Page 16 of Mountain Daddy

Even if one of them has seen you naked.

Even if one of them knows exactly how to make you beg.

Even if one of them left you a cryptic note and disappeared like a ghost.

The walk to Table 9 feels like a death march. Each step louder than the last. Every eye in the room might as well be on me.

I round the corner into the VIP section and there they are. The other man is younger. Blonde hair, sharp jaw. Good looking in a conventional way. The kind of guy who probably has women throwing themselves at him.

But compared to Nikolai, he looks like a boy playing dress-up.

Nikolai watches me as I approach, his eyes roving over my body. My toes curl. My throat goes dry.

And when he lifts a finger and crooks it, beckoning me over, exactly the way he curled it inside me, my knees nearly give out.

He sees it. Smiles. The kind of smile the devil would sell his soul to wear.

I approach the table on unsteady legs.

“Good evening, gentlemen. What can I get you to drink?”

My voice comes out steady. Professional. A surprise to my own ears.

The blonde man looks up now, and his eyes do a slow sweep from my face to my feet and back up again.

It's not subtle.

It's not respectful.

It's the kind of look that makes my skin crawl.

“Well, well,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “No wonder you wanted to come back here, Nik. The view's certainly improved.”

Nikolai's jaw ticks, but he doesn't say anything.

“I'll have a scotch,” the blonde stares at me like I'm on the menu. “Top shelf. And you, sweetheart, can bring it nice and slow. Give us something to look at.”

My cheeks burn, but I keep my expression neutral. I've dealt with worse.

Drunk college boys who think waitresses are fair game. Businessmen who mistake service for availability. Assholes who think money buys them the right to say whatever they want.

“Of course,” I say through gritted teeth. “And for you, sir?”

I force myself to look at Nikolai. It's a mistake. His eyes are storm clouds, dark and turbulent. When our gazes meet, I feel that familiar pull in my stomach. That magnetic force that made me follow him to the twenty-fifth floor.

“Vodka,” he says gruffly. “Neat.”

“Coming right up.”

I turn to leave, but the blonde man's voice stops me.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

I turn back with a smile, even though I want to tell him where he can shove his sweetheart.

“Yes?”

He leans forward with a predatory smile. “With a body like that, do you do private parties?”

---