surrounded himself with a bevy of guards, 24/7, and Mac hadn’t been able to get close enough to him to gather the evidence he needed to take to the police. When he and Kyle found the young women in a Vegas brothel, they’d been so desperate to go home, they hadn’t given him any substantial information about their involvement in the brothel. Either that, or they were too afraid to speak. Mac had been left frustrated, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. His gut, however, told him Medeiros had been involved.
The owner of the brothel had been just as tight-lipped about how she’d “found” the girls.
Damian Marks, the owner of the Sweet Kitty, was nothing but a local hood. Trying to play with the big boys, Damian thought he’d hit gold when he’d hooked up with Medeiros. Mac had a feeling Marks had bitten off more than he could chew, dealing with Medeiros.
“Man, check her out. Shit, she’s fine.” Kyle had interrupted Mac’s thoughts. Kyle nodded his head toward the stage, and Mac’s glance fell on the new dancer.
Damn, it was her. His dick thumped against his zipper and Mac readjusted himself, his eyes glued on the woman on the stage.
The second reason Mac wasn’t ready to leave DC yet was because of her. Sinful Feathers.
Damn, she was beautiful. And she stuck out like the peacock her feathered costume suggested—she was all bright color in a gray lackluster world.
He adjusted his seat, to see her better. He and Kyle were seated at one of the tables to the right of the stage. They’d picked a table giving them an optimal view of the entire club, but still protecting their backs, so no one could sneak up on them. Both men had trained for covert operations, where that was an essential part of any mission.
Still, they were angled and positioned close enough so Mac could catalog her beauty, along with the graceful way she moved. His eyes narrowed against the spiraling smoke from the cigarette he’d left burning, unnoticed, in the glass ashtray.
She wrapped both of her slim hands around the thick pole in the center of the stage with practiced dexterity. With fluid ease, she flipped her curvaceous, yet agile, body upside down and slipped one long, muscled cocoa-brown leg around the lower end of the pole. She wrapped the other leg higher up the pole.
Her torso dangled downward, one hand casually holding on to the pole keeping her balanced, the other arm thrown behind her. The ends of her long hair swept the stage floor as she arched her body away from the pole in time with the heavy beat of the music.
Mac blindly reached for his half-forgotten drink as he watched the beautiful dancer work the pole.
With a grimace, he took a swallow, his eyes never leaving the semi-nude dancer on the stage.
3
Unlike the other dancers, this one never looked at any of the men who whistled and called out to her. She wasn’t dancing for the ogling men, but for herself.
Mac was intrigued by her casual, absentminded sexiness. As though she didn’t give a damn what the ogling, horny bastards at the club thought as they watched her sinewy body wrap around the pole, dancing as though she were alone in the room.
Throughout the two-week investigation, Mac had witnessed several degrees of skill from the strippers at the Sweet Kitty. From the burgeoning, awkward attempts by the neophytes, much like the stuck-up heiress he’d rescued, to the jaded, yet proficient, skills of those who’d danced for years.
None he had seen were like this woman. None of them had played with his mind, had given him hot dreams at night, cold showers in the morning, like she had.
Everything about her was different, from her slow, hypnotic moves, to the sensual, rhythmic music she moved her body to, or the way she never glanced at anyone in the audience while she danced.
She danced to a slow rhythm that really had nothing to do with the music, a beat that only she could hear. It made a man long to be the only one she was dancing for. Made him long to have her wrap her beautiful body around his, have her look in his eyes, seeing him, no one else but him, as he stroked into her hot, creaming pussy, until she cried out his name.
Blindly Mac reached inside his jacket and pulled out his money clip, his eyes never leaving the stage.
At the end of what felt like an eternity, but was only the five-minute length of the song, Mac felt as though he were coming out of a fog.
Sinful glanced around once the song ended—as though she shared the same dim fog of unawareness with Mac as the music faded away, blending into the next song—and then slowly stood.
In that sexy backhanded way of hers, she casually scooped up the pile of bills scattered on the stage. She was hunched down, gathering the money, when her gaze connected with Mac’s.
Mac’s heart loudly thumped, audible to his ears, his nostrils flaring as she came close to him. One slender arm reached out, palm outstretched, and he looked down at his own hand, a twenty-dollar bill held between his fingers.
He hadn’t been aware he’d taken the money out. When she came close, he inhaled deeply, picking up on her scent, despite the cloying perfume and smoke in the club, and closed his eyes briefly. He opened them when her fingertips touched his, and an electrical current passed from her to him.
He glanced at her face. In the dim light, he saw the red flush darken her smooth brown skin, her eyes widen in awareness.
Her small pink tongue darted out and laved the lower, full rim of her lips as they stared at one another.
When she noticed the new dancer on the stage ready to perform, she was the first to look away. With one final, hesitant look his way, she gracefully left the stage.
Mac felt inexplicably shaken, wondering what the hell had just happened between them. He shook his head, as though to clear it, and turned to see his partner, Kyle, staring at him, mouth slightly open, his expression puzzled.
“What the fuck was that all about?”
With a noncommittal shrug, Mac pretended nonchalance, picked up his shot glass, ignored the way his hand shook, and took a healthy swallow.
The fiery burn of the whisky easing down his throat didn’t do a damn thing to ease the painful throb in his pants. Or erase the memory of the dancer’s hot body working the pole the way he wanted her to work him. Nor did it erase the electric charge they had generated when her soft hand touched his.
Impatient and irritated, he glanced around the floor once again for a glimpse of Damian Marks or Carlos Medeiros.
“Let’s get the hell out of here. They’re not showing tonight.”
As Mac stood to go, throwing down several bills to cover their tab, he noticed Marks enter the club. Mac slowly sat back down.
“Looks like one of them decided to make an appearance,” Kyle said, and sat down as well.
Mac watched as Marks strolled through the club, stopping every so often to speak to a customer, before he walked closer, approaching a table to Mac’s far left, where a group of four men dressed in business attire sat.
Mac signaled for a waitress to come and ordered a Coke.
“No
