Page 42 of Arrogant Bastard

“Killian, I’ve been…”

Whatever she’s saying is drowned out because…holy fuck. My breath punches out of me and I swear I see stars. “Jesus, baby. Muay Thai, pole dancing, and now you walk out of your bedroom looking like that? Do you want to give me a fucking heart attack?”

The black see-through lace shirt she’s wearing is covered by a tightly zipped-up corset that makes her waist look ten inches wide. The effect is a lush, mouthwatering, hourglass magnificence that I know I’ll kill for because I’ve already done it once. And that’s even before I take in her straight hair, the very provocative bangs resting on her brows, and the fuck-me red lipstick on her luscious, fuckable mouth.

“This is how I…” She stops suddenly and looks warily at me.

This is how I dress for work. I do my very best not to think about all the times horny assholes and dirty bastards have seen her like this. But no matter how much I try, my blood simmers with the jealousy that has been a part of me since the moment I set eyes on her.

I’m making sure she quits that fucking job if it’s the last thing I do. It might be because that heart attack I talked about seems very likely with each passing second.

I drag my eyes from that vulgar little triangular gap between her legs, lovingly cradled by soft leather, up the flare of her hips to the tits I’m dying to see, to touch, to taste again. She takes a deep breath, and my cock screams in agony.

“You were saying?” My voice sounds like I’ve swallowed a fucking porcupine, and I don’t even give a shit.

“That…umm, I’ve been thinking.”

“So have I.”

Her gaze goes to the book in my hand before darting back to my face. The book about sex that she’s read a lot of times if the dog-ears are any indication. “About our Galveston problem, Killian. Not the stripper pole…or whatever’s going through your mind.”

I return the book to the shelf. Something else to discuss later. If she’s taken an interest in bondage or tantric sex or deep-throat blow jobs, I certainly want to know about it. “Trust me, sweetheart. You don’t wanna know what I’m thinking right now,” I reply, but the mention of our mutual enemy sobers me up long enough to take a deep, cleansing breath and focus my mind. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

She walks toward me in stiletto boots, and it’s all I can do not to find the nearest rope and tie her to that damn pole. I shove my hands into my pockets instead.

“We have six hundred members at the club. And another couple of thousand names of potential members we’ve turned away because they were either batshit crazy or their proclivities were more suited to another type of club. Or behind the locked doors of a jail cell,” she adds with a tightening of her red lips.

I drag my attention from her mouth. “You kept the records?”

She nods. “I have it on a thumb drive at the club.”

“Okay, we can cross-reference their names with the list of sex clubs and brothels or anyone associated with sex trafficking minors. If anything pops up, Betty can do a deeper dive.”

A shaft of pain crosses her face. “We thought with Moses and Galveston dead, we’d done enough for Fallhurst to dismantle the rings.” She exhales heavily. “But now we know Galveston is alive and possibly still active.”

“We have to assume they plan to revive the sex ring. Killing the agents could just be revenge for Cairo, but they probably wouldn’t be disposing of the team if they were planning on retiring anytime soon.” I sigh. “We’ll focus on the usual shipping angle and maybe border patrols. We need to look at whoever’s now in charge of Phillips Black. Could be there are people within the company who knew about the trafficking. Or Raj could still be pulling strings from wherever he’s hiding.”

“You think we can get a list of their employees?” she asks.

“I can make that happen.”

She nods. “Okay.”

She turns to leave the room, and my eyes immediately drop to her heart-shaped ass and the pin-straight hair brushing the top of it. “Fucking hell,” I mutter under my breath.

Her back stiffens and her stride falters for a millisecond, but she keeps walking. When she returns clutching a small purse, I’m massaging my nape purely so I don’t massage the ache in my cock.

“I’m good to go.”

“Great.” My voice is still strained. Hell, my whole body is strained. I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. Still, I man up and follow her out the door.

The route Betty plotted to Hell’s Kitchen and the Punishment Club gets us there in record time. Faith enters a code, and we drive into an underground parking garage.

She eyes Mitch and Linc when they exit the SUV and follow us to the elevator. “They’re staying here, right?”

I let my eyes speak for me.

“Killian, I can’t bring bodyguards to work with me,” she protests.

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