Page 11 of Lawless in Leather

Speaking of which, he really needed to leave before he descended to a whole new level of dumb. He tipped his glass back and drained the last of his beer.

“I have to hit the road. And you must have things to do to close up here,” he said.

“We have it down to a fine art,” she said. “But yes, things need doing.”

She slid off the stool at the same time as he did. Which left them standing very close together.

He took a deep breath, and more of her perfume snuck into his brain. He shook his head.

“What?” she asked softly.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Ah,” she replied.

Standing, she had to tilt her head back to look at him. Thank God her dress lay flat to her skin because if he’d gotten a peak of cleavage right at that moment he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have just kissed her.

As it was he couldn’t bring himself to move too far away from her. Or at all.

A minute passed as they just looked at each other. Far too long for the look to be open to any interpretation other than the obvious.

Eventually Raina shook her head and stepped back. “Well, this is inconvenient,” she muttered.

He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have heard. “What’s inconvenient?”

Another head shake. “I think you know. But I also think it’s something that we shouldn’t be discussing late at night.” She looked disappointed but resolute. “Definitely not.” She took a step back. “So I think we’ll call this good night, Mr. Coulter.”

“Mal,” he corrected.

“Oh no,” she said. “It’s Mr. Coulter. Might help us both deal with the … inconvenience.”

“If you go around calling me Mr. Coulter at Deacon, people are going to think it’s weird.”

“Well, there’s really not that much reason we need to run into each other at Deacon, is there?” she asked. “Not now that I understand the rules of the schedule.”

“I’m at Deacon about fourteen hours a day right now. I’m guessing we’ll cross paths.”

If he had anything to do with it, they would. Because he was pretty sure that somewhere back there in that unspoken conversation they’d been having, he’d decided the only way to get Raina Easton off his mind might be to convince her to climb into bed with him and not get out until they’d burned themselves out.

But apparently she had more sense than him. Or at least some sense of self-preservation.

“Well, we can deal with that when we have to,” she said. “Good night, Mr. Coulter.”

“Good night, Ms. Easton,” he said. Then failed to leave until he’d finished watching her make her way back through the club and disappear though a door beside the stage.

Chapter Three

Raina let herself into her apartment at somewhere close to two a.m. As usual, she felt wide awake after a night at the club, riding the adrenaline of the audience and the performance. Being a night owl came in handy for a Broadway dancer and a nightclub owner. It was less convenient, though, when she had to be at Deacon field at nine in the morning for practice. Apparently she was going to have to get used to sleeping in shifts or something while she was training the Angels.

She padded over to her fridge and pulled out cheese, bread, and turkey. If she was going to be awake, she might as well eat something and catch up on her email. The opening of the fridge brought her cat, Wash, prowling over from his favorite spot on the sofa to see if perhaps there was turkey to spare for him.

She bent to pat him and tug at his smoky-gray plume of a tail but didn’t give in. She’d fed him before she’d left for the club earlier. And even though he had a Maine Coon–sized appetite, that didn’t mean he could eat everything he wanted. He chirruped his displeasure a few times then stalked off again, probably to seek and destroy one of her stockings as vengeance for the lack of treats. She kept a stash of her ruined ones for him to find, so he couldn’t wreak too much havoc.

Sandwich assembled, she wandered over to the nook where she kept her computer and flipped the laptop open.

For a moment, the pleasure of being alone washed over her. Of coming home to her own space. No one waiting for her other than Wash. No one wanting every detail of her life. No one to judge or control.

She shivered a little. Control. She hadn’t thought about that word for a while. Hadn’t thought of Jeremy. Jeremy who’d started off as the alluring bad boy and turned into a nightmare.

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