I’D BEEN TO TOO MANY biker bars with Candle, but never a club. Candle didn’t do nightclubs, and I’d never bothered. It wasn’t because I didn’t love to dance, I did. I just avoided people. But dancing in the women’s quarters after evening meal and prayers, it was one of my only happy memories of growing up on the compound.
Some of the women had contraband records, and we’d wait till the men were in counsel, then we’d let loose. It was forbidden, and heart pumping and nerve-wracking, but it was free. One of the women taught us moves that were scandalous to my impressionable mind until I’d been with Hero. Then I’d gotten it.
One arm around me, his other hand on his gun at his waist, André scanned the parking lot as he led us to a Camaro and reached behind the rear wheel well. Coming away with a key, he popped the trunk.
“And here I would’ve thought you drew the line at stealing cars,” I joked.
His throaty half laugh escaped and shivers crawled across my skin. “Not stealing, chica. It belongs to one of my men.” He dumped our backpack and his holster in the trunk, then untucked his shirt. “Keep an eye out. You see anyone you think you recognize, let me know immediately.” He slipped his gun in his back waistband and pulled his T-shirt over it.
“Kinda hard to miss a biker in a cut.” He’d given me this speech on the boat twice already. “But copy that, or ten-four, or whatever the hell I’m supposed to say.”
He shook his head as he shut the trunk, then he grabbed me with a growl. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he picked me up off my feet. “Did you do what I asked?”
I wanted to smile. An entire MC out to kill me, my biological father responsible, sixty crates of guns about to be traded for my freedom, and I wanted to fucking smile. Instead, I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I have underwear on.”
Gentle and sweet, his soft lips landed on mine. His tongue teased across my bottom lip, barely sinking inside my mouth before he retreated and put me back on my feet. “Thank you.”
The quieter he spoke, the raspier his voice became. Scraping across his vocal chords, the deep timbre chafed his throat and grated past his lips. Next to his growl, or the dip in his tone when he said chica, it was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard.
“I love when you whisper to me.” The thought passed my lips before my mind could sensor it.
His arms stiffened, his expression shut down and his nostrils flared with an inhale.
I instantly tried to pull back out of his grasp. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t mean that.”
Rough, calloused fingers caught my chin and intense brown eyes searched mine. “Why are you taking that back?” he quietly demanded.
“It was a careless use of words.” I’d never used that word around anyone.
“Chica,” he whispered, his intense stare holding me captive. “Don’t play that game with me.”
A shiver danced across my skin. “What game?” I wasn’t playing at anything. I didn’t have enough experience with men to play.
“This only works if we’re honest,” he warned.
Omission, admission, I didn’t know what I was guilty of, so I kept my mouth shut.
His gaze unrelenting, he waited.
Shit. “Fine.” Resigned, I gave him the truth. “I’ve never said that word to anyone, let alone out loud, and you stiffened when I said it. I’m uncomfortable and my stomach’s jittery and you smell like salvation and I want to be a normal twenty-three-year-old for five minutes and just fucking dance one dance in a nightclub with the hot guy standing in front of me. Is that so damn hard to understand?”
He smiled, and a thousand watts of André Luna rained down on me. “You think I’m hot?”
I wasn’t sure my knocking knees would let me dance. “If you keep smiling, I’m changing my mind.” I didn’t know if I was relieved or upset he didn’t mention the L word.
He grinned wider. “You know I love a challenge, right?”
My heart fluttered when I heard him say love but I managed to keep my face blank. “I’m beginning to think you don’t know how to dance,” I deadpanned.
Holding his smile, his head cocked to the side. “You worried?”
I was worried I didn’t know how to dance. “Stalling tells me everything.”
“Oh, chica.” Laughing, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.” Despite his teasing and wide smile, he scanned the parking lot and moved us at a brisk pace toward the back of the building where the music was coming from.
Nerves tightened my stomach. “If you can’t dance, I’m trading you in,” I lied.
Right before we reached the back door of the club where a scary-as-fuck muscled excuse of a bouncer was standing, André looked down at me. “I’m Cuban, chica. I can dance.” He winked.
The bouncer rapped on the door and it opened.
I didn’t have time to think about the nod between André and the bouncer or how he’d just let us in, or the second bouncer inside the door who’d ignored us.
The base from the pounding beat of the music hit my body and vibrated my bones as André led us down a short corridor. We stepped into the main space and my heart rate flew into overdrive.
It was a sea of bodies.
André leaned down to my ear. “We’re going to the second floor.”
Arms pumping, hips gyrating, faces smiling, a living wall of beautiful people danced in front of me, and I wanted to be right in the middle of it.
I grabbed André’s wrist. “I want to stay here.”
He looked down at me like he was about to say no.
Please, I mouthed.
Slow, but with resignation, he shook his head, then his shrewd gaze scanned the crowd twice. He looked back down at me and held up a finger. “One dance.”
Reading his lips, more than hearing him, because it was so loud, I smiled.
André pulled me in front of him and with his arms around me like a cage, he took us directly into the middle of the dance floor.
Then he began to move.
Seriously move.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
He danced how he fucked.
Music pumping with an intoxicating Latin beat, barely dressed bodies pushing in on us, André turned me to face him. His wide shoulders defined the space around us as his hips moved to the impossibly fast beat. He took my wrist and held my arm above my head while his other hand dragged up my thigh and gripped my ass. Pulling me against his hard cock, he gave me one slow grind then he was moving us to the beat again.
André didn’t dance.
He fucking owed it.
The sway and grind of his body was so sexual, he moved like he was using the music to fuck me.
I wanted him to take me right there on the dance floor.
Wrapping my hand around the back of his neck, my hair tangled, my skin hot, I followed his every step.
A sinful smile curved his lips then he bent and kissed my neck. “Sexy, chica, sexy.” He pulled back and spun me around.
My moan of protest was drowned out by the pumping music as first his hips, then his hard cock met my ass. I cursed the fucking underwear he’d told me to put on.
Anything I ever could’ve imagined dancing with André Luna would be like, it wasn’t even close.
Needing his mouth on me, I reached up and wrapped my hand around the back of his neck. Yanking him down, I tipped my face up.
He brought his lips a whisper of an inch from mine then delicious mischief spread across his features. The beat kicked up, and it was all the warning I got.
As effortlessly as if I were Cinderella, he spun me around, put my hands around his neck, then we were dancing, really dancing.
Twice as fast, his steps, his hips, the beat, it swirled into a heart-pounding rhythm I felt in my soul. My blood pumping, my body instinctually following his lead, we were grinding, swaying, dry fucking, and gloriously, perfectly, dancing. The way his body moved to the music, his wicked smile, it was the sexiest kind of foreplay I’d ever had in my life.
My mouth watered to taste him, but I didn’t want to stop there.
I wanted to fuck him. I wanted to be the only woman he desired. And I wanted the song to go on forever.
Intimate and so very public, he danced like he was showing everyone what he would do to me behind closed doors.
I couldn’t take it.
I yanked him down and kissed him.
Growling into my mouth, it was as if the floodgates opened. He gave me exactly what I wanted, and drove his tongue deep, never breaking rhythm.
Kissing him while dancing was utter fucking torture.
My pussy painfully pulsed as his hand on my hip held me just far enough away to keep us moving to the beat. Feeling like I was going to die from desire, wondering if I he was going to make me come, I gripped him tighter, but he pulled back.
The smile wiped from his face, he stared down at me like he was in pain. “Chica.”
Fuck me, I mouthed.
His nostrils flared, and he caught the back of my head. A second later, I was bent backward. His mouth landed on my neck, his hips ground into mine, and he kept dancing.
I lifted my leg to his waist.
“We’re done,” he barked.
Desire pounding at my clit harder than the bass of the song, I didn’t even smile as he whipped me upright and dragged me out of the club. We passed the bouncer who’d been outside, then André shoved the back door open. Scanning the surrounding parking lot, he tucked me under his arm and rushed us toward the Camaro. Practically shoving me inside, he slammed the door then glanced left and right as he hurried around the front.
I was starting to panic that more than my desire had fueled his hasty exit when he slid behind the wheel, grabbed my face and thrust his tongue into my mouth.
Then I forgot everything.
With a desperation he’d never shown, he kissed me. Raw and rough, he took what he wanted like he was a starving man. Angling me into his assault, his growl climbed up his throat, and it was as if he was forcing himself to pull back.
“Chica,” he rasped.
My body humming with need, I held his wrists and my traitorous mind wondered if he’d ever kissed another woman like he’d just kissed me.
A string of curses in Spanish cascaded from his sexy lips. “One second.” He let go of the side of my face to yank his phone out of his front pocket, but he didn’t take his eyes off me.
Swiping his thumb across the screen, he barked his name. “Luna.” His gaze drifted. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but his jaw ticked with restrained fury. “You fucking better.” He handed the phone to me. “It’s for you.”
I immediately knew who it was. “Candle.”
André started the car and exited the parking lot too fast.
“Listen to me, baby.” Candle sounded almost panicked. “Only you can hear me?”
Alarm spread. “Yes.”
“I told Luna that I was working on getting you out of this with the LCs, and I am, but he’s got a two-day timeframe.” Candle exhaled. “I’m giving you the real though, baby. Twenty-four hours, and by tomorrow night, I’ll have you out of this. Keep your head down, make sure that asshole protects you, and I’ll get with you once this is done.”
The pounding desire that’d taken over my body a few seconds ago morphed into fear. “Candle—”
“One way or another, you can come home day after tomorrow.”
No, no. “What the hell are you doing?” I wasn’t going to lose Candle. He was the only person in the world I counted as family, and as much as I hated him sometimes, I didn’t want anything to happen to him.
“That’s for me to worry about. You stay safe.”
“Goddamn it, Tarquin.” I was so pissed off and worried, his real named slipped. “Don’t fuck with me like this.”
His humorless laugh filled my ear. “Babe, I haven’t been Tarq in a long time.” He hung up.
I didn’t realize my hands were shaking until André took the phone from me. “What’d he say?”
I didn’t even consider not telling him. “He said he’s handling the LCs and that I’ll be able to go home the day after tomorrow.” The word home tasted sour on my tongue.
“Handling how?”
I didn’t notice the strain in André’s voice until my eyes cut to his hands on the wheel. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. He didn’t tell you either?”
“No.” André dialed and held the phone to his ear. “I need Candle Scott’s location ASAP… I don’t give a fuck what you have to do, find him.” He hung up as he weaved in and out of late-night Miami traffic.
“Do you think he’s going after the LCs or River?” There wasn’t another option. You either went after the threat or the source of the threat. It didn’t escape my notice that André never considered going after the threat. He’d been focused on the source from the second I’d told him who I was.
“As long as he doesn’t do it until after tomorrow morning, I don’t give a fuck what he’s doing.” André cut inland, driving away from his condo.
“Where are we going?”
“Office,” he snapped.
Despite passing out on the boat, everything suddenly caught up to me and I hit a wall. I couldn’t deal with Candle. I couldn’t deal with André’s pissed-off mood, and I couldn’t fucking deal with tomorrow. I just wanted a bed, not a damn desk chair, but I kept my mouth shut as André pulled into the underground parking of a sleek ten-story building downtown. Passing a guard house and a lift gate, he drove deeper into the garage and pushed a remote on his visor to open a heavy-looking roll-up door. Parking next to a line of brand-new black Escalades, he cut the engine.
Feeling insecure, his anger rattling me, I threw attitude at André. “I can’t control what Candle does. I’m not his fucking keeper, and I didn’t do anything wrong.” I shoved open the door and got out before he could respond.
André reached me before I could slam the door shut. His huge frame crowded me in the open door, and he stared down at me without mercy. “You think I’m mad at you?”
“Step back. I’m done.” I shoved at his chest, but the second I touched him, it was as if I became unhinged. Self-destructive words bled out of my mouth like a fucking catharsis. “I’m done talking. I’m done dancing around you, around River, around Candle, around every fucking asshole who thinks he owns a piece of my life. I’m not doing this another second.” I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t win. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t fucking deal.
Gripping my upper arm, André yanked me a few inches to the left then he slammed the passenger door, and pushed me back against the car. “You calling me an asshole?” he demanded, looking even more pissed off.
The elevator near us dinged and the doors slid open. An overmuscled jarhead in the same black Luna and Associates polo and black cargo pants I’d seen André wear strode toward an Escalade.
He nodded at André. “Boss.”
André barely tipped his chin in his direction before pulling me toward the elevator. Punching the button for the third floor, he waited until the doors slid shut before speaking. “We’re not done talking, but I’m not having this conversation on the security feeds.”
I didn’t say shit. I crossed my arms and pulled out of his grasp.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered under his breath, letting go of me.
I wanted to cry, but the second the doors slid open, there was a bustle of identically dressed ex-marines working as if it were the middle of the day. They all turned to look at me, and I felt more naked than if I’d had my tits hanging out. Then André’s hand landed on the back of my neck, possessive and controlling, and every single jarhead asshole instantly looked away and resumed what they were doing.
Motherfucking assholes.
Stepping left, André propelled me toward a long corridor. “This way,” he ground out, leading me down a hallway toward a closed door with a keypad. Punching in a code, he pushed the door open, then ushered me through it.
If I wasn’t losing my shit, my mouth would’ve dropped. A giant, windowless room was filled with rows and rows of computer monitors lined up on long tables with desk chairs and keyboards in front of them. There had to be thirty of them, but more, three of the four walls were covered with giant-screen TVs. As tall as me, they hung from ceiling height as a parade of images flashed continuously. Houses, businesses, street corners, the entrance to the marina where we just were, an overpass downtown, interiors of homes, offices, businesses, restaurants, the garage where we’d just parked, it was endless. And there were people doing every imaginable thing, oblivious to being filmed, as their lives flashed on screen after screen.
Jesus fuck.
“Wait.” André dropped his hold on me and strode toward one of his employees sitting at a terminal. His voice hushed, he spoke to him so I couldn’t hear.
Not that I would have heard him from across the room anyway. The air-conditioning pumping into the arctic space, the entire back half of the room was humming with giant servers behind a glassed-in wall.
Before I could take in all the screens to see if André’s penthouse was under surveillance, he was back at my side.
“Let’s go.” He punched in another code to get us out of the command center, then he ushered me out the same way he’d ushered me in, with his hand on my neck.
His anger, his scent, his presence, the way he’d danced, the kiss in the car, his business and what he really did for a living, it was sinking me faster than I could swim.
Feeling small and so fucking far out of my league, I jerked out of his hold. “I can fucking walk on my own.” Louder than I’d intended, the words cut down the corridor and leaked into the main office space. I caught a few heads turning before I focused on my goddamn high-heeled boots that made me look like a cheap hooker. My dignity in the fucking toilet, I walked to the elevator.
My arms crossed to cover my almost see-through white dress, I didn’t push the fucking call button. I didn’t have to. Cuban musk and spice swirled behind me and a tanned, veined hand reached around me. A finger that’d been deep inside my pussy pushed the up button.
Embarrassed, cursing the cheap white dress, I didn’t spit out that I wanted out of his office, not deeper into it. I waited until we’d stepped into the elevator and the doors had slid shut before I unleashed on him. “I want to leave right now.”
“No.” He pushed the button for the fifth floor.
“Goddamn it, you can’t keep me here. I’ll call Candle if I have to.” It was a stupid, immature thing to say, and I didn’t give a single fuck.
Staring straight ahead, André ignored me.
“I said—”
“I heard what you said.” Quiet, no emotion in his tone, his voice had done a one-eighty.
The elevator doors slid open. He walked to one of two doors in the hall, punched in a keycode, then walked through the door.
Goddamn it.
I thought about going back downstairs and threatening one of the muscleheads to let me out of the building, but then I’d have to uncross my arms, and I was sure I smelled like André and sex. Fuck if he didn’t deserve me doing the walk of shame through his business, but goddamn it, even pissed at him, I didn’t want to embarrass him like that.
Fuck.
I followed him.
The heels of my boots left the silent carpeted hallway and started clicking on travertine floors as I walked into a brand-spanking-new luxury apartment overlooking downtown Miami.
André stood by an island that separated the living area from the kitchen as his thumbs flew across his phone screen. “Food will be here in a few. We’re staying here tonight.” He tossed his keys on the island, then stalked down the hall. A few seconds later, I heard a shower turn on.