Page 20 of Exposed

Hell.

I don’t know when.

And my cock concurs.

Her lips part, and I forget where we are and who’s heading straight for us. I tip my head to deepen the kiss.

My golden ticket tastes like mint and something I didn’t know I wanted.

But what surprises me more than anything is her response.

I’m not the only active participant doing everything I can toprotect her from a man I want to put away for the next quarter of a century—maybe more if I can swing it.

Goldie’s tongue slides against mine. Everything about her is small, fragile, and desperate.

There’s something about that…

I like it.

It’s official.

I’m a sick bastard.

That is until an even sicker bastard’s guttural voice breaks into my newfound utopia. “It is you.”

Goldie tries to pull her lips from mine, but I hold tight and don’t let her move. Her desperation digs into the skin at my wrists through her fingernails.

Wouldn’t you know it, my cock likes that too.

She was not wrong. The Pink is hell.

No one riles me, especially not Dex Carter. If I weren’t standing in the middle of an organized crime convention, I’d lay the man out flat for talking to her like that.

I let her lips go and hold her face until she opens her dark eyes to look up at me. “There are times I can’t keep my hands off you, and this is one of them. Will I ever get enough of you, Goldie?”

Her eyes widen as her tits rise and fall with short breaths as she stutters, “Ss-seriously?”

“Seriously. But tonight? In this dress?” I drag my gaze up and down her body that feels fucking good pressed to mine. I realize I’ve ignored every perfect curve and plane. I have a bad habit of hyper-fixating on the end goal. It blinds me to everything else. Trippy and Lake give me shit about it. Of all the times for me to see anything, this might be the worst. But I’m here. And since I’d prefer to walk out of here on my own accord, I kiss the tip of her nose and keep up the show, which isn’t as hard as it was earlier. “I can’t wait to get you home.”

Her expression is about to give us away when Dex takes a stepcloser and has the nerve to grab her bicep. “What the fuck are you doing here, Goldie? You wanted out so fucking bad, I let you go under the terms that you’d never return and leave me the fuck alone forever. I have your signature on the paperwork to prove it. You have some nerve.”

I turn fully to address the man I’d like to hit in the head with the butt of my gun. Instead, I hold onto Goldie and do my best to get us out of this shit show without a bullet through our heads before they dump us in the Atlantic. “No disrespect, Carter. This might be your party and your establishment, but don’t talk to my fiancée like that.”

Goldie tenses at my side, but I don’t dare look away from Dex. His intense stare shifts between me and Goldie before landing back on me with disgust. “Fiancée?”

“Yep,” I answer for the woman who’s turned silent in my arms. “There are moments like this one that I can’t believe she said yes. But I’m the idiot who couldn’t figure out her ring size, so it’s back at the jeweler.”

I look back into the eyes of the man I almost put in prison three years ago. Even with the CIA at my back, he managed to slip through my fingers. Part of it is because he’s a good fucking criminal.

The rest was luck.

Or bad luck on my part.

“I still can’t believe she said yes,” I add again for good measure, just in case Goldie decides to dispute my story. Her choice is me or Dex at the moment, and other than breaking into The Pink, she doesn’t seem stupid. Betting on me is her only decent choice.

“Who are you?” Dex demands, shifting his glare between me and Goldie.

I offer him my right hand while keeping Goldie’s front glued to my side, not that she’s going anywhere. She’s holding onto me like her life depends on it, which isn’t far from the truth. She needs toget with the fucking program quickly so we can get the hell out of here. “Daniel Armstrong. Good to meet you.”

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