How hard he’d been between those thick thighs.
What really shocked me was how I’d reacted to it. I’d ridden him with no hesitation and complete abandon. I’d been so lost in my swift and unexpected desire for him that I’d actually been tempted to unzip his jeans and take that magnificent cock of his for a different kind of ride. I’d never done that with a client before, and I still couldn’t understand what had prompted such behavior. Other than the fact that Luka was ridiculously attractive.
“Cat?” he prompted.
The bag twisted in my hands as I imagined him rasping my name in my ear as he thrust inside me, pinning me roughly to the bed. My insides quivered at the mere thought of how deep he could get with that—
“Nineteen sixty-eight,” I blurted out. I knew my blush was bright and fierce.
He attempted a smile, but his hard, dark eyes made it look more feral than charming. This man was certainly no Ryan Seacrest.
Ryan Seacrest annoyed the shit out of me.
“My wallet is in my office,” Luka said in a low voice. “I’ll be right back.”
The second he was out of sight, I had to give my clothing a quick once-over because it felt like he’d just incinerated them with that fiery gaze. You’d have thought I was back in the ass-baring hot pants and transparent crop top I’d worn that night at Rumors. Delivering food dressed like that in January in this city would have had my nipples snapping off like icicles.
But nope, my clinging black leggings and long parka that came down to my knees were still in place. The beanie pulled over my ears and chunky fur-lined boots on my feet created a look that was the exact opposite of the sex kitten vibe I wore at Rumors. Even my makeup was minimal and natural, nothing like the seven layers of glitter I donned at the club.
If Luka didn’t remember who I was, why in the world was he looking at me that way? There was nothing sexy about this getup. No skin was being exposed. My figure was mostly covered up. What was there to look at?
The path of those questions couldn’t lead anywhere good, so I shoved them to the back of my mind and let my attention wander over the gym. Even though the side door I’d entered through had been unlocked, the place was obviously closed for the night. Security lights were on in the corners, and a single bright light above the boxing ring in the center of the room illuminated most of the space. It was clean, didn’t smell like sweat and musk, and most of the equipment looked pretty new.
Luka was spookily quiet when he came up behind me with cash in hand. It was unnatural for a man of his size to move so silently.
I chose not to address how big of a tip he gave me.
Mainly because I was too focused on another kind of big tip I wouldn’t mind him giving me—
I cleared my throat. “The owner lets you work out by yourself after hours like this?”
“I am the owner.”
A heavy dose of pride laced that statement.
“Oh. I’ve heard about this place. Sounds pretty popular.”
He glanced around the room, the corner of his mouth tipping up, as if in satisfaction. “We do all right.” Quirking an eyebrow, he brought his gaze back to mine. “Interested in joining?”
I felt my eyes light up, but I instantly schooled the reaction. “I can’t really afford a gym membership right now.” Both true and humiliating. “Running laps around my neighborhood is free.”
The joke fell flat even to my own ears.
He heard it too. But instead of making me feel awkward or embarrassed about my obvious poverty, he actually…made it better.
“Running outside in fifteen-degree weather?” he deadpanned. “I’ll be sure to watch for headlines in the paper that mention the frozen body of an unidentified female found on the side of the street. So your family knows what happened to you.”
It was a morbid joke.
But lately, my life had been nothing but morbid.
“Just make sure they keep me refrigerated after thawing me out,” I quipped.
He snorted.
The room was suddenly cloaked in silence as our gazes remained interlocked. The air outside was frigid, but it was stifling in this gym. Intense, crackling energy cocooned our bodies, trapping us inside some weird vortex that was stealing all the oxygen from my lungs. The only time my body was ever this still outside of sleep was when I was crocheting. And even then, my fingers never stopped moving.
Whether it was from that still energy or a cold breeze sweeping through the room, a shiver snaked down my spine, jarring me out of our eye contact. “I should go.” I inwardly winced. I hoped my voice hadn’t come out as breathy as it sounded in my ears. “Your food has probably gotten cold by now.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly, almost distractedly. “I should let you get back to work.”
“You’re my last delivery of the night.”
Por qué? Why had I said that?
“Would you like to go get a drink with me?”
My eyebrows slammed together in confusion.
Was he serious? He could have any woman he wanted at his beck and call. Why was he willing to waste his night with me? Obviously, I wanted to accept the invitation. Luka Rossetti was breathtaking in a brutal, almost savage, way. I’d felt something inside of him calling out to me two months ago at Rumors. I’d grinded all over him that night, desperately wanting to do more.
But I couldn’t afford to bend to any of my desires for this man. Getting involved with someone right then was impossible. Let alone starting an actual relationship. It just couldn’t happen.
Not while my sister was missing.
Three months ago, my life had turned upside down when my sister Luciana was kidnapped. All the lofty dreams I’d had back then, all my plans for the future, had been thrown completely out the window. I was in Brooklyn for one reason and one reason only: to find my sister.
Luka Rossetti was the exact type of alluring, tantalizing fantasy that could snare me in his spellbinding depths and distract me from everything that mattered. I couldn’t allow myself to venture too close to his orbit while Luciana’s life hung in the balance. If I took my eye off of what was most important, she would be the one to suffer for it.
So, I wouldn’t be coming back to this gym under any circumstances. If another order came through from The Ring’s address, I would give it to my co-worker Robbie. And I would just have to forget all about Luka Rossetti.
Forgetting my own last name might have been an easier task.
“I-I can’t,” I stammered. “Sorry. I, um…have plans later.”
Of course, I didn’t. It was my night off from Rumors. But I needed some excuse. Otherwise, I had no doubt I would cave.
“Right,” he bit out, nodding. That one word sounded angry, but his expression remained indifferent. “No problem. Well, thanks for this.” He held up the paper bag. “It was nice meeting you, Cat.”
I bit my lip, unsure if I should say anything else. Then again, what else was there to say? Best to just quit torturing myself with something that could never be and cut my losses.
My feet were rooted to the floor for too many seconds before I was finally able to peel them off and actually move. “You’re welcome. Mucho gusto, Luka.”
He stiffened at my words, nostrils flaring.
I didn’t know what the hell that meant, and how I was able to turn away from that searing gaze, I had no idea. But I did, albeit extremely reluctantly.
I stepped into the frosty winter night and hugged my thin, waterproof parka tighter to my body. In the rain and snow, this coat was a lifesaver. But when it came to insulation, I might as well be wearing a raincoat. Growing up with nothing taught you how to prioritize. And my papí used to always say that it was better to be cold than to be wet and cold.
I wouldn’t get any relief from the cold in my rusted out, clunky car either. The heat didn’t work, nor did the air conditioner. The passenger side window was permanently cracked open and I was pretty sure the hunk of junk was leaking oil. I was lucky the death
trap had even made the trip up from Mexico, where I’d bartered for it with one of my mother’s prized pieces of jewelry.
I hadn’t had a choice.
I couldn’t have risked buying an airline ticket, even if I could have afforded one.
Because he would have found me. The man who was chasing me. Hunting me.
The man who was obsessed with me.
I hadn’t left a paper trail along my journey to Brooklyn, and I ensured it stayed that way. The owner of Rumors had agreed to pay me under the table. Turned out, I wasn’t the first stripper who’d ever asked for that. Even my manager at Habanero, the Mexican restaurant I delivered for, had agreed to keep my name officially off his payroll after I’d convinced him it was a matter of life and death.
Because it really was.
I had to stay hidden while I was in Brooklyn. Because I had to find Luciana. I’d already failed her by letting her get taken by those sadistic monsters. After I’d sworn to her that I would always keep her safe.
I wouldn’t fail her again.
As I parked in front of the chain link fence that bisected my crummy Greenwood Heights apartment building from the construction site next door that never seemed to reflect any progress, a bone-deep sense of dread enveloped me. I hated the place with every fiber of my being, but it was all I could afford. With a cleansing breath I knew I would need once I walked inside the decrepit, run-down building, I trudged across the pothole-ridden parking lot, wrapping my arms securely around my purse, just in case some two-bit thug decided he wanted to act like a badass.
My dingy studio apartment was on the fourth floor and, naturally, the elevator hadn’t worked in the building in probably ten years. I didn’t mind, though. I liked the exercise. I needed the exertion to calm my insides. The only time I ever felt sane anymore was when my heart rate was up and I was breaking a sweat.
I never walked with my head down in public. Where I grew up, that was a risky move for a woman—because you couldn’t see an attack coming. A girl needed to remain alert and aware at all times. But I kept my head lowered as I made my way down the hallway. I avoided all my neighbors. On this floor alone there was a mentally ill man that could often be heard ranting about his invisible enemies, a mean-spirited prostitute that would often bring her johns home with her, and a couple of drug addicted roommates who seemed to always be out of money. All of them were unstable enough to do something dangerous if I made the wrong move.
I already had my keys in hand when I reached my door—
And froze.
The door was slightly ajar, a splinter of moonlight peeking out through the tiny crack. Immediately, I knew I needed to back—more like run—away. It was that niggling voice in the back of my head again, having grown louder after years of honing my survival instincts.
But the pathetic fact that I had nowhere else to go, no one in this city to run to when I was in trouble, kept my feet planted right where they were. Turning my key chain around until I had the small can of pepper spray gripped firmly in my hand, I carefully nudged the door inward with my booted toe.
The creaky hinges gave away my presence.
A hand shot out from the darkness and yanked me into the room. I gasped for breath when an arm banded across my throat, cutting off my air supply.
“There you are, bitch,” the male voice hissed in my ear.
Por favor, Dios, no. Please, God, no.
He found me.
The man obsessively stalking me. Threatening me.
And now he’s going to kill me.
Wheezing for breath, I was pulled against a frail body that smelled of a putrid odor as the apartment door was slammed shut behind me. The arm that was wrapped around my throat was skinny and shaking.
Relief washed over me.
This man wasn’t my stalker. The predator that hunted me was a much taller, more muscular man. And I would have recognized his scent anywhere. After all, the stench of death was unmistakable. For now, it seemed I was still safe from his clutches.
But not safe from this one’s.
I still had an imbécil trying to suffocate me.
I heard another person moving around the room as the one holding me snarled in my ear, “Where is it, whore?”
“Where’s what?” I croaked.
The second man stepped in front of me, but I couldn’t see much of his face. They hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights when they’d broken in, so everything was in shadows. “The money,” he sneered. “We know you work at that titty club, which means you have cash in here somewhere. Tell us where it is or we’ll mess up that pretty face real bad.”
The tweaker roommates.
These guys had to be the two junkies that lived at the end of the hall. They had clearly run out of money to buy their drugs and apparently had nowhere else to get it.
“All I have is what’s in my purse,” I rasped as I clawed at the sweaty arm squeezing my throat. “Just take it and leave.”
I wasn’t stupid enough to keep any cash in this apartment. It probably took even these nitwits all of thirty seconds to break through that flimsy lock on the door. I had a secure location where I stored what measly cash I could scrounge up between my two jobs.
I heard the second guy rummaging around in the purse I’d dropped on the floor. “Fifty bucks?” he spat, enraged. “That’s fucking it?”
“Bullshit,” the voice in my ear hissed, his forearm pressing down on my windpipe. “The kind of tits you got make a hell of a lot more than that in a single night in one of those clubs. And whores always make a ton of bucks on the side. Where’s the rest of it?”
That word had always touched a nerve with me. I didn’t usually react well when people mistook me for something I wasn’t, especially that. Yes, I knew how foolish it was to provoke them. But like so many other times in my life, my dignity eclipsed my self-control and sensibility. Another thing my papí always liked to say?
Your pride is admirable, mija. But it is also treacherous. It will get you into trouble one of these days.
And he was right. It had. Many times.
But I had yet to learn my lesson.
They must not have been very experienced at robbery because they clearly didn’t realize I was still clasping my keys in my hand. I tightened my grip on the can of pepper spray and flicked open the lid.
“The money I make shaking my tits at little boys like you all night is too good for your junkie hands, puta.” Bitch.
“You stupid fucking—”
Closing my eyes, I sprayed him directly in his with the pepper spray before he could finish his sentence. He instantly released me and started wailing like a child. Outraged on his behalf, his friend charged at me. My foot instinctively shot out and kicked the side of his knee, the action accompanied by a sickening crack.
“Aw, shit!”
He dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, screaming in agony, grasping his knee that was bent at a disturbing angle. The madman who’d held me suddenly pushed to his feet and shouted a furious tirade of curses. Even in the dark, I could see him glaring at me through squinted, bloodshot eyes.
“You’re fucking dead, you whore.”
Unfortunately, he was between me and the kitchenette where I kept a single steak knife. Knowing I’d have to make due with what I had, I held tighter to the pepper spray, transferred all my weight to my toes, and didn’t think about anything except staying alive.
By any means necessary.
The moment he lunged in my direction was the moment my front door burst open and the dark form of a hulking man filled the dimly lit doorway. With the hallway light silhouetting him, all I could see was the monstrously large figure of a man, as tall and wide as a redwood tree. A hood was pulled over his head, so I couldn’t see his face.
He took a single step inside the room.
When he spoke, his voice held pure murder in it. Menace. Maybe even madness.
“Get the fuck away from her.”
Some things you just can’t es
cape.
No matter how fast or long you run from them.
Me? I had an ingrained need to unleash violence on people who hurt those weaker than them. Those who harmed the innocent. The impulse had been in my blood for a long damn time, and hadn’t weakened much over the years.
I’d just gotten better at resisting it.
But now was not the fucking time for resistance.
Not when I’d burst into Cat’s shabby little apartment to find her fighting off two whacked-out junkies at the same time. I spared her the briefest of glances to make sure she wasn’t seriously injured before I focused my attention on the scrawny guy with the watery, red eyes that had a wild glint in them. Those tears were no doubt from the pepper spray Cat still had clutched in her tiny hand. Frankly, the fucker was lucky she’d had that pepper spray. Because if she’d been completely defenseless and he’d hurt her in any way, he wouldn’t have been leaving this room alive.
I grabbed the bastard by the back of his shirt and flung him out the open door. His body slammed into the hallway wall, splitting the drywall. His body started to slump before I yanked him back up by the neck and made him look me right in the eyes.
“You broke into the wrong apartment, motherfucker,” I whispered, my voice cutting.
“P-please,” he sputtered, spittle flying out of his mouth. “We didn’t do noth—”
I drove my fist into his jaw. This time, when his legs began to crumple beneath him, I let him fall like the cowardly pussy he was. And even though I knew he had no fight in him, and wouldn’t even dare to challenge me, I hit him again.
And again.
And again.
My fists pummeled his face, ferocious and savage, each punch punctuated by my own growls of rage. But it wasn’t only anger coursing through my veins. I was getting a sick amount of pleasure from bashing this lowlife’s face into a bloody pulp until he was knocked out cold. Every contact of my knuckles with his paper-thin flesh was like a breath of fresh air to my insides.
Glitter and Greed (Brooklyn Brothers #4) Page 3
