Page 36 of Corrupted Deception

An image of acrobats and bearded ladies sprung to mind.

“Oh, this is the greatest show…”

The lyrics played in my head, and I had to fight back the urge to laugh, letting it out as a soft chuckle instead as I leaned in closer.

“You’re not wrong,” I conceded, letting my finger graze the collar of his shirt, the tip of my crimson fingernail a featherlight touch against his skin.

With practiced ease, I leaned closer, our faces mere inches apart. My breath caressed his earlobe as I whispered, “How about we take this somewhere a little more... private?”

His breath hitched as his gaze darkened.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

I daintily shrugged one shoulder. “I’m in the city on business for the week; my hotel’s not far from here.”

“Sophisticated women don’t play coy, amiga,”Val had instructed me once.“They know what they want and aren’t afraid to pursue it.”

His gaze lingered on my lips. “Lead the way,” he said, standing up, offering me his arm.

The guy was tall. Like Jolly Green Giant tall. When I took his arm and let him draw me up, I was pretty much at eye level with his nipples.

Hm, did men realize this? I wondered. Because you’d think a lot more of them would pursue taller women if they realized it would put them face-to-face—so to speak—with boobs all the time.

A moment later, me and Mendoza’s nipples—along with the rest of him—were strolling out of the nightclub, the pulsing music gradually fading into the distance as we made our way to the pale gray Mercedes he had parked nearby.

Anticipation radiated from him like a palpable substance as he started the engine, and the car purred to life.

He was a handsome man. Usually, I’d try to play on that, use it to fuel my own arousal to make the act as authentic as possible.

But it just wasn’t happening tonight.

“So,” he began, his voice a low murmur as we merged onto the city street. “Tell me about yourself, beautiful stranger.”

I let a smile play teasingly across my lips—and definitely didn’t roll my eyes, no matter how much the urge hit me.

“What would you like to know? My secrets, my desires, or perhaps, my intentions?”

His hand landed on my thigh.

I stared at it, keeping my response hidden. I kind of wanted to pick it up, put it back where it came from, and give it a lecture about personal space.

“All of the above,” he murmured.

“I believe I’ve made my intentions clear,” I crooned while I placed my hand over his, laced our fingers together, and slid his hand down to my knee and back up.

Unfortunately, all that managed to do was conjure images of the last set of hands that had touched my body, the hands that had gripped my arms while his thigh pressed between my legs, rubbing my clit and making me gasp.

The memory warred with the current hand on my thigh, and this new one, a little too smooth and a little too small for a dangerous killer, looked out of place.

“My secrets and desires…” I pressed on then allowed the thought to trail off while I silently cursed Cielo to hell and back. The man wasn’t even here, and he was screwing with my head.

Fortunately, it was only a three-minute drive to my hotel. When we pulled up, I gracefully exited the car, letting Mendoza help me up and definitely not thinking about whether it would hurt if I tripped and went eye first into his nipple. Absurd, of course, but it was absurd thoughts like these that kept me from obsessing about more destructive thoughts, like what if he figured out my game, lured me into the elevator, and hacked me up into pieces? Or, what if he somehow knew Cielo was waiting upstairs and Mendoza put a bullet in us both the moment I opened the door?

You’ve got this, Char,my dad’s voice spoke from inside my head.I’ll be watching over you every step of the way.It’s what he’d said the first time I’d talked him into letting me reel in a mark.

Except, it wasn’t my father, the man I’d worked with for the past several years, watching over me, and he wasn’t the one waiting in the hotel room for me this time.

I fought the urge to shiver as we stepped into the hotel’s opulent lobby where a handful of people were wandering in and out, every one of them dressed to the nines and dripping in gold and diamonds.

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