Page 5 of An Indecent Longing

Dorrie made her way back to the gaming parlor, a bemused smile on her face.

As she stepped through the door, the noise level in the gaming parlor quickly made her grimace. She really hated places like this. They made her want to run screaming.

“You ready to leave?”

Blank bent down to speak into her ear so she could hear him, but his gaze swept over the large crowd. It was Friday night and the city’s richest men and women knew this was the place to let loose, have a few drinks, and drop a small fortune on their gambling habits.

So who’s Ian with tonight?

Damn it. Why the hell did he keep creeping back into her thoughts? It wasn’t fair.

“Yes, please.”

With Blank at her side, she refused to let her gaze stray around the room, looking for him. She didn’t want to see him.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

She wished she could tell herself to shut the hell up.

Instead, she smiled at Blank, who nodded, his sharp gaze checking her over before he turned toward the exit across the room.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ian saw Dorrie leave the private area in the back.

He told himself he hadn’t been watching for her as he held up the wall behind his client’s table. The European high-roller who’d hired him and Ben for the night had lost a shit-ton of money at the blackjack table. Much more than he’d paid Ian and Ben, and their fee hadn’t been cheap.

But the man didn’t seem to care. Probably because of the blonde in the barely-there dress who’d been pressing her breast against his arm and giving him a good view of her cleavage for the past hour.

Ian figured she was working an angle but, honestly, he didn’t give a shit. The client was an asshole, and if she screwed him out of a few hundred thousand, that wasn’t Ian’s concern.

Ian had been hired to guard the prick’s life, not his wallet. Which meant he should pay a little more attention to the overweight, bald jerkwad with the deep pockets than to the woman who’d finally emerged from the back room.

But he couldn’t tear his gaze away as she stopped beside her bodyguard to smile and nod.

What the fuck has she been doing back there for more than two hours? Who the hell is she meeting? And what the fuck is his name so I can make him quietly disappear?

His hands clenched into fists before he forced them to relax at his sides.

Damn it. Keep your head in the game.

Which apparently was a damn good call because he caught the flash of a gun being drawn out of the corner of his eye.

His training kicked in automatically, his brain identifying the threat a split second before the gunman raised his weapon and started shooting.

Grabbing the client, he shoved him toward the floor when the first shots rang out.

The guy let out a squawk of outrage as Ian slammed him to the floor and covered him with his body. But the guy’s outrage quickly turned to fear when shots blasted into the air and people started screaming.

Ian knew the difference between screams of pain and fear. Several people had been hit.

Jesus Christ, not Dorrie.

As Ian held his paycheck to the floor with his left hand, he used his right to draw and fire at the gunman, who’d already begun to move back through the exit.

He must’ve taken out his target and was laying down gunfire to cover his exit.

Since Ian’s job was to make sure his client’s ass was safe, the second the shooter had retreated from the room, Ian yanked the guy off the floor and shoved him toward the back exit, where a steady stream of people were already leaving.

Where the fuck is Dorrie?

---