5

Sondra

Dean, Corey’s boyfriend, sits on the couch watching TV. “Hey, Sondra.” He looks a little too happy to see me.

My stomach clenches, awareness of my pantyless state increasing. The guy has a habit of leering at me, and I’m afraid he’ll somehow figure out there’s nothing under my very short dress.

“Hey,” I mutter.

He gives me an up and down sweep of his eyes, lingering way too long on my breasts. “What’s up?”

There’s no way in hell I’m going to tell him about my crazy day. Corey, yes, but not him. Unfortunately, I don’t have my own room—I crashed on their couch—so there was nowhere for me to hide. Earning enough to put the deposit on my own place is my first priority, even over getting a car that runs.

I go to my suitcase in the corner and grab a change of clothes before locking myself in the bathroom. Only then do I realize I still clutch the envelope from Mr. Tacone. I stick my thumb under the flap and tear it open. Six crisp hundred-dollar bills slide out with a note of paper.

I draw in my breath. For someone who has pretty much been broke, eating nothing but ramen noodles through college and grad school, it’s a lot of money. I had scholarships and assistantships in college, but that still put me below the poverty level. Adjunct teaching hasn’t exactly paid the bills, either.

The note’s written in the same neat penmanship on the envelope.

Sondra—

Sorry for scaring you. Money doesn’t fix everything, but sometimes it helps. I hope you’ll return to work tomorrow.

—Nico

My heart skitters.Nico. He signed his first name? And apologized. Not in person, but still, it’s an apology.

I hope you’ll return to work tomorrow.

The image of his face leaning just inches from mine as he gripped the towel that bound me against him flashes through in my mind. My knees go weak. He wants me to return?

He guessed correctly that I planned to quit and never set foot in the place again. I fan myself with the six hundred-dollar bills. Some people would take a high moral ground. Say they wouldn’t let him buy their silence or compliance or whatever. But not me. He’s right. Money does go a helluva long way to fixing things.

Still, the asshole held a gun to my head. And stripped me naked. And I peed. It was the most humiliating moment of my entire life.

But my sense of violation fades as I remember the way he also shoved me in the shower, toweled me off and murmured, you’re okay.

I stare at the money. Six hundred dollars closer to moving off my cousin’s couch and into my own place. Six hundred dollars closer to getting another car. I can buy groceries and pay my cousin back for what she’s already spotted me.

Maybe it wouldn’t kill me to show up at work tomorrow. Yes, it had been utterly humiliating, but I’ll probably never see the guy again. It would save me the trouble of finding a new interim job while I figure my life out.

I exhale slowly, trying to erase the vision of Tacone brushing my hair back from my face, his penetrating stare. I won’t have to see him again. And that’s a good thing. Definitely a good thing.

Nico

Sondra Simonson. It’s her real name. I asked security to pull everything they can find on her and bring me the file. Along with the video feed of our interaction.

Turns out Samuel, the head of housekeeping, already fired Marissa, Sondra’s boss, for leaving her up in my suite, but I call him myself to say it’s all right.

And to request Sondra replace the regular penthouse suite housekeeper.

Because if she doesn’t quit, I definitely want her up in my room again.

Naked.

Preferably naked and willing this time, but I’d be a goddamn liar if I said I didn’t like her a little scared. There was something so appealing about the way she both trembled and got turned on when I stripped her.

Or had I imagined it?

I’ll find out soon enough. Where is that damn video feed? I’m like a junkie waiting for his next hit. I can’t wait to watch the video of her. I’m going to be fucking my hand all night to the sight of her pouty lips and wide blue eyes decorating my screen.

A knock sounds on the door. “It’s Tony.” The deep voice of my right-hand man echoes through the door.

“Yeah?”

“I dropped her off.” He steps in and gives me a careful look. I know he didn’t come in here just to tell me that. He came in to find out what the hell happened. Why I sent the maid home wet and scared.

He’s worried about me. My mental state is starting to crumble with the inability to sleep. He’s too smart to come out and ask me what happened. He knows I’d tell him to mind his own fucking business. But he’s made a career out of standing around me silently, serving as my bodyguard, making himself available when I do feel like confiding.

He’s not family. He’s not even Italian. He’s just a big, loyal guy from Cicero who decided I was the guy he was going to follow into the bowels of hell. I guess you could say he’s the closest thing I have to a friend.

If a Tacone ever really has a friend.

“She’s new. I thought she looked off, so I strip searched her.”

A muscle in Tony’s jaw tightens but he doesn’t say anything. Tony is absolutely a defender of women. His ma was abused by his dad pretty bad and he’s still eager to even that score with any guy who manhandles a woman. Probably even, if it came down to it, me.

But I don’t usually make a habit out of mistreating women.

This one was a special case.

I purse my lips and shrug. “I also may have pointed a gun at her head while I was questioning her.” I tell him in case there’s some mess we need to clean up from the fallout. Hopefully Sondra won’t kick up a fuss. I don’t think she will.

And for some reason that bugs the hell out of me.

I have terrible taste in men.

Smart, well-educated, smoking hot little number like her shouldn’t be walking around with that fatal flaw that puts her in danger. Especially not in Vegas.

Except it’s probably that terrible taste that turned her supple and pliant in my arms, too. Those incredible nipples pebbled up, that pussy turned wet for me. And I hadn’t even been coming on to her. I was rough-handling her like a deranged lunatic.

Fuck.

Tony shoves his hands in his pockets. “Jesus, Nico. The lack of sleep has you paranoid.”

“I know.” I run my hand through my hair.

“You need to take something. Have you tried the drugs?”

I have a whole shelfful of pharmaceuticals that are supposed to help me sleep, but either they don’t work or I don’t like the way they make me feel afterward. Not that I like the delirium I’m under now. “Nah. I think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

“That’s what you said last night.”

I look out the wall of windows that make up my penthouse suite. “So you got her home? Was she okay?”

“She was skittish. You pay her off?”

The words pay her off set my teeth on edge, even though that’s exactly what I did. Still, it sounds so sordid when associated with her. It’s the same reason I don’t want to see her dealing on my floor. She shouldn’t be sullied by all the shit that goes down at this hotel casino.

She shouldn’t be sullied by me.

Too bad I want to dirty her in every possible way.

If I were a better man, I would make certain our paths never cross again. But I’m not. I’m not a good man. I put her right back in the lion’s den.

I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if she’s as smart she looks and she vows to never set foot in this place again.