Page 24 of Bad Enough

“Awww, she missed her big, bad Dom,” the jokester teased.

The irony of the Big Bad Wolf reference was not lost on him. There was no way Nemo could know TB’s club name, Lobo, but the teasing remark still hit the target. “My being gone has held up some of her work, so yes. I’d say she’s eager to get moving in that direction. It has nothing to do with me personally.”

That almost sounded convincing.

Waters concluded, “Okay, so TB will continue down that pathway. Next up…”

8

APRIL 13TH

TB

He was sitting at the bar in his usual seat to the right of the service station when Tabitha sashayed up to it. She was waiting for the bartender to hand her a champagne bucket and tray of glasses, but for some odd reason, she didn’t look at him.

He fit in with the rest of the men in the club, but he was not like them—a thin, black leather jacket, black button-down shirt, black jeans, black cowboy boots. His dark hair was cut short but was long enough on top to be mussed, and his beard had probably two days worth of growth, all of which made him look cleanly disheveled. Some people might think he was catering to the broody type that women saw as a challenge. He wasn’t. The outfit was his standard go-to ever since he abandoned the Israeli army ten years ago.

“Pretend I’m not talking to you,” Tabitha said as she continued to face forward. “She’s about twenty feet behind you at the high table. Cream-colored outfit. Lots of red hair.”

TB took a long swallow of water. His right elbow propped on the bar, his fingers dangled the tumbler glass, and then he began a casual perusal of the club’s bar area from near the door. He rested a few places as if he were checking out the women, then finally fell on the woman Tabitha described.

Whoa.

She was all softness, curves, and sugar. Someone, somewhere, was offering him a reward that he didn’t deserve, but damn them if he wasn’t going to take it anyway.

He should move his glance on, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away. Then her eyes met his, and even from this distance, he knew her pupils had dilated, and her heart rate had sped up. Inside his head, he heard her soft gasp.

He knew he was too intense for most people, and right now, he felt like he had her trapped, as if she were a butterfly pinned inside a shadowbox. He raised his glass and drained it dry, his eyes never leaving hers. Finally, he turned his attention away from her, placed his glass on the bar, and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “Thanks,” he said to Tabitha, his back to Flame. He removed a bill from his wallet, flagged Ryleigh with it, and laid it on the bar.

She winked at him as she set the bucket down on the bar for Tabitha and pocketed her tip before heading over to a customer waiting to order.

“Lobo,” Tabitha warned. “This wasn’t part of the original bargain when I connected you two together for her research, but I am granting you this meeting because I know both of you well, and she assured me she was okay with it. Don’t make me regret it.”

“I got this. Not my first rodeo,” he reminded her.

“Overall, that’s true, but you’ve always detested being with new submissives, so?—”

“She’s different,” he interrupted. “I don’t know why, but she is.”

Tabitha’s mouth pursed. “Don’t catch feelings, Lobo. She’s too innocent for you.”

He didn’t dignify that with a response. He knew his Flame.

Without another glance at the beacon in cream, he walked through the throng of people pouring off the dance floor when the DJ announced she was taking a break. He made his way to the back of the club where Tripoli, tonight’s doorman, let him through to the more private portion of the club.

Christ, I am so fucked. Not interacting with her, my ass.

He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it in the wardrobe cabinet. Unbuttoning the sleeves of his shirt, he then rolled the cuffs, exposing his forearms and the wide leather bands around his wrists that bore wolf heads centered on silver plates.

His brain drifted into plans for the evening, and he realized that he was feeling greedy. He wanted one night where he wasn’t working an angle. One night to just be. He deserved that, didn’t he? Tonight, he would make it all about her needs.

Don’t you mean yours, asshole?

Fine. It’ll be about us. No job. No missing girls. Just us.

Next time. Next time would be soon enough to begin utilizing her for cover around the club. Damn right, he’d enjoy himself for once. And he was justified in doing that because making tonight about her needs would cement the trust she’d developed for him online into trust for him, the person, which would ultimately set him up for the assignment.

Which means you’re going to betray that trust. Classic dick move. Just tell her the truth. She’d be all over that shit. Probably make it the plot for her next book.

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