Steel Page 15
“Is that what Kat wants?” Berger asked.
“It’s what I want.”
“I can’t cancel the fight. If she backs out now this will destroy her career. Everything she’s worked for will be for nothing. And she’ll never forgive you for that.”
Steel didn’t give a shit about that. His priority was keeping her safe, not happy. If she stayed pissed at him until the end of the job, so be it.
However, he also couldn’t ignore everything Kat had done to build her career. He had watched her in that ring last night and knew she was born to be a fighter.
It was in her blood, just like it was in his.
He told himself he wouldn’t care if Kat was pissed at him, but he was lying to himself.
For fuck’s sake.
He scraped a hand through the top of his hair and glanced over his shoulder, as Berger continued to talk.
“Do your fucking job. Go to Vegas. I’ll set you up in a hotel there. She only has one other small venue fight coming up next month. I can cancel that without any repercussions. But she needs to fight Jayne.”
Steel rolled his eyes to the ceiling, holding his phone so tightly his fingers fused to it. This whole thing made him want to scream. “Fine. This is on you, though, Berger. I have a safe place for her and as soon as that fight’s over, if that fucker isn’t caught yet, we’re headed there.”
“Where?”
“Not information I’m sharing at this time. And I’m also picking the hotel. I’ll let you know where we are after we’re settled, not before.”
He was keeping Berger on a need-to-know basis. He could be the weak link in this whole situation.
He could be the fucking weak link.
Fucking motherfucker.
His eyes lifted to Kat’s, who still stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, not looking any kind of happy.
Jesus fuck.
“Listen up, Berger, and listen good. I’ve changed my mind. I won’t be telling you what hotel we’re at.”
“Steel—”
“Shut it and listen. I don’t want you around Kat at all.” Berger tried to interrupt again but Steel kept talking. “Not at the hotel. Not at the gym. Nowhere. I’ll keep working with her to get her ready for the fight—”
“Steel—”
“And I’ll get her into a secure hotel. The next time you see her will be at the venue and then we’re leaving Vegas right after. No press conferences before or after the fight. I don’t care what excuses you have to make. In your downtime, ride that detective’s ass. Send him that email. I’ll text you a pic of the note I found and shots of the windows. Make sure the detective gets those, too. You might want to get them out here to dust for prints, but I doubt he left any. I’ll be in touch. And don’t you fucking contact Kat, either. I’ll get her to the fight. You take care of the rest.”
“Steel—” Berger began again.
“Just do it,” Steel barked into the phone and cut the call off.
He stared at Kat for a minute, feeling about as annoyed as she looked. “You got your fucking fight. But after that we’re heading home.”
“Home, where? To LA?”
He shoved the last of his clothes into his duffel and zippered it shut. “Fuck no.”
“Indiana?”
“Shadow Valley.”
Her dark eyebrows pinned together. “Where?”
“Exactly. Just let that fucker try to follow you there.” He threw the strap of his duffel over his shoulder. “Your shit better be packed. We’re heading out in T-minus two minutes.”
“I’m packed.”
“Then start moving.”
She turned, gathered her bags that had been waiting in the hallway, and he followed her down the stairs toward the garage.
Once there, he figured “H” might recognize the Mustang if he was watching them. And Steel had no doubt he was.
“What’s under the car covers?”
“I don’t know.”
He uncovered one and found a new white Corvette with dark tinted windows. Perfect.
“Got a hat?” he asked Kat as he searched the car for the hidden keys.
“Yes.”
“Hat and sunglasses on. Don’t remove them until I tell you.” His fingers found the keys under the driver’s seat. Stupid for Kat’s sponsor, but lucky for him. He straightened and looked over the roof of the car to Kat. “Get in.”
“We can’t steal their car!”
“We’re only borrowing it to get where we need to go. I’ll get Berger to return it and the rental.”
Borrow. Steal. He didn’t give a fuck. Whatever it was would get them to Vegas in record time.
And that was all that mattered.
Chapter Eleven
With her arms crossed at her waist, Kat stared out of the large wall of windows from the top floor of a tall, fancy casino hotel. A floor usually reserved for high rollers.
From what she understood, the owner owed someone Steel knew named Mercy a favor.
A keycard was necessary for the elevator to get up to what was called the Royal Suite. Not only that, there were two large men stationed outside their door.
Steel informed her they were hunkering down until the fight, so he had the hotel manager fill the suite with food, drinks and other items. Along with access to room service, Steel said they’d want for nothing.
Even more surprising, the owner of the hotel had sparring equipment brought up to the room. Not only that, but a huge mat for them to practice.
A fucking wrestling mat was set up in the center of the large, open living space of a luxury suite. Unbelievable.
Kat shook her head. She bet the management got some pretty crazy requests, but never one like that before.
“How much is this costing?” she whispered to the evening sky lit up by all the colorful lights along the Vegas Strip.
In the window’s reflection, she watched Steel’s head turn from where he studied the mat.
“Nothing. It’s being comped.”
“The owner... This Michael must owe your friend Mercy a lot.”
“Paranzino owes Mercy’s woman a lot. Mercy’s just collecting on the debt.”
The stalker was now affecting so many more people than just her.
They had only been in the suite for an hour now and despite the floor-to-ceiling wall of windows overlooking the Strip, she was already feeling trapped.
“He’s getting what he wants. He’s caging me in.”
Kat watched Steel’s reflection approach and he stepped into her, pressing his chest to her back. His hands slid from her shoulders down to her forearms in a sort of embrace.
His voice rumbled low and deep when he said, “This is your choice, Kat. You could cancel the fight and we could go home.”
“Home,” she murmured, not letting herself lean back against him. “Your home, not mine.”
“Somewhere safe until he’s caught.”
“We don’t know if he’ll ever be caught. I can’t do this forever.”
“Once I get you back to Shadow Valley, get you in a secure location, I will handle finding him.”
He would do that for her? He wasn’t getting paid to track down some masturbating whack-job. “Just you?”
“My team.”
“Do you think you and your team can do more than what the detective and his team are doing?”
“Fuck yeah.”
She tilted her head back and turned it enough so see his face. “How?”
“We all have special skills.”
“All. As in your team?”
“Yep.”
“Like?”
When he didn’t answer, she prodded, “Tell me about your tattoo. I know what the Marines’ emblem looks like and your tattoo doesn’t look like that.”
“No.”
That was his answer? Just a simple no? “What does it stand for?”
“MARSOC.”
Kat frowned. “What?”
“Marines’ special operations. I
was a Marine Raider. On our uniform we wore a pin and I had that emblem tatted onto my back.”
“What does Spiritus Invictus mean?”
He dropped his chin to the top of her head. “Unconquerable spirit.”
She finally let herself rest back against him and when she did, his arms tightened around her. She didn’t want to think about how good that felt.
She had always taken care of herself, but now... Now, it was nice to have someone else to rely on. For the moment, at least.
She just couldn’t let herself get used to it.
“Is your whole team special forces?”
“Yes. Except our boss.”
“But your boss leads a team of military badasses?”
Steel’s chuckle rumbled against her back. “He’s a badass in his own right.”
She stewed on that for a moment as they both stood there quiet, eyes to the view.
She broke the silence in an attempt to break the heaviness in the room. “You hungry? I saw the fridge was packed with all kinds of expensive shit. We didn’t get to eat much today with us being on the lam and you doing your magic of getting us this suite, even though that magic took more time than you liked.”
He had been barking orders into the phone left and right while he tried to find a place for them to go.
“We’re here now and you’ll be safe.”
Kat wasn’t so sure that was true. It was like the stalker had a tracking device on her somehow. And to think he knew about what she and Steel had done. That was creepy in itself. So much for trying to lighten the mood. Right now, it felt impossible. “How did he know?”
“Know where you were?”
“About us. He thinks I’m cheating on him. He’s pissed. Because of you.”
Kat did not miss the slight flex of his arms around her. “Right. He thinks you belong to him. I’m not sure how he saw us. He had to have climbed the fence. But I couldn’t find any evidence he was in the house, so it makes me think he watched from the pool house roof.”
“He watched us having sex,” Kat whispered with a shudder. “My first time was ruined by that fucker watching us.”
“We have about a week, Kat,” he said against her ear. Now the shudder that ran through her wasn’t out of disgust, it was from the promises held in Steel’s voice.
“Unless he’s caught. Maybe he left identifiable evidence behind this time.”
“Maybe.”
“So, we have a week to get me ready for this fight.”
“And a week stuck in this room,” he reminded her.
“With a large screen TV, all the movies we want to watch and a fridge full of food. Plus, endless room service,” she reminded him, trying to look on the bright side.
“That’s not really what I had in mind.”
“No?” She met his eyes in the window’s reflection. “What do you have in mind?”
“Four hours of working out daily, then...”
“Then?”
“Making up for all those years you denied yourself.”
“Well, I didn’t totally deny myself. I just didn’t have anyone else with me.”
“Kat,” he groaned.
“What?” she whispered, pinning her lips together to keep from grinning.
“You feel that against your back?”
“Is that your gun?”
“Yeah, it’s my gun. Which is loaded and ready to shoot.”
She bit back her snort. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Kitty Kat,” he murmured.
She wanted to hate him calling her that, but she didn’t. She liked it more than she wanted to admit. Every time he used it in that tone, it twisted something inside of her. In a good way.
This man was much more than a toothpick-chewing asshole. Though, she doubted he showed his true colors to many people.
Suddenly it had her wondering about his family. She put that on her “to-ask” list. But now was not the time to talk of family, fights or even stalkers.
Steel’s cock was hard and heavy against the small of her back and his thumbs were brushing back and forth over her forearms as he held her close. Just that little movement made a spark shoot through her and land in her core.
If she had been asked when she first saw him at The Strike Zone whether she thought he’d be a good lover, she would’ve said no. That he’d be selfish. Only out to get what he needed and then would split. Like the guy who...
She closed her eyes. That guy. Boy. Whatever.
But Steel, for all his roughness on the outside, turned out not to be like that on the inside. The last two nights he had taken his time and made sure it was she who got what she needed. Even over his own needs.
Was that normal for an asshole?
“Are you always like this with your women?”
Suddenly, his cock wasn’t the only thing hard. His whole body went tense. “Say again?”
“How you were with me the last two nights... I have to say, I wasn’t expecting it.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Hot, hard and heavy. ‘Banging one out,’ as I’ve heard other ass— men say.”
“I’ve banged one out plenty of times. Is that what you wanted?”
“I didn’t know what I wanted, that’s the problem,” she answered truthfully.
“Are you complaining?”
“Not at all.”
“Didn’t think so,” he muttered.
“I just... The way you were on the balcony, giving me orders... I liked that, too,” she ended on a whisper.
Every muscle in his body, except for one, softened against her. “Yeah? Didn’t think a woman like you would want to be bossed around.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t. But...”
“But?”
When she didn’t continue, he did.
“Kat, some women love to be bossed around in the bedroom but not out of it. Top CEO’s running Fortune 500 companies. Powerful fucking women. But in the bedroom, with the right partner, they can give that power up, let someone else be in control. Sometimes they need it. To remember that they aren’t stone. That they’re soft and passionate, too. It’s a time they can let their hair down, so to speak.”
“How many Fortune 500 women have you banged one out with?”
“At that level? One. Met her at a gym. She used her wicked negotiation skills to get me into her bed, but then once there, gave herself over to me to do with what I wanted. And, fuck, that was hot.”
Wicked negotiation skills. Please, it probably didn’t take any negotiation.
“I bet,” Kat murmured, wondering why Steel fucking some rich businesswoman would bother her. It shouldn’t, but it did.
“But there are a lot of women out there like you, Kat. Sometimes sex is the perfect time to just let go, let everything around you go. Give up that control to someone else.”
“How about you? Do you ever ‘let go?’”
“No.”
“Not even with the right partner?”
“No, Kat.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“You can think so, but it isn’t.”
“Can we test that?”
“You can try. But you don’t know what you’re doing anyway.”
Damn. That stung a little. “Oh, I see. Another challenge.”
“It’s not a challenge, Kitty Kat, it’s fact.”
“Such arrogance,” she murmured.
She felt him shrug. “It’s confidence.”
Kat snorted, jerked both arms up, breaking loose of his hold, but she didn’t have a lot of room to work with since she was only a foot from the window, and he was at her back, caging her in.
Before she could slip to the side, he hooked her by the waist, so she spun the other direction. Snaking an arm around her waist again to stop her movement, he pinned her to his chest with another arm just below her throat.
“Wanna try again?” he growled into her ear.
She swept her hands up, finding the gaps in his grip, ma
naged to loosen his hold and tried to spin.
Fuck. He caught her again. Where she stood was a disadvantage. This wasn’t going to work unless he dropped his guard. “Okay, I give up.”
His deep chuckle rumbled through her. “Nice ploy.”
Damn.
“I’m hungry. Let’s grab something to eat,” she suggested.
And just like that he let her go.
She spun to face him, but he was waiting.
“Trying to wrestle me next to a large plate glass window isn’t smart, Kat.”
“Then stop fighting it.”
“You got it,” he growled. Instead of backing off, he stepped forward, bumping her backward until her back was pressed to the thick glass forty-five stories above the Strip.
“Hey—”
Before she could get the rest out, he had taken her mouth and swallowed her complaint. But then she forgot what she was going to complain about.
Power. Control.
That’s right.
Steel was completely controlling the kiss, so she tried to steal it back from him.
He wasn’t having any of that, either.
Instead, he broke the kiss, spun her around and shoved her hands to the window so her arms were extended above her head. She didn’t think it was his move that made her breathless.
No, it was the anticipation of him doing whatever he wanted to her and her letting him do it.
Just like out on the balcony when he told her to grab the railing.
A trickle of excitement ran through her, which also happened to dampen her panties.
“Keep your hands to the glass,” he ordered roughly, “unless I say otherwise.”
“Or what?” Damn the shake in her voice.
He slid his nose along the outer shell of her ear. “Or find out. You’re strong, I’ll give you that, but you’re not as strong as me.”
She knew that but she’d never willingly admit it.
“I like that you challenge me. So go ahead, Kitty Kat, challenge me, we’ll see who comes out on top.”
“Maybe I don’t want to challenge you this time. Maybe I just want you to do whatever you’d like.”
“Fuuuuck, Kat,” he whispered.
This totally went against her grain to say, “Tell me what you want me to do.” But the last two nights with Steel showed her he could be a great lover and she wanted to experience more of that. The challenges could wait for another time.