Operation Burlesque BBW Romance (11 page)

“That was amazing,” I said running my hand across his chest.

“Yeah it was.”

We fell silent, letting our closeness communicate for us. Unfortunately, the silence let Frankie intrude into my thoughts.

I frowned. “What are we going to do, Blake?”

“About what?” He looked at me, not following.

“The stuff in my purse.”

He squeezed me close. “It’ll be fine. This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ll take care of it.”

“How?” I wanted details, an action plan, something concrete I could wrap my mind around.

Blake shrugged. “I have friends and anyone coming after me is going to be in for a rude awakening.” He was silent a moment. “Did they give you anything besides the money?”

“A phone and a nasty drug induced hangover.” I put a hand to my head where a small headache still pounded.

He tensed beside me. “I should look at the phone.”

Taken aback by his reaction, I asked, “Why? It’s just an iphone.”

“Maybe, but they might have added some...enhancements to it.”

I pushed up on my elbow to better see his face. “Enhancements?”

His expression serious, he nodded. “Bugs, trackers, you know.”

My jaw dropped. “That sounds like spy stuff.”

“Does it?” He gave a non-committal shrug.

“How do you know about it?” I sat up fully and crossed my arms.

He held up his hands. “I’m a magician, I know a lot of things. Now, why don’t you go get the phone so we can see what we’re up against?”

Suddenly worried about what was in that phone, I threw on my caftan and ran down to the dining room to retrieve my purse. Back in his bedroom, I handed it over.

Blake quickly removed the plastic casing, revealing the guts of the phone. He studied the electronic innards for a moment and then looked up at me with a frown. Tapping his ear with one hand, he mouthed the word ‘bug.’

My jaw dropped. Had they heard our entire conversation at the dinner table? Had I said anything bad? I couldn’t remember. Maybe it didn’t matter. The phone had been in my purse, surely that muffled the sound? I started to speak, but Blake put a finger to his lips and shook his head. I fell silent and watched him work.

Blake replaced the casing and tapped the screen on the phone. At the same time, he reached out and snagged his off the nightstand. Going back and forth between phones, he navigated menus I’d never seen before. I couldn’t follow what he was doing, his fingers moved so fast and there was so much code. He wasn’t working with an app I knew.

When he was done, he put on his pants and beckoned for me to follow him out of the room. We went into the kitchen where he pulled a small cardboard box out of the trash.

Wrapping the phone in a hand towel, he stuffed it into the box. “That should keep them from hearing us.”

“What are you doing?” I asked, keeping my voice low just in case.

“Keeping Frankie way too busy to find us.” Locating a marker in a drawer, he wrote an address on the box. “I’ll have the staff tape this up and drop it in the mail tomorrow.”

I leaned on the kitchen counter and tried to make out the address, but he’d written it all in Arabic, an alphabet I could recognize but not read.“Where’s it going?”

He smirked and capped the marker he’d used to write the address. “Oh, nowhere fast.”

I narrowed my eyes, still skeptical. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if they call me?”

Blake waved his phone at me. “Calls and texts will forward to me, but they won’t be able to track you or overhear conversations anymore.”

My eyes went wide. “Wait, they were tracking me? They know where we are?” The instinct to cut and run made my heart pound.

Blake held up a hand. “Don’t panic. I have a jammer set up, and they would’ve lost the signal before they found the house.”

I moved away from the counter, feeling uneasy. “Why do you have a jammer? Why do you know how to do any of this stuff?”

He cleared his throat looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I’ve found it useful to be difficult to find. Besides, most magicians are science and math nerds. We love technology.”

“What?” I tried to picture him as a nerd, but couldn’t get past the way he looked now. His dark good looks, the toned muscles, the wicked things he did to me. Blake was hot enough to melt butter in a freezer. Nerd so did not apply.

He nodded. “It’s true. There are physicists doing magic all over the place. Mathematicians like it for statistical analysis and there are even published studies about the math of card tricks. A lot of magic involves science. You can’t help but pick up little things like signal jammers after a while.”

“Oh wow. I didn’t know that.” I grabbed his hand and tugged until he leaned down toward me. “Here’s a little known fact about nerds,” I whispered, my mouth hovering over his.

“Oh?” His breath shivered across my skin.

“All the hot ones are magicians.”

He chuckled, the sound buzzing my lips as we kissed. “Now you know our deepest secret.”

I giggled and allowed him to pull me close, his hands running down my backside. “I’m on to you, Blake the nerd.”

“So long as you don’t hold it against me.”

I ground my hips into him. “I think you’re the one holding things against
me.”

“Are you trying to drive me crazy?” He squeezed my backside.

I batted my lashes at him. “Too much for you?”

“Just the right amount of too much.” His words echoed what he’d said on our first night together back at the Cirque D’Amour. I’d been worried he wouldn’t find my curves attractive. I wasn’t a small woman, but he’d loved every inch of me. I still blushed when I thought of that night.

A door opened and slammed shut followed by the sound of several loud footsteps. I froze and looked at Blake, fear filling my eyes. Had Frankie found us? Whoever they were, they weren’t being quiet. They had no fear of discovery. Did that mean they were here to kill us both?

Blake looked equally concerned and quietly took a knife from a kitchen drawer. Motioning for me to stand behind him, he edged toward the dining room. I grabbed the iron skillet sitting on the stove. It was heavy enough to take down anyone it connected with, especially with my weight behind it. Skillet cocked like a bat, I waited, ready to do battle.

Chapter Eleven

“Hello? Blake? You here, magic man?” called a loud male voice. “Alpha four reporting for duty.”

“Oh wow, they’re here already?” Blake muttered, his expression going from concern to  relief. He put the knife away and took the pan from me, returning it to the stove.

“Who’s here?” I started to head toward the entrance of the Riad, but he pulled me back.

“Let me talk to them before I introduce you.” He took my elbow and ushered me up a back stairway I hadn’t noticed before. The servants probably used it to navigate the house while staying out of the way of guests.

“What’s going on?” I pulled away from him as we went up the stairs.

“Nothing.” He opened the door at the top of the staircase and we stepped into the hallway leading to my room, only on the opposite end.

“Okay. So why the hide-and-seek?” I frowned as he took me by the elbow and hustled me down the hall.

“Timing is everything in life and magic,” he said cryptically. We arrived at my room and he escorted me inside. “Wait here. I’ll bring you down in a minute.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “One thing, don’t say anything about what happened to you. That has to stay between us. As far as the men downstairs know, you’re my assistant for the magic competition. Okay?” He waited for my response, his eyes searching my face intently.

“Okay,” I said with a weak smile. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I couldn’t say no. Maybe that was a problem. So far I’d never been able to turn the man down. He was like caffeine for my libido. My body just responded to him.

“Good. Give me a few minutes to talk to them and I’ll come get you.” He gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and rushed out the door, shutting it gently behind him.

I took a moment to fuss with my hair. Blake had given me a bad case of ‘just been fucked’ bed head and I wanted to look a little more like a professional and a lot less like a woman who’d just rolled out of a man’s bed. Then finding my underwear was dry, I strapped in the girls and put on my panties, relieved I no longer had to go commando.

True to his word, he was back before I knew it and brought me down to the living room. My heart stumbled when I saw the pure stud-of-the-month testosterone filling the room. I shot Blake a questioning look. Had he hired the Chippendales or something? He just shrugged.

There were four guys who all looked like they could carry women, one in each arm, without breaking a sweat. They wore tight, tight T-shirts that strained to cover their bulging pecs and biceps. The men also had the square jaws of superheroes and the physiques of underwear models.

While I looked at them with a mix of awe and wonder, they regarded me with suspicion. I caught more than a few narrowed eyes.

Blake cleared his throat. “Everyone, this is Ruby. Ruby, this is my team.”

“Your team for what?” I goggled at the men. “Tennis doubles? Ping pong? What?”

Somebody guffawed, finding me amusing.

Blake just raised his eyebrows. “Just my team. We work together.”

Someone else snorted.

“Okay. So they work on your magic shows with you?” I didn’t know magic had teams, but I wasn’t exactly an expert by any means. Besides, hadn’t Blake said something about a competition? I could think of a few tricks that might be fun to watch with his crew. Ones that involved very little clothing. Sure, Blake was hot and I was very into monogamy, but something about all those men in such a confined space overwhelmed my senses. If Blake was caffeine, these guys together were like speed for my libido. They made my imagination overheat.

The guys laughed at my question. It seemed everything I said was amusing. One of them, a surfer blond type, slapped his knee. Blake glared at them each in turn. “We all have business to conduct and we’ll be professional about it, right?”

The men nodded and tried to look serious, but more than one cracked a smile. They were a lot less suspicious of me now. Good to know all it took was being funny. If they knew the truth about me, they probably wouldn’t be feeling so chummy.

“So, names, the guy over there with the bald head is Mark. Blondie here is Steve. The other blond is Dan and the redhead is Finn.” Blake pointed to the men in turn and they all gave me a sharp nod, almost like a salute.

I nodded back with a warm smile. “Hi guys. Nice to meet you.”

Blake waited while the guys said ‘Hi’ back and then said, “Now, we’ll all be sharing the Riad.”

“Wait a minute,” protested Finn, the red head. “That’s going to compromise--”

Blake made a sharp slicing motion with his hand and cut him off. “Nothing. We will work around each other.” To me, he said, “I’m going to ask you to not go past your suite and the common living areas. No going into any other rooms unless I’m there, okay?”

“Sure, no problem.” Although, the room stuffed like an electronics store preparing for Black Friday came to mind. However, since I hadn’t seen anything beyond the equipment, I decided not to mention it.

Blake gestured toward the stairs leading up to the bedroom suites.“Okay, well that’s that. It’s getting late, I’m ready for bed. Ruby, you and I will meet here at seven a.m. to start working on the trick for the magic competition.”

“Umm, Blake?” I leaned in close and lowered my voice. “I don’t have any clothes or a toothbrush, remember? I probably should go shopping tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “Make a list. I’ll get everything. I don’t want you leaving the Riad right now.”  To the guys, he said, “Ruby’s had some trouble with men here harassing her. She’s the key to the magic competition, nothing can happen to her. You are to watch her back at all times, understood?”

“Yes sir,” the men chorused in unison. They also gave him an actual salute. It was a casual finger-to-the-forehead salute, but still a salute.

Everyone dispersed after that. The guys hauled large duffle bags to their rooms and I tried not to openly stare at their backsides as they walked down the hall. It was like Blake’s ass had been cloned.

Blake snagged my hand and escorted me to my room saying, “For the sake of appearances we should sleep in our rooms.”

“How long do we have to keep up appearances?” I asked. After our little romp that afternoon, I wanted more.

He stepped inside my room and shut the door after him, assuring us of some privacy. “Not too long.” Blake kissed me, his lips soft, undemanding and promising nothing. It was the kind of kiss that would go nowhere.

Disappointed, I pulled back and asked, “Tell me something. Are you the good guys or the bad guys?”

“We’re the good guys.”

I sighed in relief.  “Promise?”

Blake raised his hand. “I swear.” He paused for a second. “What if I’d said the bad guys?”

I leaned into him. “I don’t think I can say no to you.”

He ducked his head to whisper in my ear, “Same here.”