Take Me Tonight (9 page)

But Ashley knew better than to question her boss. Plus she liked the extra money Glenda paid her under the table and she liked the job security. Sort-of job security. Face it, her dancing sure as hell wasn’t good enough to suit the perfectionist choreographer.

A cheer erupted so loudly, it could only mean one thing. The game was over. This door would open in a few minutes and some hired muscle would escort the girls in groups to their cars. That would be her opportunity to snag Victoria and convince her that if she didn’t do the fantasy kidnapping, she’d be the next one with an alternate dancing in her slot.

Bonding by intimidation, that’s what Glenda did.

At the sound of footsteps around the side of the building, Ashley tensed. No one ever came back here. The players left on the other side of the arena, so that’s where the fans lined up for autographs. No one knew the Snow Bunnies slipped out this way after the game, and keeping that secret was in their contract. She had to hand it to Glenda and Julian on that account: they were freakish about security.

A woman’s voice drifted closer, followed by a man’s response. Was that Sage Valentine? She popped out from behind the wall to see Keisha’s former roommate and a tall, well-built guy who instantly put a protective arm around Sage.

“Ashley? Is that you?” Sage stepped toward the doors, and the man, Ashley noticed, put his free hand behind his back.

“It’s me. What are you doing back here?”

Sage paused in the shadows. “Why didn’t you dance tonight?”

The guy stayed a half a step behind Sage, but Ashley felt his intense, hooded eyes locked on her, and took a peek at his chiseled, handsome face. His lips were full, his cheeks darkened by a hint of beard.

“I hurt my back,” she lied, wishing like hell she could have impressed this hottie by having danced tonight. “Are you looking for one of the girls?”

“I am,” Sage said. “They come out back here, don’t they?”

“Usually.” Ashley looked at the guy, waiting for an introduction. When one didn’t come, she asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Johnny.”

Ashley tugged down the bill of her ball cap. Too bad she hadn’t bothered to straighten her hair or put on stage makeup.

“Johnny,” she repeated. And he was…a boyfriend? A brother? A fan? She looked expectantly at Sage, but Sage seemed to be watching
her
watching
him
.

After an awkward pause, Ashley tilted her head to the door. “I forgot something in the locker room, and I’m technically not allowed into the building if I’m not dancing.”

“Really?” Johnny asked, giving her a suspicious look. “Why’s that?”

“Glenda’s weird like that,” she said with a quick laugh. “But she’s the boss. So who you waiting for, Sage?”

“Remember when I saw you on the train and told you I was pitching a story to
Boston Living
?” Sage asked. “Well, they want a feature on the Snow Bunnies.”

“Really? That is so cool.” She reached for Sage to squeeze her arm, and the guy immediately stepped closer. “Oh, please tell me I can be in it.”

Sage pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it. “Glenda only wants me to talk to certain dancers. Here’s the list.”

“Surprise, surprise.” Ashley held the list toward the moonlight to read the names. “She must have control of everything.” Of course, her name wasn’t on the list. “So why do you have to come here, now? Can’t you interview the girls before practice or something?”

Sage gave her a sneaky smile. “You know me, Ashley. I’m not going to just talk to these girls.” She took the paper and refolded it. “I want to talk to the ones who aren’t preapproved to quote the company line.”

Ashley laughed dryly. “Like me.”

“Yes, like you. And like Vivian.”

“Scratch that. She does no media, ever.”

Security lights flickered above the doors, then came on full strength.

“They’ll be out in a second,” Ashley said, using the enhanced light to take a good long look at Sage’s friend. Who was staring at her like she had grown a second head. Did she look that different without stage makeup?

“Do I know you or something?” she asked pointedly.

He shook his head. “I think I’d remember.”

Next to her, she sensed Sage tighten up. Well, who wouldn’t be jealous with a guy like that?

“Maybe you’ve seen me dance,” she said, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

“Maybe you’ve met him somewhere else?” Sage suggested, her voice heavy with implication.

“I think
I’d
remember,” Ashley echoed.

“It’s okay, Ashley,” Sage assured her. “You can admit it. I don’t have any claims on him.”

“Oh, I’d admit it,” she laughed, wishing he’d just smile a tiny bit. “Honestly.”

The back door clunked open and three of the girls stepped out with chatter and laughter. Two arena security guards were right behind them.

“Ashley!” one of the girls said. It was Holly, the alternate. “We missed you!”

Right—if she’d been there, Holly would have been at home. “Bad back,” she said glumly. “How was the game?”

“We won.” Jacquie Howard flashed a victorious smile, then elbowed the woman next to her. “It was perfect except that Gabrielle totally screwed up the spin on ‘I Want You.’ ”

“I did not,” the third woman denied. “You missed the count.”

“Is Vivian around?” Ashley asked the girls. “There’s somebody here who wants to talk to her.”

“She’s going out with the players,” Jacquie said. “She’s scheduled to sign tonight.”

Sage stepped forward like she wanted to talk to Jacquie or Gabrielle, but the guard stepped between them. “Sorry, gotta get these ladies to their car.” He shot a menacing look at Sage’s friend Johnny. “No autographs back here.”

“It’s okay,” Sage said. “I’ll go around front and see if I can get Vivian.”

Ashley nodded, then leaned very close to Sage to whisper in her ear, “He’s hot. Were you serious about not having any claims on him?”

Sage glanced at Johnny where he stood just out of hearing distance. “He’s the guy from the website. The rescuer.”

Ashley frowned, drinking in every detail of his face as she studied him from under the brim of her hat. “Honey, I know every man on that site. I’ve met almost all of them and slept with half. That guy is not a rescuer for takemetonite.com.”

Sage’s jaw dropped in surpise. “Yes, he is.”

“Is his picture on the site?”

She nodded. “On page three of ‘Meet the Rescuers.’ ”

Ashley just shook her head. “There is no page three.”

“You can’t know them all.”

“I can and I do.” Ashley tapered her eyes and checked Johnny out again. “Is he the guy you got the other night? The one that cooked?”

When Sage nodded, Ashley just shook her head. “Sorry to break it to you, but he’s a total poser who has nothing to do with that website.”

Chapter
Nine

A
s they hustled to the front of the arena, Sage wanted to demand to know what Ashley meant, but couldn’t quite form the right question. And in her business, if you wanted the right answer, you had to ask the right question.

Anyway, she’d asked him questions the night before. He’d dodged them all already as adeptly as he did the postgame revelers pouring into the parking lot, the whole time wearing a tight, focused expression.

“So what’s the matter with you?” she asked.

“How well do you know that girl Ashley?”

“Why?”

With his arm on her back, he guided her past a group of men, all the while studying everyone who passed them. “Does she normally wear a blue baseball cap?”

“What difference does it make?”

“It matters.”

“I don’t know. Half the city wears Red Sox hats. They’re blue, right?”

His grip tightened as they reached the sizable crowd surrounding some of the players, and several more security guards. “Is this where you’re expecting to find Vivian?”

Sage stood on tiptoe to see if she could find the woman in the middle of the crowd. “Yeah, there she is. Signing.”

“You want to wait for her?”

She gauged the line. There were at least forty people in the crowd, but most of them were there for the players. Still, it could be ten or twenty minutes, and there was no guarantee Vivian would talk to her anyway. “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t want to get her in this situation. I wanted privacy. But we’re here now.”

“Let’s wait over here,” he suggested, indicating a brick planter.

She walked with him to it, scooting up on the ledge and burying herself deeper into the jacket.

“You cold?” he asked.

“Are you for real?” So much for her interview finesse.

He half laughed, sliding up next to her, but drawing back in surprise. “What kind of question is that?”

“I mean, are you who you say you are?”

He blinked, that sublime mouth lifting in a half smile. “I told you, I’ll be whoever you want me to be.”

His favorite line. “Ashley didn’t think you were really a rescuer with takemetonite.com. And you don’t seem to be too sure of her, either. So, what gives?”

He leaned back on his hands, looking at the crowd and thinking before he slid a sideways glance at her. “I shouldn’t do this,” he said slowly. “I really, really shouldn’t do this. But I’m going to.”

He turned to her, his knee brushing her thigh as he took one of her hands in his. “This morning, after I left you,” he said, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb, sending warm pulses up her arm, “I went home. And then I came back to your apartment.”

The pleasure pulses stopped. “You did?”

“I saw you leave and go to the Charles Street station.”

“You followed me again.” She refused to let that thrill her. This was getting a little scary. “So that was why your car was still in Beacon Hill and you were in Cleveland Circle. You followed me. Why?”

“I wasn’t the only one who followed you,” he said, notably not answering the question, but his response hit hard anyway.

“What do you mean?”

“I thought it was a guy in a baseball cap. He got out of a van—the same van that tried to pick you up last night—and followed you. Only, I realize now that it wasn’t a guy. It was her. Ashley. The cap has a distinctive rounded bill.”

Sage frowned at him, trying to reconcile all this. “Are you sure?”

“You saw her on the train, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but she said…” Her voice faded.

“I was on the balcony of the hotel on the corner when I spotted her, but then I—”

Sage practically choked as she stopped him with a flat palm. “Wait just a second, here. You were up at the Beacon Hill Bistro balcony, spying on me?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Just making sure you were okay. And that van pulled up and one person—Ashley—got out and followed you to the T station. And someone else stayed in the van.”

“Maybe the person who broke into my apartment.”

He nodded like that was exactly what he thought.

“And you saw Ashley, in her baseball cap, follow me to the T stop?”

“I didn’t see someone follow you, but by the time I got a ticket I saw her get on the train with you.”

She leaned back, thinking. “There was another guy in a blue baseball cap,” she said. “He was pestering me.”

“I saw him,” Johnny said. “Different cap.”

“Ashley actually stepped in and got rid of him for me.” She pulled herself back to something he’d said earlier. “Why did you think I wouldn’t be okay?”

He took her hand again, his eyes soft and sweet. “It was a rough night.”

No, no. Not sweet. She had to remember what she was dealing with here. “So, do you do that for all the women you rescue? Go back for seconds the next day?”

She could have sworn a little color drained from his face, but it was impossible to tell in the light. “No.”

“Or is it because you’re not really a rescuer for that site?”

He put his hands on her cheeks, his fingers unbelievably strong and warm. “It’s because I like you, sweetheart.”

She didn’t flinch. He was so close she could feel his breath. “Then why would Ashley tell me you’re a poser?”

“You tell me.” He covered her mouth with his, holding her face like it was the most precious thing he’d ever touched. His tongue parted her lips with expert precision and teased its way inside with a move he’d obviously perfected with years of practice. His fingers threaded her hair as he tilted her head, deepened the kiss, and flicked his tongue swiftly, lightly over the roof of her mouth. He ended the exchange with the quickest, tiniest nibble of her lower lip and a soft caress of his thumbs over her earlobes and down her neck.

Shivers ran up her spine and heat lightning bolted in the opposite direction.

“Poser or pro?” he asked.

“You’re a pro,” she murmured, barely able to open her eyes.

“Yes, I am.” He closed his hands around the back of her neck and pulled her closer to whisper in her ear, “And, I like you.”

Oh, hell. She liked him, too. Ashley could be wrong. “The crowd is breaking up over there,” she said. “Let’s find Vivian.”

“Okay.” He gave her a look so erotic and promising, it took her breath away as effectively as the kiss had done. “Then I’m going home with you tonight, honey.”

If she said no, he’d just follow her anyway.

Johnny held Sage’s hand in his jacket pocket and led her toward the dissipating crowd, the taste of her still making his blood spike. Deflect accusations, Dan Gallagher would say. Use the truth. Change the subject. Do something that proves you are what you say you are.

And Dan, of all people, would support the kiss-
the-holy-hell-out-of-your-principal-if-necessary approach. Anyway, it worked. She dropped the poser issue and didn’t argue the suggestion that he stay with her tonight. Which beat the hell out of casing her apartment from his car all night.

“Vivian?” Sage eased her hand out of Johnny’s pocket and quickened her step as they approached a woman wearing a white satin jacket and full stage makeup. Flat out one of the most exquisite females he’d ever seen, except for the scowl that crossed her face when she realized who had called her.

“I’m done signing,” she said abruptly to the security guard, handing a program back to one of her fans.

“Vivian, wait.” Sage hustled forward and Johnny recognized the wide-chested, protective response from a bodyguard.

The dancer held up a hand to stop Sage, and gave her muscle a visual plea Johnny had seen a hundred times:
Help.

“No more autographs,” the guard said to Sage brusquely, putting his body between her and Vivian and at the same time sizing up Johnny.

Vivian scooped up a duffle bag and started for the door of the arena.

“Vivian! Please!” Sage demanded.

The other woman hesitated, then turned. “Sage, I’m sorry about Keisha. I don’t know what was going on in her life. But I can’t help you.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” Sage said. “I’m doing an article for
Boston Living
magazine. I want to interview you.”

Vivian’s amber-gold eyes flickered in doubt. “I heard. I’m not interested. Talk to the other girls.” She held up her hand again and nodded toward her bodyguard. “I have protection now, and I’ll use it. Nobody can scare me.”

She powerwalked into the building. Sage just stared, then turned to Johnny. “What was that all about?”

“That,” he said, “was self-preservation.”

“But why?” Sage wondered. “I thought she was close to Keisha. Is she that terrified of Glenda? Of fans? Of the media?”

“She’s scared of something.”

“It’s just weird.” She shrugged and sighed. “She was my best hope.”

He put his arm around her and started toward the parking lot. One more person to talk to Lucy about, one more name for a background check. Too bad Raquel had left her job as Lucy’s right hand to travel with that Russian spy. She’d have the 411 on every single person he’d met, with that magical computer of hers.

“Let’s go. Are you hungry?”

She laughed. “Don’t tell me. You want to cook tonight.”

“
Pappa al pomodoro,
baby. It’s waitin’ for you at home.” Maybe he could deflect more questions with cooking. If that failed, there was always more kissing.

“You know,” she said, leaning into him. “You really ought to call my friend Dr. Garron. I’m serious. You could work at the Ritz.”

“Of course I could.”

“Did you really train at the Culinary Institute?”

He laughed. “The Culinary Institute of Nona Cardinale.” The moment the name came out of his mouth, he almost choked. What was he
thinking
?

“Nona? Is that your grandmother?”

“
Nona
is Italian for ‘grandmother’, yes.” Please God, let her focus on the title and not the name. She was so damn curious. By tomorrow morning, she’d have googled Cardinale from here to Sunday, and found a reference to him. Oh, yeah. That mob boss, Achilles Cardinale, the one in jail for every crime ever committed?
Yep, sweetheart, that’s my Uncle Arkie
.

“And she taught you how to cook?”

Go with it, Johnny.
“She taught me everything,” he told her. “From what to do with porcini, to how to take the eyes and tentacles out of a squid.”

“Ewww.”

“Not ewww.
Calamari alla ripieni alla fiorentina
. Like you died and went to heaven with a bottle of olive oil and a lemon wedge.”

“You have a beautiful accent,” she said, laughing. “Even if you don’t speak the language anymore.”

“It’s in the blood.” And so was a lot of other bad shit. He quickened their pace toward the dim back parking lot where she’d told him the dancers parked. The back exit was abandoned now, the security lights off for the night. “And I promise you won’t say
ewww
when I make my—” He froze and jerked her to a standstill.

“What?”

He just shook his head, his body on alert, his ears like radar listening for the sound he thought he’d heard. The
thwumpf
of a landed punch.

“What is it?” Sage demanded.

He put one finger up to his mouth, moving away from her as he scanned the lot and reached for his weapon. A few cars dotted the open space, a few clumps of trees and bushes blocked a complete view.

But there it was again. Followed by a grunt and a moan. A silent shit-kicking. He’d recognize that sound anywhere. He put one hand over her lips and pulled out his Glock, tilting his head in the direction of the noise. There was a cluster of cars, including some SUVs and a small truck creating a barrier, but he was fairly certain it came from there.

His rented Toyota was on the other side of the lot. He had two choices. Race to his car, armed, and get Sage to safety and out of there. Or go find out who was getting the beating and save a perfect stranger, and probably give up his cover in return.

The wallop of fist against flesh was loud enough for Sage to hear, and powerful enough to reach into every cell of his body and fill him with disgust and hate and pity. He’d been on the giving and the receiving end of that, and neither one was pretty.

A woman whimpered in pain.
Shit
.

“I’m taking you to the car,” he said, pinning Sage with a look that allowed no argument. “Stay low and keep the doors shut. Then I’ll see what’s going on over there.”

Her eyes widened when an engine revved and rubber squealed as a car pulled out from behind the SUV and screamed off. In the shadows, someone stumbled, then yanked open a car door, falling into the driver’s seat.

Johnny covered Sage with his body and hustled them both toward the injured woman, recognizing her even without the baseball cap. He reached the sports car and whipped open the door, to be greeted by the bloody face of what had been a passably pretty redhead.

He dropped to his knees and reached for her.

Her head wobbled like she was drunk, then she pushed him with way more force than he’d expected, knocking him back just enough for her to reach the car door and tug it closed.

“Hey!” He shot up just as she managed to turn the ignition, slam on the accelerator, and fly out at the same speed as whoever had beaten the crap out of her. The only thing she left behind was a dark blue baseball cap.

Picking it up from the ground, he held it out to Sage. “Jealous boyfriend? Lunatic fan?”

She took the hat, then peered in the other direction, where the taillights of the first car had disappeared.

Sage twisted the hat, her scowl deepening. “I don’t know.”

“Come on,” he said gruffly, pulling her to him, fighting the waves of anger, and remembering his purpose was to protect her. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You okay?”

He ratcheted up his chin in a nonchalant nod but, in his head, all he could see was the angry red welt on the pretty, freckled face, the dribble of blood down her chin. He’d seen too much of that in his life. “Yeah, sure.” Nothing a little cooking and kissing couldn’t make him forget. “I’m fine.”

He
was
.

“Fine” would be an excellent way to describe the man in front of her stove. Sage sat at the open counter that separated the kitchen from the living area, studying the fine shape of him, the fine movements of an artist at work, the fine beauty of a man built for every imaginable pleasure.