Page 4 of Lawless in Leather

“These days, so do I,” Raina said. Not that she’d had time to fly anywhere in anything lately. Madame R kept her pretty busy. “But I’d better go or the boss man will be cranky.”

“His bark is worse than his bite,” Sara said.

“Oh, I figured that part out,” Raina said. “But he’s still signing the paycheck.”

She smiled a good-bye and headed off in the direction Sara had given. In the minute or two it took her to find her way, the nerves returned, a fleet of butterflies apparently trying out their step-ball-change skills in her stomach.

Malachi Coulter’s bark might be worse than his bite but she had the feeling she didn’t want to really see him growling.

She wasn’t sure that she wanted to see him in a good mood, either. Add a smile to the chiseled lines of that face and a girl might be in serious trouble, anti-bad-boy resolutions or not.

The door to the office at the end of the hall was open. She took a breath and stepped into the doorway.

Malachi was sitting at a desk, but his chair was turned to face a bank of monitors showing what she assumed was security footage of the ballpark.

“I thought security offices were always down in the basement,” she said. “They are in the movies.”

The chair swung back around to her. She tried to ignore the tiny curl in her stomach as she took in that face again.

“Ms. Easton. Done with your practice?” Mal said.

“For now.” She walked into the office, not waiting for his invitation, and put her bag down near the desk. She jerked her chin at the bank of screens, feeling a little bit of tech envy. She had security as good as she could afford at her club but that was still limited to cameras on the main floor, with a few others covering strategic points in the building and the entrances and exits. The twelve monitors behind Malachi’s desk each showed views from four cameras, and she suspected they rotated through even more than that. “Nice setup.”

His eyebrows rose. “Just the key feeds,” he said. “Our main monitoring room is on one of the lower levels. Close enough to a basement, I guess.”

“I can’t imagine having to run crowd control for a place this size,” Raina said. “Must take a hell of a lot of people.”

“Yes, it does.” Malachi said. He tilted his head at her. “Security isn’t a subject I’d expect a dancer to know a lot about.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I ran away with a rock band when I was a teenager and spent my formative years hanging out with roadies and security teams.”

He shook his head. “According to your background check, you spent your teenage years in a number of different schools around the country until you landed in New York for Juilliard. Where you lasted a year before you started working on Broadway.”

They’d done a background check on her? Well, she shouldn’t be surprised. Alex Winters wasn’t the kind of guy not to obtain all the information he needed. And Malachi didn’t strike her as any more easygoing. “Busted. No rock bands for me. Well, not the kind with arena tours. But dancers spend their lives in theaters and other venues. And these days, those come with security. I pay attention.”

“I guess burlesque clubs come with security, too,” he said.

“Yes, they do,” she said. So he knew about the club. And what she did these days. She waited to see what he said next. A lot of people assumed burlesque meant stripper. Mal said nothing. “But not like this,” she added, nodding at the monitors as she tried to figure out what silence meant.

“That might be a good thing,” Mal said. Then he waved a hand at the chair. “Please, sit.”

She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. Man of little words, this one. “So, you asked to see me?” she said as she sank into the chair. The dark brown leather was old and soft and she ran her hand over the arm, appreciating the feel of it. “Is there a problem?”

“Just thought we should get things straight about the security protocol around here.”

“O-kay.” She leaned back in the chair. “I’m sorry, no one told me that I had to do anything about security. I sent my practice schedule to Alex days ago.”

“It’s probably still sitting in his in-box,” Mal said. “He’s been flying back and forth to Florida every other day with the end of spring training.”

“So I should send it to you as well?”

He nodded. “Then you’ll be in the system and we can leave passes for you all at the gate for next time.”

She rummaged in her bag for her phone and then opened her contacts. Held it out to him. “Fine. Give me your email and we’ll be all set.”

He took the phone. As his head bent as he typed, his hair fell forward over his face and she had another flash of Oh Lord, he’s attractive. In a perfect world he’d be giving her his details for a whole ’nother reason … but this wasn’t a perfect world, and she’d learned over the years that men like Mal were among the least perfect things in it.

Damn it.

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