It took an extra minute to dig through my luggage and find my best club clothes, wrinkling my nose at the faint lingering odd smell, but when I looked in the mirror after getting dressed…yeah, totally worth it. The jeans I’d shimmied into fit me like a second skin, super thin Italian denim that made my ass look round and bitable. And the gray V-neck T-shirt could’ve come off a Parisian runway. Actually, it had, now that I thought about it. Tight, nearly transparent, and perfectly cut.
I tilted my head and batted my lashes at myself. I was all icy-blue eyes, collarbones, and legs. Perfect.
Too bad I hadn’t packed any eyeliner. I could give the motherfucker a heart attack.
As I sashayed out of my room and into the hallway, I was grinning. For the first time since Brook had dropped his “our father’s not a real alpha” bomb on the family and cut off the flow of company money, I was actually havingfun.
Malicious, petty fun that would almost undoubtedly have disastrous consequences, and indulged at the worst possible time.
But that was the best kind, wasn’t it?
MacKenna stood by the window at the far end of the main room of the suite when I emerged from the hall, staring out at the Strip and sipping something from a rocks glass, suit jacket shed on a chair nearby and sleeves rolled up again to show those tattoos. Whiskey, it looked like he was having, and that was the faint scent I picked up, too. The table already held a selection of covered dishes emitting tantalizing smells, but it didn’t look like he’d touched anything yet.
Waiting for me? So that we could, what, have an intimate meal together?
Fucking hell. I’d rather skip straight to getting fucked.
My grin fell away. Just as well, since I didn’t want him to see it in any case, and he could probably catch a faint reflection of me in the window.
Strike that. He definitely had, becauseIcould catch a faint reflection ofhim, and he’d gone very still, eyes fixed on—me. A second later he turned his head abruptly and took a deep swig of his drink, nearly draining it.
Yep. Score one for my slut clothes.
Suddenly dinner didn’t sound quite so bad after all. Fuck him. He wanted to accuse me of assaulting his precious Walter out of nowhere, call me a liar when I defended myself, and lock me in my bedroom when he didn’t have a use for me? I could make his life difficult too, damn it all.
“I’m hungry,” I said, in a tone that implied I wanted more than food. “Is it dinner time?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat before turning around. “Yeah, it’s dinner time. They’ll clear your dishes from earlier when they take this stuff away in a while.”
That was such a random thought, not at all something I’d have imagined he’d consider—I mean, wasn’t one of the perks of living in a suite in your own hotel not having to think about the logistics of dishes getting cleared?—that it had to be…his version of being flustered.
I’d flustered him.
Putting a bit of sway in my hips (and I’d never admit that I was imitating that slutty waiter) as I crossed the room to the table didn’t come all that naturally; I wasn’t used to using my body to attract men, and women didn’t generally go for that kind of display. But MacKenna got visibly tenser as I got nearer, and as I sat and smiled up at him.
He took his own seat stiffly, clearing his throat again and abandoning his whiskey in favor of pouring a generous glass of the red wine sitting open on the table, picking it up and taking a drink of it immediately.
“Hard day at work?” I asked him. I even managed to sound sweetly sympathetic.
MacKenna choked, coughed, and put the glass down, shaking his head. “What?” he gasped. “Did I—what?”
“You seem tense.” I kept my tone soothing and gentle, even though confining the malicious laughter in my chest had started to be a struggle. “Maybe I can help you relax.”
And then I winked.
And MacKenna choked again, eyes going wide.
Without further comment, I started lifting the covers off the plates. I’d done enough for now. I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face if I kept it up.
While he gulped more of his wine, I revealed two steaks and sides, a couple of salads, and one single slice of cheesecake.
Okay, so I could keep a straight face for another round if I really had to.
I glanced up at him with my head tipped down, giving him the full benefit of an exaggeratedly sultry gaze through my lashes. “Oh, are we sharing dessert? That’s so sweet.”
MacKenna picked up his fork, his white-knuckled grip suggesting that it might be ending up in my neck instead of his potatoes.
“What the fuck are you playing at?” he growled. “Whatever it is, it isn’t going to work. And the cheesecake’s for you. I don’t really have a sweet tooth. For you, or cheesecake. Fuck.”
