“What the hell, Alex?” Maria yelled over the music, smacking him in the chest, hard. Her small fist bounced off his pec.
But he was undeterred. “What do you think you’re doing here? Dressed like that.” He stared down at her, trying to ignore the way her smooth exposed skin made him feel, and the way his body tightened in response. He tried to push it back. He couldn’t be attracted to Maria.
But Maria didn’t seem to notice his turmoil and was squarely focused on being pissed at him. “Well, I was dancing with a cute guy, before you rudely interrupted.” She was mad. Alex recognized the pout of her lips, an expression she made when she was unhappy or when he and Rafael would pick on her as kids. She folded her arms across her chest, and the action plumped her breasts, pushing them up the low neckline of her shirt.
“Who was that guy?”
Her shrug was full of attitude. “I don’t know. I just met him.”
His eyes drifted south, watching the movements of her breasts, before he forced them back to her face. “Are you here alone?”
“No, I’m with my girlfriends.” She gestured vaguely over her shoulder.
“Well, where are they?”
“They’re around. What’s it to you, Alex?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Well, I am at a nightclub,” she said, looking at him, as if it was obvious.
He grabbed her arm. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”
She pulled back and wrenched away from his grip. “No, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here with my friends. And I was having a good time until you rudely interrupted.”
“Go get them. I’m calling you a car.”
“Fuck you, Alex.” Admirably, she stood her ground, not backing down from him. He looked around and could see that they were starting to catch the attention of the bouncers and staff.
“Maria.” He leaned in, whispering near her ear. “Come on. We’re leaving.” Looking around them, he didn’t miss the way that every guy in the place looked at Maria like she was a lamb in a lion’s den. A stubborn, immovable lamb. Relenting, he sighed. “Fine. If you aren’t leaving, then neither am I.” There was no way in hell he was going to walk out of that club while she was dressed like that.
She huffed and turned on her stiletto-clad heel and stomped away from him, toward two other women he assumed were her friends who stood at a table. He tried to ignore the way Maria’s ass shifted and her hips swayed under her skirt, or the flex of her toned thigh and calf muscles with every step. Grumbling to himself, frustrated, he went back to the VIP area and poured himself another drink. “Jesus.”
“Need anything else, Mr. Fischer?” the cocktail waitress asked him, within twenty seconds of his returning to his table.
Not taking his eyes off Maria, he shook his head. She was facing away from him, but every few seconds, she would look at him over her shoulder. Her large dark eyes were hot, burning him across the crowded nightclub, and her full lips pouted, teasing him, egging him on. Saluting her with his glass, he knocked back the bourbon in one large swallow.
He’d known Maria for years. When he was a child, the Martinez family had saved his life. He’d moved in with the family and out of his slum after his mother’s death and his father’s incarceration, and he never looked back. Alex owed Maria’s family everything, and whether she wanted him to or not, he would look out for her—make sure she stayed safe, and that certainly didn’t mean entertaining any of the thoughts he currently had in his mind.
* * *
Maria could feel Alex’s gaze on her back. Just who in the hell did he think he was? She was just trying to have some fun with her friends, Beth and Anna, dance with some good-looking guys, have them buy her some drinks. But of course, she couldn’t go anywhere in Las Vegas without being seen and coddled by one of Rafael’s overprotective friends. She was twenty-six years old, and completely sick of being treated like a fucking child. It was the curse of being the youngest daughter in a strict, Latino Catholic family. They loved her, and God knew her family was more important to her than anything else, but their watchful eyes were burdensome.
Thankfully, her parents had at least finally recognized that she was an adult. But Rafael was another issue. He flat-out refused to even remotely acknowledge the fact that she was no longer a child. She was a grown woman, she’d seen firsthand all of the terrible things that could happen to a woman, and she knew how to protect herself from those who would wish to do her harm. Since graduating from college, she’d spent months at a time on humanitarian missions with various groups like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders in areas ravaged by war, disease and natural disasters. Her eyes had been opened to how dangerous the world could be when people were desperate and willing to do anything to survive. But in the mind of her stubborn brother, she was still a naive kid. Hell, she would be an eighty-year-old woman, and he would still be calling her his baby sister.
Alex’s closeness to her brother, and the fact that he had basically been raised in her home, meant that she should probably think of him as her brother, too. But she hadn’t. They’d grown up together, and while she’d always had a bit of a crush on him, somewhere along the way he’d ceased to be the gross boy who’d teased and picked on her, and had become the strong, gorgeous man who lit her every desire on fire.
“Maria, who was the hottie?” Beth asked, breaking through her thoughts. Maria blinked and realized that she was still looking at Alex, who was staring right back.
“Alex. A friend of my brother’s.”
“He is seriously the best-looking guy in here.” Maria watched her friend as she sized up Alex from across the room. “And he can’t keep his eyes off you. Why don’t you go for it? Crawl up on all that muscle.”
It certainly wasn’t beyond the thoughts that Maria had had about Alex. The man was a certified hunk. She may have spent thousands of hours in the middle of the night, in bed everywhere from Las Vegas to Haiti to the Middle East in the midst of fantasies about Alex Fischer. Those strong shoulders, the rippling muscles of his back and the bulge in his pants. “Believe me, I would,” she said, her breath pushing out from her constricting lungs. “But there’s no chance. He still thinks of me only as a kid, Rafael’s little sister.” A good girl. That was how everyone thought of her. Sure, she was a good person, but she also had a wicked streak that she heartily embraced every chance she got.
Oblivious to the conversation Maria and her friends had been having, some guy took the opportunity to join them, sidling up close to Maria, wrapping his arm low around her waist. He said something stupid about her culo, and she rolled her eyes. Idiot. God, she’d had enough of men imposing themselves on her, and her patience was at an all-time low. Can’t a woman just go out and have fun with her friends? She pulled his arm away from her. “You’d better get out of here, pendejo. Before I kick your culo all over this club.” She didn’t need Alex to scare off idiot guys. She could more than handle herself.
But he didn’t walk away; instead, he somehow sidled closer. “Ooh, fiery, I like that.”
The guy had no idea. She’d learned a long time ago while on missions how to deal with chauvinists, catcallers, guys who attempted to touch her uninvited. It wasn’t pretty. She’d seen some real dangerous men in her time. This frat boy in his Old Navy chambray shirt and chinos didn’t interest or scare her. “Listen, man, I’m not playing. Back off!” She turned away from him, trying to talk to her girlfriends.
When the guy laughed and grabbed her ass, Maria whipped around and grasped the guy’s fingers in a grip that twisted his wrist, causing him severe pain. He cried out, and everyone in the near vicinity looked in their direction. A bouncer moved close, but he didn’t