being dipped in a vat of hot lava. Now, as she walked away, her nipples rubbed against the lace cups of her scant dress, and the juncture of her thighs burned. For him. For more of what they'd started last night.
God, stop this! she yelled at herself.
She needed her wits about her, more than ever in her life. If what he'd said was true, her safety might depend on it. But more than that, Tina's safety depended on it. Each passing day, it felt as if her sister were slipping a little further away.
And yet, what was foremost in her mind as she strolled from the bar?
She remained caught up in herself, in the lure of sensuality, wondering if her sexy bartender watched the sway of her hips as she walked away. She wanted—more than she'd wanted anything in a long time—to take him by the hand and lead him back to that red room, then lock the
door and forget the rest of the world existed. She wanted to get lost with him in all those lush textures. She wanted to get lost in him.
The insane desire remained as foreign to her as it had been last night, but also as potent. This man moved her in a way no man had before. Even having now remembered back to college, high school, times when she had indeed experienced true passion, she knew this was more than that. It felt almost as if those earlier times had been some kind of an introduction, but that this was the real thing.
And she was walking away from it. For more reasons than she could name.
But the most important reason, at the moment, was finding Tina.
She lectured herself with last night's mantra: sell it. Somehow tonight it was easier. Maybe because she'd figured out after last night that it wasn't going to be as simple as just walking into this den of sin and locating her sister. She had no choice but to be strong now, to figure out how to get these people to open up to her.
As the tropical tequila mix warmed her inside, she thrust out her chest slightly and licked her hps. Somewhere in the room, a man was watching—she could feel a hungry gaze making her skin prickle with awareness. The bartender? Or a piece of prey? That's what she'd decided the other men were. She wanted it to be the bartender watching, but needed it to be some rich man who might know her sister.
As she gazed toward the wide windows spanning two sides of the large corner room, she tried to look sexy and slightly aloof, for a man who enjoyed that little pretended bit of challenge. In her peripheral vision, she found a light-haired guy, handsome, mid-thirties, leering at her.
Prey.
She turned her head slightly, casting a soft glance, then a smile. Sell it.
She held his gaze and licked her Up once more. It was hard as hell to do, but she'd just discovered how. She pretended he was the bartender.
The handsome man wore an Armani suit and a lecherous smile as he moved toward her, closing the gap and stepping too close into her personal space. "What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Stephanie." Her stomach churning, she peered up into eyes filled with arrogance and lust. Pretend he's the man behind the bar, the hot man who nearly seduced you last night. You can do this.
Although as he made small talk with her, he slowly quit being the bartender and became merely a client, another client at another party. Only, just like last evening, she was selling herself instead of an ad campaign. And growing more practiced at it by the second.
"Why haven't I seen you here before, Stephanie?"
She gave her head a coquettish tilt. "Maybe you have and you just don't remember."
He chuckled deeply. "You're not a woman I'd forget." He punctuated the statement by reaching up to run his finger down the thin bra-like strap of her dress until he was nearly touching her breast. Don't panic. She smiled and turned slightly away so that he dropped his hand.
Without planning it, her eyes landed on the bartender— who watched from behind the bar. His look was clearly one of warning and she hoped he could read the defiance
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