Lucky SEAL (Lucky Devil #2) (3 page)

“Thank you. There’s a mountain of donations up there.” She smiled up at Rourke with those stunning ocean green eyes, and his heart stuttered. The woman was a beauty. Her skin was flawless. That smile like an oasis to a man who had been in the desert for far too long. Christ, he was so dazed by those eyes he was getting poetic. What the hell?

He cleared his throat and looked away before he scooped her up and kissed her just for being so fucking perfect. He was about to make an ass of himself. That just wasn’t cool. Rourke was always cool. Always.

“Let me get everything down the steps. I’m afraid you’ll break your neck in those shoes. Then we’ll get it all into storage.” Rourke put Jennifer’s box away and hustled up and down the stairs with boxes, formulating a plan of action as he went.

He wasn’t the kind of man to leave things to fate. Rourke never knew when he’d be called back to duty. The life of a Navy SEAL didn’t leave much time for relationships. He hadn’t been motivated to make any kind of real effort to get to know a woman for a very long time. He’d never had a problem finding sex if he needed it, and that was all Rourke had room for in his life. The occasional romp with a chick he could walk away from in the morning was all he needed or wanted.

Something about Jennifer was different, though. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her all day. His mind immediately started picking her apart, looking for clues to whom she was and how he could get closer. Yes, he was very motivated to get to know the sweetly shy and incredibly intriguing Jennifer a lot better. A whole hell of a lot better.

Jennifer carried the last box of donations into the storeroom in the rear of the soup kitchen and released a sigh of relief at being alone. Her feet and back were killing her after a day of walking and standing in those god-awful shoes. She hated them. They were lovely and extremely expensive. They made her ass look fantastic too, but she would never work wearing them if she had a choice, not this kind of work anyway. She could dance in shoes that high but her dancing shoes were far more comfortable, and she didn’t wear them all day.

She didn’t have a choice, though, did she? A few dresses and two pairs of shoes were all she had when a hasty escape from her nightmare became possible. She couldn’t do anything about it until she found a way to pay for some new clothes and shoes. Even then, she’d be afraid to go out in public to find something to wear.

If she went to her apartment, she could get the cash she’d saved from waiting tables. It would do her no good to try going to the bank with no I.D. Plus, most of her bills were on autopay, so her account was empty by now anyway. Jennifer also feared her bankcard would allow someone to track her movements. When a person went missing, the police would track their banking account activity and cell phone. Thank goodness for the pastor and his wife. They’d been so very kind to her. She wouldn’t repay them by allowing her whereabouts in the church to be discovered.

Jennifer set the box she carried down and looked around the storage room, wondering where Rourke, the delicious Viking god of war in fatigues had gone. He scared the shit out of her. The man was huge. His muscular arms and chest stretched the tee shirt he wore under that camouflage shirt he’d removed when it got hot in the kitchen. He towered over her from somewhere well above six feet tall. His pale blond hair was cut short in a military buzz. Those icy blue eyes frightened her more than anything did. He’d watched her with those cool, knowing eyes all day. She felt his stare throughout the afternoon and wondered at his interest.

He was looking at her as if he knew all of her secrets. He watched her as if he’d seen through her story and knew exactly who she was and why she was there at the church. Of course, he didn’t know anything about her. She was paranoid again. That’s what she’d been telling herself all afternoon. She’d never seen him before in her life. He couldn’t know her or her dilemma.

Rourke’s dark counterpart, however, was familiar to Jennifer. She’d only met Luc Christianson once, and they hadn’t actually been introduced. Jennifer’s murdering, lying, dream crushing ex-boyfriend had pissed Luc off by starting a fight in Hell, Luc’s private gambling club.

Jennifer’s mind drifted to the events that had brought her to her current predicament, as it often did. She’d had been in Las Vegas for a year. She’d gone to art school for dance and dreamed of making it on Broadway. She moved to New York after graduation and gave it all she had for several years. All she had, unfortunately, just wasn’t good enough, though. The competition was fierce, and Jennifer was a little too womanly when the producers were looking for willowy. The parts she did manage to land wouldn’t pay the rent. Jennifer waited tables to make ends meet. She was such a cliché.

When her roommate threw in the towel and went home to “get a real job,” like her parents insisted, Jennifer had to make a choice. She couldn’t afford to live alone. Either she, too, went home to beg her father’s forgiveness and spend the rest of her life making up for disobeying them and moving to New York to chase her dreams, or she could move on and try her career elsewhere. The latter won out. Jennifer wasn’t ready to admit defeat, yet.

Having learned her lesson in New York, Jennifer found a waitressing job and a studio apartment she could afford on her own before her hunt for a dancing gig began. It took a while, but Jennifer finally did get a great part in a show that was perfect for her. She was happy for the first time since she left her home and her family in Washington, DC. That’s when everything changed.

Evan MacGraff approached Jennifer one night at an after party in the theater. Evan was handsome and charming. He complimented her performance along with her friends. All the girls adored him. Jennifer found him attractive, but she wasn’t looking for a relationship. She could admit to being flattered when Evan tugged her off to the side to speak one on one. Jennifer worked with stunningly gorgeous women, but Evan was interested in Jennifer. It wasn’t that Jennifer was attractive. She just knew she wasn’t the loveliest of her friends in the show.

“It’s refreshing to see a beautiful woman who doesn’t feel the need to show everyone all of her charms,” Evan complimented. “I like this.” He fingered the long beaded skirt Jennifer wore.

Jennifer looked down at her breasts encased in a tight, low-cut top and gave him a disbelieving grin.

Evan followed her eye and smirked. He looked around the room at women who wore dresses that hardly deserved the name. They were tube dresses and little more than a scrap of stretchy fabric that covered them from breast to upper thighs, leaving little to the imagination. Jennifer had to concede his point.

“We’re dancers.” She defended her coworkers. “We’re not really known for being shy about our bodies.” They laughed, and the conversation moved on. 

Evan seemed so perfect, almost too perfect. When he finally asked Jennifer for a date, she graciously declined. This wasn’t her first rodeo. Many men tried to pick up the girls after shows. Jennifer was a professional, and she separated business and pleasure. Sadly, pleasure had been all but absent in her life. When Evan persisted in pursuing her, asking her out repeatedly to the exclusion of all others, Jennifer eventually gave in and agreed to a date. It wasn’t long, though, before Jennifer would regret that decision.

Evan picked Jennifer up for their final date after her performance the night she met Luc Christianson for the first time. She didn’t know then that her life was about to change. They’d been dating for over a month, and Jennifer wasn’t sure it would go much farther. There was something disconcerting about Evan that Jennifer couldn’t put her finger on, but she was giving him a chance. Evan was attractive, and he doted on her, sending flowers to her every single night after her shows. She had so many bouquets of flowers that she sent them home with the other dancers most nights because she didn’t have anywhere left in her closet of an apartment to put them, but Evan kept sending them anyway.

He’d taken her one particular date that turned into a shopping trip. Evan was a successful investment banker, and he wanted to spoil her, but Jennifer wouldn’t go for it. It was like he was trying to buy her, and that was never going to happen. When she’d refused to allow him to buy her the clothing and shoes, he insisted she deserved, Evan purchased them anyway and had them delivered to her tiny apartment.

The dresses he bought her were nothing like her own clothes and she didn’t wear them. At first, Evan had complimented her style. Then, he tried to change her, calling her a hippy and telling Jennifer, she looked homeless. Things had finally come to the point that she was ready to cut off her relationship with Evan. He was bordering on controlling, and she couldn’t deal with it. They weren’t even that serious. He didn’t need to know the name of every person she spoke with after a show.

The final straw snapped that evening after the show when Jennifer found a box waiting for her in the dressing room. Evan sent her a dress, underwear, and shoes to wear on the date. It freaked her out. Who buys lingerie for a woman they haven’t even slept with yet?

They’d been dating for such a short time, and already, he was trying to change Jennifer, after insisting she was perfection and begging for a date. She didn’t wear the damn dress, and Evan wasn’t happy about it. He explained that he had a special evening planned that called for something more formal. He swore he didn’t mean any insult by the gesture.

She should have ended it right then. She should have given him back his expensive fucking dress and walked away, but Jennifer didn’t have a rude bone in her body. She’d agreed to the date, and he was already there to pick her up. Therefore, she put on the dress and pasted on a polite smile. This was it for Jennifer, just one final date. She would say goodbye when he dropped her off at home.

Jennifer was lost in her own thoughts when Evan led her to the entrance of The Inferno Casino and Hotel. They passed the reception desk and the casino, continuing on to a short hall with an elevator that required a key card to operate. Dread filled her belly. If Evan had booked a hotel room for his idea of a romantic evening, things would get uncomfortable quickly. She was ending their relationship. There would be no sex.

To her relief, Evan informed Jennifer that they were going to a private club with a lot of security. He explained that you had to pass financial and background checks to get into the club. Jennifer entered the club with Evan after he greased the palm of the door attendant on duty. She wasn’t a member, so she shouldn’t be allowed to enter. Evan paid her way in.

She wasn’t impressed. It sounded like the country club set she’d grown up in back home. The people were snobby, and they looked down on anyone less fortunate. Jennifer couldn’t stand it. If nothing else, though, Evan must be an upstanding character if his background afforded a membership to an elite club, right? Wrong. Oh, he was wealthy, but his character came into question before the end of the evening.

When they entered the floor of Hell or the pit, as Evan called it, Jennifer thought it was a casino like many others, if swankier than most. Then the differences started to stand out. The patrons were unlike the tourists playing slots and cards on their vacation downstairs at The Inferno Casino. These people were expensively dressed regulars and the amount of money changing hands on the card tables and at the roulette wheel was obscene.

There was an inordinate amount of security roaming the floor. They also stood at attention near various doors that ranged around the perimeter of the room. While Evan played a few hands of blackjack, Jennifer people-watched. To get through the other doors, people swiped that card that opened the elevator over a security panel on the wall.

Jennifer watched as a man was denied access to a room he wanted to enter. He wasn’t pleased about it and started to get loud. The employee guarding the door tapped the device in his ear and spoke a few words. Within seconds, the man causing a scene was confronted by two other members of security, who were observing the action on the floor nearby. One of them said something that made the angry man pale. The man didn’t struggle at all when they grasped him under the arms and literally carried him away.

Jennifer watched open-mouthed while Evan whispered an explanation to her. Not everyone had the same clearance. That’s why the doors were locked. You had to have the cash flow and proper background check to get past the main floor.

It was all fascinating. Jennifer wondered what was hidden behind those mysterious portals. She didn’t have long to ponder. Evan took Jennifer’s hand and led her to one of those doors. He approached and nodded at the hulking staff member stationed at the door. The guard covertly ran his own card over the panel lock.

This was Jennifer’s first clue that something was off. Why hadn’t Evan used his own card? More palm greasing must have been done to get them past the pit. They entered a place entirely unlike any casino she’d ever known, and Jennifer began to understand the secretive nature of Hell.

Nearly naked women were wandering around with drink trays and some nearly nude men too. Jennifer gasped. Then, she made an effort to control her reaction. She wasn’t an innocent. She saw naked people backstage every day, and that never shocked her. Backstage, though, there was nothing sexual about women getting ready for a show. Just like changing your clothes at the gym, it was acceptable behavior. These men and woman were also working. Jennifer told herself to stop being a prude.

As they moved deeper into Hell, she got one surprise after another. People were openly having sex in some areas. In other parts of the club, scantily dressed servers served drinks and actually danced with the patrons. Each room they entered seemed to have a theme, and things got wilder as they moved on. There were card rooms and nightclubs, as well as a long dark hall lined with alcoves and two-way mirrors so you could view people in all sorts of sexual situations without them seeing you. Some of the alcoves had curtains drawn for privacy, but others were wide open, and couples were fucking while they watched others perform behind the glass.

Evan took it all in stride, not paying attention to any of it. He seemed to have a destination in mind, so she kept quiet as he pulled her from room to room. Evan stopped when they reached a bar area that looked typical until your eyes are adjusted to the darkness. The bar sported high-backed booths and low tables that were more like ottomans where women and men alike danced for patrons while holding onto a strap that hung from the ceiling for balance. Other booths had stripper poles.

Jennifer quickly turned away when she noticed far more than dancing happening in one booth. It was an orgy. She’d just seen an orgy with her own eyes. She was trying to focus on something else when she saw the bartenders. They were completely nude. Surely, that couldn’t be sanitary, could it?

Evan was talking to another man. Jennifer thought it was rude of him not to introduce her, but she didn’t want to speak to anyone anyway. The struggle to overcome her shock was an ongoing battle. It was quite offensive of Evan to bring her to such a place without a warning. They hadn’t even had sex yet, and at this point, they never would. He’d brought Jennifer to what amounted to a brothel! Who does that? This was her second clue that Evan wasn’t the man he pretended to be. Her decision to end things with Evan was further solidified.