“You like?” I asked.
“No.”
Because he was being rude, I shrugged just so I could toss my hair at him again. But this time, he grabbed my ponytail and yanked me flat to my back on the table. A gasp passed my lips at the unexpected roughness, and the sudden heat flaring inside me shocked me so much I practically growled at him.
Sitting back in his seat, a hand wrapped around my hair, he raised an indifferent brow. “Why swing it in my face if you don’t want me to grab it?”
“You think everything belongs to you, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
It was such a ridiculous answer I couldn’t grasp onto a quick retort, so I only glared.
Our tempers collided and condensed the space of the room. A second passed, and as if the action was unwelcomed and inadvertent, his gaze slid down my body and over the wet clothes exposing my every curve.
The touch of his eyes lit a line of fire in its wake, from the gentle rise and fall of my breasts, to the flare of my hips, to the black jeans with a frayed hole in the knee.
He released his grip on my hair with a sudden sense of annoyance and asked, “Why are you so fucking wet?”
Apparently, he hadn’t even heard the rain shower while sheltered in luxury. The sky would probably clear the moment he stepped outside.
I relaxed against the table as if this was where I wanted to be all along and stretched my arms above my head. “I don’t answer those kinds of questions on the first date.”
“This is nothing more than a poor striptease. One I would pay more to end than I’ve ever paid a stripper with actual experience.”
Amusement flickered inside me, but I forced a dire expression. “Your name doesn’t have a second or third on the end of it, does it?”
He yanked a piece of moist paper out from underneath me and gave me a dry look that implied he believed I already knew his name.
“I refuse to add a number to my future son’s name, so that’s going to be a hurdle for us to get past,” I said seriously.
“I guess we’re at an impasse then, because I’m not naming my daughter ‘Candy’ or ‘Cherry.’”
I laughed at the ridiculous stripper names. “We can agree on that. I was thinking ‘Bambi.’”
The man’s eyes narrowed at the smeared ink on his precious paperwork. He was the embodiment of broody, with a five o’clock shadow and discarded jacket. Though his features were so compelling, so masculine and perfect to the eye, I bet if I touched him he would disappear.
I sat up and grabbed the tumbler that sat on the table, took a sip, and released a soft moan when the whiskey hit my tongue. The man’s eyes lifted from his paperwork to my face, almost as if he was irritated but couldn’t stop the very male reaction to look when a woman made that noise.
“You know, I adore whiskey.” I swirled the liquid in the glass. “But not just any kind—the expensive stuff,” I told him. “If I was rich, I’d bathe in it.”
The sound of a knock on the door made me freeze.
Dark eyes watched me curiously before the man said, “Come in.”
I flew off the table and crawled underneath it, wincing when I bumped my head. Two sets of feet came into view: Italian loafers and black boots. Radio static sounded, and then a dispatcher’s voice. Shit. A cop. I’d cry if I had to sleep on a cot tonight and not my bed.
“Good evening, Mr. Romano,” Alfred said in a deferential voice as if he was talking to a king.
Romano . . . Sounded Italian. The man did have a warmer complexion. I couldn’t say the same for his personality though.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Romano didn’t dispense in pleasantries and remained silent.
“We seem to have had . . . a breach in security,” Alfred continued.
I rolled my eyes.
“You’d think that wouldn’t happen with the amount I pay in membership fees.”