Mistress of the Underground. Lisa Childs

He wanted the silk gone—the crowd gone. He wanted only her and him—and skin on skin.

      Despite the heat of the crowded club, and his touch, Paige shivered. Her heart kicked against her ribs with excitement…and anticipation. “I’ll be out of your way in just a minute,” she murmured over her shoulder.

      “Out of my way?” his deep voice rasped in her ear.

      His warm breath raised goose bumps along her nape, and she nodded. “So you can get your free drink.”

      “Free drink?”

      “Opening night special,” she explained. “First drink is on the house.”

      “What if I don’t want a drink?”

      She tilted her head so that her gaze met his. His eyes, big and dark and fringed with thick lashes, studied her intently. His hair was dark, too, but for the strands of gray sprinkled throughout; it was also cut short, but not so short that she couldn’t run her fingers through its softness.

      “Is there something else you—” she swiped the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip “—want?”

      His fingers flexed against her hips, digging gently into her flesh. “I want the special.”

      “I haven’t told you the special,” she reminded him with a teasing smile.

      “I know what’s special,” he said, his gaze intent on her face.

      Sadness tugged at her, pulling down the corners of her lips. If only she could believe him…but she knew better. If only she knew him better…

      But they were strangers.

      She whirled away from the bar and shoved past him. He caught her wrist, but she tugged free and slipped through the crowd. Voices murmured complaints as she bumped into hard bodies in her haste to escape him—and them—and that voice inside her head that pursued her all the way back to the office.

       You don’t belong here…

      Paige’s fingers trembled, and her keys jangled, as she pulled them from her small spangled clutch. She glanced to the end of the hall and that strange locked door.

      Was the voice not inside her head? Was it coming from behind that door? The door that supposedly led nowhere? Now her legs trembled slightly as she passed the office and continued down the hall—toward that riveted steel door. When she neared it, still several feet away, cold air rushed around or through the steel and over her skin. She gasped and shuddered.

      Then arms wrapped around her as a hard, warm body pressed against her back. And she screamed.

      “No one can hear you,” he said, his voice a deep rasp in her ear as his lips brushed the lobe. “Not back here, not over that music…”

      Even though her heart raced, her lips curved into a smile. “Are you threatening me?”

      “Warning you…”

      He’d warned her before, but she hadn’t heeded. Then. Now she was older and wiser. She knew this was the last man with whom she should get involved. Yet, instead of pulling away, she turned in his arms. He was taller than her, nearly a foot, with broad shoulders testing the seams of his black sweater. He wore all black: black shoes, black pants and that black sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He could have been a cat burglar or a stalker.

      She should have been afraid, and part of her was, her stomach quivering as she acknowledged the danger of what she was about to do, the risk she was taking. But she didn’t care. She lifted her hands to his chest, settling her palms against the sculpted muscles. Heat and the rapid beat of his heart emanated through the thin cashmere.

      “You’re not going to listen to any warning,” he said with a sigh of resignation, even as his dark eyes burned with desire. “No matter what I say…”

      “You talk?” she teased, but her skepticism was real.

      His mouth, wide and sensual, lifted in a slight grin. “What’s the point when you won’t listen?”

      She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug, which drew his attention to the skin bared by her low bodice. His eyes darkened even more as his pupils dilated. Desire thickened her throat as she murmured, “There is no point to talking…”

      She didn’t want to talk or listen or think. She wanted the rush of passion pounding through her veins to drown out the voice and her doubts—not just about buying the club but about him.

      His hands loosened their grip on her waist, but before he could step back, she reached up and clutched his shoulders. Then she lifted her face to his. For his kiss.

      Instead of lowering his head to hers, he shook it. Then he manacled her wrists and pulled her hands away from him. He glanced over her head, at that steel door, and a shudder rippled through his hard, muscled body. “Not here.”

      “You…you feel it, too?” she asked.

      “I feel this between us—” he released a ragged sigh “—even though I don’t want to…”

      “I don’t want to, either,” she insisted, even as her skin heated with desire for him. She tugged her wrists free of his hands and fumbled inside her bag once again for her keys. After jabbing the key in the lock, she turned the knob and opened the door to her office.

      Just as at the bar, strong hands slid over her hips. Then he pushed her through the doorway and closed and locked the door behind them. Locking them inside the small, windowless room. Alone.

      Her pulse quickened with excitement, but her stinging pride tamped down that excitement. “I thought you didn’t want to…that you didn’t want…me…”

      He leaned back against the door, his arms crossed over his muscular chest. “Yup, you never listen…” He sighed again. “I didn’t say that I don’t want you.”

      “But that you don’t want to want me.” She listened; too bad he hadn’t ever really talked to her before.

      “This is so complicated, Pai—”

      “Shh,” she said, interrupting him, reminding herself that she didn’t want to talk or listen anymore. “You don’t know my name, and I don’t know yours. We’re just strangers who met at a bar.”

      “Is that the game we’re playing this time?”

      It wasn’t a game, not really. “We are strangers,” she repeated.

      “You don’t want this, either,” he pointed out, “or you wouldn’t have run away from me at the bar. You nearly ran me over trying to get away from me.” He shook his head and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Hell of a way to treat your customers.”

      “Are you a customer?” she asked, fighting the smile that teased her lips.

      He lifted a brow, dark with just a touch of gray. “Maybe not,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “I haven’t had my free drink.”

      “Why not?” she asked, leaning against the edge of her desk because her knees trembled. She blamed the high heels; she wasn’t used to wearing them anymore. “Can’t you decide what you want?”

      “That’s never been my problem,” he insisted as he straightened away from the door and advanced on her.

      She didn’t care what he was implying because he was wrong. She knew exactly what she wanted. Him, closer. Close enough to touch.

      “I know what I want,” he said, his hands closing over her bare shoulders, his fingers toying with the thin spaghetti straps of her dress. He wanted to talk. Just talk. That was what he’d told himself as he’d descended the stairs to Club Underground.

      But now, touching her, her skin silky soft beneath his fingertips, he wanted only her. He pushed down the straps of her dress, exposing more of the luscious slopes of her breasts.