Page 6 of The Mobster’s Secret

A blush sweeps instantly up my neck and over my face. I want to look away, but I can’t. Not now with those dark, kingly eyes fixed on me.

God, why does he have to be so gorgeous? It’s not just his sculpted features or his Adonis-like physique either; it’s the way he’s looking at me. The way he’s talking to me. It’s this verbal sparring match we’re engaged in, and that’s something I can normally only do with Greta. Everyone else just thinks I’m being a brat when I’m trying to have some fun.

“So if you know I’m not a stripper,” I ask, “then what are you paying me for, Ivan?”

He tilts his chin over the edge of the balcony to the club and the hordes of horny, drunken men tossing money at the girls. “To keep you away from them.”

His response nearly levels me. I never had a dad to take care of me, and Mom couldn’t have cared less who I dated. She was too busy with men of her own. I could have brought back five guys every night and she wouldn’t have even noticed. And if she did, she wouldn’t have said a thing.

But Ivan, the man I just met tonight, is already so protective of me that he doesn’t even want any other man looking at me.

My whole body is on fire. My mouth’s watering. I swallow hard and take a deep breath, fighting to maintain my composure. If I even have any at this point.

“I can’t dance,” I admit. “Unless you want to waltz with me. I might be able to do that. But not in these heels.”

“I like you in those heels,” he replies, his voice low and strong.

“Yeah, well, you try walking in them.”

“I’ll buy you some that fit,” he replies. “That’ll be part of the deal.”

What!?

This just keeps getting crazier and crazier. Chris must have told Greta that Ivan and his gang would be coming in tonight. That’s the only reason I’m even here. Because she convinced me, loaned me a pair of her heels, and took me to some dimly lit costume store to pick up this cheap lingerie that barely covers my private parts.

Now I’m being offered a life-changing amount of money just to dance with a man who could get any woman in here with a snap of his fingers.

“I call bullshit,” I say. “How do I know you don’t just want to humiliate me by making me try to dance, watching me fall over and break my ankle, and then kick me out of the club?”

Ivan smirks, walks past me to the stairs, and calls out to one of his men waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “Go get eighty grand from the back and bring it up here.”

As he passes me again, my nose floods with the scent of expensive leather, cedar, and aged whiskey.

“Believe me now?” He gets comfortable on a couch that could hold ten men but looks small beneath his massive frame. “You know, Willow, you might actually enjoy yourself.”

My pussy is dripping. My skin feels electric. I might be imagining it, but I’m pretty sure I see a very thick bulge between his thighs.

Sure, I’ve danced before, but only the awkward stuff you do as a teenager. My only education for this is Beyonce videos and what Greta has told me. I know guys at clubs like this expect you to grind on them, and with the state I’m in now, if my body touches his, I might just pop like a balloon.

I lick my lips in a desperate attempt to suppress a smile. “You sure you’re not a lawyer? ‘Cause you sure know how to present an argument.”

Ivan chuckles, his big hands planted firmly on his muscled thighs. “Not a lawyer, but I employ quite a few.” His eyes scour my body again, lifting me into new places. “Now let’s go, Willow. I want to relax. Will you help me relax?”

Help him.

The king of New York City’s most notorious crime family wants me to help him.

“Fine,” I reply. “But no sex.”

“No sex.” He nods. “Now come on. Dance for me.”

3

IVAN

I don’t need any more confirmation that this girl was made for me. It’s an absolute certainty. And when she struts over to me in those wobbly heels—doing her best to act like she belongs here, like she’s done this sort of thing before—I feel myself getting hard to the point of pain.

But it’s not just the way her hips sway with every step she takes, or the way her hard nipples poke through the thin fabric of her brassiere, or the way her eyes glimmer as her expression changes from innocent and defiant to sexy and self-assured.