Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 280(@200wpm)___ 224(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
I grab the vacuum and head back into the bedroom. When I finish, I hear male voices in the living room.
“Hope you can get some sleep, Nico. How long’s it been?” one of the voices asked.
“Forty-eight hours. Fucking insomnia.”
“G’luck, see you later.” A door clicks shut.
My heart immediately beats a little faster with excitement or nerves. Yes—I’m a fool. Later, I would realize my mistake in not marching right out and introducing myself, but Marissa has me nervous about the Tacones and I freeze up. The cart stands out in the living room, though. I decide to go into the bathroom and clean everything I can without getting fresh supplies. Finally, I give up, square my shoulders and head out.
I arrive in the living room and pull out three folded towels, four hand towels and four washcloths. Out of my peripheral vision, I watch the broad shoulders and back of another finely dressed man.
He glances over then does a double-take. His dark eyes rake over me, lingering on my legs and traveling up to my breasts, then face. “Who the fuck are you?”
I should’ve expected that response, but it startles me anyway. He sounds scary. Seriously scary, and he walks toward me like he means business. He’s beautiful, with dark wavy hair, a stubbled square jaw and thick-lashed eyes that bore a hole right through me.
“Huh? Who. The fuck. Are you?”
I panic. Instead of answering him, I turn and walk swiftly to the bathroom, as if putting fresh towels in his bathroom will fix everything.
He stalks after me and follows me in. “What are you doing in here?” He knocks the towels out of my hands.
Stunned, I stare down at them scattered on the floor. “I’m...housekeeping,” I offer lamely. Damn my idiotic fascination with the mafia. This is not the freaking Sopranos. This is a real-life, dangerous man wearing a gun in a holster under his armpit. I know, because I see it when he reaches for me.
He grips my upper arms. “Bullshit. No one who looks like”—his eyes travel up and down the length of my body again—“you—works in housekeeping.”
I blink, not sure what that means. I’m pretty, I know that, but there’s nothing special about me. I’m your girl-next-door blue-eyed blonde type, on the short and curvy side. Not like my cousin Corey, who is tall, slender, red-haired and drop-dead gorgeous, with the confidence to match.
There’s something lewd in the way he looks at me that makes it sound like I’m standing there in nipple tassels and a G-string instead of my short, fitted maid’s dress. I play dumb. “I’m new. I’ve only been here a couple weeks.”
He sports dark circles under his eyes, and I remember what he told the other man. He suffers from insomnia. Hasn’t slept in forty-eight hours.
“Are you bugging the place?” he demands.
“Wha—” I can’t even answer. I just stare like an idiot.
He starts frisking me for a weapon. “Is this a con? What do they think—I’m going to fuck you? Who sent you?”
I attempt to answer, but his warm hands sliding all over me make me forget what I was going to say. Why is he talking about fucking me?
He stands up and gives me a tiny shake. “Who. Sent. You?” His dark eyes mesmerize. He smells of the casino—of whiskey and cash, and beneath it, his own simmering essence.
“No one...I mean, Marissa!” I exclaim her name like a secret password, but it only seems to irritate him further.
He reaches out and runs his fingers swiftly along the collar of my housekeeping dress, as if checking for some hidden wiretap. I’m pretty sure the guy’s half out of his mind, maybe delirious with sleep deprivation. Maybe just nuts. I freeze, not wanting to set him off.
To my shock, he yanks down the zipper on the front of my dress, all the way to my waist.
If I were my cousin Corey, daughter of a mean FBI agent, I’d knee him in the balls, gun or not. But I was raised not to make waves. To be a nice girl and do what authority tells me to do.
So, like a freaking idiot, I just stand there. A tiny mewl leaves my lips, but I don’t dare move, don’t protest. He yanks the form-fitting dress to my waist and jerks it down over my hips.
I wrest my arms free from the fabric to wrap them around myself.
Nico Tacone shoves me aside to get the dress out from under my feet. He picks it up and runs his hands all over it, still searching for the mythical wiretap while I shiver in my bra and panties.
I fold my arms across my breasts. “Look, I’m not wearing a wire or bugging the place,” I breathe. “I was helping Marissa and then she got a call—”
“Save it,” he barks. “You’re too fucking perfect. What’s the con? What the fuck are you doing in here?”