Waking Up to You: Overexposed (29 page)

But she wanted their relationship to remain entirely between them. Meaning he couldn’t single her out, couldn’t grab her hand in public, couldn’t ask her to do so much as walk across the street with him.

“This is gonna suck,” he muttered aloud as he reached the restaurant. He had no idea how long he’d be able to maintain this secret, nighttime-only relationship with Izzie.

He only hoped she’d change her mind. That she’d realize she didn’t have to give up
herself
to become part of a relationship with him.

A relationship. Yeah. He wanted one. He was falling for her in a big way, just as he’d suspected he could when he’d seen her looking so bored and aloof on the other side of Santori’s all those weeks ago.

It was pretty ironic, really. He was starting to think he really could have found the perfect woman. He was already falling in love with her. And a union between them would absolutely delight everyone in both their families.

But Izzie didn’t want one.

“Women,” he muttered as he pushed into the restaurant.

His brother Tony, who’d been standing right inside the door, greeted him with a clap on the back. “Can’t live with ’em...but they’re sure as hell better than living alone.”

As usual, his larger-than-life older brother coaxed a smile out of him.

Fridays were usually busy at Santori’s, so the day flew by quickly. And, as usual, the rest of his family started drifting in after their workdays had ended. By eight o’clock, all of his brothers were here with their wives and kids, as was his sister, along with her new husband. Those two were cuddling like the newlyweds they were. Though he’d been skeptical, given what he knew about Simon Lebeaux’s shady past, even Nick had to admit the two of them were obviously crazy about each other.

Besides, if Lebeaux could put up with his mouthy little sister, he had to be one hell of a strong man.

“Come on, take a load off,” Mark said to Nick as he emerged from the kitchen, where he’d been helping his father.

“Yeah, I guess my slave-driver boss will let me knock off now,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder at Tony, who stood in the swinging doorway.

“Not boss...partner,” his brother reminded him with a grin.

Uh, no. Not in Nick’s opinion. But he still hadn’t wanted to have that conversation.

His siblings and their families took up several tables in the restaurant—tables that would probably have been appreciated by the paying customers lining up near the front counter. But Mama would never dream of shooing them out to free up the space. She clucked around, ordering them all to eat, cooing over the grandbabies and beaming when Noelle, Mark’s wife, offered to let her feel the baby kicking in her stomach.

In Nick’s opinion, that was
Twilight Zone
stuff. But
all
the women got into it, and Mark looked like he thought it was the coolest thing since Optimus Prime and the Transformers. Nick, however, was freaked by the very idea. The only thing he wanted to feel moving around inside a woman was his own cock. A baby? Forget it.

Unless the woman was Izzie.

The thought was crazy—bothersome, even. But it wouldn’t leave his head.

“Hey, look who’s here,” Gloria called, waving toward the front door. “My baby sister! How you doin’, Iz?”

Nick immediately swung around, seeing Izzie at the counter.

“Ah, Isabella, you haven’t been to see me too much. What’s wrong with you, eh?” Mama said as she bustled over. She cupped Izzie’s face in her hands, pressing a kiss on her forehead, then grabbed her arm and dragged her over.

Smacking Lucas on the shoulder, she said, “Move over and make room for Gloria’s little sister.”

“Yes, ma’am,” his older brother said with a grin. Luke was the next oldest above Nick and Mark and, as a prosecutor, was used to ordering other people around. But, like all of them, he couldn’t refuse a command from their bossy mother.

“How’s everything, Iz?” he asked as he stood and moved his chair out of the way. “You remember Rachel, right?”

Izzie nodded, smiling at Luke’s pretty blonde wife, the only fair-haired one of the bunch. A die-hard Southerner, she’d somehow made herself fit in so well that Nick couldn’t imagine what the family would be like without her.

Fortunately, the room Mama had forced Luke to make was between his chair and Nick’s. Rosa Santori stole an unused chair from a nearby table and slid it in place, nearly pushing Izzie down onto it. Which had Nick ready to kiss his mother’s hand, even though Izzie looked less than happy.

“I was just picking something up for dinner on the way home from work,” she said, sounding almost dazed at how quickly she’d been shanghaied into a family dinner.

He understood the feeling. His mother was a powerhouse.

“Such a silly girl,” Mama said. “You will eat here, with the family. You’re one of us!” Trying to squeeze past her to get back to the kitchen, Mama said, “Scooch over a bit, eh?” and she pushed on Izzie’s chair until it was so close to Nick’s their thighs touched under the table.

Nick would lay money that his mother had done it on purpose. When he saw the smirk on her face as she left to check on dinner, he knew it was true.

Everyone wanted them to hook up.
If only they knew...

“Hey,
Isabella,
” he whispered from the side of his mouth.

She kicked him under the table.

“So, how do you like being back in Chi-town, Izzie?” his brother Joe asked. “Guess it’s pretty tame and unexciting after your life in New York. You must really need a creative outlet.”

There was a surprising twinkle in Joe’s eye. As he and Izzie exchanged a long stare, Nick began to have a suspicion that Joe knew a little more than he’d let on about Izzie’s nighttime life. Remembering the way Joe had steered him toward the job, and had been so adamant about Nick taking care of the “featured dancer” at Leather and Lace, he had to wonder if Joe had seen Izzie there during the renovations.

“It’s okay,” Izzie replied. Smiling, she added, “I’m just busy trying to avoid resuming my cannoli addiction. They’re my absolute weakness.”

Everyone at the table laughed. Except Nick. Because there’d been a sultry purr in her voice and he believed she’d been speaking only to him.

When he felt her hand—concealed by the red-and-white-checked tablecloth—drop onto his leg, he was sure of it.

There was something really hot about having a woman you were supposed to just be casually friends with feel you up under a dinner table. Especially when that table was filled with curious family members who would love to see any sign of interest between the only two singles there.

Izzie was careful. So they definitely didn’t see her hand creep up his leg to trace the outline of his dick. That, he assumed, would be taken as a definite sign of interest.

He was going to make the woman pay for her sensual torment. Right now, however, he was enjoying it too much to try slipping his hand down to beat her at her own game.

The conversation soon resumed, Izzie falling into it as if she’d never been away. She traded barbs with his brothers, reminisced with his sister Lottie about their school days.

She fit. She just fit. Like a normal neighborhood girl.

But no normal neighborhood girl he knew would be working Nick’s zipper down, reaching in and pulling him free of his trousers. She definitely wouldn’t be brushing the tips of her wicked fingers across his cock, arousing him until he hardened into her hand.

This was incredibly dangerous. If someone dropped a fork and bent over to get it, they’d get an eyeful.

But Nick didn’t give a damn. Maybe he and Izzie couldn’t be the “normal” couple the neighborhood would like to see. Somehow, though, this was
better.
Having an erotic secret...and acting on that secret in public where they could be exposed, was mind-blowing.

It made him hot. It made him desperate.

It made him finish his dinner quickly and declare himself so tired he had to call it a night.

And thankfully, Izzie found an excuse of her own, followed him out the door and led him to her place for another long night of the wildest sex he’d ever had.

9

“H
OW
ARE
YOU
FEELING
, Rose? All better?” Holding the back door of Leather and Lace open for her early Saturday evening, Harry watched her closely, as if worried she wasn’t up to dancing tonight.

Izzie had to stop for a moment to wonder why. Then she remembered.
Crap.
She’d called in sick the previous Sunday night. Probably really leaving him in the lurch.

“I’m fine, Harry,” she said as she walked past him into the building, watching him shut and lock the door behind her. Security had improved around here ever since Nick had been hired. “I am so sorry about last Sunday night.”

Harry waved an unconcerned hand. “Hey, don’t worry about it, something wicked had to be going around for three of you to get knocked on your butts.”

“
Three
of us?”

Harry nodded. “Leah got sick Saturday night.”

“I remember.”

“She came back in Sunday evening, was here for two hours, got sick all over again and had to leave. So did Jackie.”

Jackie was Leah’s dressing roommate. Whatever was going around had obviously nailed both of them.

Izzie was about to open her mouth to confess that she really had not been sick—just cowardly. But before she could do it, the back door was unlocked from the outside and opened again. She knew before she even saw him that Nick had arrived.

She recognized his warm, masculine scent. And her nipples got hard. Oh, yeah, it was definitely Nick.

His gaze immediately went to her, hot and appreciative. She’d had to leave his bed early this morning to go to work at the bakery. But right before she’d gone, he’d whispered how much he looked forward to seeing her tonight in her dressing room...which now, he’d made sure last weekend, had a lock.

She’d shivered all day, thinking of that first night he’d been in there, when he’d seen her naked reflection.
Mmm.

“Nick,” Harry said with a nod. He looked back and forth between the two of them. “No more mask, Rose?”

Smiling, she shook her head. “I’ve decided I trust him.”

Nick returned the smile, the two of them sharing a silent intimacy that excluded Harry, though he stood right beside them. Finally, though, Nick broke the stare and addressed their boss. “Everything looking okay so far?”

Harry nodded. “Been kind of a quiet week. Last night was the slowest Friday we’ve had in a while.” Glancing at Izzie, he added, “But I bet the crowd will be roaring back to see you.”

“Are you short-staffed again?” she asked, wondering if Harry would need her to dance an extra set.

He shook his head. “Everybody’s here, sound and healthy.”

“What do you mean?” Nick asked, a frown furrowing his brow.

Harry began to explain about the sick dancers, which made Izzie feel guilty again. Especially when he groaned over how hard it had been to tell Delilah, his “retired” wife, that she wasn’t in shape to go on in their place. Oy. She wouldn’t have wanted to see the redhead’s expression during that conversation.

Something else she didn’t want to do was have to look Nick in the eye and admit she’d called in sick rather than face him last weekend. She figured he knew that much, but didn’t particularly feel the need to confirm it.

Excusing herself, she headed to her dressing room. The door wasn’t locked, but she immediately noticed the deadbolt, which had not been there the previous weekend.

“You sneaky man,” she whispered with a smile as she dropped her purse and keys on the vanity. She could think of several wicked ways Nick could help her kill time between her numbers.

Of course, being the hard-ass guy he was when on the job, she suspected he might resist her. That was okay. Izzie had found she was pretty good at working around his resistance.

Having stood most of the day at work, she wanted to relax before going onstage. Kicking her shoes off her feet, she pulled her chair out from under the makeup vanity and sat down at it.

She immediately heard a cracking sound, but didn’t register what it was until the chair broke apart beneath her, sending her crashing to the floor. “Son of a bitch,” she snapped as she lay still on the tile. The back of her head had scraped the concrete block wall on the other side as she’d fallen. She rubbed at it, shocked to see a few flecks of fresh blood on her fingertips.

“Izzie? Are you all right? What was that noise?” Nick asked as he burst into the room.

He swung the door open so hard he almost hit her with it. An inch closer and she would have taken a flat piece of oak square in the face.

“Oh, my God.” He immediately dropped into a squat beside her. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s okay,” she insisted, slowly sitting up.

He put his hand under her arm to help her. “What happened?”

“My chair broke,” she admitted, almost embarrassed about it. She’d never fully gotten over that chubby-girl terror of breaking a chair in public.

“Is that blood on your fingers?” he asked, his voice so taut it almost snapped.

She lifted it to the back of her head again. “Yeah, I scraped my head on the wall when I fell.”

“You need to go to the hospital.” He rose and tugged her up, too. “Come on, I’ll take you right now.”

“No, Nick, I don’t. I didn’t bang my head, I promise. I just scratched it on the way down.”

He frowned, obviously not believing her.

“Check and see for yourself. I swear, it’s nothing but a scratch.” She turned around, tilting her head back so he could see the spot where the blood had come from.

Nick gently pushed her hair out of the way. Izzie watched him in the mirror, seeing the frantic expression on his handsome face. And the way his jaw clenched as he tenderly examined her.

He was worried about her. Truly afraid for her.

“See?” she asked softly.

“Looks like a scratch,” he admitted.

“Good.”

“But that doesn’t mean you’re not hurt anywhere else. God, Izzie, what the hell happened?”

She gestured toward the remains of the chair, in pieces at her feet. “It fell apart as soon as I sat on it.” Glaring at him, she added, “No big butt jokes.”

He rolled his eyes. “As if.” Stepping away, he ran his hands up and down her arms. “You’re sure you’re not hurt anywhere else?”

She was hurt elsewhere. Her hip was killing her from where she’d banged on the floor. But thankfully, she hadn’t landed on her bum knee. “I’m okay.”

Nick shook his head, muttering something, then bent down to examine the pieces of the chair. It was a sturdy rolling one that easily slid around when Izzie needed to reach something on the vanity. But it had fallen apart into several pieces.

“This doesn’t make any damn sense.” His tone was curt, all business now. “How could it just fall apart like that?”

“I have no clue. Maybe it was just defective.”

Nick didn’t even look up. He was poking around in the pile, picking up a couple of screws and staring at them hard.

“Rose? Nick? Is everything okay? Somebody heard a crash.”

Glancing at the door, she saw Harry Black, and, right behind him, one of the bouncers. They both stared wide-eyed from her, down to Nick and the broken chair.

“Are you okay, honey?” Harry asked.

“Can I help you up?” the bouncer, Bernie, her self- appointed watchdog, asked.

“I’m fine. Just a little mishap.”

“She could have been badly hurt,” Nick barked.

“But I wasn’t,” she murmured, trying to calm all three down. If Nick was like a protective lion, Harry was like a fatherly teddy bear. And Bernie was like a big grizzly somebody had poked with a stick. They all looked equally upset.

“It’s okay, I swear. Just an accident. Now, if you don’t mind, Harry, could you find me another chair? I need to get ready to go on.” The older man nodded and backed out of the door, taking Bernie with him.

Glancing at Nick, she added, “You need to get to work, too, making sure everything is safe and secure for me to perform.”

He slowly rose, his eyes locked on hers. “Are you really worried about something, or are you trying to get rid of me?”

Izzie offered him a cocky grin, put her hand on his chest and pushed him toward the door. “I’m trying to get rid of you. I have to be onstage in an hour, and with you in here oozing all that hot man stuff, I’m going to be tempted to test that lock and seduce you.”

His eyes twinkled. But his frown remained. “You’re not going to seduce me into forgetting you could have been hurt.”

“And you’re not going to bully me into forgetting I have a job to do.”

He reached up and cupped her cheek. Izzie couldn’t help curling into his hand, loving the roughness of his skin against her own. “I would never bully you into doing anything, Izzie.”

They hadn’t yet talked about her job. They’d officially been secret lovers for two wild, passion-filled nights, and she hadn’t had a chance to even ask him if he was going to have some kind of macho problem with her dancing. Now he’d opened the door for the question.

“Are you going to be all right upstairs, watching me?”

He brushed his thumb over her jaw. “I love watching you.”

Nibbling on his finger, she murmured, “I meant, will you be okay watching everyone else watch me?”

His jaw stiffened and his dark eyes flashed. But he didn’t pull away. Instead, he drew closer, tipping her head back so sweetly, so tenderly, she knew he was still worried she could be hurt. “Izzie, I can’t promise anything because I haven’t experienced it yet. But I can tell you this...I know and want the real you...both sides of you. The Rose and the woman you become when you walk out of this place every Sunday night. I’m in this with
both
of you.”

Without saying anything more, he bent down and covered her mouth with his, kissing her sweetly and tenderly. Then, with one more brush of his hand on her face, he turned and walked out.

* * *

A
S
IT
TURNED
OUT
, Nick did not have to test himself to see how he’d handle watching Izzie strip for other men. Because before she ever went onstage, Nick was forced to deal with a couple of punks who didn’t understand the rules of a place as upscale as this one. One of them had made a move on a waitress, another had lunged at a dancer. Nick and Bernie plucked the guys up and dragged them out the front door, where, high on liquid courage, they’d both tried to put up a fight.

Maybe it was the residual anger he’d felt at seeing the blood on Izzie’s fingertips. Or maybe it was the rage that flooded his head at the thought that it could have been Izzie the prick had grabbed, but as soon as the guy threw the first punch, Nick reacted harshly.

He’d had a few fights in his day, both before his military days and during them. And it was painfully easy to take down a drunk. The fight was over almost immediately after it had begun. Bernie dispatched of the drunk’s friend just as quickly and the two of them nodded to each other in appreciation for the backup.

“Thanks, man,” Bernie said.

“Not a problem.”

Bernie shook the bleary patron. “I think this is the same prick who grabbed Rose a month ago.”

Nick’s jaw went rock hard. If the man hadn’t already been in Bernie’s firm grip, he might have found a reason to throw another punch. But he was a fair fighter and wouldn’t do something so out of bounds.

Unless the guy got free...then all was fair.

The guy didn’t get free, Bernie had a tight grip and had begun chewing him out for harassing Rose. That incident had obviously been a more serious one than Nick had been led to believe, because Bernie hadn’t forgotten a moment of it.

Because things had gotten physical, Nick decided to cover his own ass as well as the bouncer’s and the club’s, and called the police. He wanted this thing on record, now, when there were plenty of witnesses who’d seen both the assault on the female workers inside, and the provocation in the parking lot.

It was just his bad luck that Mark heard the call to Leather and Lace and decided to respond. Nick saw his brother get out of his unmarked car and saunter over, smiling widely. “Get in a fight without me?”

“Just doing my job,” Nick replied, trying to figure out a way to get Mark to leave without going inside the club. If he was on duty, it wouldn’t have been an issue—his brother was too good a cop to go inside a strip club while on duty. But he knew Mark’s hours. No way was he working this late on a Saturday. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I heard it on the scanner. Noelle was already in bed—that woman goes to sleep by eight every night now. So I thought I’d head on over and see if you were okay.”

“You know this guy?” one of the officers asked.

“My baby brother,” Mark replied, his dimples flashing.

“By ten minutes,” Nick said, shaking his head.

It took about an hour to clear up matters outside. Nick had stayed near the entrance, far from the stage, but he’d gotten reports from the bouncers about what was going on inside. So he knew when Izzie had performed...and when she was finished.

She’d done her first number and wouldn’t be back on for at least an hour or two. Long enough to get rid of his brother.

“Come on, let me buy you a beer,” Mark said once the last of the police cars pulled away.

“I’m working.”

“Okay, then you buy me a beer.” Not taking no for an answer, he threw his arm across Nick’s shoulder and tugged him into the club. “Come on, I’ve never been in this place.”

“Noelle probably wouldn’t like it.”

“I’m visiting my twin at work. No harm in that, is there?”

“Depends on whether you visited me blindfolded.”

“I’ll keep my back to the stage,” Mark said. “Seriously, we haven’t talked in weeks. I know something’s going on with you.”

His twin was right. They had been...disconnected. Not just because of what had been going on with Nick and Izzie, but also because his brother was about to become a father. Mark had changed. He had different priorities, talked a different language, looked at the world a different way.

Noelle and their baby were his family now. Oh, sure, he loved the rest of the Santoris, but he’d crossed that threshold from son and brother to husband and father.