Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(46)

Kellan nodded. No point in lying, and even if he did, she’d only call him out and get even madder. Not necessarily in that order. “Coming up with your plan right in front of me before you cut Marcus loose last Friday probably wasn’t your best move,” he admitted. Before she could jump in with a renewed protest, he tacked on, “Yes, this has been my plan all week, and yes, I knew you’d be this pissed off. But I also know there are a lot of things in that penthouse that you can’t control, and tonight is your only shot to get what you’re looking for. Let me help you, Moreno.”

She didn’t agree, but she didn’t balk out loud either, so he took the momentary win and continued.

“This is no different than the other night in the park. I know how to work recon, and I want to help you help those girls. Just trust me to do that, okay? Just trust me to have your back for tonight.”

For a minute, she said nothing. Then the minute slid into another, then another, Kellan’s heart beating faster and faster against his sternum until finally, Isabella turned toward him.

“Listen to me very carefully.” Her fingers moved softly over his chest, stopping to straighten the black wool of his suit jacket in an oddly intimate gesture. “Nothing about the plan changes, except now you and I are a couple who want a third for a good time. Danny will get us in the door, and you’ll follow my lead to the letter. Do you understand?”

The vise-like grip on his lungs released on a completely silent exhale. “I do,” he said, but Moreno’s hands didn’t budge.

“Be sure you can do this. Because once we get into that elevator, there’s no going back.”

He didn’t hesitate. “I’m sure, Isabella.”

“Good. And Walker?” Although a smile played on her lips, her words arrived on a dead-serious promise. “Don’t think that just because I agreed to this, I’m not furious with you. When we get out of here, you and I are going to have an argument you won’t win.”

Without so much as a blink, she lowered her hands from his slamming chest, looping her arm through the bend in his elbow and walking back toward the spot where Marcus had been waiting just a few paces away.

“Slight change in plans,” Moreno said. She fixed Marcus with a stunner of a smile, likely to water down any panic that might go with the news, and man, she was good. But where her smile was concerned, Kellan had seen the genuine product, and as subtle as the difference was, this one was just the slightest bit off from the unfettered expression she’d given up the other night at the Crooked Angel.

“What do you mean, a change in plans?” Marcus darted a glance from Isabella to Kellan, but she stepped in closer, recovering his attention in one long-legged swoop.

“Relax, Danny. I’m just your friend looking for a good time, remember? Only now, my boyfriend wants to watch.”

Kellan sucked in an involuntary breath. But he’d promised to follow her lead to the letter and they had to get over the threshold somehow, so he nodded and said, “I’m sure that’s not an unusual request for a party like this, is it, Danny? No big deal for a boyfriend to watch.”

The point seemed to hit its mark. Thank fuck. “Oh. Well, there aren’t usually a lot of women at these parties other than the ones working for DuPree, but yeah. Most of the clients do like to watch,” Marcus agreed, his shoulders loosening from around the collar of his dress shirt. “I guess it won’t be any different to sell it with two of you. But I can still, uh, go, though, right? As soon as you two get past the door, Danny Marcus is done?”

“Like I said. Everything else stands.” Isabella shifted back on one glossy black high heel, gesturing toward the bank of mirror-paneled elevators behind them. “Now what do you say we get to work?”

Marcus nodded, his black curls springing up and down. “Alright, yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

Leading the way to the elevators, Marcus pulled an electronic key card from his back pocket and inserted it into the slot above the elevator control buttons. At Isabella’s raised brows, he said, “The code to get up to the penthouse level changes every week, and there’s a new key for each party. They’re couriered to people who have been approved for the guest list to keep things exclusive.”

Now it was Kellan’s turn to send his brows on a one-way trip up. “Nice security.”

“Yeah. Just wait.”

A soft ding signaled the elevator’s arrival seconds later, and the three of them stepped onto the empty car. The space was lined with black lacquered paneling from the waist down and mirrors the rest of the way up, and didn’t that just offer about a thousand opportunities for security cameras. From here on in, they were going to have to assume they were being watched.

A fact that wasn’t lost on Isabella, apparently. Tightening her grasp on his arm, she leaned in toward him. The curve of her breast brushed over the outside of his biceps, sending a bolt of want deep between his legs, and hell, this was going to take all the restraint on the goddamn planet.

But Kellan steeled himself against her touch. The whole thing was for show, and there was no denying the anger-fueled tension still thrumming through her body. He’d promised Moreno he could stay on the level and do whatever it took to help her.

There was no turning back now. No room for error or impulse or emotion of any kind.

Focus. Thirty-eighth floor. Thirty-nine. Forty. Breathe.