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Nik could feel a dark awareness crawling through him ever since he had picked up the tail just out of D.C. They were being followed, and rather than stinging the bastard and jerking his balls off for information, Nik found himself trapped in the truck because Mikayla had insisted on accompanying him.
How the hell was he supposed to protect her like this? He couldn't work efficiently if he had to check his actions because of her presence.
"Do you think I enjoy hiding in a back room all day awaiting word? Pacing the floors while you decide what information you will and will not give me when you return?"
Pain and anger shadowed her voice, but he heard something more as well. Vulnerability, a sense of helplessness. Her world had suddenly changed on her, as had her security. The battle to accept that was clear in her voice. He glared back at her in frustration. "It's not like that," he argued. "I tell you what I know."
"What you know, not what happened, their expressions, their actions, or the tidbits of information they give out," she protested. "Nik, I need to be a part of this." And he needed to protect her. The protective urge was eating him alive from the inside out.
Glancing at the mirrors again, he could still see the plain tan sedan that had shadowed them since they had left Hagerstown earlier in the day.
"You're doing that a lot," she said.
"Doing what?" He frowned back at her.
"Checking your mirrors. Are we being followed?"
Hell, she was more intuitive than he wanted to give her credit for.
"We picked up a tail earlier," he finally admitted. "One of Holbrook's flunkies, I'd guess."
He'd find out later, he promised himself. If he had to slip into Holbrook's bedroom and prick his balls with a blade, then he'd
get the truth.
"Is he very close?" To give her credit, she didn't turn and look behind them.
"A few cars back." So far, whoever it was represented no threat, but Nik knew that could change at any time.
"Just give me the word and I'll duck," she promised. "But please stop acting like a five-year-old without his PSP. It really irritates me."
He almost laughed at the comment. The tone of voice was one that a woman would use only with small children or belligerent young men.
He was neither.
"What time does the bar open?" He changed the subject before his own irritation 166
became more apparent.
"It will do you no good to arrive before ten," she told him. "The bar opens at six, but to make certain the regulars are there to question them it would be best to arrive later."
He had to agree with that, and he hated it.
"Dinner then," he sighed, checking the mirrors once again to locate their tail. He was there, same position.
"Fine, dinner." Her voice lowered as she propped her elbow on the armrest and rubbed at her forehead.
The tension was like a live wire between them, sizzling with too much damned awareness. Arousal.
Taking her the night before hadn't stilled the hunger for her; it had done nothing to ease the ache that flared inside him. It did nothing to ease the hunger. The hunger wasn't going to ease anytime soon, either. Nik admitted that hours later as they pulled into the parking lot of the nightclub Jarvis Dalton swore was his alibi. The little bastard was too incompetent to have actually committed that murder. But a trail was a trail, and at this point Nik was becoming desperate to finish this. If he didn't get away from her, then he was going to lose his soul to her. The fact that she had insisted on returning to the house to shower and change should have clued him into the fact that she was going to make him crazy tonight. Seeing her dressed in that snug stretchy silk violet dress, her hair pulled to the crown of her head to cascade to her shoulders in luscious waves that still confused him. How had she managed those waves? Because he knew her hair was a beautiful straight ribbon of rough silk.
If he'd thought she looked like a fairy before, then she sure as hell looked like one now. One in four-inch-high sandals that made her feet look so much smaller and more delicate than ever before.
With his hand against her lower back he escorted her into the club, paid the entrance charge, and nearly grimaced at the clash of music as it assaulted his ears. On the dance floor bodies gyrated and moved in synchronized seductive intent. Moving along the edges of the dance floor, he followed Mikayla through the chaos to the long wooden bar. The journey there was a hell of a lot slower than he would have liked, though. It seemed Mikayla knew just as many people here as she knew anywhere else they went.
By the time they moved onto two of the empty bar stools, Nik was gritting his teeth in pure irritation. Between the invitations to dance, the offers of a drink, and the social chitchat, it took more than half an hour to get to their destination.
"Mikayla, sweetheart. Darling, did you make that perfect creation?" The bartender's nasal tone coupled with the approving look as his gaze went over the dress had no sexual connotations. "You didn't mention new designs, darling."
