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“Oh, we wouldn’t be playing tennis anymore if you took off your shirt because I would have to put my mouth and hands on you.”
Yes, that’s the exact thing I want to do to him—get my hands and my mouth on every inch of his glistening skin.
“Too bad for you that’s not going to happen,” I reply before we continue our game.
When we take our next water break on the bench, Lochlan won’t shut up about beating me. The close proximity of his half-naked body doesn’t help my recent urge to touch and lick him. After all, he swore he hasn’t been with anyone else. Would he use protection if I asked him to fuck me?
Lochlan doesn’t seem to notice my rapt attention since he’s not trying to seduce me at the moment. He’s leaning his head back against the fence, catching his breath between sips from his nearly empty water bottle.
Instead of caving to my silly bodily cravings, I glance away before he catches me gawking at him and ask him, “What would you be doing right now if we weren’t here?”
“Oh, I would probably be in a meeting with casino staff or running around putting out fires elsewhere.” The elsewhere I know is the brothels. “Most likely the same things your father does each day.”
“I don’t really know what Dante does,” I admit with a sigh. “He never told us anything.”
“Trust me, you weren’t missing much. It’s boring paperwork and accounting shit usually.” Rubbing his fingers over his perspiring temple, he says, “Or right now, shit with the lawsuit.”
“What lawsuit?”
“The one from the casino bombing.”
“Oh. Right.” Staring out at the quiet, empty courts we’ve had to ourselves uninterrupted thanks to Lochlan’s reservation, I tell him, “I’m sorry someone did something so awful because they wanted to hurt you or my father.”
“We think they were aiming to take out both of us.”
“Were you hurt badly?” I ask, unable to remember what happened to him months ago.
“Not really, just a few bruised ribs and a concussion that knocked me out. I got off easy. If I had been in that room…”
“Yeah,” I say, knowing everyone in that event room died or was horribly injured.
“What pisses me off the most is that we still haven’t been able to find who planted the bomb.”
“You haven’t?”
“No.” Reaching for a towel, he mops up his face, then the back of his neck and chest. I force my gaze away for the third time. “The bomb apparently had a remote and was placed in one of the rolling bars the servers and bartenders brought in. We’ve tracked it back to the kitchen on surveillance, but not a single camera captured who snuck in and put the bomb underneath it or when. Only the usual employees were around it from the time it left the kitchen until it arrived in the event room the night before the poker tournament.”
“So, it was an employee who planted the bomb?”
“No. Someone just got past our cameras…” he trails off, then twists his body to face me, his auburn brow furrowed. “Motherfucker. It was an employee. Jesus, Sophie. I think you’re right. All these months, and I didn’t see what was right in front of my fucking face.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been looking for a stranger on the surveillance videos from all over the hotel, someone who didn’t belong in the kitchen or the casino because I couldn’t fathom one of my employees doing something so heinous, killing all those people. The police interviewed all of them, looked into criminal histories, but they all checked out. They must have missed something because there’s no other explanation. Nobody was seen sneaking in or around the room. Everyone in the kitchen or in that room near the bar was either an employee or a guest. I doubt any of those celebrities would’ve blown themselves up.”
“Then how will you figure out which employee is responsible?”
“That’s a good question. I hate suspecting my own people. They’ve already been questioned by Vegas Metro PD. Torturing them probably would be a bit too extreme.”
I nod my head in agreement before I get an idea. “What about the threat of torture?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you circulate the rumor that you’re certain it was someone who works for you, and that you’re going to be questioning them again one by one, then the person responsible may get nervous and try to run. Especially if word got out that the questioning was actually torture. I’ve heard some of our penthouse staff talking about how everyone fears my dad’s guy Eli because of the rumors about things he’s done to people. The grossest was that he removed a man’s eyeball from the socket and then, he, um, they said he, you know, screwed it.”
Lochlan laughs. “I happened to have heard that rumor as well. Is it true?”
Grasping the bottom of the bench on either side of me, I shrug. “No clue. But it’s an effective deterrent either way.”
