“I know. I’ve read all about it. But I’m visiting a T-shirt store like the other thousands of shoppers. Nothing else. Nothing to do with the cartels.”
“You’re probably right, but I just don’t want you in danger. Promise me you’ll be careful even though you’ll have Alex and his security with you.”
Danni decided she would keep to herself that she planned to go alone. Alex would cause a scene once his fans recognized him. And he’d be accompanied by Frank, whom she didn’t trust after seeing him in Alex’s dressing room.
“You have anything on Frank yet?” It was always good to distract Reeves when he started to worry.
“Still trying to track his financials. I’ll let you know when I get something. Promise, Danni, that you’ll be careful.”
“I promise.” She was becoming adept at lies of omission. She didn’t want Reeves to worry about her, but she knew Santee Alley really well. She had spent endless hours there looking for bargains. Nothing could possibly happen.
Chapter Six
With his LA Lakers cap pulled down and his aviator sunglasses on, Lars waited behind a swiveling rack of sunglasses at the entrance to Santee Alley. If Danni and Alex didn’t arrive soon, he’d have to change his position since the owner was growing suspicious.
Lars stepped farther behind the kiosk to get a better angle on the street. By Danni’s GPS, they’d arrive in less than a minute.
A black Prius stopped at the corner. Lars glanced down at his phone. Her GPS had stopped. If he hadn’t recognized the long, slender legs that came out first, he wouldn’t have known it was Danni. She was in a black wig and a leather BSDM getup that delivered a sucker punch to his gut.
What the hell? She was dressed as the star of a bondage porn flick. Why was she alone? Where was Hardy and his security?
Reeves reported that she would be with Hardy. And Lars assumed Hardy would have at least Frank, the muscle, to handle this crowd. Lars’s instincts kicked into high gear. Danni was up to nothing good.
She bent over to talk to the driver, giving Lars a stellar view as her red plaid skirt rode up almost to her panties. All his blood flowed south. He couldn’t look away as fantasies bombarded his testosterone-overwhelmed brain.
She wobbled as she stepped over the curb in high-heeled boots that laced up past her knees. Was she still hungover after two-fisting the bubbly? She’d never wobbled all the times he had seen her in ridiculously sexy footgear. Danni in her knee-high boots fed some of his favorite fantasies.
He imagined Danni in the tiny skirt with her legs stretched across his lap as he slowly untied the boots. Every cell pulsated with lust. Heat flamed through him. He was burning up, and it wasn’t due to the warm LA day or the long-sleeved shirt he wore to cover his concealed weapon. He had to pull his shit together. He was in the middle of LA with a conspicuous hard-on.
Danni went headlong into the crush of shoppers. He waited a few seconds before joining. She was easy to track with her three-inch boots adding to her already almost six-foot height. She was a lot of woman but nothing he couldn’t handle. And fantasies flashed again of how exactly he wanted to handle Danni.
He followed her as she pushed and shoved. He had tracked a lot of people in his career, but this was his most erotic pursuit. Not the blazing heat, the crazy shoppers, nor the throbbing in his leg fazed him. Chasing after Danni on her wild-ass adventure fed his soul. It would never be boring with this woman.
He forced his way closer when it looked like she stumbled. She righted herself and turned quickly to find the culprit. Lars dashed into a lingerie store to avoid being discovered. Danni was sharp and most likely would recognize him despite the cap and sunglasses. A few of the women stopped their rummaging through the racks to stare at his clumsy entrance.
He had to suppress his laugh as he watched Danni from the window. The look Danni gave the tiny woman who had shoved her was the same death stare she leveled at him regularly and had the same effect on the unfazed shopper that it had on him. Growing up with four older brothers where fists flew every hour, dirty looks were not a deterrent but a signal to bring it on. She might not know it, but her stares were part of their mating dance. And he was ready to get to the mating.
He searched the crowd for any threat before he again joined the flow of sales-driven humanity. Danni, a woman on a mission, marched ahead. Her tenacity was one of the many things he admired about her.
He glanced down so as not to ram into the couple with a toddler who had stopped abruptly in front of him to adjust the baby’s hat. When he looked up, Danni had disappeared. He searched the crowd and couldn’t see her black wig. He moved swiftly to find her. She couldn’t have gone far in the less than thirty seconds that he’d taken his eyes off of her.
He turned in a full circle, gaining him deadly looks from the mob of people he blocked. He didn’t see Danni. She had to have gone into one of the two shops on the right side since he would have spotted her moving across the crowd.
The first store was a health food and nutrition store, and the next was a jewelry store. All bets were on the jewelry store. He slowly ambled by the empty nutrition store. His Columbo had taken a pause in her detecting to shop. Not exactly mission-driven, but this wasn’t a lethal mission.
He rejoined the wave of shoppers to catch a glimpse of her bent over the counter before he took cover behind the store directory across from the jewelry store.
Less
