Page 2 of Mafia Doctor's Secret Baby

I don’t know what’s going on here. I’ve never had a man speak to me the way this one just did. Never. And, in any normal situation, I would have snapped back just for quieting me with a gesture. But the air in this place feels different—no,Ifeel different. And maybe there is a part of me that wants to see where the rest of this night can go, if I just sit back and let it happen.

“So I guess this isn’t your first time, then?” I ask, as I lift the glass of champagne to my lips and take another sip. Maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe it’s the presence of the man beside me, but I suddenly find that I’m not searching the crowd for Cara with quite as much keenness as I was before.

“Of course not,” he replies, as though it should be obvious. “I know this place well. It’s infamous, actually.”

My eyes widen slightly behind my mask, and I turn to him. “For what? What’s it infamous for…?”

He chuckles again—a low, warm sound that seems to reverberate all the way through his body to light up his face. “Oh, youreallydon’t know,” he remarks.

I lean forward, lowering my voice. “Is it drugs?” I wonder with concern.

I figure that, at a place as exclusive as this, there has to be a reason why they’re so cautious about the people they let in. Maybe they want to make certain there are no cops sniffing around.

He shrugs. “Sometimes. But I think it’s more the sex than anything else.”

He lays out that word,sex, with a lazy tone, wrapping his mouth around it as though savoring it for a second before he lets it go. A cold shiver rushes down my spine, and I feel a heat beginning to warm my lower belly.

“Sex?” I whisper back to him, feeling stupid. I glance around once more, and now that he’s said it, the pieces are starting to fall into place—the way the women are dressed, the way the men are touching them, the way the conversation is so low andintimate. These people came here because they want to give in to whatever carnal desires the rest of their lives inhibit them from.

“Mhm,” he replies, lifting the glass to his lips and taking a sip. I can’t help but let my eyes linger on the way his lips skim over the top of the glass, my head spinning for a moment as I take in the sight of it.

“You’ll see couples sneaking off all night,” he murmurs, keeping his voice low, pushing up the sleeves of his light-blue shirt. It hugs his body beautifully—not that I’m paying attention to anything like that, of course, because I’m not here to pick up some guy.

“Sneaking off where?” I wonder aloud. I don’t know why I’m even entertaining this conversation with him right now. For all I know, he could be laughing at me behind his hand for being naive enough to trust that he’s telling the truth. He could be winding me up because it’s so obvious that I’m new here, and I don’t stand a chance of winning this battle.

“Oh, you want to see?” he asks, and his voice is suddenly laced with devious intention. His eyes are locked onto mine, taking in my reaction, and I swallow hard as I try to contend with what he just said.

“With you?” I reply.

“I don’t see how else you’re going to find them,” he teases. “Given that you don’t know anything about this place.”

I stare back at him for a long moment, and then cross my arms over my chest. “I think you’re fucking with me.”

He raises his eyebrows at me. “Oh, yeah?”

He takes a step toward me—I can smell his aftershave, a deep, amber cologne that wafts off his neck as he moves in to close the distance between us.

“Well, how about we make a deal,” he offers. “I can take you down there, to where these rooms are. And if it’s nothing, if I’m trying to make an ass of you, then I’ll buy your drinks for the rest of the night. Deal?”

He extends his hand to me. I eye it for a long moment, not certain I believe this game that he’s playing. If I’ve learned one thing in politics, it’s that if a deal seems too good to be true, then it likely is.

“And what happens if the rooms are real?” I counter.

He cocks his head to the side. “You just said you don’t believe me. If you really think that, why does it matter what would happen if they’re real?”

“Because I don’t trust you,” I reply, taking another sip of my champagne. Even though I guess we’re technically arguing right now, I can’t help but feel a fizz of excitement as our conversation heats up. There’s something so…something so intense about feeling his eyes on me as he tries to barter with me, when I know there’s something on the line I might not want to give up.

“You want to know exactly what you’re agreeing to?” he asks, and I nod again.

He grins, that smile licking so far up his face that it almost splits it in two.

“If the rooms are real,” he tells me, flicking his tongue out over his bottom lip for emphasis, “then I get to fuck you in there.”

My jaw drops—I can’t hide my shock. Nobody has ever spoken to me like this before in my life. Okay, sure, it’s not as though I have a lot in the way of romantic experience, but I’ve had a few boyfriends, and none of them would ever have dared to say something so lewd to me. And this guy is a stranger! Someone I’ve never met before, someone who has done nothing but tease me since he walked up to me. I should turn on my heel and leave right now, find Cara and tell her we need to get out of this place, because it’s nothing like anything we’ve experienced before…

But before I can think twice, I find my hand slipping into his, and we shake on it.

“Deal.”

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