“Let’s get out of here before the old lady shows up again and I’ll prove it to you.” Flashing a yellow smile, the brute gave her leg a painful squeeze. She bit her tongue to withhold even an ounce of emotion and casually palmed his jean-covered erection. One second. Two. She counted to three before applying pressure, and watched his complexion pale.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Get your hand off me, you little bitch.”
Eyes wide in mocking innocence, she replied, “Then I suggest you do the same.”
“And now, before you lose it,” came Rafe’s low, menacing growl.
Her admirer turned toward a steel-faced Rafe and went from pale to ashen in a split second. The man’s eyes darted left and right, looking for a route of escape around Rafe’s hulking frame. A dark shadow slipped over Rafe’s face as he leaned into Roberto’s personal space. “Do you know what I do to men who touch what’s mine?”
The man quickly lifted his hands. “I-I didn’t know.”
“Which is the only reason why you still have fucking hands.” Rafe barely spared the man a second glance as he effortlessly plucked Penny off the stool. “With me. Now.”
“Rafe, I—”
“Later.”
He took her hand and linked their fingers, guiding her to the back of the bar. His pace was brisk, only slowing to return the occasional nod or knowing smile to a passing customer. No doubt they thought he was taking her somewhere to screw her senseless, and he did nothing to deter the beliefs as he palmed her backside and urged her into what was easily the most disgusting men’s bathroom she’d ever seen.
He checked each stall before turning toward her with a lowly snarled, “Red.”
“Before you get all growly,” she interjected before the lecture began, “I tried calling—all of you. Even here. All multiple times before I finally gave up. And yes, I know it’s dangerous, but I really had little choice, and it’s not like I walked here with an American passport stamped to my forehead.”
Awareness flashed through her body as his gaze dropped to the leather bustier fluffing up her C cups. No longer the vivid blue, his eyes darkened with an intensity that made her heart skip a beat. And she couldn’t really fault him for it, because her own gaze admiringly tracked the way his T-shirt stretched across his chest.
“You dirty up pretty good, Red.” Rafe broke the sudden tension first. Only when she crossed her arms over her chest did his gaze drift north of her boobs.
She cleared her throat and winced at the sudden dryness. “It was surprisingly easy, and that’s something I’ll have to eventually think about, right along with why five men had a chest full of women’s clothing.”
Rafe’s lips twitched. “Both the house and the clothes are Maria’s. She’s the team’s unofficial den mother and starting point of the Yellow Brick Road to Lowlifes. No one wants to see Fuentes put away more than her. But enough about Maria. Why the hell did you leave the house?”
“The drug dealers who decided to talk shop over the fence.”
He casually leaned back against the sink. “What dealers?”
“Two men—I couldn’t see their faces. But they talked as though Freedom had already hit the streets and referred to some place called El Sótano as being Fuentes’s ultimate druggie playground.”
If she hadn’t been watching Rafe closely, she would’ve missed the slight twitch in his jaw. “You sure he said Sótano?”
“As certain as I am that he also identified Americans as being next on the hit list.”
“Did they say when?”
Penny shook her head. “They just said soon. If Fuentes is already slipping this superdrug to the general public, that means we’ve already run out of time.”
The bathroom door opened. Rafe tugged her forward, pinning her between his rock-hard body and the wall. All of her pleasure senses rose instantly. Eyes closed, she counted to five in hopes of dampening the physical response to his closeness. She failed. Miserably. Counting to a hundred wouldn’t have done a damn thing, especially when his mouth brushed over the curve of her neck.
Her breath quickened to the point that her fingers tingled where they fisted in his shirt. He trailed his large hand over her hip and down the length of her bare thigh. Stopping at her knee, he pulled her leg around his waist and inserted himself between her spread thighs.
Her body needed no further coaxing to come alive, ultra-aware of every ridge and valley and the closeness of their bodies. And damn the man for smelling so good while standing in the middle of a smoke-hazed sweatbox. She fought the urge to rub herself against all that hard muscle, but then he took the decision out of her hands when his hips lightly brushed against her stomach.
A whimper slipped from her lips as he took a gentle nip of her neck. Her neck was her hot spot, something her pathetically few lovers had never taken the time to realize. But Rafe may as well have brought a lunch and stayed for the day.