Walking with the butt plug presented a challenge, especially wearing the sky-high silver heels Sam had insisted she wear. When the limo started, the movement of the car over the pavement caused the strange triangle at the front of the harness to rub her clit. By the time they arrived at the Georgetown condominium, every cell had been caressed and sensitized so each breath was a struggle not to come. Sam hadn’t been kidding when he’d said she’d be ready to drag him into a corner and beg him to fuck her-and the night had barely started.
The limo had just slid to a stop when a valet opened the rear door. As Sam led her up the steps, Rosie whispered, “You’re evil, did you know that?”
A smug satisfied smile lit up Sam’s face “Baby, any time you want to find a dark corner, just holler.”
They walked into a luxurious lobby with a water wall on one side and a double-sided fireplace separating them from the resident’s lounge. A wave of music and chatter washed over them from farther down the hall.
Damn, she wished she’d had a chance to discover just how many people were here tonight. And had a chance to vet the guest list despite Sam’s repeated assurances that they were all friends and told her not to worry about it. Of course, she had, but when she’d called their host, Cooper Davis had flat out refused to provide a list and told her to talk to Sam.
The concierge led them to an elegant though rather bland entertainment room.
They were fashionably late and the party was in full swing. A black grand piano and a string quartet entertained while tuxedoed staff ferried trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres amongst the two-dozen guests. She glanced at Kris, who nodded and began a full sweep of the cocktail area. Andy had parked the limo and now mingled through the crowd, keeping a close eye on both her and Sam. To her surprise, Chad was there, greeting the guests by name which gave her some relief. If they passed his muster, they posed no threat to Sam.
Several of the people she’d met had mentioned La Porte Rouge, sometimes simply referring to it as the club, but despite her requests, neither Sam nor Chad had ever explained exactly what or where this club was so she could check it for potential suspects. Something she intended to rectify when she got home.
A woman in her forties, her shoulder-length black hair embellished by a single streak of bright red, swept up to them.
“Samuel, mon amis.” She began speaking in rapid French and Sam replied in kind.
As she scanned the guests for possible threats, Rosie absently wondered if his French bore a southern accent.
Sam’s introduction brought her attention back to the woman in front of them. “Jocelyne, I’d like you to meet Rosalinda Ramos. Rosie, this is Jocelyne Garneau.”
“I’m honored to meet you, Rosalinda.” Jocelyne pulled Rosie into a hug and air-kissed both cheeks. When she pulled back, she continued to hold both of Rosie’s hands while gazing fondly up at Sam. “Samuel, my dear boy, now I understand why you haven’t been to the club lately. She’s absolutely adorable. Come, you must introduce her to Cooper.”
They were spared a long search when a barrel-chested man a couple inches shorter than Sam headed toward them, a martini glass in hand. “Sam! It’s about time you made it. I was starting to worry we’d have to send out the troops to fetch you.”
“Coop, happy birthday! How’s it feel to hit the big four oh?”
As Sam exchanged handshakes and insults with their host, Rosie stood back and assessed him. In a few years, the man’s hair would be completely grey, but for now there was still a fair portion of pepper in the salt.
From what she could dig up in their files, Cooper Davis was the head of a computer networking company and had been a friend of Sam’s for eight years. But she’d not been able to discover how they’d met and become friends. When she’d asked, Sam just murmured something about like tastes and kissed her senseless.
Her lips tingled at the memory as Sam introduced her to the birthday boy. When she shook his hand, his grip was firm, but held no sign of calluses, and from the peek she’d taken at his fingers, it looked like he’d recently had a manicure. Yet despite his deceptively mild appearance, Cooper Davis reminded her of a wolf sunning himself on a rock. Languid and laid back, but ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
While Davis was holding her hand, her thong started vibrating against her clit. A quick glance showed Sam with his hand in his pocket. The danged thing must be remote controlled. She shot Sam a glare, which he returned with a smug smile and a wink.
It took every ounce of control to maintain a smile and keep her voice steady as she wished their host a happy birthday.
“So this is the little lady who’s kept Sam away from our club.” Cooper’s wire-rimmed glasses couldn’t hide how his gaze slid over her in a quick assessment, one that had her body adopting a defensive position though she couldn’t determine why. Maybe it was how his grasp had tightened about her fingers. Or maybe it was the way his thumb caressed her knuckles in a strangely possessive gesture. “I look forward to getting to know you better, my dear.”
“This is about as well as you’re gonna get to know her, Coop.” There was a hard edge to Sam’s voice that made the hairs on the back of Rosie’s neck prickle.
“You’ll have to excuse these two, Miss Ramos. Neither are good with sharing their toys,” a cultured voice from behind their host suggested. “Cooper, darling, why don’t you get Sam and his guest some champagne?”
Rosie relaxed when their host released her hand and stepped back, revealing the speaker wheeling toward them.
“Thalia,” Sam murmured as he bent down to kiss her cheek. “How have you been, my lady?”
“Very well, thank you.” She stopped in front of them and smiled, holding out her hand. “You must be Rosie. Jocelyne mentioned Sam had brought you. I’m Thalia Harper, this is my husband, Spencer.” She waved at the man who had been pushing her. He gave a rather old-fashioned bow. “Come with me, and I’ll introduce you to our little family.”
Spencer maneuvering her chair through the crush of people, Thalia introduced Rosalinda to the other guests, several of whom she recognized-one was a well known television personality, others from C-Span-at least one was a Senator, along with a couple congressmen. A tall blonde on the arm of one of the congressmen threw her arms around Sam’s neck.
“Sammy, you came! I’ve missed you in the grotto.”
Grotto? What the hell went on at the grotto? Was that another club?
A pained look on his face, Sam pulled the woman’s arms away and stepped back. “Mandy, I’d like you to meet Rosalinda Ramos. Rosie, Amanda Henderson.”
Where Rosie was short, Mandy was tall. Not just tall, but as graceful as a ballerina. Where she had black hair that looked like she’d stuck her finger in a light socket until it had burnt to a crisp, Mandy’s long blonde hair streamed in golden waves over her shoulders and down the bare expanse of her back.
Rosie slowly released her breath so no one around them would notice her sigh. Mandy’s body, like most of the other women tonight, was the epitome of surgical perfection. How could a regular gal like her compete? Especially for someone like Sam Watson.
Mandy spared Rosie her own quick assessing glance, then obviously decided she had no competition as she ignored her. “Sammy, why haven’t you come to the club lately? It’s not the same without you.”
A brunette dressed entirely in leather complete with a steel-studded dog collar and thigh-high patent leather boots slithered through the crowd and wrapped one leg around Sam’s hip and clung to him as she purred a welcome. If Mandy was a ballerina, this woman was a pole dancer with Sam the pole.
Rosie narrowed her eyes. No real boobs in the world retained their shape like that. Not unless they were supported by an underwire which the other woman obviously wasn’t using considering the design of the…well, it wasn’t so much of a dress, more like a series of straps concealing the important bits. Not that Rosie thought she was any slouch in the boob department, but the brunette’s perky missiles could have drilled holes into granite.
“Tawny.” Sam peeled the woman off him. “Where’s Cooper? Isn’t he your trainer lately?”
Tawny’s collagen-enhanced lips pouted when he kept her at arm’s length. “Coop says he needs to talk to you and I’m to fetch you.”
Sam shrugged in Rosie’s direction and followed Tawny over to their host. Cooper took Sam a few paces away so they could talk without being overheard. Able to keep an eye on Sam, Rosie chatted idly with Thalia, while her husband stayed two paces behind his wife. Rosie shifted uncomfortably as Spencer kept glancing down the deep swell of her cleavage and again to the thigh peeking out from the slit up her hip. From the way lips pressed together, Thalia finally noticed her husband’s meandering gaze.
“Spencer, my prince,” she put a strange emphasis on the title that had Rosie wondering its significance, “go to the bar and fetch me a glass of sherry.”
Apparently whatever they were discussing hadn’t taken much time, as Sam returned not five very uncomfortable minutes later, just as Jocelyne swooped in, accompanied by a gentleman in his fifties.
“Rosie, I’d like for you to meet my husband, Robert.” She pronounced it with her French accent, so it sounded more like Ro-bair.
Jocelyne was in a middle of a story about Robert’s photography when Sam interrupted. “Jo, you want to go rescue my operative from Tawny’s clutches? He looks like he’s a thermometer about to burst.”
Rosie glanced over to where Kris had positioned himself by the door to the patio and saw Tawny wrapped around him like a clinging vine. Kris’s already red face flamed completely scarlet when she swiped her tongue up the side of his face while sliding her hand down his pants.
“Merde, I’ve warned her,” Jocelyne apologized before she left them to rescue Kris.
The vibrations created by the device in her harness stopped and started a dozen times through the evening, sometimes lasting only a few minutes, and once the entire length of a slow dance Sam talked her into. By the time the string quartet finished the last note, she was clinging to Sam, resting her head on his chest as she willed away a threatening orgasm.
Wrapping his arm about her waist, he led her off the dance floor. “Ready to go find a quiet corner yet, Rosebud?”
As tempting as the thought of finding relief here and now, she hated the thought that Andy and Kris would notice their disappearance, or worse, Chad, and know what they were doing. “How about we go home?”
Placing his fingers beneath her chin, he lifted her face and pressed a kiss to her nose. “Can’t. I’ve got that board meeting, remember? You stay here with Andy and Kris, this’ll only take about an hour.”
“Stay here? No,” she protested. “Where you go I go.”
Even though Sam lowered his voice, she couldn’t mistake the thread of authority running through it. “Not this time, Rosebud. This meeting is private so you’re stayin’ here.”
“Where’s the meeting?”
“Up in Coop’s penthouse.”
“Then I’m going to check it out first.”
“Rosie-”
“This is not negotiable.” She pulled away from him, ignoring the glances she drew. “You’re not going anywhere that I haven’t checked out first, and I’m not leaving you alone.”
Silence blanketed the room, so his next sentence carried to all listeners, even though he spoke quietly. “You can check out Coop’s apartment first, but you’re not staying for the meeting.”
“Sam-”
“No.”
“I’m staying with you, Sam. I’m your lead op, remember?”
“Rosie, if I have to handcuff you to Kris and order him to take you home, I will.”
“Right back at you, buddy.” She called to Andy. “Have the limo brought ’round-Mr. Watson is leaving.”
“The hell I am.” Sam wrapped his fingers around Rosie’s forearm and marched her into the hall. As soon as they left, the silence in the party room rose to a crescendo of babbling whispers.
“Now you listen here, Rosebud. These people are both my friends and my business partners. They are not a threat to me or to anyone. You take Kris and Andy and do your search for bombs or what have you, but you will keep your ass out of that apartment once the meeting starts. Do you hear me?”
“As your team leader, it’s my duty to remind you that you are putting yourself in unnecessary danger.
“One of those precious friends in there may be your stalker.”
Sam shook his head. “Give it up, Rosie. You’re seeing shadows where there are none.”
She jammed her hands on her hips. “Excuse me for being suspicious of everyone but that’s what you pay me to do. If I have to treat everyone as an enemy to protect you, I will.”
“Sounds like something they say in the 101^st Airborne,” Cooper’s voice grated behind her.
“I beg your pardon?” Rosie asked without turning around.
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”
She nodded her head once. That about summed up her training.
“What’s this about a stalker, Sam?” Cooper continued. “And why didn’t you tell me you were having security problems?”
Sam exhaled and swore under his breath as Rosie faced Cooper directly.
“As head of Sam’s security team, I need to verify the security of the room where the board meeting is being held. Plus I want to actually be in the room during the meeting.”
“I will allow your team to check out the security of my apartment, Miss Ramos, but I’m afraid only members of the Board are allowed to be present during our meeting. But allow me to apologize for my attitude when you called about the guest list the other day. If I’d known you were head of Sam’s detail, I would have gladly given you the list.” He turned to Sam. “What the hell type of threats have you been getting, Sam? Is there any link to the club?”
“Don’t worry, Coop, the threat’s to me specifically, not to anyone at the club.”
While Sam explained about the photos and phone calls, Rosie left Kris to guard Sam and went up to the penthouse with Andy to check out the security. Once she’d given Kris the all clear to escort Sam up, she waited at the front door of Cooper’s apartment as Cooper, Sam, Thalia and Jocelyne, along with five others filed past. But when she attempted to follow Sam back in, he stopped her with a glare. “I told you. You are not followin’ me into this meetin’. Now go downstairs and have another glass of champagne. I’ll be down in about an hour.”
“No, Sam. I’m staying. I’m the head of your detail, remember? You’re my responsibility.”
“Miss Ramos,” Cooper joined Sam at the door, “while I appreciate your concerns for Sam’s safety, I cannot allow you to be a part of our meeting. If you wish to position a guard outside the door, you are welcome, but that’s as much as I can allow. Club bylaws are very specific.”
With that he shut the door in her face. She snarled when she heard him throw the bolt, locking her out.