Taking the Score (17 page)

“That’s it,” he groaned, his fist controlling the angle of her head. “Suck it good. All for you.”

She loved his salty-musky taste, the solidity in her hands, the thick, erotic slide of him between her lips. Lifting her gaze, she found him watching this beautiful thing they were creating. Power and surrender thrummed through her equally.

He pulled his hips back, slipping his cock from her mouth. She moaned in protest, but he had already dragged her up and spun her around so she faced the city at twilight.

His erection pressed against her ass and she wiggled. His growl against her neck prompted a flood of pleasure between her thighs.

“Need to be inside you when I come. Need to give you this.”

It sounded like he was offering her the world: the glory of the city spread out before her, the glory of the man wrapping her in his arms. A future that didn’t belong to her.

The condom wrapper’s crinkle hauled her back to the present. He yanked her skirt up, her panties down, and with one smooth thrust, filled her. Ah, heaven. A single grunt, and he remained still inside her, their worlds suspended in this moment of perfection.

The dusky glow over the city made the streetlamps look like dancing orbs, particles of energy. This dream world she wanted to live in. They were high up, but an enterprising perv in another building could spot them. The thought thrilled her, not merely because it was a turn-on, but because she wanted someone else to know they were together, if only like this.

She was tired of secrets.

A drumbeat in his chest echoed against her back, its rhythm matching the tempo of her own thundering heart and pulse between her legs. His breath whispered against her neck again, hot and insistent. “Love how you feel surrounding me with your heat. Could stay like this forever.”

A tear fell down her cheek, and she thanked her stars he was blind to it. She squeezed around his thick, gorgeous shaft, urging him to continue now, because there could be no forever.

“Fuck, Emma,” he gritted out, and then he bit her shoulder gently, but hard enough to make a mark. His hips rolled back, and he slammed into her, holding her in place so the terrace walls wouldn’t bruise her. That would be his job.

She arched her back to increase the angle and heighten the pleasure. She didn’t want it gentle. She wanted to be punished for the crimes he didn’t know about, for the bad girl she truly was.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted as her orgasm threatened and climbed and blissfully rolled through her. Her vision blurred, likely because of the city lights and the force of her release, not because her emotion got the better of her. The clamp of her inner walls triggered Brody’s orgasm and he came with a roar before burying his face in her neck.

They stayed like that for a while, and she pretended it was the forever he mentioned.

She’d always been good at pretending.

Chapter Seventeen

Regrets, I’ve had a few…

As Emma rode the elevator to the top floor of the Peninsula hotel on Michigan Avenue, the lyrics to “My Way” installed as her latest earworm and pulled double duty as a pricking of her conscience. Sinatra might have had regrets on the path to doing it his way, but that was a helluva lot easier to reconcile when you had a voice worth millions (and mob connections).

She glanced over at her elevator companion. Katerina returned her look with a knowing one of her own.

“Why you worry? I do private parties all the time. A little of the grind, a little of the hump, five hundred dollars in my bra.”

This was shaping up to be the worst idea since New Coke. When Olivia had asked if Chardonnay wanted to make a few dollars with a pole dancing demonstration for the out-of-towners in Olivia’s hotel room, Emma should have dismissed it out of hand. Instead she’d suggested Kat’s services, thinking the lissome blonde would jump at the chance to make money and cut Ray out of a slice of the profits. Emma’s “finder’s fee” would go toward her getaway fund.

Now, regret hung like a dark angel on her shoulder. Brody would not approve.

Awesome use of your brainpower, Ems.

“Please don’t hump and grind on these girls. They want some fun, a bit of a show, not a porn flick.”

Katerina shrugged. So Romanian. “That is what they all say. Three shots of tequila later and they are asking if I am waxed everywhere.” She raised a sultry eyebrow. “I am.”

The elevator door opened and Emma exited, scanning the hotel room numbers as she forged ahead.

“You look different, Emma,” Kat announced behind her. “You look like you are having the regular sexual relations. And in interesting places.”

Heat rushed to Emma’s cheeks, which would have been fine if it stayed there. Instead, it chose to spread to the back of her neck and pronounce her guilty as sin.

Katerina made a sound that might be interpreted as a laugh in Communist cultures circa 1982. “Yes, you are being serviced well. That is good. All women need this.”

Emma balled her fist to knock on the door to Olivia’s hotel suite. “Remember, I’m Chardonnay.”

“Is good name for stripper,” Katerina said with no trace of irony whatsoever.

“And don’t get too porny. Just show them some dance moves they can take home to get their boyfriends off.”

The door flew open and Olivia grinned broadly. “Oh my God, you’re here! We are so excited, I can’t tell you.” Her gaze fell on Katerina. “You. Are. Gorgeous.”

Katerina answered with an “I know” shrug. She waltzed past Olivia and took stock of the suite, assessing her new environment with the efficiency of a pro. “I set up now.”

Olivia nodded, clearly impressed with her work ethic. “Come in, Chardonnay. Meet the girls.” She shaded her mouth with her hand, though she didn’t lower the volume of her voice. “The F-Troop.”

The former F-Troop, she thought, fighting a snarl. With one eye on Katerina as she unpacked her pole, Emma let herself be led to the suite’s sofa, where the Texas princesses were camped out with half-full martini glasses. A pitcher of something fruity sat on the coffee table. Beside it, a gigantic, penis-shaped cake emblazoned with blue icing read,
The Best Is Yet to Come!

“So, girls, this is Chardonnay, my brother’s…” Olivia looked to her for assistance.

“Fantasy,” Emma said with a plastered-on smile for the F-Troop.
You’re outta business, gals.

If her grin was any indication, Olivia liked that. “This is Lisa, my matron of honor”—she gestured at a cool, Hitchcockian blonde—“Jess”—who was sloe-eyed and sexy in a sneaky-looking way—“and Gabby.” Gabby had a Latina vibe going on. Another beauty who’d have no trouble summoning a man with the click of her fingers.

Emma nodded and motioned to Katerina, who had pressed a button on the now-straightened pole. It latched onto the ceiling and, with the magic of science, became suctioned there. She tested it with a pull, a vigorous shake, and then a quick off-her-feet swirl that drew claps from the sofa girls.

“This is Katerina, your entertainment for the evening.”

Kat strode over and spoke to Olivia. “You pay now. Then I change into sexy outfit.”

“Of course,” Olivia murmured, still impressed by Kat’s no-shittin’-around attitude. She rummaged in her Coach purse and pulled out her wallet. Several hundred-dollar bills exchanged hands, and Kat picked up a bag and headed to the bathroom.

Olivia gazed after Kat, spared a glance for the gleaming pole in the center of the room, and turned back to Emma. “Will you be dancing this evening, Char?”

“No, I’m just here to make sure none of you bitches get handsy with the talent.” She sat on the sofa. Damn, she needed a drink. “Is there a spare glass lying around?”

Emma marveled at how five minutes could transform a hotel suite at the classy Peninsula hotel on Michigan Avenue into a veritable den of stripper iniquity. Kat’s duffel bag contained more than just a rent-a-pole; it also had an iPod docking station and a portable party light system that threw out multicolored shards on the walls and ceiling.

Kevin would have hated it.

But the girls loved it, especially when Katerina, dressed in one of her most stripper-y outfits—and Emma had seen most of them—wowed them with her moves on the pole. Completely respectful of her talents, they oohed at the right moments and clapped whenever she did something so acrobatic it made Emma’s heart race with worry. Emma had seen Kat’s mighty calves in action, and the woman was delivering tonight.

“Now everyone on their feet,” Kat ordered, sergeant-major style.

In ten minutes, the drunken debutantes were rock-and-rollin’ with hip swivels and booty shakes that wouldn’t have looked out of place at Club Girl.

“Lisa, use more hip twist,” Kat demanded. “Let him see how flexible you are. And Jessica, you have fine American ass. You clearly eat more than the rest. Make it work for you.”

“Did she just call me fat?” Jess murmured as she grasped the pole and swayed her hips provocatively.

“That’s a compliment in her culture,” Emma assured her with a wink at Olivia, who was laughing her head off. Emma had missed being around girls her own age, and although these were not the kind of women who would ever accept her, it still felt good to be thinking about anything but her problems.

Watching Kat in action, something else occurred to Emma. Perhaps there was a way she could help her friend escape the strip club…

After another death-defying move, showcasing those thighs that could crush a man like a James Bond villainess, Kat landed on her feet to wild applause. She turned the lights on the stereo setup to the “mood” setting, lowered the music, and sat in an armchair.

“You are a goddess,” Olivia said, awe thickening her voice, or maybe it was that third appletini.

“I am good. Best at club.” She slid a sly look at Emma. “Chardonnay has much to learn. She should practice more.”

“Why?” Gabby asked. “It sounds like she’s landed on her feet with her billionaire boyfriend.”

“Gabby!” Olivia glared at her friend, though it was obvious the thought was shared by everyone in the room. Even Kat, who shrugged when Emma caught her eye.

Gabby looked miffed that she was taking the fall. “Just sayin’ she doesn’t have to do that job if she’s got a rich guy. And I don’t know how Brody would stand to let her do it. Especially after his experience with Kerry bein’ such a ho, pretending she was pregnant to trap a man.”

Pregnant?
Stunned, Emma looked to Olivia for confirmation. Suddenly, Brody’s actions made more sense. Why would a man with such voracious appetites marry a woman who couldn’t handle him?

Olivia narrowed her eyes at Gabby. “Have another drink, Gabs.”

“She pretended?” Emma asked, her voice a couple of octaves higher than usual.

“Lied her ass off,” Olivia said. “The rest of it was bad enough…” Her gaze met Emma’s, a brew of tigress challenge and remembered pain. “That’s what hurt the most. He thought he was going to be a father.”

And he was prepared to cage his desires and needs to do the right thing. Marry a woman who was incompatible in every way so that her child—
their child
—would get the best start in life. Every moment she spent here drew her tighter and tighter into the orbit of this amazingly honorable man who had been trying to do good by Emma from the start. Save her from the club and a life on the streets.

Look how she repaid him. With half truths, omissions, and the threat of public shame with Ray’s video.

The chill in the room brought on by Gabby’s revelation about Brody’s ex had spread to Emma’s heart, and evidently, it showed. In an uncharacteristically sympathetic query, Kat raised an eyebrow while Olivia eyed Emma shrewdly, taking her measure. Panic eddied in her gut, a need to remove herself from this suddenly claustrophobic situation.

Thankfully, Kat picked up on her vibe. “Before I go, I show one lucky volunteer how to win man on pole.”

Gabby shot up. “Me, me!”

Kat gave her the twice-over, then a curt nod of assent. Standing, she gestured at the cake. “The rest, have slice of your cock cake.”

Kat spent a few moments instructing Gabby in hand placement and watched approvingly when she managed a few bunny hops around the pole. So involved in encouraging Gabby, no one noticed the door to the suite opening.

“You ladies sure know how to throw a party.”

Emma’s eyes shot up at the sound of that voice: Mr. Cross.

Grinning, Flynn pulled his gaze away from the pole shenanigans and attached it to Emma. Smile fading, his expression was now riddled with confusion. “Hey, Emma,” he said.

Oh, hell, no.

A hulking shape emerged from behind Flynn. Brody.

Worlds collide.

Olivia stood and fisted her hands at her hips. “What are you doing here?” she snapped at Flynn.

He glared back. “Jess invited me for a drink.”

Olivia murdered Jess with a look, then put Flynn six feet under twice with another.

Flynn broke the gaze first and said to Emma, “Has Brody got you on chaperone duty, Emma?” He turned to Brody. “Hell, man, you’re making her work on a Saturday. That’s cruel.”

Emma watched in slo-mo as the room shifted with awareness. Olivia took a long, puzzled look at Emma. Realizing he’d put his foot in it but not knowing why, Flynn frowned at Brody, whose mouth formed a grim seal.

“Emma?” Olivia asked. “You’re…I thought your voice sounded familiar. You’re Emma. Brody’s assistant Emma! Damn…” She looked at her with new eyes. “On the phone, you sound like a mouse. But you’re a—are you a stripper as well? Called
Chardonnay
?”

Flynn squinted at Olivia. “Liv, as usual you’ve got it all wrong. How in the hell would you mistake butter-wouldn’t-melt Emma here for a stripper? She works at that club slingin’ cocktails, not gettin’ buck naked.” He tipped an imaginary hat at Katerina, who was still dressed in her revealing stripper attire. “No offense, ma’am.”

Terror barged through Emma’s veins. Mr. Cross knew she worked at Club Girl? Oh, God. How soon before her business was splashed all over the office?

“Explaining anything to you, Flynn Cross,” said an exasperated Olivia, “would be a waste of my precious breath.” She crossed her arms and cocked a hip with a slightly drunken lurch. “Emma, you’re clearly not a stripper, but for some reason, you’re playin’ one on TV. Feel free to jump in and tell us all about it.”

Shit, it had to be done. Eventually, Emma found the courage to raise her eyes to Brody. Here she was cozying up to his sister, burrowing further into his life, then getting her cover blown. He must be pissed.

So color her surprised as all get out when she met his smiling gaze.

“Emma’s been staying with me while her hardwood flooring is being repaired,” Brody said, not taking those silver-gray eyes off her. “Flood damage.”

Her heart caught at how he was covering for her, minimizing her shame. Emotion reared in her chest at his protectiveness.

“Yeah, that’s what I walked in on in your kitchen a couple of days ago,” Liv said with a smirk. “Flood damage.”

Brody sighed. “Liv, it’s none of your—”

“Brody,” Emma cut in, “it’s okay.” Technically, it was no one’s business, but she was sick of pretending, of hiding who she was. This cloak of respectability she’d been wearing was waterlogged with her lies. It needed to be thrown off. “A series of unfortunate events involving bad debts, a ballistic cat, and a terrible lap dance at a strip club has led me to Brody—and his bed. Where he is a fucking rock star.” She turned to a gaping Olivia. “You asked.”

Olivia laughed. “I did.”

Emma met Brody’s gaze again. Heat and something that looked like pride shone back at her. It warmed her some. Scared her more. “Though we haven’t actually made it to a bed yet, have we?”

“Not yet,” he murmured in a gravelly tone that said,
soon, baby, soon.
Moving in, he encircled her waist and gathered her close. She would like to say she had no choice but to sink into him, but that was wrong. She
had
a choice. She made it and let him hold her steady in those incredibly strong arms.

“You and Emma, Kane?” Flynn asked, dividing a glance between Brody and Emma. He looked like he was itching to high-five his friend. Typical man.

“Me and Emma,” Brody said quietly, as if that explained everything. His gaze remained fixed on hers, a sensual tractor beam that trapped her immobile.

“People are looking at us,” she managed.

“Let ’em.” He kissed her, a full claim of her lips, taking total possession of her body and soul, in front of God and everyone. This was not supposed to happen. Any of it. When he released her, she was a shaking mess. “Get a good look, Cross?”

“If I was a chick, I’d probably be clappin’ and hootin’,” Flynn said, “but as I’m a red-blooded Texan-American male, I’ll just say this. About fuckin’ time.”

A resounding
thud
redirected the room’s attention to the pole—and the woman in a crumpled heap beside it now holding her wrist.

Coldplay-loving, fresh flowers–hating, would-be stripper Gabby let out a drunken moan.