Keir O'connell's Mistress. Sandra Marton

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      Maybe she’d expected him to ignore that breathless little “no.” Maybe she’d expected him to offer her something to sweeten the deal. Whatever the reason, it was a damned good thing she’d decided to stop him. He’d been lucky to get out in time.

      What was it his brother Sean had once said about men and hot-looking women? Maybe it was Cullen who’d said it. Not that it mattered. The message was what counted.

      Men suffered from ZTS. Zipper Think Syndrome, meaning when it came to sex, guys thought with their zippers instead of their heads.

      Keir grinned. Yeah, that was it. The old ZTS theory.

      The light above the elevator was moving at last. Twelve. Ten. Eight. Six. Two. Keir gave a relieved sigh as the car announced its arrival with a soft ping.

      Okay. One problem solved. For all he cared, the doors could slide open, the Berk babe could be standing there with nothing on but her skin and it wouldn’t mean a damn.

      Except, that wasn’t quite the scene. Cassie was inside the elevator, all right, wearing that little skirt, the clingy top, the high-heeled shoes…

      Correction. She had only one shoe on. She was bent over the other one, which seemed to be stuck to the floor, her cute little bottom pointed straight at him. Either she was too busy to know she had an audience or she just didn’t care.

      And he was having trouble remembering that he was too old to be led astray by ZTS.

      Man, he’d been on the road too long.

      Keir cleared his throat and donned what he figured was his best Chief of Ops polite smile.

      “Hello, Cassie.”

      She jolted upright and swiveled toward him, the look on her face going quickly from surprise to recognition to displeasure.

      “You!”

      She filled the word with loathing. Well, he could hardly blame her. Her memories of the last time they’d met probably were no better than his. Be pleasant, he told himself. After all, he owed the lady an apology.

      “Yeah, that’s right. Me.” Keir nodded at the shoe. “Having a problem?”

      “No,” she snapped, “I always stand around like this, with one shoe on and one shoe—”

      The car began to move. She hadn’t expected it and she jerked back.

      “Careful!”

      Keir grabbed for her but Cassie flung out a hand and caught the railing.

      “Don’t touch me!”

      So much for being polite. “No problem. You want to break your neck, be my guest.”

      “I’m doing just fine on my own.”

      “Oh, yeah. I can see that.” He watched, arms folded, as she tried to pull the shoe free again. “Stop being foolish, Berk. Let me help—or would you rather I put in a call to Maintenance and have them send up a work crew?”

      “What? Those idiots? They’re the ones who left this damned piece of wood here in the first place.” She leaned down again. “I’ll fix it myself.”

      Maybe. But he couldn’t promise what he’d do if she kept bending over like that.

      “Not on my time,” he said sharply, “and not in my elevator. Dammit, why argue over something so simple?”

      “Go ahead, then. Who am I to argue with the man in charge?”

      “‘Thank you’ might be a more gracious response.” Keir squatted down, yanked the shoe free and rose to his feet. “Here. Next time you decide to wear stilts—”

      The car shuddered to a halt. Cassie yelped, stumbled, and Keir caught her in his arms.

      She caught her breath. So did he. She was pressed tightly against him, her back against his chest, her bottom against his groin. Don’t move, he thought, God, don’t move…

      The doors swooshed open. Keir heard a sound. A snicker? No. A snort of laughter. He swung around, taking Cassie with him, and saw two very interested, all-too-familiar faces.

      Cassie gave a little moan of despair. “Your brothers?” she whispered.

      Keir nodded.

      Sean and Cullen O’Connell simply grinned.

      CHAPTER TWO

      CASSIE’S day had gone really, really well.

      She’d worked a double shift to cover for one of the other girls who’d either come down with the flu or had a new boyfriend—nobody was quite sure which—but that was okay.

      No problem. She could use the extra money.

      The only thing was that she’d started the first shift tired after a tough, three hour exam, the final one before she got her degree in restaurant management. Cassie had taken the course on the Internet after signing up, mostly out of curiosity, two years ago. The work had been interesting and, to her surprise, she’d done well at it.

      Soon, she’d start looking for a job as far from Vegas as she could get. She’d already decided on an employment agency, a place called TopNotch, because the gossip mill said TopNotch provided almost all management employees to the Desert Song.

      If it was good enough for the Song, it was good enough for her.

      By the time her second shift was drawing to a close, Cassie was totally exhausted. Her mouth felt stiff from constant smiling, her eyes felt tired from the re-circulated air washing over her contacts, and her feet…

      No. She wasn’t going to think about her feet. Rule One in Cassandra Bercovic’s Survival Guide: dancers and waitresses should never think about their feet until they no longer had to stand on them. Once you admitted they hurt, you were in deep trouble.

      She was already in trouble.

      Cassie winced as she eased one foot just a little way out of its silken, stiletto-heeled prison. Her toes felt as if they’d been jammed into a ball, her arches ached and the soles burned as if a sadist had gone at them with a blowtorch.

      She sighed, plucked an empty glass from beside a silent slot machine and put it on her tray.

      Toe shoes had been the bane of her existence until she’d given up ballet the day after her seventeenth birthday. Back then, she’d thought bloody feet were only the province of ballerinas.

      Talk about being wrong…

      Okay. Enough of feeling sorry for herself. Her feet hurt. Big deal. The good news was that she was almost out of here. It had to be close to seven. There was no way to tell because there were never clocks in casinos. The only time that mattered was how long a guest spent at the slots or at the tables.

      She knew the time, though. She’d asked Chip on her last stop to put in an order at the bar.

      “Pushing СКАЧАТЬ