What Happens in Vegas...After Dark (12 page)

She’d used a lot more magic than normal that afternoon on the mage. Had broken into his shields and spilled her magic through him until he sweated and begged her to touch him. It wasn’t as if she’d have harmed him, but she knew the magnitude of her abilities and took an oath not to abuse them.

“It won’t happen again. He was weaker than I’d expected. I overcompensated.” All she said was true. “And with cutie over there?” Nell jerked her head toward the bar. “I didn’t blow him, I just flirted.” She paused, sipping the drink. “I’ve been patient. Waiting. It’s coming and it has been for a while now. But suddenly I’m restless, Galen. I’m itchy in my own skin.”

“Last time I saw her back home, Meriel told me to keep an eye on you.”

“You know, how fair is it that Meriel is pretty much the total package? I mean, she’s beautiful and smart, she’s full-council. All those perfect genes.” Nell snorted a laugh.

“Nice, too. Even if her judgment is poor in choosing you for a best friend.” Galen took a few pulls from his beer.

Meriel Owen was Nell’s best friend, lead counsel to the Clan and Edina Owen’s oldest child. Also unlike Nell, Meriel was a full-council witch. Meaning there was a bond-partner who’d bring Meriel into the full power of her magic, like a key in a lock. Once she was fully bonded, it was highly likely she would take over the leadership of the Clan.

Nell wasn’t full-council. She was powerful, yes. Good at her job. So much so the Clan gave her free rein in most situations. She was paid wel and in general, life was good. But something was missing. And as she’d told Meriel on the phone that very morning, whatever it was, she had the feeling she’d find it there in Las Vegas. Or at least would be led to it.

“I cal ed the club the ex owns. He’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. We’ve got suites set up at the Liege and our belongings have been sent over. With what our little friend told us this afternoon, I think we can do some digging.”

“All right. Party pooper. Let’s go on over, get room service and start digging.”

W illiam Emery walked through the club, his club. The rip in the upholstery of one of the VIP booths had been repaired nicely and the tabletop scarring had been polished out.

He liked when his orders were followed. It made every thing much easier.

“I’ll be in my office,” he cal ed to the floor manager who’d been speaking with Roseanne, his lead dancer. The Dollhouse was a burlesque club. While in the over two years since he’d opened, several others had cropped up in Vegas, the Dollhouse still reigned. It was his club people waited in line to get into. His club whose bottle service tables were booked up to six months in advance. His club the young, rich and hip had made their living room while in Las Vegas.

And to think he’d nearly opened a dance club in Boston.

Another techno club with overpriced drinks. He’d have made it a success, it was who he was. But if that faithless bitch hadn’t tried to con his mother, he’d have never made this dream come true.

A steaming mug of tea waited for him on his desk as he let the leather of his chair embrace his body. His kingdom. William had learned the hard way just how closed off you had to be, just how distrustful, to hold on to what was important.

A knock on his door sounded and he didn’t bother to look up from his computer screen, instead, just waving whoever it was into the room.

And when he looked up, everything stopped for long moments.

She was long and lean. The short cap of pale blond curls should have made her girlish, but William wagered there wasn’t much girlish about the woman standing in his doorway.

Stylistically, she wasn’t a woman he’d normally have looked at twice. Faded jeans and a button-down short-sleeved shirt, cowboy boots. In Las Vegas. In August? Not much makeup and her nails were bare, no polish. And yet, whatever it was she exuded was pure sex.

“Can I help you?” He hoped she was there to apply to be a dancer. She had that certain something he knew would amplify up on stage.

“Wil iam Emery?”

Her voice was whisky-rough, smoky. Christ.

“Yes. You know, we don’t have any positions open right now, but I’d love to see you audition. Did you bring your clothes with you or is that your costume?”

Blinking slowly, she stilled a moment before she laughed. Deep and velvet seduction.

Her laugh brought his already interested cock to full attention.

With a sigh, she dropped gracefully into the chair across from his desk without invitation and pulled a notepad from her bag. When she looked back up at him again he caught bright green eyes and cinnamon lashes.

“Such a kidder. I’m Nell Hunter. I work for Owen Group International and I’m looking for this woman.” She slid a photograph across his desk and his enchantment with her ended when he saw who it was.

Well, that was unexpected. At the sight of Leah’s face, his cock lost al interest. “What do you want her for? Why are you here? I haven’t seen Leah in three years.”

“She’s here in Las Vegas. You haven’t heard from her?” One of her eyebrows rose slowly, as if taunting him.

“I just said that, didn’t I?” Why did this woman have to be so tantalizing?

“You did. Can you tel me about the last time you saw her?”

“No. I think you’re going to do some telling just now. Why the hell are you in my office, in my club, asking me about a woman I broke up with three years ago? What did she do?”

he asked, suspicious.

“Why do you care? Are you protecting her?” Her lazy manner only barely hid the sharp attentiveness just beneath the surface.

He leaned back once he knew she was as much a shark as he was. William knew how to play this game. This Nell Hunter amused him, fascinated him even. Why not fence a bit with her?

“You know, pretty won’t get you everything, Ms. Hunter. You’re going to have to work for it. Now, I believe I asked who you were and why you were here.”

He didn’t mistake the glimmer of a smile at the edge of her mouth. Her mouth, God.

What would she taste like?

“I’m chief of security for my employer. Your fiancée worked for a company we’ve done business with for eight years. Through this company and her position in it, Leah Mathers is believed to have embezzled one hundred thousand dollars from the Owen Group. Naturally we want our property back. You were engaged to marry the woman.

She’s suddenly in the same city you are when we’re very close to finding her. You can see how this might be just a few too many coincidences for us to let pass without some questions.”

She sat back in her chair and he caught the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

“How do you know she’s here?”

“Mr. Emery, I’d like to repeat to you your wise words of just moments ago. Pretty won’t get you everything. I gave you some, now it’s your turn. Or, don’t you believe in equal gratification?”

Was the lovely Ms. Hunter flirting with him? Even Leah’s apparent dedication to her life of graft couldn’t sour his enjoyment of Nell Hunter.

“As I said, I haven’t seen Leah in three years. I kicked her out of my house. The last time I saw her was at a court hearing when she attempted to wring money from me for breaking off our engagement. After that, I had my attorneys file for a restraining order. I received it and I never laid eyes on the traitorous bitch again.” The humiliation at least had been burned out by his rage at her gall.

“Did she steal from you?”

He clenched his jaw. Time had healed the romantic hurts, but it hadn’t fully assuaged the humiliation Leah had brought into his life. “No. But I have no problem believing she’d steal a hundred grand from your boss, either.” He hesitated a moment and then shrugged. “She attempted to extort money from my mother.”

Both of her brows rose this time as she shook her head and clucked her tongue. “My goodness. Well, then, she’s an idiot. Do you have any idea where she could be here in Las Vegas? Any family or friends?”

“Did you just compliment me, Ms. Hunter?” He smiled at her, feeling like the cat who ate the canary. She may have been long and lean, but her tits were gorgeously lush. A brief mental picture of her long, pale legs wrapped around his waist slid through his head.

“You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?” She stood and he did, as well. A business card landed on his desk. “If you can think of anyone or any other details, please let me know. I’l let you get back to—” she looked at the large framed photographs of his dancers on his wall “—work.”

He watched her walk from his office doorway and listened to the click of her heels as she headed out of the club.

“Oh, yes. I am sure.” Smiling, he sat back in his chair and turned her card over between his fingers.

Two nights later, William sat surrounded by women as he watched the action onstage.

For a brief moment, he wished a blonde with short hair and wild curls worked for him.

Wished he could see her every day, get to know her.

Nell Hunter had been living in his head since the moment he’d met her. In every woman’s walk, he looked for her, compared, found them al wanting. In every woman’s eyes he searched for green, intelligent depths and got brown or blue.

She’d imprinted him in some way. Laid her existence on his skin until it fit him. The feeling was stifling and exhilarating all at once. To feel such an intense draw to another person with a sort of longing was an entirely unfamiliar thing to Wil iam. He’d felt lust, desire, even love, but not whatever it was plaguing him right then.

She returned to his thoughts like a song he couldn’t get enough of. And like that experience he kept waiting for the annoyance to set in, for his subconscious to move on to another, new shiny thing. But it had not happened. Instead, the longing spread, deepened.

He toyed with it, with thinking about it even though it made him wary. He approached thoughts of Nell Hunter and the way she made him feel, knowing aversion was better. He thought on it anyway.

In truth, the depth of whatever they’d shared in his office scared him right down to his Prada loafers. He loved women. Loved them in volume, the more the better he’d always felt. He’d settled in with Leah because she’d interested him, matched him in bed well enough and seemed to share his passions about business. And she’d ripped him apart by attempting to destabilize the one unshakable foundation in his life—his family.

Since the day he’d listened to his mother tell him about Leah’s blackmail attempt and then Leah herself on the tape, he’d always had a yawning distance between his emotions and anyone else. Even his younger brother, Nash, had trouble getting past his defenses and Nash was the closest confidant Wil iam had.

No one would ever have that kind of power over him again. The power to lay him low.

Love wasn’t important enough to him to risk that sort of exposure.

In truth, he continued thinking while the woman next to him stroked long nails over his trousers and alert cock, the more he thought about Nell Hunter, the more she seemed to have wormed her way under his skin.

Which could not happen.

No. The woman was way off his to-do list. Pretty, sexy, definitely smart, but not for him and that was all there was to it. He would help her find Leah if he could because Leah was an infectious disease and needed to be removed from humanity before she brought any more destruction. But there would be no fucking of the aforementioned Nell Hunter with her long legs and high, delicious breasts. No matter what color her nipples were. No matter how much his mouth watered as he imagined the taste of her neck just below her ear. He really wouldn’t think about what it would feel like to sink his cock deep into her cunt. He shivered for a moment and nearly groaned at the phantom, wet squeeze of her pussy as he slid into her.

Wrenching his attention away, he sent a subtle rise of his chin to the brunette next to him. All he needed was to get laid and Nell Hunter would be out of his head.

N ell walked past the shimmery doormen and through the club’s doors. Immediately the magic of the space responded, closed around her and allowed her to pass.

Darkness was a bar, a dance club, a place to hang out for the paranormal population in and around Las Vegas. Its location was cloaked by a fairly powerful spell the local Clan laid over it.

It seemed a small thing, a bar. Nothing so lofty really. But it was a safe haven. Like hallowed ground. No fights were allowed and the demons who watched the doors would take care of anyone who broke the space’s neutrality. Having to hide one’s otherness in everyday life became burdensome at times so places like Darkness were a welcome reprieve. Several such clubs/gathering places existed throughout the world.

“Nell! I’m pleased to see you,” Alex Sampson, a member of the Lee Clan, the witches who held Las Vegas, hailed from a nearby table.

She grinned as he pulled her into a hug before they sat. Alex had a platinum-blond mohawk and pale blue eyes. During the time when he wasn’t on official Clan business, he worked at a tattoo parlor near Freemont Street with several other witches. He was a picture of total rebel cool sitting there in his faded jeans and tight black T-shirt.

“Lovin’ the hair, my man. So, tell me, any word on the woman?”

“You’re not even going to flirt with me first? Come on, now, Nell. You know I like it when you’re flirty.” He flashed a smile.

“This woman makes me very unhappy. I want her to go away and I want to bag these mages and get this done with. I’m remodeling my kitchen and if I’m not there to guard the contractors, my dad comes by and tries to help. Now that my mom has retired from hunting she’s glad to foist him off on me to get him out of her hair.” She bracketed the word help with finger quotes. Her dad was an astrophysicist, but he could not deal with hammering and basic stuff like that. Which drove him nuts, so he routinely took classes and harassed all manner of handymen and woodworkers to let him help.