An involuntary shiver raced over her skin at the sound of his voice. Or maybe she was just freaked out by the bizarre tattoo. But the deep, gravelly sound scraped over her flesh, leaving every single nerve ending raw and tingling.
“I...” She moistened her lips and grappled for the cocky attitude she’d waltzed in here with. “My name’s Tasha. I just thought you were cute and that maybe we could—”
He looked her up and down. Not a fast and furious sweep, but a slow, methodical perusal...as if he were devouring every square inch of her with his eyes. She shivered again. Jesus, what was wrong with her?
When that unyielding blue gaze collided with hers once more, he said, “Go away.”
Had this encounter tanked or what?
She mustered up a properly pissed-off look and the body language to go with it. “Maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I like it right here.” She guzzled the rest of her beer. “You know,” she said, her gaze focused on the mirror behind the bar, but her voice just loud enough for him to hear, “I knew moving here would be a mistake. My first night on the town and I get the brush-off from the best-looking guy in the club.” She turned toward him then, pressed even more intimately against him. “Why is that, do you think?”
He shifted just enough so that his face was about two inches from hers. “Maybe it has something to do with that big mouth.”
She laughed softly and then sighed, allowing her breath to feather across his lips. “Well, now I know, don’t I?”
He turned away as if he hadn’t even noticed her seduction attempts. How the hell was she supposed to crack this guy?
Lucas’s offer echoed in her ears...succeed in this mission and you’ll come to work for me with the best of the best. Failure was not an option. The cell phone tucked into her boot vibrated. Maverick, no doubt.
She braced a hand against J.D. as she fished out her phone. He flinched. Great, he didn’t even want her to touch him. “Yeah.” She turned away from the exasperating man, straining to hear over the music.
“I take it we have contact.”
Maverick’s call would show up as a cell phone listed to her fake roommate, Patti. Under normal circumstances he would call if he didn’t like what he saw on the monitor, if in distress she would say the right phrase or her inability to answer would equate to the same, and the cowboy would create a diversion, allowing her to escape whatever trouble she was in. But tonight’s call was just to ensure contact had been made and to tie her to his monitoring link. Once he’d put a call through to her cell phone, as long as that phone was turned on he could trace her. Backup to the other apparatus, he’d told her. He liked playing it safe. She glanced at the brooding man at her side. “Definitely. I thought you were coming back to pick me up, Patti.”
“Our friend is nearby,” he said knowingly. “Very good.”
“Yeah. Forget it, I’ll figure out something.” She hung up, closed her phone and tucked it back into her boot. She heaved a disgusted sigh. She couldn’t be certain how this would go from here, but at least she’d made contact. That’s all Lucas had wanted for tonight. But she wanted more. She wanted to prove how fast she could work...how deep she could go right from the start.
Her target suddenly stood.
Damn.
He tossed a couple of bills onto the counter, clearly preparing to split.
“You leaving already?” She shifted as close to him as possible. “We didn’t even get to dance.”
She looked up at him with all the sensual invitation she could muster. For two beats he stared right back at her without a word...without a reaction at all.
Abruptly he snagged her by the arm and moved away from the bar. Startled on one level but grateful on another, she allowed herself to be dragged around the fringes of the dance floor, zigzagging to avoid gyrating bodies. His fingers were like iron vises around her wrist. He didn’t slow down until they had cleared an emergency exit and were standing in the alley behind the club. Fear trickled through her but she quelled it instantly. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered vaguely why no alarm went off when they pushed through the exit. The fire marshal needed to start doing his job. She suddenly hoped like hell Maverick was doing his.
“Decide you want to take me home with you?” she encouraged, blocking the internal alarm going off inside her head. She was playing with fire here. Pushing the limit...but at least she had his attention now. When she would have reached toward him he shoved her to her knees.
“You know what to do,” he said savagely.
Oh, damn.
She took a breath, looked at his crotch and the sizeable bulge there, then peered up at him, careful not to let her uneasiness show. “You know, you’re really cute and all, but I don’t go down on a guy on a first date. Especially when I don’t even know his name.”
When she would have pushed to her feet he snagged her chin in a punishing grip forcing her back down. “I guess you don’t know how to use that big mouth after all.”
She glared right back into that icy gaze and countered, “Considering your attitude, I guess you’ll never know.”
His gaze held hers a second longer before he released her and started to walk away.
Tasha lunged to her feet and went after him. Dammit, she couldn’t let him get away. “Wait a minute. I—”
“Shut up.” He kept moving...didn’t look back.
She hurried to keep up with his long strides. “Look, my roommate left me here. I really need a ride. Could you at least give me a ride?”
This could go either way...all she wanted at this point was to find out where he called home while in the Windy City. That was more than Lucas had asked for, but then, that was the point. Considering this guy’s attitude, however, that might be all she could hope for period.
Glancing down his shoulder at her, his stride never slowing, he growled, “Call a taxi.”
“Wait!” She stayed right on his heels. “Don’t be a jerk. I just need a ride. Is that such a big deal?”
He stopped. A straining ray of light from a distant streetlamp filtered through the darkness where they stood, softly illuminating those Arctic eyes and highlighting the hard planes of his face.
She held her breath...all she needed was half a chance....
“A ride, nothing else.”
“Nothing else,” she promised.
He turned and started walking again. She followed. Two blocks later he clicked the remote on his keychain and the headlights of an SUV came on.
She climbed into the passenger seat while he slid behind the wheel. When she snapped her seat belt into place he asked, “What’s the address?”
She gave him the address for her apartment and relaxed back against the seat as he pulled out onto the street. “Oh, no!” she groaned and smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand. “My roommate called me...” She looked over at him. “In the club, you know. She needs the apartment to herself tonight. I have to hang out somewhere else.”
“A hotel, then.” This he said, as usual, with no emotion and without even sparing her a glance.
She moistened her lips and reached way down deep for her whiniest voice. “But I don’t have any money for a hotel. It took most everything I had to pay my share of the rent when I got here. Couldn’t I just crash at your place for the night? I swear I won’t be any trouble. I’ll even sleep on the couch. I don’t usually go home with strangers but I don’t know anyone else in town and—”
He slammed on the brakes. The seat belt was all that kept her from an up-close encounter with the dash.
“Get