Page 15 of Dangerous Deceit

“You do.” I gesture toward the car doors. “The driver will stop. You can leave at any time. It’s not like I made your uncle promise you’d go on this date with me.”

“That’s right. You only cut him up.”

I chuckle, and she crosses her arms, pissed at me, but she doesn’t realize we could’ve killed him instead. Then, there would be no need to have this “date.” Hell, I could’ve held her at gunpoint and forced her to come with me to the gala. It’s still an option, but I like it better like this, watching her move on her own.

I smirk, then say, “You seemed to like your dinner a lot.”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Stop fingering me in front of everyone?’”

Her cheeks redden, her blue eyes glowing like sapphires stuck in a cauldron. She’s even hotter when she’s pissed.

“You could’ve pushed my hand away,” I say. “Or taken a bathroom break. But you didn’t; you kept your legs spread wide open for me. I think youlikedbeing exposed.”

“You,” she hisses. “You are?—”

But then she stops mid-sentence, and forces her gaze out the window. I let her stew for a moment. I’m not a beggar, and I never will be. I know how much power I have in the yakuza, and there are plenty of virgins I can buy.

But it’s not about that with Vi. For some inexplicable reason, I want her hunger. Her sensual greed.

I glance at the tattoo behind her ear: a bluish-green candle, the kind that comes in a jar, in a water color style. Even if she’s a virgin, the tattoo hints at something else. An alternative side. A symbol she can take pain, if shewantsthe end result. The reward.

She must like being a good girl.

“You like candles?” I ask.

She strokes her fingers over her tattoo absentmindedly. “Everyone likes candles.”

“Not enough to get a tattoo of one.”

She licks her lips, then slides her hands down the side of her dress. The fabric parts at the slit, exposing her soft knees, and my dick twitches. She’s probably still soaked. Fuck—what I wouldn’t give to lick her from her clit to her ass right here in the back of this car.

But we’ll have to wait. She may not know it, but right now, she’s being interviewed. And so far, I like her sarcastic honesty. It’s amusing.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask again. “We already taught your uncle a lesson. You didn’t have to come here with me.”

“My uncle asked me to,” she says.

“And you do whatever your uncle says?”

She pauses for a moment. Tenderness shimmers behind her eyes, a storm briefly clouding over her pupils. But then she shifts, and the bad weather is gone, and it’s clear skies again, like it’s always sunny in Vi’s world.

“Yes,” she says. “It’s what you do for your family.”

Family.

I ponder that for a while. I ran away from home when I was twelve, and so, I’ve got my biological family back in Los Angeles, and the Endo-kai Yakuza here in Vegas. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my biological parents or anyone in the Endo-kai, and part of me wonders if that is what this is for Vi.

Loyalty runs through her veins. I like that.

Even if she doesn’t feel that way about me, there’s time. I can earn respect from her eventually.

“If you had a choice, would you have come tonight?” I ask.

“If you were me, would you agree to a dinner date with the yakuza?”

She has a point. If I was a twenty-five-year-old woman, virgin or not, I wouldn’t go on a date with a member of an organized crime group. I’d know exactly the kind of power they’d have over me.

Still, Vi never tried to leave. Never fidgeted away from my touch. Never even searched for a door. In fact, I’m sure she didn’t realize it, but she actually inchedcloserto my hand. Practicallymeltedwhen my fingers touched her bare neck. Sunk into me whenever we were close.

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