Linda Jones - Romancing the Crown - Max & Elena

He could smell them. High-class from the looks of her. A woman who knew how to work a room, who knew how to say the things a man wanted to hear. Do the things a man wanted done. Obviously a whore, but still infinitely superior to the ones he saw frequenting selected corners and streets, offering instant gratification in the time it took to pull down a zipper.

There was a time and a place for instant gratification, but not from a common slut ripe with diseases.

He liked quality, even in his whores. Salim was willing to pay if it meant that his needs would be pleasured, that the woman was clean and attractive, not used-looking or cheap.

The very word turned his stomach. He’d had enough of “cheap” hiding in those run-down motels, staying ahead of that bounty hunter who had been after him. But now the hunter was behind him, most likely gone for good. He was through running, through with the game. The next encounter, if there was to be one, would be deadly. And he intended to be the one walking away.

The stool beside him was empty. The woman in white had crossed to him, standing behind it.

“Is this seat taken?” she purred in a voice that seemed to have been dipped in honey.

He could feel his arousal beginning. This one he would have, first quickly, then slowly, until he was tired of her.

“If you sit down, it will be.”

She took it as an invitation. Smiling, she sat down beside him, adjusting her skirt so that he could see her long legs, her bare, silky skin. As she turned toward him, the neckline of her dress dipped down. The firm cleavage that was exposed to his hot gaze rose and felt seductively with each breath she took.

Salim was fairly salivating.

“Would you like a drink?” he offered.

She lowered her eyes to the one on the counter. “I’ll take a sip of yours,” she murmured, her voice low, husky. She took the glass from his hand. Slowly she ran the tip of her fingernail along one edge of the rim. “Is this where your lips touched the glass?”

He felt his throat and his loins tightening. “Yes.”

As Salim watched, the woman pressed her own lips to the spot and took a long sip. Her eyes never left his. He found that his breath caught in his throat.

The drink was a particularly strong one. He expected to see her eyes water. Instead she merely smiled as she placed the glass on the counter.

“Smooth,” she whispered. The word seemed to graze his very skin.

His arousal increased. He inclined his head toward hers. “Perhaps you would like to leave here for a little while?”

“Perhaps,” the woman echoed. Her blue-gray eyes danced as they teased his. “Just what did you have in mind?”

She was being coy. It was part of the game. “I think you know.”

Leaning her elbow on the bar, she rested her chin on her hand. Her eyes smiled up into his. “Why don’t you tell me, anyway?”

He skimmed her bare arm with his fingers, envisioning his hands on her breasts instead. “We could go back to my room and I could appreciate you the way a woman such as you should be appreciated.”

She exhaled a long, sensuous breath, as if she could read his mind, feel his touch. His excitement mounted. “Sounds good to me.” Slipping from her stool, she watched him toss a couple of twenties onto the bar before he got off his stool. She nodded at the money. “Pretty free with your money. Are there any more like that?”

His smile broadened. He’d been right. A working woman. Well, he was going to make her work.

“A great many.” He placed one proprietary hand on her shoulder, steering her toward the entrance. “In my hotel room.”

Her smile was inviting, seductive. “Then show me your hotel room.”

Slipping his hand from her shoulder, he took her arm. “That is not all I will show you.”

She leaned into him, laughing, filling his space with the perfume she’d put on only half an hour ago. “I’m counting on it.”

* * *

Damn it, she was here. Intent on finding his quarry, Max had almost missed her. As if a body like that could be overlooked.

What the hell did she think she was doing?

Didn’t she have any idea how dangerous the man was and what could happen to her?

Obviously not, Max thought in disgust.

The woman was a myopic fool.

Making his way out of the bar again, he followed them, keeping a discrete distance behind.

As they walked out of the bar and toward the elevator, Cara planned how and when to make her move. Weber’s room was both the best place and the riskiest. Best because there was no one to get in her way, no one he could use as a shield to make his getaway. And, since the room was on the sixth floor, there was only one way out for Weber. He certainly wasn’t going to leap out the window and suddenly sprout wings. This time, there would be no Dumpster to catch him.

But it was the riskiest place because there would be no witnesses, no one for him to fear if he suddenly turned on her or tried to overpower her.

The operative word here was “tried.”

Which was why she had her gun very strategically planted beneath the slinky white skirt of her dress. She could easily draw it out when the time came.

Cara stole a glance at the man at her side as he jabbed again for the elevator. She’d known what he looked like, had carried around his likeness to hold up in front of people and help jar their memories, but she hadn’t realized just how unnerving he was in person. There was an aura around him. Though it seemed foolish, it felt as if she was in the presence of pure evil.

It wasn’t often that her imagination ran away with her.

The elevator opened. She felt his hand at the small of her back, pushing her forward. They were the only two occupants.

Cara could feel her nerves jumping. As before, she’d managed to track Weber down by the activity on his charge card. When she saw that he’d checked into the Excelsior Hotel in Dallas, she’d felt as if she’d hit pay dirt. Different than the hotels he’d stayed in previously, the Excelsior catered to a whole different breed of people. The man was moving up. Her guess was that Weber had to be feeling pretty cocky about his getaway. Maybe he actually thought he’d lost them.

Pride went before a fall, she thought smugly. Which meant that she couldn’t get too confident or she would be sharing his fate.

Turning toward her, he nuzzled her neck. “How do you like to do it?”

Cara was struggling not to have her skin crawl off her body. “Slowly. All night.”

He ran his hands up and down her bare arms, his breathing becoming audible, heavy. “And what will this night of ecstasy cost me?”

Steady, just a little while longer , she counseled herself. For Weber’s benefit, she smiled seductively. “We’ll talk terms in your room,” she promised.

“Why wait until we’re in my room to get started?” Grabbing her roughly, he pulled her to him, his hand going up her skirt.

Quickly Cara pulled away. When he protested, his temper flaring, she pointed to the small camera mounted in the corner.

“Security cameras,” she told him. “You don’t want some underpaid, pimply-faced adolescent getting his rocks off by watching us, do you?”

He grunted something completely unintelligible under his breath as he fisted his hands at his sides and glared at the camera.

The woman with him was hot and he wanted to take her now, while his loins throbbed.

“Americans,” Weber jeered. “Always watching everything. A nation of voyeurs.”

Thank God for small blessings, she thought. He’d almost slipped his hand over her weapon.

Once they were in his room, Cara knew she was going to have to act fast. There would be no time for slipups and what she had going for her was the element of surprise. The man was thinking so hard with his organ that he hadn’t recognized her. She’d gone through a lot of trouble not to look like herself, but a real professional would have noticed the similarities between the pro he was bringing to his room and the woman who had pounded on his door a short while ago.