both sides—but it was hardly a newsflash.
The channel changing stopped on Leonardo DiCaprio in some kind of movie.
“There's actually a better model coming out this year,” Vin said, putting the remote to the side. “It's going in the new house.”
Jim tried to read into what was going on in the movie, but it was just Leo dressed like something out of a renaissance fair emoting to a chick in a similar wardrobe.
Shit, no help.
“Jim, I got to be honest.” Vin's cool gray eyes were clear. “I don't know what the hell you're playing at here, but I like you, for some reason.”
“Ditto.”
“So where does this leave us?” Just what Jim was wondering.
Up on the screen, things were abruptly not going well for Leo. Medieval-esque “bad guys” were doing a snatch-and-drag of the poor bastard. “What the hell movie is this?”
Vin fired up the remote and an info strip popped up at the bottom of the screen:
Oh, fuck him. The Iron Mask? Damn it, the last place he wanted to be was back in that club. Especially with —
Devina appeared in the doorway of the study. “I don't suppose you two would like to go out?” Well, if that wasn't an opening.
Jim cursed to himself as he tried to imagine being there with her again—only this time under the watchful, suspicious eyes of her boyfriend. And he'd thought this whole dinner thing had been awkward?
Except the movie had to be a sign, right? The four lads said he'd have help. “Yeah, let's head downtown,” he muttered. “To the…How about the Iron Mask.” Devina's eyes flared as if she were shocked by his choice of club. Schmega dittos there.
There was some conversation at that point and Vin got to his feet. “Okay, if that's what you two want, I'm game.” He went over to his woman, and like he was trying to make an effort, leaned in and kissed her. “I'll get your coat.”
Devina turned away with him and followed her man down the hall. Jim, left behind in the study, dragged a hand through his hair while wishing he could rip the stuff out of his head.
Maybe he had to stop thinking TVs were sending him messages. Because this was a dumb fucking idea.
Chapter 11
Marie-Terese saw the man first.
As she stood by the bar closest to the Iron Mask's front door, she was inspecting the crowd when he walked into the club. It was, as they say, right out of the movies: Everyone else disappeared the instant he came in, the other people fading into dim, blurry shadows while she focused on him and him alone.
Six-three-ish in height. Dark hair and pale eyes. Suit like something out of a Fifth Avenue window display.
On his arm was a woman in a red dress and a white fur coat, and beside him was a taller guy with a brush cut and a military manner. None of them fit in among the crowd of leathered and laced and chained, but that wasn't why she stared.
No, the staring thing was all about the man himself. He was eye-catching in the same sharp, hard way her ex had been: a wealthy man with a shot of gangster in him, a guy who was used to being in charge of whatever was going on around him…and someone who was probably about as warm and caring as a meat locker.
Fortunately, shutting down her instant attraction was easy: She'd already made the mistake of assuming wealth and power made guys like that some kind of modern-day dragon slayer.
Very bad assumption. Sometimes dragon slayers…were just slayers.
Gina, another one of the working girls, came up to the bar. “Who is that by the door?”
“A customer.”
“Of mine, I hope.”
Marie-Terese wasn't so sure of that. Going by the looks of that brunette with him, he had no reason to buy sexual companionship—wait…that woman…she'd been here the night before, hadn't she, and so had the other guy. Marie-Terese remembered them for the same reason they stood out tonight—they didn't belong here.
As the trio sat down in a dark corner, Gina adjusted her wing-and-a-prayer bustier and pushed at her now- red hair. Last month it had been white and pink. Month before that jet-black. She kept this up and she was going to be sporting a Telly Savalas, thanks to all the chemical warfare on her roots.
“I think I'll just go over and introduce myself. Laters.”
Gina sauntered off, her black latex skirt and stiletto boots the kind of thing she wore with pride. Unlike Marie-Terese, she got off on what she did for a living and even had ambitions to become what she referred to as a “major multimedia erotica star” along the lines of Janine Lindemulder or Jenna Jameson. Whoever they were. Marie-Terese knew their names only because Gina talked about them like they were the Bill Gates of porn.
Marie-Terese hung back and watched the drive-by. As Gina sauntered up, the woman in the white fur took one look at what was so obviously for sale and her stare went blade sharp. Which was unnecessary. Her businessman boyfriend didn't give Gina a glance—he was too busy talking to his buddy. And all the back-off-that's- my-man did was encourage the come-on: Gina positively preened in front of that territorial hatred, lingering until the man finally looked up.
He didn't focus on what was in front of him, though. He gaze shifted past Gina's latex buffet and trained on Marie-Terese.
Instant. Cosmic. Attraction. The kind you couldn't hide from other people and you couldn't bottle up and you couldn't turn off if you ever got the chance to act on it. With their stares locked, they were both naked and in each other's arms, not for hours, but for days.
Which meant she wasn't going anywhere near him and not because he had a possessive girlfriend. If what she'd felt at first around her ex had been trouble, this moment between her and that stranger had the potential for catastrophe.
Marie-Terese turned away and wound through the crowd, seeing nothing in front of her or around her. Those steel gray eyes of that man consumed her, and though she knew he couldn't see her anymore, she could have sworn she felt him staring at her still.
“Hey, honey.”
Marie-Terese glanced over her shoulder. A pair of college boys dressed in hip-riding jeans, Affliction T-shirts, and skulled-out accessories—i.e., the bell-bottoms of the twenty-first century—had come up behind her and were once-overing her body. Given the sly way they looked at her, it was pretty clear they had pockets full of their daddies' money and heads vacant of everything but the confidence typical of big, dumb football players.
She also got the impression they were on something: Their eyelids twitched rather than blinked, and both had lines of sweat over their upper lips. Great. Just what she needed.
“How much for me and my friend?” the one who'd spoken up said.
“I think you'd better go see someone else.” Gina had no problems with threesomes, for instance. Or video cameras. Or camera phones. Or other women. Hopefully she drew the line at the Catherine the Great equine stuff, but you couldn't be sure—it was entirely possible that a lusty whinny meant “suck harder” to her.
Mr. Talker got in close. “We don't want anyone else. We want you.”
Taking a step back, she looked them both right in the eye. “Find someone else.”
“We have money.”
“I'm a dancer. That's all I get paid to do.”
“Then why haven't you been up in any of the cages?” He leaned in again and she got a whiff of his cologne: eau de beer. “We've been watching you.”
“I'm not for sale.”
“Bullshit, baby doll.”
