All Night Woman: A Contemporary Romance (4 page)

Brandon’s face lit up, just like it used to when he was a little boy.  If nothing else, the trip was worth it for that alone.  “You serious?”

“Yeah, of course,” he grinned.  “If you can fit me in.”

“Not a problem,” Brandon said, his smile a mile wide.  Brandon took his father’s expensive-looking AMI Alexandre Mattiussi coat and let out a low whistle.  “Nice.” 

“Want one?” Miles asked.  “I can have my PA Janice order one for you.  She loves an excuse to shop at Harrod’s.”

Brandon laughed.  “No, I’m good, thanks.” 

“Miles?  What the hell are you doing here?” Adam asked, joining them.  The freaky looking dog padded over and planted himself at Adam’s feet. 

“Good to see you, too, little brother.”

“Just warmed up some dinner.  You hungry?”

“Starved.  The meal they served on the plane was inedible.”

––––––––

“S
ince when did you start cooking?” Miles asked, soaking up the last of his third bowl of the hearty beef and barley stew with a buttermilk biscuit.  The dog had his own bowl on the floor, and Brandon had already tossed him at least two biscuits.  Miles had to admit, though, that the dog had impeccable manners.  He hadn’t begged, whined, or nudged once.

“I didn’t.  Holly made it,” Adam said proudly, sitting back.  “She’s a hell of a cook.”

“Holly,” Miles repeated evenly.  “Is that the woman you’ve been seeing?”

Adam nodded slowly.  “I’m more than just seeing her, Miles.  I asked her to marry me.”

“Kind of fast, isn’t it?”

Adam sat back and gave his brother a tight smile.  “Is that why you’re here, Miles?”

Miles shrugged elegantly.  “You call me out of the blue and ask me to be your best man.  I’m concerned.”

“Don’t be.”

“Can’t help it.  It’s a big brother thing.”

“I’m thirty-two years old, jackass.”

“And I’m forty.  What’s your point?”

“My point is that we’re not kids anymore, Miles.  And I haven’t needed a big brother for the last twenty years.”

It was a direct hit, angled for maximum damage.  Miles had been expecting it, though, and it wasn’t anything worse than he’d been telling himself for years now.

“Maybe I’m not doing it just for you.  Maybe I’m the one that needs this, Adam.”

Adam regarded him thoughtfully.  “Look, Miles, I know you mean well, but Holly is it for me.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  She is
The One
.”

As if there could be only one.  Christ, Adam sounded like he did when he was just a kid and too naïve to know any better.  Like he once had.  “How long have you known her?”

“A couple of months,” Adam shrugged.  “Give or take.”

“A couple of months?  You ask a woman to marry you after a couple of months?”  Miles gaped at him. 

Adam looked amused.  “It doesn’t matter, Miles.  Three months, six months, five years – it doesn’t change anything.”

“Jesus.  You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

“Who the hell are you and what have you done with my little brother?”

Adam chuckled.  “I’m right here, Miles.  And no one has called me little in a long time.”

Miles laughed, too.  He wasn’t kidding.  Years of construction work had given Adam the kind of body most men (himself included) paid a hell of a lot of money to achieve through a gym.  There was a time when Adam had been a skinny, scrawny thing, but there was no trace of that kid now.

“Fair enough.  So tell me about your woman.”

Adam kept the smile on his face, but hesitated. 

“She’s a romance writer,” Brandon said cheerily, tapping his smartphone.

Miles choked on his water.  “Excuse me?”

“Holly is an author.  She writes romance novels.  Pretty steamy stuff, too.”

Brandon handed his phone – now displaying Holly’s website – to his father.  Miles glanced at it, his eyes growing wide, then turned to Adam, who met his shocked expression with defiance. 

“Yeah, she writes romance.  So what?”

“She’s actually got a degree in computer science,” Brandon said.  “With a couple of minors in statistics and accounting.  But she hated her job and decided to write romance instead.”  Brandon’s grin grew as he waggled his eyebrows.  “Uncle Adam has been helping her with her
research
.”

Color rose in Adam’s cheeks, and Miles didn’t know what was more unbelievable – the fact that his down-to-earth brother was engaged to a romance author or the fact that he was blushing.

Just then the house phone rang, and Brandon jumped up to get it.  “Hello.”

Brandon’s smile faded as he listened to the person on the other end.  It was gone completely by the time he held the receiver out to Adam.  “It’s the police.  They want to talk to you.”

“O
h.  My.  God.”  Eyes wide on the stage in front of her, Liz blindly raised the Kamikazee and sipped, though her lips had long since gone numb.  The male dancer gyrated suggestively in front of her, then turned around, bent over at the waist, and ripped away his pants, giving her a perfect view of his smooth, sculpted male behind.

“I know, right?” Holly whispered in awe beside her. 

“Is that what they’re supposed to look like?”

The buff dancer grinned between his legs at Liz, having heard her comment.  He flipped around with an impressive gymnastic move and crooked his finger at her.  Liz’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates when she saw how that little, itty-bitty piece of expandable fabric had been stretched to its limits. 

Holly giggled and gave her a little push.  “Go on, Liz.  You know you want to.”

“Damn straight,” Liz agreed, the alcohol making her bold.  She was thirty-five, goddammit.  When was she going to get another chance like this?

Another dancer joined the first, and together they each held out a hand.  With one swift tug, Liz found herself up on stage as the filling in a very delectable hottie sandwich. 

Though she’d never been coaxed up on stage before, it was not the first time she’d been to an all-male review.  She had enviously watched from the sidelines as the dancers pulled countless other women from the audience and included them in the show. 

The blonde beefcake gyrated his over-packed man thong along her lower back while the black stallion in front of her thrust his naughty bits suggestively with some impressive muscle control.  The guy in the back placed his hands on her hips and coaxed her into a sultry dance along with them.

Caught up as she was in the fantasy, Liz reached out and stroked her fingers along the guy’s ripped, oiled abs.  She was only vaguely aware of Holly snapping pictures from down below on her smartphone.

“No touching,” the dancer chastised, discreetly grabbing her hand and moving it away from him.  His brilliant smile never dimmed, but his eyes were bored beyond belief. 

“Come on, lady.  We’ve got thirty more seconds in this bit.”

It was only when she heard the other guy’s voice at her ear that she realized her feet had stopped moving.  She looked out at all the screaming, lust-crazed women who wanted to be in her place and forced a smile, but inside, she was mortified.

“I told you we should have picked the young one.”

The next thing she knew, the blonde guy hefted her over one shoulder and gave a Tarzan-like jungle cry, spiriting her backstage.  It was all part of the act.  Once they were out of sight of the audience, he dropped her like a sack of potatoes.

“Thanks for coming,” he said, walking away without a backward glance.  The dark-haired guy didn’t even look her way.

Hot tears stung the back of her eyes as she was suddenly left standing alone.  The same alcohol that only moments earlier had her believing she was special because they had chosen her was now making her feel incredibly pathetic.  Bold courage now felt suspiciously like humiliation.

“So,” Holly asked excitedly, appearing beside her.  “How was it?”

Liz knew her lip was quivering when Holly’s smile faded and her expression went from excited to worried in the span of a heartbeat.  Before she could answer, however, a big bald guy wearing a black T-shirt with “SECURITY” in bold lettering held his hand out to Holly.  “Ma’am, I’ll need that phone.”

Holly placed herself protectively in front of Liz, tucking her mobile against her body as if shielding it.  It was kind of funny, really, because Holly was much shorter than Liz.  “Why?”

“No pictures.”

“It’s her birthday.  It’s not like I’m going to post them on Facebook or anything.”

“It’s okay, Holly,” Liz said with an embarrassing half-belch, increasing the mortification factor.  Holly’s heart was in the right place, but Liz had no desire to look back upon pictures that would no doubt include a looping mental audio playback of ‘I told you we should have picked the young one’. 

Holly ignored her, stiffening her shoulders.  Liz felt a surge of pride for her friend.  Holly could be ferocity personified when she felt threatened, and right now she looked like a pissed-off Chihuahua facing off against a Great Dane. 

“I’m not giving you my phone.”

“I’m not asking, ma’am,” said Great Dane bouncer guy.

As Holly stubbornly dealt with the Security guy, an uncomfortable roiling began to rise in Liz’s stomach.  Whether it was the four Kamikazees or the Tarzan grab-and-snatch, she didn’t know, but that surf-and-turf dinner before the show was about to make a sudden reappearance.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she managed to mumble.

Holly’s arm was instantly around her waist.  “Get out of my way, Hulk.  My friend isn’t feeling well.”

He crossed his arms and blocked their path to the ladies room.  “Not until you give me your phone.”

“Go ahead, Liz.  Puke on his shoes.”

She did.

And then all hell broke loose.

* * *

M
iles stood back in the shadows while Adam talked to the officer in charge, shooting surreptitious glances at the two women huddled together on a bench at the far side of the station room.  One of them was a pretty blonde, looking a bit worse for wear. 
Attractive.
 

As if she’d heard him mutter that thought aloud, she looked up and her eyes met his.  Both the man and the salesman in him automatically assessed her:  nice blue eyes; delicate, feminine features.  Make-up subtle, not overdone.  Hair style and clothes: tasteful but not overly expensive.  Single.  Professional.

Vulnerable
. 

Her eyes widened slightly before lowering again.  He added
potential submissive
to his mental list.

Next to her was a petite brunette, patting her friend’s shoulders comfortingly while shooting daggers at the grandfatherly sergeant processing the paperwork.

Only one word came to mind when he looked at her: 
Trouble.

Of course she was the one Adam approached.  “Okay, Holly.  Everything’s been taken care of.  Are you ready to go?”

So that was Holly.  Standing, she was even shorter than he’d thought.  On the plain side.  Not at all what he envisioned as a writer of erotica; she looked more like the girl next door who would make you brownies laced with chocolate Ex-lax if your dog pissed on her lawn.

(Not that he had any personal experience of the sort.  It hadn’t been his dog and the brownies had been scarfed down by his mooching friends before he had ingested a single one.)

“I’m sorry, Adam,” the brunette said, the flames in her eyes turning to liquid warmth when she looked up at his brother. 
Son of a bitch
.  Had any woman ever looked at him like that?  Like he was the center of her goddamn universe?

Adam rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. 
Double son of a bitch
.  Where the hell was his hard-ass brother?  You’d think the guy would be at least a little pissed off.  Not only had his fiancé been attending a male strip show, but she had been involved in some sort of altercation that had resulted in her and her friend being “detained” by the police. 

But no.  Adam’s lips were actually quirking as if he was amused.

“Did Liz really throw up on the Security guard?” Adam asked.

“Yeah.  It was his own fault, though.  She tried to tell him she was sick and he wouldn’t get out of the way.”

“Here.”  Adam handed her a clear plastic bag containing a small cell phone.

She pulled it out and scrolled through it one-handed, frowning.  “Damn.  They deleted all the pictures.  Sorry, Liz.”

The blonde offered a wan smile.  Somehow Miles didn’t think she was all that disappointed. 

“This is my brother, Miles,” Adam said, finally acknowledging his presence.  “Miles, this is Holly.”

Adam’s woman looked up at him with striking green eyes, glowing a little bit like a cat’s. 
Yep.  Trouble.
  The situation was even worse than he’d thought if this was the woman he was shackling himself to.  He and Adam were going to have to have a little talk very soon, before his brother did something he would regret.  Miles was the Solomon of regret.

“Miles,” the brunette said, her face probing for a moment before she broke out in a genuine smile.  “Of course!  You must be Brandon’s dad.  He looks just like you!”

Miles waited for the look to turn from interested to
interested
, but it didn’t.  Instead, she just held out her hand and said, “Pleased to meet you, Miles.”

“And you, Holly.”  Accepting her hand, Miles gave it a light squeeze.  Holly winced.

“What happened to your hand?” Adam asked, concern lacing his tone while he shot an angry look at Miles.

“It’s not his fault,” Holly said, coming to Miles’ instant defense (which he found rather amusing).  “I wrenched it or something when that gorilla tried to pry the phone away from me.”

“We should get it x-rayed.”

“It’ll be fine, Adam.  Besides, I need to get Liz home.”

They all looked over to where the blonde still sat on the bench, looking for all intents and purposes like she wished the world would just swallow her up whole any minute.  Miles felt a stab of sympathy for her. 

“I can take her home.”

All heads turned his way, including the blonde’s.  “It makes sense,” he rationalized.  “You shouldn’t be driving with your hand swelling up like that,” he said to Holly, “and she doesn’t look like she wants to spend the next couple of hours in the ER.  I’m already here, and we’ve got two vehicles.  I’ll take Liz home in the Jeep, and Adam can drive your car.”