Against the Night. Kat Martin
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She moistened her suddenly dry lips. “Thursday.”
“All right, then. We’ll do it Thursday. You just come to my house and I’ll have everything set.”
She swallowed, knowing she had to say yes. Then she thought of how Rachael had just disappeared as if she had never existed, how there was a chance this man might have had something to do with it, and a chill slipped down her spine. “I need to check with Tate…see if that will work in my schedule. If I had your number, I could give you a call and confirm.”
“Sure, sweet thing.” He took out his wallet and handed her a business card. It was too dark to read what it said, but she had what she needed to find him.
“Just remember,” he said, “opportunities like this don’t come along very often.”
She nodded, smiled. “I’m really grateful, Mr. Bennett, truly, I am.”
His lips curved. “Keep my tab open, will you? I may stay for a while.” His gaze ran over her, ended up on the cleavage pushed up in her blue satin top.
Amy kept her smile in place. “No problem.” She started walking, grateful to escape. She would call Kyle Bennett and set up the screen test, but she wasn’t a fool. If she went to his house, she wanted to be sure Babs knew the address and time she was going to be there.
She had almost reached the next table when she caught sight of a dark-haired man sitting in the shadows a few feet away. He was staring at her with intense brown eyes and she felt the impact in every pore in her body.
Babs breezed past her just then. “You owe me five bucks.” Babs grinned as she hurried off with a tray of drinks propped on her shoulder.
For several seconds, Amy just stood there, her gaze locked with his. Even in the dim neon light, she could see the outline of his muscular body, see the faint glint of the eagle tattoo on his biceps just below the sleeve of the tight black T-shirt he wore with a pair of black jeans.
“Hello, Angel.”
His voice was rough and sexy and just hearing it made her stomach quiver. He was even better looking than she had thought.
She managed to smile. “Hello. May I get you a drink?”
One of his dark eyebrows went up. She had slipped and used proper grammar, may instead of can, the way everyone else did.
“I suppose you can. How about a Bud Light?”
Most of the guys drank microbrews, which were the vogue these days. No one drank light beer—not in here. Except for John Riggs. She wondered if he was working.
“Certainly. I mean…no problem. I’ll be right back.” He unsettled her, this man. Just looking at him made her heart pound and her mouth go dry. And when his eyes moved over her the way they were now, she could barely breathe.
She headed for the bar and gave Dante the order. The handsome Latino tipped his head toward the man in the shadowy darkness.
“That guy over there…his name’s Johnnie Riggs. You be careful, querida. That one is out of your league.” Dante didn’t know she wasn’t really Angel, but he had been in the business long enough to recognize a novice.
“I will. Thank you, Dante.”
He just nodded. She returned to the table with the beer, wondering if the bartender could tell how attracted she was to Johnnie Riggs.
Crazy as it was.
She was a schoolteacher, for heaven’s sake! Riggs was an ex-soldier, a hard, dangerous man who clearly thought she was something she wasn’t, interested in her for only one reason.
On the other hand, she was attracted to him for the same exact reason. She hadn’t been to bed with a man in years, and never a man like John Riggs. Her last boyfriend, Tom Coleman, was a history teacher. And their affair, bland as it was, had been over for nearly two years.
She set Johnnie’s bottle of beer down in front of him and he caught hold of her wrist. “Why don’t you join me? You look like you need a break.”
She eased her hand from his. She didn’t need a break. She wasn’t tired; she was nervous. More so when she was talking to him.
“What happened to that guy you arrested?” she asked, just to have something to say.
“I didn’t exactly arrest him. He jumped bail. I was hired to take him back to Houston so he could appear in court.”
“I see.”
“Probably not. It’s kind of complicated.”
“I imagine it is.”
“When do you get off?”
“What?”
“I asked when you get off work.”
She gave him a wary glance. “Why?”
“Because I want to take you out for a drink or a cup of coffee or something.”
Her chin firmed. “That isn’t what you want and we both know it.”
“I want you. Every man in the place wants you. But you don’t look at the rest of them the way you look at me.”
She blushed clear to the toes of her high-heeled shoes. It was true. From the moment he first walked through the door last week, she could barely keep her eyes off him. Still, she couldn’t believe he had come right out and said it.
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go out with you. There’s a rule against employees dating customers.”
“Which nobody pays any attention to. Besides, I don’t give a damn about the rules.”
“Look. I need this job, okay? Please don’t make it hard for me.”
He chuckled. “Why not? You’re making it plenty hard for me.” Hot color washed into her cheeks. She turned to walk away, but Riggs caught her arm, his hold gentler than she expected.
“Sorry. I was out of line. I won’t do it again.” He meant it. She could see it in his face. Why it pleased her, she refused to say.
“I appreciate that.”
He let her go and she hurried over to the next table. In a different way, she was even more relieved to escape John Riggs than she had been Kyle Bennett.
What was there about him? Was she really that sexually deprived? A last glance in his direction and her stomach lifted. Apparently, she was.
Johnnie watched the little dancer walk away. There was something off about Angel Fontaine, something he had picked up on when she took his drink order. Onstage, she was confident, just another exotic dancer doing her job. But once she was out of the lights, she became a different person, shy and uncertain, barely able to make conversation with a man.
All evening, he had watched her. That she was new to the job was clear, but it was more than that. Some bone-deep difference that intrigued him. He liked solving puzzles. He wanted to solve the puzzle of Angel Fontaine.
On top of that, she was beautiful, and he had a weakness for sexy blondes. He wanted her. There was no denying it. But he also wanted to know her story, her secret. Find out what that subtle incongruity was that drew him like a moth to a lightbulb.
And he thought that she wanted him, too, though it was an attraction she clearly didn’t want to feel.
He chuckled and took a sip of his beer. Well, that was just too bad. He wasn’t about to let her off the hook so easy. He was going to find out Angel’s secret. He had a hunch once he knew what it was, she would trust him enough to let their mutual attraction progress to its logical end.
He wasn’t in any hurry. If the stakes were high enough, Johnnie could be a very patient man.
“You can’t