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  Papa Fox wants hens as insurance now.

  Meet at the gate by 7.

  So much for the rest of his hard-on. A strange recognition followed. While the update pushed one concern off his shoulders, another replaced it. The blatant details of Wyst’s message proved Shay’s cover story was still rock solid but also revealed their target wasn’t an empty airliner anymore. Papa Fox wants hens as insurance.

  Hell.

  The burglary had turned into a hijack.

  Shay glowered at his cola on the bar. He was tempted to shove the drink back and demand something stronger but didn’t. Watching Dad pickle his liver into an early death, as well as Tait’s temporary surrender to the bottle after losing Luna, guided him to pick and choose his dance cards with Mistress Booze.

  Besides, Ellie and Brynn seemed determined to use the cards for everyone in the room.

  “Ellliiee! Wake uhhh-hup. Hunk-of-hotness is off his phone and looks like he’s gonna punish us for getting so turpsy. I mean tits-bees. I mean tipsy.”

  Shay held back from huffing again. At any other time the girls’ antics would’ve coaxed him into an indulgent chuckle, but he couldn’t shake off tonight’s tension. The feeling turned into a freak case of Papa Bear syndrome. The hijack wasn’t set to go down for another ten hours, but he couldn’t stand thinking of the pair, embracing life with such mindless happiness, to be anywhere near this airport when it did.

  “No,” he told Brynn. “I’m feeling benevolent tonight. No punishments for you two. Let’s just get you both on a shuttle back to the hotel, and—”

  “Thank you, but they’re okay.”

  The soft dictate didn’t come from Brynn. It sure as hell didn’t come from Ellie, who giggled in her sleep and then started snoring. Then who…?

  Shay stared at a third woman who’d broken free of the estrogen pack in the corner. Damn. How’d he gotten so distracted that he stopped focusing on his surroundings? Clumsy shit like that landed guys like him at the wrong end of blades or bullets.

  Especially if they were wielded by a beauty like her.

  Holy fuck.

  But so what if she were here to kill him? He almost prayed for it. With her face as his last sight before the other side, Hades wouldn’t feel like a penance for the messy turns of his life. Seven years in Special Forces, taking more lives than a man should be comfortable with. Relationships that had ended with even worse carnage. A fucked-up obsession with honor and protectiveness, learned entirely from characters in the movies he’d sneaked into rather than doing homework, likely meaning he had no concept of the shit at all.

  But in this moment, he yearned to. Practically craved it as he soaked up her heart-shaped face with its bow of a mouth, along with thick-lashed eyes framing irises that entranced him like skies on the verge of wild storms. Her nose wasn’t a petite cliché and was decorated with a sapphire stud that matched her gaze. The same navy blue color adorned the ends of her hair—holy God, what hair—its near-black waves tumbling down her back despite her efforts to contain it in a loose braid.

  She was otherworldly. Ethereal. He felt like a knuckle-dragging ape in comparison, especially because words still eluded him.

  Finding his tongue didn’t get easier when the woman bent to help Ellie, giving a view of her cleavage that banged another wake-up call for his cock. She’d never be a curvy pin-up star, but what she had was tight and firm. Two ideal handfuls.

  “El,” she murmured to her friend. When the woman only snored louder and pushed her away, she resorted to a full yell. “Ellie. Ay. Come on; you can’t do this. Let’s go back to the hotel, corazón, where you can sleep it off.”

  “Looks like Ellie’s one step ahead of you, beautiful.”

  Her eyes widened when he slipped in the endearment. Through the moment after that, he basked in the searing paradise of her appraisal of him. He lifted his gaze, answering her heat signal with a return beacon of his own. Thank God the messages were comprised of raw sexual attraction, undetectable by the spooks’ radio chatter experts. If that were possible, the guys in the control room would interpret the exchange as a plot to blow something up. Not that exploding something here was such a bad idea…

  Her scowl threw a soaked blanket on his illicit thoughts. “Look, Mr.…uh…”

  “Burnett.” The cover name rolled out easily. Six months of regular usage came in handy. “Shane Burnett. But please make it Shane.” And please say it in your sweet, spicy accent, too.

  Brynn tittered again. “If you bellow something like ‘only my father’s called Mr. Burnett,’ I’ll die.” She used an exaggerated baritone for the middle portion.

  “Good news.” He smirked a little. “Nobody will be writing your obit tonight.” He’d called his father many things over the years, but nothing resembling the respectful address. Tait had actually tried it once and had been whacked into the wall for being a cheeky jokester.

  “Well,” said the newest arrival to their exchange, tugging on a blue-tipped strand of hair. “Muchas gracias for that, at least. Now what do we do about El?” She shifted her fingers to the ends of a tie-dyed scarf, seeming lost. Shay took advantage of the chance to scoot closer. The top of her head barely came to his armpit. Once more, he fought the sensation of feeling like an ape next to a butterfly. No. It sounded better in the language her accent hinted at. An exquisite mariposa.

  “Ladies.” He tagged it with another smile, relishing the chance to bury the ugliness of tomorrow beneath tonight’s courtly façade. “Perhaps I can be of service.”

  The two women stared as if he’d really turned into a giant chimp. Was that a good or bad thing?

  “Holy shit,” Brynn finally blurted. “Maybe I really will just die—but only if you’re waiting on the other side, Mr. Shane Burnett.”

  Okay, a good thing. He breathed easier. Until the mariposa stepped forward again.

  “We’re grateful for the offer,” she stated, “but we’ll manage everything fine. Have a good evening.”

  At least Brynn was still on his side. She glared at her friend, grunting with impressive force. “Zoe Margarita Madonna Chestain,” she snapped. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Besides that you’re loving an excuse to babble my full name?” The woman kicked up one side of her mouth. Part of Shay’s gut followed suit, kicking to life at her mirth. The way it made her eyes shimmer no longer aroused his body alone. She really was an exotic anomaly, intriguing him deeper by the minute. He yearned to see her face come alive with a thousand more expressions. How did she look when she laughed? Cried? Or parted those curvy, sweet lips on a long, breathy orgasm…

  “You deserve every pissed syllable,” Brynn fumed. “What’s wrong with you, spewing with the ’tude when the world’s last chunk of chivalry is standing here in that suit, offering us the aid of those arms?”

  Zoe Margarita Madonna Chestain had the grace to blush. She lifted her gaze to his. “I’m sorry, Mr. Burnett. It’s been a long day. We had performances at all ends of the city today, and we’re a little tired.”

  He swung a glance toward her snoring friend. “Never would’ve guessed.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude—”

  “Then don’t be.” He made good use of the interruption. Before she could speak again, he stepped over, slid a gentle grip around Ellie, and then pulled her off the barstool and into his arms.

  “Lucky bitch,” Brynn muttered. “And she won’t even remember it in the morning. Irony is such a douchebag.”

  The woman’s drunken giggle wasn’t shared by her friend. Zoe was glaringly sober, verified by the half-drained water glass on the table near the purse she grabbed—and her taut expression while doing so. Shay weathered another twinge to his gut—and a fresh surge of blood to his groin. Deduction dictated she was a dancer. Every move she made flowed into the next, never giving his attention respite from her supple muscles and well-trained grace. Damn. She was probably flexible as shit too.

  Fine. He was attracted to her. A lot. Th
at still didn’t explain the “twinge.” He mentally backtracked the feeling. He’d first weathered it when realizing he’d ticked her off with his boldness. Not normal shit. Since when did he care about irking anyone other than Tait, his CO, and lately, Cameron Stock? Indulging in “caring” meant a sacrifice of focus.

  Nope. Not normal. Not acceptable, either.

  Which was why he now smiled at her, trying to be a gentleman and smooth her ruffled feathers?

  Forget unacceptable. He’d moved straight on to surreal. The shit wasn’t helped by his fascination with her peregrine beauty. She treated him to an unguarded moment of it while gathering her friends’ purses, letting him stare his fill of her huge midnight eyes and temptress’s lips.

  All too quickly, she cast her gaze back down.

  Just like a flawlessly trained submissive.

  Goodbye, surreal. Hello, torture.

  This isn’t the time for dungeon fantasies, asshole. Tame your dick and focus your mind.

  “The Hilton runs regular shuttles to the outside curb,” Zoe told him after she walked back over. “At least I hope they do now.”

  Brynn answered the quizzical stare he threw to both of them. “Their shittle—err, shuttle—van was all broken when we called for it a couple of hours ago.” She turned her hands up, fingers splayed like a little girl. “And we’re all in heels. And it was after dark. And the hotel’s, like, a bunch of blocks away. A drink sounded good, and they told us the fix time wouldn’t be more than an hour.”

  “Which was two hours ago?” Shay couldn’t help a wry laugh after Brynn answered with a sheepish nod. In all seriousness, he wondered if their hot-ass Vegas show company had considered hiring a bodyguard to travel with these girls. If any of them were his woman, he’d be demanding it.

  Zoe’s heavy sigh broke into his speculation. “Let me call them again. Maybe they took down my number wrong, or—”

  “Fed you a line just to get you off their backs,” Shay interjected.

  She yanked up her chin. Little sparks appeared in her eyes, tantalizing cobalt against the deep blue. “Which means what?”

  So much for not irking her again. Fine by him. He was a little rankled himself now, largely from how cavalier she—and her half-wasted friends—were about their own welfare. “It means they’re likely not going to pick up even if you do call, Miss Chestain.”

  Her lips twisted. She’d obviously expected what he said but didn’t like it. “Fine. Then we’ll just take a cab.”

  “Bet your ass we will.”

  “We?”

  He repeated the brow-jerking thing before glancing to her friend still totally toasted in his arms. “So you’re saying you can handle all of this yourself, tiny dancer?”

  The stubborn woman tightened her pout. “Look…Mr. Burnett…”

  “Let’s go. The taxi queue is this way.”

  Chapter Two

  Damn it.

  Zoe almost spat the words aloud, despite risking another heart-halting “look” from Mr. Shane Burnett. She could ignore her animal-level attraction to everything else about the man—his thick chestnut hair, sinful gold eyes, model-perfect jaw, and linebacker-wide shoulders—but when he turned on the look, something strange happened to her bloodstream.

  Strange. And magical. And terrifying.

  It had been a long time since she’d had some scary magic in her life.

  Too long to be projecting such feelings onto a stranger in an airport bar.

  She’d first seen him use “the look” on his phone, glowering at the thing as if willing the texts on it into submission. He’d likely succeeded too. God knew how her knees went weak, surrendering to the heat that flowed between them and the most tender folds of her body, from just watching him. Caramba, the man was all her favorite flavors, and none of them were vanilla. She would’ve bet her favorite shoes he was a lifestyle Dominant—and imagining him in a Dom’s skintight leathers, holding a flogger in his hand instead of a phone…approaching her across a dungeon with that look on his face…

  Ohhhh, yes.

  Ohhhh, no.

  She couldn’t foster that fantasy again. Ever. The near-disaster with Bryce had taught her that much. Her submissive dreams were doomed to be just that. Dreams. If she had a drop of truly submissive blood in her body, fate had dried it up well before she could do anything about it.

  No, it wasn’t even fate’s fault. When Mom died, Papi had fallen apart. Someone had to take care of Ava, and Zoe was the obvious choice. Maybe the angels had forgotten about her being only eleven years old. She’d been livid with them for a while, of course, but now saw it gave her a stubborn strength she was proud of.

  Most of the time.

  On other occasions, she opted for full retreat. Seemed the easiest route tonight with Mr. Sexy Scowl. She’d gone for duck and cover, sipping her water and checking her phone, praying El and Brynn would get a clue about the man’s polite rebuffs. Before that could happen, Ellie had become Sleeping Beauty on the bar. Then the man himself had gained a name. He was no longer anonymous-fantasy-Dom but Shane Burnett, a businessman with endless patience for her friends, a captivating smile, and a protective streak as huge as the arms in which he now held Ellie.

  And one more “little” thing. A presence that pulled on her like the moon did the tides.

  Which was why she could muster nothing but a prissy huff before following him out of the terminal and into a cab.

  What the hell was she doing? She had to take care of the others, not just El and Brynn, yet she let Burnett load the three of them into the cab. But she was aware, perhaps better than most, that dominant men could also be abusers. Though Burnett directed the driver to the Hilton, what plans did he have for the three of them after he got them to the room? Images blared to mind of tomorrow’s headlines, relaying the news that she, El, and Brynn had been beaten to death by an unknown attacker…

  She shook her head free of the melodrama. Resolve time. She simply wouldn’t let him get past the lobby elevators.

  For the time being, he offered a true favor. El was down for the count, and Brynn was blasted. Handling them by herself really would have been a bitch. The ride was only four blocks, but every inch of it was going to be hell. In all the most tantalizing, torturous ways.

  Zoe realized it the second Burnett slid into the car and closed the door. Even after he unloaded El, letting her head slide down into Zoe’s lap, he seemed to consume the taxi’s back seat. With Brynn opting to grab shotgun in front, Zoe found herself the sole object of the man’s concentration—and he drilled it into her without mercy. Or apology.

  The car’s confines seemed to shrink more. She breathed deep, battling to calm her racing nerves, but wound up drenching her senses with his scent instead. Earthy strength, woodsy spice. An escape to the forest in the middle of Century Boulevard. Wow.

  Time for Plan B. But returning the man’s stare was another failure. Why did he keep studying her like the rest of the world didn’t exist? The neon signs of the airport district whizzed by—Girls on Fire, Strip-A-Rama, Boobalicious Beauties—but the temptations could have been dust mites for how weakly they dragged his attention from her.

  Ohhh, God.

  Wait.

  Maybe he was gay.

  The possibility was such a relief, she smiled for a second. That was all the time he gave her to enjoy the feeling. As he extended his arm along the top of the seat and then dropped two fingers to her nape, the inquiry on his face intensified. His gaze was again a wordless query, seeming to question whether she’d welcome him or shirk him.

  Before she could help it, a long sigh spilled from her lips.

  Burnett’s alluring mouth parted a little. His jaw undulated in quiet assessment, flashing with a small tic of muscle.

  Her whole body zinged with awareness.

  Crap.

  Not gay.

  She scrambled for a logical argument. This was insane. Unreal. Serendipity that only happened in movies, to people who had perfect lives and a
ll the right lines prewritten for them. Not someone like her, who’d made a desastre of her last “relationship” and now must have a tattoo on her forehead, visible to men only. Hit on me; I haven’t had sex in almost a year. People who could summon a drop of moisture to their mouths instead of letting their tongue turn to cotton from the simple press of a man’s fingertips.

  “You’re tense.”

  He murmured it between a couple of El’s snores. Wait. That wasn’t El. It was Brynn, who slumped against the window like she’d pricked her finger on the same enchanted spinning wheel as Ellie.

  Great.

  She pulled in another breath. And was hit by another arousing wave of his fresh forest smell. Vaya, it was nice. Why did a guy in a designer suit smell like he’d just stepped off an alpine hiking trail? Further, why did she sense he’d ditch the suit for the trail in a second? With that jaw, that hair, and those eyes, he was stunning enough to fill one of the Rolex watch ads on the billboards overhead, yet he claimed he was in the airport for business. Now he was stuck in a dingy city cab, in the middle of a freak LA fog bank, with two women who might rouse from their drunken stupors any second just to barf on him—and a third who’d gone dizzy from the effort of resisting his smoke-dark stare.

  She finally managed to answer, “And you, Mr. Burnett, are nearly a stranger.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “A nice one”—he trailed his fingers up the back of her neck—“unless you ask me not to be.”

  There was a rebuff in her brain for that. Somewhere. But as he emphasized his point by sifting his fingers into her hair and pulling by the tiniest degrees, all she could do was gasp. The sound trumpeted what he’d just done to the sensitive nerves between her thighs.

  “Damn,” the man whispered.

  Zoe straightened with a jerk. “What is it?” she demanded. “What’d I do wrong?”

  “Wrong? Not a damn thing, beautiful.” He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “As a matter of fact, if you do things any more right, I’ll be bugging out of the Hilton on three legs.”