’s wife, Delilah, who’d been the featured dancer up until a couple of years ago when she married her boss. Now she served as a sort of warden to the others…and hadn’t liked that Izzie wasn’t interested in her rules and regulations. She especially hadn’t liked that she couldn’t get her husband to order Izzie to listen to her…and that the Crimson Rose had become hugely popular.

  The rest of them had all come around, though, especially since they had all started bringing home more money every weekend that she performed.

  “How did you get into this, Leah?” she asked.

  The girl shrugged. “Typical story. My parents divorced, father split out west somewhere. Mom remarried an asshole who tried to touch me after she’d passed out on their wedding night.”

  Izzie instinctively reached out and put her hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, I survived. Stabbed him in the wrist with a fork and took off. Never looked back.”

  “Do you…” she didn’t know how to proceed without seeming judgmental. It just seemed so sad to think of this young woman making this, dancing at Leather and Lace, her only career goal. For Izzie, it was a part-time thrill to stay in shape and save her sanity. Some of the women here, however, saw no other future for themselves.

  “What?”

  “Do you think you’ll do something else when you get tired of this?”

  Leah nodded, her blond curls bouncing around her pretty, heart-shaped face. “I got my GED last year and I’m taking college classes. I’m planning to be a nurse.”

  “Good for you.”

  Hearing footsteps upstairs, Izzie glanced at her watch. It was only six-a couple of hours before her first number. Usually Nick showed up later than this. But hearing the deep, male voice from upstairs, she immediately stiffened.

  “That’s our sex-on-a-stick bodyguard I hear up there.”

  “Damn,” Izzie muttered, immediately whirling around. “Stall him if he comes down the stairs, okay?”

  “You still playing the ‘nobody can see me’game with him?”

  Izzie nodded. “I don’t want him to see me. Please help me.”

  The woman offered her a big smile. “You got it…in exchange for one of those flowers your secret admirer sent you.”

  “I’ll do you one better,” Izzie said as she pushed open her dressing room door. She grabbed the vase and thrust the bouquet at the young woman. “You can have all of them. Just don’t let him near my door.”

  Either Leah was true to her word, or else Nick hadn’t yet ventured downstairs. Whatever the case Izzie had privacy for the next twenty minutes. Long enough to get her hair extensions clipped in place and put her mask on. Only after she’d yanked it into position did she realize she’d forgotten her false eyelashes.

  “Damn Harry for not giving me a lock,” she muttered, glancing at the closed door. If she took the mask off to put her lashes on, she risked Nick walking in on her. No, he hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to be alone with her as the Crimson Rose, but she couldn’t count on her luck lasting forever.

  Frowning at her reflection, she did a quick evaluation, wondering if she really needed the lashes. Her eyes had disappeared. She looked like the Marquis de Sade.

  “Need the lashes,” she muttered.

  She’d been putting false lashes on her eyelids for years, she could probably do it…well, not blindfolded,
but masked.

  “Sure,” she whispered as she bent toward the mirror. Grabbing one lash, she dabbed special glue on it, then carefully reached into the eyehole of her mask and applied it.

  “One down,” she said as she blinked rapidly, pretty proud of herself.

  The second one was a little trickier, mainly because it was hard to see out of the first heavily lashed eye. But she managed it. And a moment later, when she heard voices in the hall, she was very glad she hadn’t taken the chance and removed the mask.

  “Hey, Nick, how’s it shakin’ baby?” a woman’s voice said. Loudly.

  Bless you, Leah.

  “I need to talk to Rose.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I need to talk to all of you, and Rose.”

  Huh. Still too chicken to see her alone.

  She quickly squelched the thought. That man had the most incredible, powerful body she’d ever seen in her life. He was afraid of nothing.

  Besides, refusing to see her alone was exactly what she needed him to do. Even if it wasn’t what she wanted him to do.

  Tightening the sash on her robe, she reached for the doorknob and opened the door. Nick’s immediately looked over, stiffening when he saw her there.

  He so didn’t want to be attracted to her, his expression said it all. Knowing he didn’t want anyone else made Izzie, the baker he’d made such incredible love to a few days ago, amazingly happy.

  “I need to talk to you, and all the other girls, in the greenroom for a few minutes,” he said. Without waiting to see if she was coming, he spun around and walked toward it.

  Shrugging, Leah followed. So did Izzie. Once they were inside, Izzie realized all the other dancers-nine or ten of them-were already present, including Delilah with her two-foot-tall pile of red hair on top of her head and three inches of makeup on her face.

  In varying states of undress, all the other dancers practically licked their lips when Nick walked into the room. She couldn’t blame them. In his tough/bodyguard mode, he looked incredibly hot. Gone was any trace of the sweetheart who’d helped her deliver baked goods. Or the sensual lover who’d given her more orgasms in one lovemaking session than she’d had in entire previous relationships.