Chapter Eight
As they neared a door painted bright pink, he said, “Beginning of tour. First, don't ever go in there, the dancers’ area. They don't like anyone to see what it takes to make the magic.”
“Magic, huh?”
He shrugged. “You've seen the show.”
Shakedown employed many dancers, but Rachel had learned few were as popular as the triplets.
The fuchsia door cracked open, and a tsunami of color, feathers, and blinding crystals strode toward her. The two women she recognized as Phoenix Rising and her sister Luna Belle, looking like Las Vegas showgirls, nearly blinded Rachel as they moved into the hallway.
Luna Belle smiled, all sultry and flirty. “Trick.”
“Ladies.”
As they scooted by, Rachel could see the women's perfect porcelain skin and bright, blue eyes. A giant, purple ostrich feather boa casually draped around Phoenix Rising's creamy shoulders smacked Rachel in the face as she strode by. As her gaze followed their generous hips swaying down the hall, she held back a sneeze at the waft of orange blossom and feather dust. The two dancers gracefully tripped up two steps and disappeared behind a set of curtains that led to the stage.
“Don't let the Sunset bother you,” Trick said.
“Why do you call her that? I thought it was Phoenix Rising.”
“Declan calls her Sunset. As for why… that’s not my story to tell.” He pushed open a set of double doors at the end of the hall and gestured for her to step into the darkness.
A click preceded a blinding wash of light that lit a cavernous space that stretched out at least one hundred feet before her. Dust motes, kicked up from their entrance, floated in the warm air.
“It's like Mardi Gras in here. Props?” She pointed to her right where dance cages, a huge martini glass that someone could swim in, a makeshift train trolley, and a giant Chinese New Year's dragon head rested alongside a tall, cinder block wall.
“Yep.” Trick's footfalls echoed on the concrete floor.
To her left, she counted garment racks three rows deep stuffed with ornate and gaudy costumes dripping with sequins, crystals, and feathers. Dead ahead, a mountain of red caught her eye.
“A bull?” she asked. Large nostrils made commas on the crimson face. Huge horns jutted from either side of its head. All that plus the deep-set eyes gave the prop a remarkable life-like quality.
“Mechanical.” He strode to it and patted its side. “The triplets specialize in trying to outdo one another in their individual acts. This one's for the Sunset's matador act.”
“Dramatic.” She touched the soft fur.
“It's not the most dramatic thing she's done.”
She and Trick proceeded down a corridor between tall shelves. One side held cases of liquor, while the other side held boxes of supplies from napkins to cutlery and flower arrangements.
Trick opened a box and pulled out a bottle of Patron. “This what Nathan wants?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” She walked deeper into the warehouse, her attention caught by the change in inventory. The scent of papier-mâché glue and cardboard shifted to the stronger smell of leather and mothballs.
“Why are all these pieces of furniture and paintings in here?”
“Declan used to own a string of antique stores. Some of this stuff is Nathan's, Max's, mine. Declan doesn't charge for storage.”
She ran her hand over an antique leather club chair, which she'd bought Trick for Christmas one year. She thought it was something a lawyer would sit in. “I recognize this. Don't you have your own place?”
“I do. But some things I don't want to see every day.”
The barb didn't go unnoticed or unfelt. It could have been worse. Trick hadn't sold the chair.
He lifted the bottle of tequila. “Nathan doesn't need this, does he? What do you want to talk to me about, Rachel?”
“Of course he does.” She took the Patron from him.
“Just ask me, Rachel.” Trick widened his stance.
Okay, if he were willing to give answers, she'd ask. “What is this place really? How can you afford that suit and a Mercedes? Drugs? Prostitution?” The three million you stole? Okay, not the questions she'd expected to lead with.
His face hardened. “Still suspicious. I knew there was a reason you wanted to work here. I'm paid well by Declan.”
“For doing what?”
“I’m club manager. You know that. Stop with the insinuations, Rachel. It's unbecoming of you and insulting to the people who gave you a better job.”
“I am not ungrateful, but something's not right.” She'd quite stupidly provoked that hardening on his face, the dead opposite of where she'd wanted to head. He might clam up.
“You’ve become a very suspicious woman, Rachel. Not very attractive.”
“Yeah…well, it’s a funny side effect from being conned. I would be a lot friendlier, ya know, if you paid me back.” She couldn't seem to make her mouth behave and stick to her plan of a stealthy investigation.
“I didn’t take your money. You ever going to hear me? Believe me? Ever stop being so angry?”
“Maybe not. If you don't have the money as you say, why aren't you angrier?”
“Funny side effect… after being disbarred, losing my fiancé, and serving time for a wrongful conviction, my life got better.”
She felt her chest cave in a little from that remark.
He scrubbed his chin. “I didn’t mean better for losing you, but rather—”
“I know what you meant.” He did look like a man who'd moved on. Perhaps that's what unsettled her the most. If she'd been incarcerated unfairly, someone's head would be on a stick. Instead, he seemed to have a job, friends, a slutty blonde . . .
Stop sign.
She turned on her heel. He caught up with her just as she rounded that stupid, giant mechanical bull.
He grabbed her arm. “Rachel . . .”
She spun. “Who's Vivi to you?” She couldn't hold that not-so-little question back anymore. “I mean I didn't expect you to live like a monk since . . .” She couldn't say the word. How funny given she'd had no problem tossing the word “prison” in his face many times since their little reunion.
“Prison?” he filled in for her. “Vivi is a friend.”
“With benefits, huh?”
“Jealous?” He stepped forward, his face unreadable. She backed up until her heels hit the cart on which the bull stood.
“You wish.”
He took the bottle of tequila from her and set it on the concrete floor. He then took both her cheeks in his hands and pressed his mouth to hers. Jesus, those lips wiped her brain clean. When he finished kissing her into silence, he kept his hands on her face.
“Vivi's husband is in jail, and she's terrified his brothers are going to come after her since she landed him there for beating the shit out of her regularly. Declan told her to come here whenever she felt threatened. Expect to see her often. We've installed security in her home and try to protect her when and where we can.”
“Oh.” Shame filled her. “I'm sorry.”
Trick pressed his body against hers until she leaned back against the bull. “You were jealous. Admit it.”
“You can wipe that smug look off your face.”
“No, I don't think I will.”
“Yes, I’m jealous, and I'm still angry. It's not fair, I’ve had to scratch and claw for the bare necessities while you seem to be doing just fine,” she said. It also wasn't fair that Trick smelled this good as his crotch met hers—fully.
“Life's not fair,” he said. “But somehow the truth always comes out in the end.”
“Like who stole money.”
“And like who's still in love with who.” He stared down at her lips again.
Oh, God. She'd underestimated one part of her plan in getting close to Trick, and that was she'd literally be this close to Trick. Her body reacted the way it always did when in his vicinity—ready for action.
“I knew you were still in love with me,” she whispered.
“That was never in question.” He huffed, and his lips rose into a half smile. “Unfortunately. Life would be a hell of a lot easier if I wasn’t.”
She let herself melt against the bull. It was surprisingly steady, which was a good thing as Trick didn’t show any signs of pulling back.
Remember he's a con. You're here to get your money back.
His hand cupped her face. “Don't start crying on me again.”
“You're helpless when I cry, aren't you?” Her voice cracked.
“Rachel.” He said her name as if it was his favorite word.
Her plan wasn't going to work. Her misplaced desire was going to be her undoing. She should move on for real, forget the money, forget everything . . . Stop sign. Stop sign.
“We could be friends,” she offered.
“Agreed.” He peered down with eyes that glowed more blue than gray in the too-bright light. His fingers skimmed her hips.
“We wouldn't be anything else. Work colleagues. That's all.” She gripped his biceps. The ridged muscle under her hands tensed, and her body responded to him like the traitor it was. Her legs trembled and her pulse quickened as his hands roamed over her body. A heated drop of moisture between her thighs told the truth. She wanted him so badly, she'd forgotten why she was here—and if he thumbed her nipple once more like that, she might forget her own name.
“You mean I shouldn't do this?” He inched up her dress and his fingers snuck under the elastic of her panties. “Or this?” The thumb of his other hand, possessively holding her breast, brushed so lightly over her hardened nipple that her body leaned forward, begging for more pressure.
“Yes, that.” Her voice strained.
“Tell me to stop then,” he said.
The word “stop” was on the tip of her tongue, as was the forest of stop signs standing proudly in her mind. Oh, but the way he grazed her nipple, the way he looked down at her, she couldn't have uttered the word “stop” if he were feeling her up on the main stage in front of a Saturday night crowd.
“No,” she managed to get out.
It didn't take long for him to pull up her dress, have her panties pooled at her ankles and raise her legs to wrap his waist. He was equally adept at pulling out his cock from his trousers. What wasn't quick was the pace in which he entered her, slowly and deliberately as if trying to drive her mad. God, to be so full of him . . . Circling her hands around his trim waist, she took a long minute to feel the hard muscle of his back under her hands. The weight of man against her, the smell of his neck, the stretch inside her—all the things she’d missed for the last few years and all because she couldn’t get the one who stared down at her now out of her mind. Her palms were sticky against his suit jacket. She wanted to rip it off him, but she was afraid to break the slow in-and-out rhythm of strokes. Trick gazed down at her, his eyes half-closed in a mix of mad lust and fascination. She inhaled that woodsy scent mixed with his musk, and her pussy contracted in response. Her hips met every slow, delicious thrust in an effort to lodge him in deeper. For long minutes she reveled in him, her back pressed against a stupid, mechanical bull in a warehouse filled with props designed to create a fantasy, an illusion—like the illusion the past four years had never happened. She kept an eye lock on the man who'd broken her heart into a thousand pieces and who she might still love. So much for her grand plan of get in, get her money, and run.
She was so fucked.