WITH A QUIET CLICK, Luke Brasco shut the door to the security room three floors above Club Cicero, Chic-ago's hottest night spot west of the famed Magnificent Mile. Mikey Maldonado, Luke's chief bouncer, swiveled from the bank of monitors he'd been watching and gave his boss a toothy grin.
"What's up, boss?"
Luke's gaze darted to the central screen. She was there. Dead center on the dance floor, commanding a tight and controlled space that no other man or woman dared invade. He'd noticed her seconds after she'd entered the club twenty minutes ago and, despite his best efforts, had been watching her exclusively ever since. Five minutes in, she'd eased by him at the bar, sparing him no more than a cursory glance. But her blue eyes — faceted and hypnotic — had yanked him instantly into her universe.
At first, he'd come upstairs to escape her allure. Now, he had different ideas.
Luke cleared his throat. "We've got a rowdy crowd out front," Luke explained.
Tucked under Michigan Avenue and Grand, only a block from the famed Billy Goat Tavern, the gangster-themed nightclub, named for the area of Chicago where Capone made his fortune, was the ultimate speakeasy fantasy. Club Cicero brought in a range of customers from international businessmen wanting a taste of old Chicago to hip, urban partiers looking for a reason to wear fedoras and glittery, bugle-beaded dresses. Not that everyone dipped into roaring twenties fashion trunks before hitting the line that snaked around the building, but those that did created an atmosphere that made Club Cicero the place to be, and thus earned them a better chance at getting in.
His mystery woman hadn't needed a gimmick to cut to the front of the line. Her looks reflected an exotic background — almond-shaped eyes, olive skin, generous lips. She was neither petite nor tall — but she was anything but average. In skintight, hip-hugging charcoal jeans, a filmy black, stomach-baring tank top, a cropped leather jacket and impossibly high-heeled boots, she was every bit the woman he'd cook up in his fantasies when his bed seemed particularly cold or empty. And yet, Luke couldn't shake the feeling that, like the women in flapper hats and fishnet stockings, she was playing dress-up.
Just for him. "Why don't you go down and give Craig a hand at the door?" Luke suggested. "I'll watch the cameras."
Mikey arched a brow, but pushed away from the desk nonetheless. Luke had made an odd request, but he was the boss and no one, with the exception of his stepmother, ever questioned his authority. He'd been running a bar in this location for nearly ten years now and no matter what the name or theme, he rarely took over for his surveillance guys unless someone had called in sick.
But not tonight. At this moment, he wanted to be alone to keep an eye on the five-foot-seven-inch package of pure living and breathing feminine power that had squeezed through the crowd near the bar. She'd tantalized him with a bold, spicy scent that somehow overpowered the hot sweat and free-flowing alcohol sizzling through the club. He'd been a bar owner for so long, he'd thought himself immune to such blatant sexuality. He had been immune.
Until her.
He realized then that Mikey had left and closed the door behind him, leaving Luke alone in the cramped surveillance room. He'd added the high-tech gadgetry two years ago after a local police investigation revealed that drugs were being sold in his club, patron to patron. At the time, he'd thought the Brasco family curse had once again caught up with him, that like his mafia-connected (and murdered) grandfather, his no-good, deadbeat absentee father and his convict half brother, he'd be doomed to failure. He'd called in every financial favor he'd ever had to buy the cameras and digital recording devices to keep away the riffraff. And he'd upped the cover charge to not only recoup his losses, but to demand a higher class of clientele. So far, his strategy had kept crime out of the club. But he'd never imagined he'd use the equipment to spy on a woman.
Luke slid into the cracked leather chair, still warm from Mikey's two-hundred-fifty-pound bulk. He shifted, glanced down at the keyboard in front of him and tried to remember how to work the controls. As he fiddled, he glanced up at his mystery woman, determined not to lose sight of her.
The music changed. Slowed. What had been frenetic and quick now turned soulful and hot. He watched her face as she switched gears, at the tiny smile that danced across her generous lips. Her confidence never wavered. She could dance no matter the rhythm, but this way — purposeful, deliberate, intense — she obviously liked best.
This was insane. Desperate and pathetic, even. Luke had dated off and on since his broken engagement — yet another indicator that his genetic makeup doomed him — but he'd always been careful in his selections. He'd played it safe. No blue-eyed brunettes. No sleek, sexy creatures with inherent rhythm in their movements or throaty laughs that sent chills up his spine. No ladies — blond, brunette or redhead — with tattoos.
And no one, absolutely no one, who wanted more than a one-night stand.
But, man, one look at this chick in black and he re-thought his strategy. A woman like her might not be fully enjoyed in a few hours' time. A woman like her might take at least a week or so to savor.
God, he had it bad.
Finally locating the tiny joystick on the edge of the control panel, Luke manipulated the image on the screen until he'd zoomed in on her. The security cameras, in vivid yet slightly grainy color, emphasized how she'd immersed herself completely in the music, a sensual dance-club tune with equal parts provocative lyrics to incendiary background moaning. The entire dance floor writhed with bodies simulating sexual plea-sure — shoulders rolling, hips swinging, pressing torsos in full contact — until nothing kept them from doing the deed on the dance floor except the clothes they wore. And yet, Luke's mystery woman remained front and center, even though she danced alone.
Luke pushed back on the wheeled chair, stood and headed toward the door. Clearly he'd lost his mind. She wasn't anything special. She was probably just some oversexed chick shopping the prime cuts, looking for some hot body to pick up, take home and screw all night without asking his name.
He'd seen the type a thousand times.
Of course, he preferred women without expectations — women who wanted no semblance of a relationship that might threaten his carefully ordered life. He'd learned his lesson with Cecily, his ex-fiancée. He'd let her in and look how that had turned out.
But this one...
Luke returned to the control station. "Who are you?" he asked the image on the screen. "And why can't I take my eyes off you?"
Her gaze flashed up at the camera, as if she'd heard, as if she could stare right through the lens straight into his eyes. Her lashes dropped to half-mast and her mouth curved into a smile that promised more than any man could possibly resist.
From below, the music pounded. The bass beat thrummed off the soundproof walls, vibrated through the steel girders and injected directly into Luke's bloodstream. With slowness borne out of keen precision, she lifted her arms, taking her time, inching her hands up her thighs, across her hips, over her slim belly where she flicked the tiny ring of gold glittering at her navel.
Luke's midsection tensed and then the tightness quickly shot downward. He shifted in his seat, and after a glance toward the door, decided that fighting the inevitable wasn't worth the effort.
He surrendered, transfixed, enraptured, unable to remember the last time he'd indulged in something so wicked, so indulgent, as watching this woman dance. She eased her touch up her rib cage, splayed her palms over her breasts, then stroked higher, up her neck until she speared the fingers of one hand through her hair and allowed the other one to drift down her face so that her diamond-accented pinkie smeared the glossy red color she wore on her lips.
The distinct shade that would leave evidence on a certain body part.
Only when his lungs ached did Luke realize he wasn't breathing. The pace of the song picked up and she responded, slashing her hair across her face. She turned to some guy who'd invaded her space. She didn't hesitate for an instant, but pressed her body boldly against him.
The interloper instantly grabbed her hips. Luke stood.
The jerk clutched her ass.
Luke shot out the door.
By the time he raced down two flights of stairs and burst through the crowd, he found the offender — knees on the dance floor, eyes red and watery — clutching his groin.
Luke grinned. He liked this girl.
But when he looked up and around, he couldn't find her.
He pushed toward the bar. "Gloria!" he commanded.
His stepmother sauntered over, shouting out the punch line to one of her signature dirty jokes as she moved. The end of the bar where she'd been holding court erupted in laughter, bringing a naughty twinkle to her inscrutable onyx eyes.
"Whatcha need, Luke?"
"Did you see the girl on the dance floor? Black hair? Black tank top? Leather jacket? Tight jeans and roach killer boots?"
"You just described twenty percent of your female patrons."
Luke glanced around. How wrong his stepmother was. "This one you would have noticed."
Gloria shrugged and patted her perfectly coiffed, blond-streaked hair. "They're all a dime a dozen," she said, leaning across the bar so as to not insult any of the paying customers.
"No. She's different."
Gloria arched a brow and Luke realized his mistake. Since his father had married the former Broadway dancer when Luke had been six years old, Gloria D'Angelino Brasco had never acted much like a stepmother, except, perhaps, in the Cinderella sense. Sure, she'd given him lunch money when he reminded her and she'd made sure he left the apartment in time to meet his school bus, but otherwise, Gloria's interests in Luke and his half brother, Marcus, had remained cursory until they'd grown into men. Once they could drink together, cuss together and watch R-rated movies together, they'd all become buddies. When he'd opened his first club at this location over ten years ago, she'd fronted him some of the money from the stash his father had left after his disappearance. She'd also worked the hostess stand, waited tables and eventually, ended up behind the bar. What she rarely did was get involved in his love life — at least, not in a positive way. In her estimation, no woman was good enough for him or her biological son, Marcus, whose love life wasn't anyone's concern now that he was doing time in federal prison.
