Miles waits for me inside a sitting room near the back of the dining hall. He’s less tattooed than I am, but one look and you’d know he’s done more than his share of time in prison. Muscular, hard-eyes, and a habit of toying with his lighter that sets most men on edge.

Flick. Snap. He opens the lighter, lets the flame burn, and extinguishes it in a methodical pattern that I’ve come to hardly notice by now. He’s letting the flame burn longer than usual though, which I’ve also come to learn means he’s on edge.

“Mike told me,” I say, finding the wet bar at the back of the room and rummaging for something to take the buzzing anxiousness I feel out of my system. “Is it true?”

“You’re surprised? I think we all knew someone was going to get stupid sooner or later.”

I decide on an aged bourbon I find beneath the counter. It’s a fucking good bourbon, with a strong bite and an aftertaste of caramel. Happy fucking holidays. I would laugh if it felt like there was any humor left lately. Snow’s coming down harder and harder outside, making piles of powder on the windowsills outside. It used to be my favorite time of year before my time behind bars, when the warden was too damn cheap to run the heat during winter and we spent months on end freezing our asses off. Now the cold just reminds me of being behind bars.

“Surprised?” I ask after I’ve taken a spot to stand by the window. “No. Not really. I’m just pissed that he didn’t wait longer to bring that kind of attention on us.”

“He’s not going to bring shit on us,” says Miles. There’s a hard note to his voice that makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle. He’s serious.

“What are you suggesting?” I ask, lowering my voice.

“I’m not suggesting shit. I’m saying that dumb fucker is going to get his before the Feds pull him in and have a chance to ask who else was in on the robbery.”

There’s a thump that draws our attention to the door I came in through. I rush to the door, mind already churning with the implication if someone overheard anything we were talking about. I yank the door open and see a waitress fast-walking away from the door toward the party. I catch up with her in two long steps, grabbing her by the arm with one hand and then clapping my other hand over her mouth.

I pull her back toward the room, walking backwards while she struggles and kicks. The fucking woman even tries to bite my hand, but I press harder to immobilize her mouth.

Miles is standing up with his hand ominously inside his suit jacket when I close the door and let the woman go.

She spins to face me with wild, defiant eyes and a heaving chest. It’s the same waitress who gave me the wrong food and was giving me attitude.

“Where were you going so fast?” I ask.

“What did she hear?” demands Miles.

I give him an impatient glare. “We don’t need to cross examine her.”

“No,” says Miles, who inches closer to the waitress, who’s clearly terrified. “We need to shut her up.”

I forget the woman for the moment, gripping Miles by his tie and walking him into the wall hard enough to rattle the decorations on the nearby cabinet. “You need to cool the fuck off.”

We hold each other's gaze for a long, tense moment. Miles may be the muscle of our crew, but he needs a reminder that I’m in charge. He shoves my hands away and straightens his shirt, but stalks over to sit in the armchair by the window without another word.

The woman has backed herself into the corner now. She’s watching me with big, frightened eyes. I take a deep breath in through my nose, seeing her for the first real time. She’s dressed in an uptight server’s uniform that made me miss what a killer body she’s hiding at first glance, but now I can’t help noticing the way her full tits are pressing against the white fabric and the curve of her hips hints at a great ass. But the thing that catches me most is how she clearly doesn’t realize what a knockout she is. Big blue eyes, smooth pale forehead, and a narrow chin that almost comes to a point below her heart-shaped face and full lips.

I can’t let my cock distract me from reality though. On some level, Miles is right. Talking like we were was careless, and if this waitress heard anything, I need to know what it was before I decide what to do next.

“I’ll ask again,” I say firmly. “Where were you going so fast?”

“I--I got turned around. I was looking for the kitchen and when I heard voices I realized I was in the wrong spot.”

“So you did hear us talking?” I ask.

“I heard voices, not words.”

“Careful,” I growl. I’m standing close now. Dangerously close. Close enough that I could touch her small body with the slightest movement, enough to feel the instinctual impulse to claim her come roaring up from deep in my chest. “This is not the time to test my patience.”

Something flickers across her face. A moment ago she was wide-eyed and couldn’t seem to hold my gaze. Now? Now all five foot nothing of her frame is squared up with me and her big eyes are locked right back on mine like she’s about to take a shot at me. She has a quick temper… I only manage to hold in the amused grin begging to cross my face because I don’t want to goad her on. Not yet, at least.

“All I’d have to do is scream,” she says hotly.

I sense Miles stirring behind me and I know his hand will stupidly be close to his gun, as if he would really be dumb enough to shoot her here. Even he isn’t that dumb or reckless.

“If you wanted to scream, all you had to do was ask,” I say with a grin. I’m in mild disbelief at myself, but I can’t help it. I should be up the fucking wall with nerves and ready to do whatever I can to plug the leaks that are quickly threatening to sink me--I’ve got Tom spending our stolen money that’s traceable as hell, and now I’ve got some young waitress overhearing Miles and I having as incriminating a conversation as two convicts can have. But all I can make myself want to do is get this pretty little thing into my bed.

“Are you going to hurt me if I try to leave?” she asks through gritted teeth. She’s not biting. Not giving into my flirtation in the slightest, but it only makes me want her more.

“You could leave this room, but it doesn’t look like you’d make it far after that,” I say, nodding to the window.

Her eyes follow mine and her expression falls when she sees it. White. Like a thick blanket laid over the windows, all we can see is white. The snow showers have turned into a full-blown blizzard, and if my guess is right, the narrow road out of here is going to be impassable until someone manages to get a crew up here to clear it. She’s stuck here.

“What are you going to do?” she asks. “Hunt me down if I leave?”

I shrug. “Sounds like an amusing way to pass the time during a snow-in. Doesn’t it?”

If eyes could burn, she’d have turned me to a pile of cimbers by now. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten under a woman’s skin so quickly and so thoroughly. Most women just bat their eyelashes, laugh at the wrong times, and boringly try to do and say exactly what they think I want to hear the whole time. But this waitress doesn’t seem to give a shit what I think. Maybe that should piss me off, but it just has me hungry for the challenge.

“If your psycho friend isn’t going to shoot me and you’re not going to stop me, I’m leaving. I have a job to do,” she says before opening the door and slamming it behind her.

I raise my eyebrows, watching in utter disbelief for a moment before I turn to Miles.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks. “You’re just going to let her walk out of here? She’s going to tell someone what she heard.” I may have reminded him who’s in charge, but his survival instinct is rearing its ugly head.

“Calm down,” I say. “She was just putting on a tough face. She knows it would be dangerous to talk to someone.”

“Does she?” asks Miles. “Because if I was her, the only message I would’ve got loud and clear was that you wanted to put your fucking dick in her.”

I grit my teeth. “What would you suggest? Let me guess… Kill her? Tie her up? Lock her in a room somewhere?” Sarcasm or not, my dick stirs at the thought of the fiery waitress tied up and defenseless, completely at my mercy and--

Damn it. I’ve never been distracted so quickly and so powerfully, not even by a woman. Miles may be pissing me off, but he’s right on some level. I’m thinking more about fucking her than solving our problem, and given the stakes, I need to get my head right. Fast.

“I’d suggest not letting her walk away and have time to think of the safest way to rat us out and save her own ass. Tom is a bigger problem, but we are stuck here until someone clears the road, so we need to deal with the waitress, no matter how small the risk is.”

I’m not going to admit he’s right, because fuck him. I growl low in my throat and yank the door open, heading back into the party to look for her.