Page 54 of Four Seconds to Lose

Now Bob knows how to find me. What if that had been Jimmy coming in here? Hell, tomorrow it could be Jimmy out there, watching me strip. My insides coil tighter at the thought.

And Cain...

At some point he made his way back into the V.I.P. room. He’s studying me with those hawkish eyes. Can he see my inner turmoil? My guilt? My duplicity? If he does, he doesn’t let on. He just stands there, studying me in silence until I’m ready to scream.

“Say something,” I finally demand in a hoarse whisper. I wait for him to growl at me as he did at Bob. To fire me for being in the V.I.P. room with a customer, though clearly I wasn’t doing any entertaining. I wait for him to look at me with hateful, disgusted eyes. To interrogate me, hammering me with questions, accusations, theories.

But he does none of that. He calmly pushes the door shut. Then, so fluidly that I miss his movement, I feel my body tugged toward him by the wrist, into his firm chest as his arms wrap around my frame, pulling me close, until I can almost feel the mess of emotions radiating from him—that same worry and pain and fear that I saw in his eyes.

And the last thing I expect him to do at this moment is the first thing he does.

With one hand lifting to curl around the back of my neck, Cain’s head dips to seal his mouth over mine. There’s no hesitation, there’s no doubt. There’s certainly no shyness, his tongue coaxing my lips apart and then diving in to claim my mouth as if it belongs to him already, skillfully stroking in a way that makes my knees weak and a low moan rumble in my throat.

It takes a few seconds for my shocked brain to fully grasp what’s happening but my willingness is immediate when I do, falling into him, my hands crawling up his stomach and chest—relishing every hard ridge that I’ve envisioned touching for weeks. He deepens the kiss, his arms pulling me tight to his body, trapping my hand over the spot on his chest where his heart rests. I feel it beating more wildly than my own and I marvel that I may be doing that to him.

His lips steal my breath completely, kissing me with demanding thirst, as if he’s been waiting forever to do this and he’ll be waiting forever to do it again. But I can’t ignore the tremble in his body, this close to him.

Cain is shaking.

This game we’ve been playing doesn’t feel like a game anymore and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Just as suddenly, he breaks free of me.

chapter nineteen

¦¦¦

CAIN

“Cain!” Nate’s fist pounds on the steel door of my office so hard that the picture frame hanging on the inside crashes to the ground. Normally I have a hard time hearing anything because the walls aren’t soundproofed and the music from the club resonates loudly. But I hear the unnatural shrillness to his natural boom and it sets off alarms.

Sprinting to unlock the door—I always lock it when the safe is open—I meet Nate’s ashen face, his eyes wide, as he stares down at the ground, mumbling, “I tried to get here. It all just happened so fast.”

I follow his gaze.

And I stop breathing.

Penny’s crumpled, frail body sits in a heap, facedown. I can see the gaping gash along the back of her head, the blood flow darkening her blond hair.

The blood trail starting five feet down the hall tells me that she managed to pull herself a fair distance. And the way her hand lays, stretched out toward my door... I see the streak of blood along the bottom half of the steel.

Finger smears.

Reaching.

The smudges of blood around my handle.

I can’t keep my hands off of her.

The second I saw Charlie’s face—her eyes shut tightly against the coming blow from her attacker—my fear exploded.

It could have happened. Again.

“Cain, are you all right?” Charlie’s voice brings me back to reality, a sweet song to remind me that she is not Penny. She is not dead. She is right here, in front of me, my forehead pressed against hers as I grip her arms, as I struggle to calm my ragged breath.

I just kissed her.

I needed to do it. I needed to be close to her, to feel her heat, her life, against me. And now, as I focus on that beautiful face so close to mine, her soft pants caressing my skin, her ever-perceptive eyes watching me with unguarded apprehension, I’m fighting myself to keep from doing it again.

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