Page 42 of One Step After Another

“What the fuck are you doing?” she asked, the pitch of her tone raising to a level he had never heard.

“Shut up and play along.”

“Play—”

He flipped up the hood of his sweater, thrust his hands into the messy braid that had fallen from her wig to mess it up even more, and then slammed her back into the brick wall of the building. The instinct of self-preservation kicked in for Penny, making her fist Luca’s sweater when her burning gaze met his.

Fight or flight.

He knew that all too well. Too bad he couldn’t give her the opportunity to do either.

Luca banged on the door right beside them one more time. “We just need another minute. That’s all.”

“You’re going to get us kill—”

No, he wasn’t.

Trust was earned, though.

“Hey, I hear something over here, man!”

Luca didn’t have any more time to prepare Penny for what he was going to do next, so he just did it. His lips crashed down on hers without warning. Her hands flexed harder into his sweater, simultaneously pushing him away but then pulling him closer when her eyes blew wide, and she realized what he was doing. The fast exploration of his hands down the curves of her hips came to a stop at the tight cinch of her waist, and he felt every single shiver that he earned from her for it, too.

He liked it.

Didn’t want to admit it.

But he did.

She tasted like pure heat and felt like silk. Even with the dirt on his palms as a barrier between his hands and her body. Even with her trembling lips working against his. Her shuddering breath let him deepen the kiss, make it look real.

Even if it felt that way already.

He didn’t have a choice. That’s what he would keep telling himself, anyway. They only needed another minute and—

“Yo—what the fuck are you two doing?”

One of the dumpsters had allowed Luca and Penny a bit of privacy from the two men standing at the end of the alleyway in the light. The shadows helped even more to keep them from further view.

He bared his teeth and glared. “Fuck off—I paid for this. Get your own.”

Luca knew how it would appear. A guy and a hooker in a dank alley next to a dirty dumpster. The dead end wouldn’t lead the pursuers to anything worth chasing. And those men weren’t really looking for him in the first place.

The two men passed a look between each other. Penny’s leg came up to hook around Luca’s hip, showing off one of the rips and dirt on her skin. Nothing else, though. It did, however, push their bodies closer together, doing nothing to hide the erection growing under his jeans.

Fuck.

Why was his throat so tight?

He swallowed hard. “You fucking mind, or what?”

At least, he hid the heat from his voice. The nerves, too. Barely.

“Sorry, man,” the guy on the left said.

“You see a bitch with black—”

“Does it look like I’m looking for other people?” Luca barked.