Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(94)

Nick didn’t have any extra mental energy to bother with Seth’s bullshit. He turned to Davy. “Can you check out that guy she saw at the banquet? Richard Mathes is the name. Famous surgeon.”

“Will do,” Davy said. “Yo. Nick?”

He jerked around on his dash to the door. “What?” he snapped.

“Chill,” Davy said quietly. “Step back. Watch yourself with her.”

Like it was that easy. That was like telling a fire not to be hot. You could try all you wanted, but there wasn’t a whole lot of point in it.

Chapter

21

N ick’s giant black pickup loomed over the tame sedans lined up in the hotel lot like some big, sleek, crouching predator.

Becca pulled her suitcase out of the trunk of her own *cat of a rented sedan. Tomorrow, she had to take it right back where she’d gotten it. Back to riding the bus. Rented cars were not in the budget of a recently fired person. Not that a recently fired person could really be said to have a budget at all. Such a person had, at best, an emergency fund. In her case, an almost nonexistent one.

Even with Carrie and Josh almost on their own, she barely scraped by from month to month. No margin for error now.

Stop it. She had bigger problems right now than her pathetic bank account.

Like her complicated, volatile new lover.

A part of her coolly observed the chattering voices in her mind, how they generated a cheerful fake buzz of white noise to hide from herself how incredibly nervous she was about seeing Nick.

But it wasn’t working. She was on to the trick. What was the point of all this energy expended in self-deception if it didn’t even work?

Habit, she supposed. She smiled at the desk clerk. A shivery sense of déjà vu went through her. “Hi. Has my husband, Rob Steiger, arrived yet?” The H word gave her a shivery rush of emotion.

The chubby brunette behind the desk smiled and passed her a key card. “He sure has, Mrs. Steiger, just about ten minutes ago. He told us to be on the lookout for you. Have a good night!”

She took the elevator up and walked slowly down the hall. Knees wobbling, heart thudding, head dizzy, breath shallow, hands damp and cold—symptom for symptom, she was in more of a nervous tizzy now than she had been while breaking into Diana Evans’s hotel room.

How ridiculous was that. She needed to grow a backbone. Right now. She took a deep breath, and stuck the key card in. The light flashed green, and she pushed the heavy door open.

Nick sat on the bed in the dim room, framed by the room’s dark entryway. Facing the door, simply waiting.

He smoldered at her. There was simply no other word for it. The harsh lines of his handsome face were grimly expressionless, but his eyes burned. The power of his anger pulsed at her. The hairs on her neck tingled.

Something sinuous and powerful moved inside her. Behind the fear and the white noise. A hungry pull of hot desire, as she sensed that simmering power in him. Hers to use, if she could rise to the occasion. If she could handle him.

“Hello, Mr. Steiger,” she said.

He waited a long time to answer, and finally inclined his head. “Mrs. Steiger,” he said guardedly.

“How was your day?” she asked.

“It was shitty.” His voice sliced through the silence. “Don’t f*ck with me, Becca. I’m not in the mood.”

Tactical retreat. New strategy. Nix the playfulness.

She shrugged off her coat, hung it up, lifted her suitcase onto the rack. Caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She didn’t recognize herself, with the teased, tangled cloud of hair, the shockingly red mouth. She shrugged off the blazer, and contemplated ways to stage this confrontation. His body language did not invite her to sit with him on the bed, but neither did she want to stand before him like an accused criminal before the judge.

She grabbed a chair, perched in it. Took a deep breath and tilted her rib cage so that the high-necked white knit tank pulled sexily over her boobs. Crossed her legs, to hike the straight skirt up. Let her crossed foot dangle, in the stiletto-heeled strappy sandal. She’d bought those shoes for her engagement party. This seemed like a much, much better use for them.

He stared at her, hot eyes moving up and down her body.

Ah. That was better. So she was not entirely without resources.

“What’s with the slut red lipstick?” he asked.

“Oh. That.” She hesitated. “I, ah, stole it. From Diana.”

“And Diana is…?” His voice went soft, almost menacing.

“Mathes’s mistress,” she admitted. “The woman I’ve been tailing.”

The quality of his silence deepened. It was like the moment of inevitability after the fuse is lit, but before the explosion.

Becca rushed on, trying to keep her shaking voice light. “I think the color is a little extreme, but it’s growing on me. Do you like it?”

“Don’t know,” he said slowly. “It makes me want to f*ck you hard, up against the wall. Was that your intention when you put it on?”

She blinked, nonplussed. “Ah…maybe we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves in the agenda for the evening,” she murmured. “Don’t you want to be debriefed? Is that the right word?”

“Yeah. Debrief me.” He jerked his chin. “Get the f*ck on with it. I want to move right along to the other part of the evening’s agenda. I’ve got big plans for you, babe. Big, big plans.”