2

He glances over then does a double-take. His dark eyes rake over me, lingering on my legs and traveling up to my breasts, then face. “Who the fuck are you?”

I should’ve expected that response, but it startles me anyway. He sounds scary. Seriously scary, and he walks toward me like he means business. He’s beautiful, with dark wavy hair, a stubbled square jaw and thick-lashed eyes that bore a hole right through me.

“Huh? Who. The fuck. Are you?”

I panic. Instead of answering him, I turn and walk swiftly to the bathroom, as if putting fresh towels in his bathroom will fix everything.

He stalks after me and follows me in. “What are you doing in here?” He knocks the towels out of my hands.

Stunned, I stare down at them scattered on the floor. “I’m...housekeeping,” I offer lamely. Damn my idiotic fascination with the mafia. This is not the freaking Sopranos. This is a real-life, dangerous man wearing a gun in a holster under his armpit. I know, because I see it when he reaches for me.

He grips my upper arms. “Bullshit. No one who looks like”—his eyes travel up and down the length of my body again—“you—works in housekeeping.”

I blink, not sure what that means. I’m pretty, I know that, but there’s nothing special about me. I’m your girl-next-door blue-eyed blonde type, on the short and curvy side. Not like my cousin Corey, who is tall, slender, red-haired and drop-dead gorgeous, with the confidence to match.

There’s something lewd in the way he looks at me that makes it sound like I’m standing there in nipple tassels and a G-string instead of my short, fitted maid’s dress. I play dumb. “I’m new. I’ve only been here a couple weeks.”

He sports dark circles under his eyes, and I remember what he told the other man. He suffers from insomnia. Hasn’t slept in forty-eight hours.

“Are you bugging the place?” he demands.

“Wha—” I can’t even answer. I just stare like an idiot.

He starts frisking me for a weapon. “Is this a con? What do they think—I’m going to fuck you? Who sent you?”

I attempt to answer, but his warm hands sliding all over me make me forget what I was going to say. Why is he talking about fucking me?

He stands up and gives me a tiny shake. “Who. Sent. You?” His dark eyes mesmerize. He smells of the casino—of whiskey and cash, and beneath it, his own simmering essence.

“No one...I mean, Marissa!” I exclaim her name like a secret password, but it only seems to irritate him further.

He reaches out and runs his fingers swiftly along the collar of my housekeeping dress, as if checking for some hidden wiretap. I’m pretty sure the guy’s half out of his mind, maybe delirious with sleep deprivation. Maybe just nuts. I freeze, not wanting to set him off.

To my shock, he yanks down the zipper on the front of my dress, all the way to my waist.

If I were my cousin Corey, daughter of a mean FBI agent, I’d knee him in the balls, gun or not. But I was raised not to make waves. To be a nice girl and do what authority tells me to do.

So, like a freaking idiot, I just stand there. A tiny mewl leaves my lips, but I don’t dare move, don’t protest. He yanks the form-fitting dress to my waist and jerks it down over my hips.

I wrest my arms free from the fabric to wrap them around myself.

Nico Tacone shoves me aside to get the dress out from under my feet. He picks it up and runs his hands all over it, still searching for the mythical wiretap while I shiver in my bra and panties.

I fold my arms across my breasts. “Look, I’m not wearing a wire or bugging the place,” I breathe. “I was helping Marissa and then she got a call—”

“Save it,” he barks. “You’re too fucking perfect. What’s the con? What the fuck are you doing in here?”

I’m confounded. Should I keep arguing the truth when it only pisses him off? I swallow. None of the words in my head seem like the right ones to say.

He reaches for my bra.

I bat at his hands, heart pumping like I just did two back-to-back spin classes. He ignores my feeble resistance. The bra is a front hook and he obviously excels at removing women’s lingerie because it’s off faster than the dress. My breasts spring out with a bounce, and he glares at them, as if I bared them just to tempt him. He examines the bra, then tosses it on the floor and stares at me. His eyes dip once more to my breasts and his expression grows even more furious. “Real tits,” he mutters as if that’s a punishable offense.

I try to step back but I bump into the toilet. “I’m not hiding anything. I’m just a maid. I got hired two weeks ago. You can call Samuel.”

He steps closer. Tragically, the hardened menace on his handsome face only increases his attractiveness to me. I really am wired wrong. My body thrills at the nearness of him, pussy dampening. Or maybe it’s the fact that he just stripped me practically naked while he stands there fully clothed. I think this is a fetish to some people. Apparently, I’m one of them. If I wasn’t so scared, it would be uber hot.

He palms my backside, warm fingers sliding over the satiny fabric of my panties, but he’s not groping me, he’s still working efficiently, checking for bugs. He slides a thumb under the gusset, running the fabric through his fingers. My belly flutters.

Oh God. The back of his thumb brushes my dewy slit. I cringe in embarrassment. His head jerks up and he stares at me in surprise, nostrils flaring.

Then his brows slammed down as if it pisses him off I’m turned on, as if it’s a trick.

That’s when things really go to shit.

He pulls out his gun and points it at my head—actually pushes the cold hard muzzle against my brow. “What. The fuck. Are you doing here?”

I pee myself.

Literally.

God help me.

I freeze and pee trickles down my inner thighs before I can stop it. My face burns with humiliation.

Now, the anger and indignation I should’ve had from the start rushes out. It’s the exact wrong moment to get lippy, but I glare at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

He stares at the dribble on the floor. I think he’s going to... Well, I don’t know what I think he’ll do—pistol whip me or sneer or something—but his expression relaxes and he shoves the gun in its holster. Apparently, I finally gave the right reaction.

He grips my arm and drags me toward the shower. My brain is doing flip flops trying to get back online. To figure out what in the hell is happening and how I can get myself out of this very crazy, very fucked up situation.

Tacone reaches in and turns on the water, holding his hand under the spray as if to check its temperature.

My brain hasn’t turned back on, but I wrestle with his grip on my arm.

He releases it and holds his palm face out. “Okay,” he says. “Get in.” He draws his hand out of the shower and jerks his head toward the spray. “Clean up.”

Is he coming in there with me? Or is this really just about washing off?

Fuck it. I am a mess. I step in, panties and all.

I don’t know how long I stand there, drowning in shock. After a while, I blink and awareness seeps back in. Then I freak out. What in the hell is happening? What will he do with me? Did I really just pee on his floor? I want to die of embarrassment.

Keep it together, Sondra.

Jesus Christ. The mafia boss who stands on the other side of the shower curtain thinks I’m a narc. Or a spy or rat—whatever they call it. And he just stripped me down to my panties and pointed a gun at my head. Things could only get worse from here. A sob rises up in my throat.

Don’t cry. Not a good time to cry.

I stumble back against the tile wall, my legs too rubbery to stand. Hot tears spill down my cheeks and I sniff.

The shower curtain peeps open right by my face and I jerk back. I didn’t know he was standing right outside it.