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Nick shook his head. “I don’t know. Give it to your wife.”
“I’ve got plenty of my own to give,” Mark said with a grin. “But thanks just the same.”
The rest of the evening went by quickly, with more of the same insanity to deal with. Nick hadn’t been kidding-the crazies were out tonight, and a lot of them had decided to show up at the club. The bouncers had had to forcibly eject more guys in this one evening than he’d seen them eject in the past month.
The only positive thing about keeping so busy was that Nick missed the Crimson Rose’s final performance of the evening, too. He hadn’t even realized she was on until he heard the thunderous applause, whoops and whistles of her audience. But at that point, he’d been outside, doing a sweep of parking lot to make sure none of their uninvited patrons had decided to come back.
Fortunately, they hadn’t. But there were still other issues to deal with, like his conversation with Harry about Izzie’s broken chair. She had called it an accident…and it might have been one. But he wasn’t taking any chances. He and Harry had talked about adding security cameras to the basement area of the club, to hook into the system already covering the upstairs. Izzie’s accident had confirmed the idea for both of them.
Just in case.
Saying goodbye to Harry, he headed downstairs, glancing at his watch. It was after two, the club was closed, everyone drifting out. But he knew she’d have waited. She wouldn’t have left without seeing him. Partly because she’d want to see his reaction to her act. Partly because she knew he’d kill her if she’d walked out to her car alone.
“Iz?” he asked, knocking lightly on her dressing room door.
She opened it immediately. “Hi.” She was nibbling on her bottom lip and her hands were clenched in front of her. Rather than being dressed to go home, she wore just a slinky robe. Thankfully, though, the mask and hairpieces were gone.
“You doing okay?”
She nodded, then looked at him through half-lowered eyelids. “Um, so? What’d you think?”
He reached for her and drew her into his arms. “I didn’t see you dance.”
“What?”
“Sorry, other stuff was going on.”
“I heard there were some problems.”
“Yep.”
She fisted her hands and put them on her hips. The pose did really nice things, like pulling her short pink robe apart at the neck to reveal the lush, upper curves of her breasts.
“You’re telling me you just happened to have to deal with various crises during the exact times I was on stage? And that was simply coincidence?”
She might not believe it, but it was true. At least, he thought it was. He guessed he could have done the parking lot sweep a few minutes earlier or later. He hadn’t evaluated his decision before. But now, looking back…well, maybe something inside him had made sure he didn’t have to see other men looking at the beautiful body of the woman he considered his.
“You’re sure you’re going to be all right with this?” Her chin went up. “I won’t be able to handle it if you go all Cro-Magnon man and try to drag me by the hair back to your cave.”
“You woman. Me man,” he said, slipping his hands down and parting her robe further. He nuzzled into her neck, breathing in her essence, realizing twenty-four hours had been far too long to go without making love to her. “Me got heap big appetite.”
She swatted at his shoulder. But she didn’t back up. “You’re such a dork.”
Nick had never been called that, or anything like it, in his entire life. Ass maybe. Jerk. Cold-hearted pig, on one occasion. But never a dork. And it surprised a laugh out of him.
She delighted him. Simply brought every good feeling that existed inside him out into the open.
“God, I love being with you,” he muttered, unable to help revealing a little bit of what he was feeling.
“I know, I feel the same way.”
She didn’t admit that easily, the words had come haltingly out of her mouth. Which made Nick value them that much more.
He moved his mouth down, sampling her collarbone.
“Did you put that lock on my door yourself?” she whispered as she tilted her head farther, silently begging for more.
He nodded, continue to kiss and lick, lower now, to the curves of her breasts, beautifully bare under the robe.
“Let’s use it.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he murmured.
He didn’t let her go, he simply reached back and flipped the lock, then dipped down lower to lick his way down her to her pert nipple. Flicking it with his tongue, he waited until she was quivering to cover it with his mouth and suckle her.
