Captivate Me. Kira Sinclair
AGAINST THE wall beside the window now covered by the wide slats of her plantation blinds, Alyssa Vaughn let her body slide down. The polished hardwood floor was cold on her rear when it hit, but she welcomed the shock. Maybe it would cool the sizzling tremble running rampant through her body.
She dropped her head to her knees and screwed her eyes shut.
What the hell had she been thinking?
She hadn’t. That was the problem.
The moment her eyelids closed, her overheated mind conjured up the image of him again. A beautiful man with dark, intense eyes that had scraped across her body with a blazing heat, leaving her breathless. Half of his face obscured by a brightly colored mask.
His body had been just as hidden beneath the dark lines of an expensive suit. But she’d known, instinctively, the fire and strength he harbored. Could see it in the flex of long, tapered fingers and bulge of thigh muscles against smooth fabric.
Dangerously elegant. Like the sleekest jungle cat, beautiful in its power, but deadly when provoked.
The man had stirred some force inside her. The way he’d watched her, gaze sharp and exquisitely intense, focused on every miniscule movement. As though there was nothing in the world for him right then except what she was showing. Nothing more important than what they were sharing.
Excitement and something much more dangerous flashed beneath her skin. A craving that went deeper than mere physical satisfaction. A need long buried. A hope long denied.
Sucking a hard breath through her teeth, Alyssa forced her arms to relax and drop away from their tight hold around her body. She raised her head and let it clunk against the wall. Staring up at the ceiling she’d painted a pale heather gray, she focused on breathing, slow and steady.
No harm done. She’d stopped before going too far. Before letting free that wild piece of herself she kept locked down tight. Always ignored.
A bra and boyshorts were no more revealing than most bathing suits. She hadn’t done anything wrong. So why was she struggling with a sickening mixture of guilt, exhilaration and dismay?
He had no idea who she was. It had been late, dark, with only a lamp on for light. He’d been wearing a mask and was ten feet away, lodged in the shadows. They could collide on the street and never know each other.
A moment of insanity. Mardi Gras madness. A release from the stress and pressure she’d been dealing with all day.
It was over. Or, at least, it would be once she dealt with the hum of residual sexual energy lodged squarely between her thighs.
And if, in the throes of passion when her defenses were weak, she imagined his heated gaze sweeping across her body, watching intently as she finished what he’d started, there was no way anyone else would ever know that—especially him.
2
THEY WERE DESPERATE. And that’s just how Beckett wanted them.
Unfortunately, so was he, although, even as he strode into their plush offices, he had no intention of letting V&D know that.
He needed their app. Would do anything to own it. It was the game changer. Something that would take his nightclubs from simply successful to infamous. Like Studio 54, he wanted Exposed to become a household name, the kind whispered with awe and envy.
He craved the notoriety, money and irrefutable proof that he was finally successful, his life stable. The familiar desperation tasted bitter in his mouth.
What a difference fourteen years could make. At eighteen he’d been kicked out of the massive mansion he’d called home, and the whiplash with which he’d lost everything had hurt. But not nearly as much as realizing his father didn’t give a damn about him.
Without a penny or any discernible skills, he’d floundered, imposing on friends, sleeping on couches, carrying what little his father had let him take in a garbage bag. But it had become clear that wasn’t a long-term solution.
He’d had no place to live. Had never held a job. It might not have sounded like a sob story to anyone else, but going a few days without anything to eat after having every meal provided on gold-rimmed plates had been a hell of a shock to the system.
The fake ID he’d used to get into clubs had been useful in convincing the owner of a seedy nightclub to give him a chance. He’d started out slinging drinks, but soon realized that wasn’t going to be enough.
Six months later he was managing the place, his natural charm and leadership skills taking over. Splitting the profits with a drunk who wasn’t coherent enough to realize what he was giving up hadn’t exactly been the stuff of lifelong dreams, but Beckett had socked away every penny until he’d had enough to open his own place.
It’d taken four years, but a year after he actually turned legal he opened the first Exposed deep in the New Orleans Warehouse District. Funky and eclectic, it had appealed to a wide range of people.
Two years later came the club in New York. Then L.A., Nashville, Chicago and Seattle. He now owned twelve locations. But that wasn’t enough.
Part of him wondered if there would ever be enough. If success and security could wipe out those first few years of desperation.
Especially when his father delighted in reminding him just how much of a disappointment and failure he’d once been. Or that the money he’d made since was on the back of something lurid and common.
As if the man hadn’t come from humble beginnings himself. His father was a self-made billionaire. And a ruthless asshole, like a lion eating his young to protect his power position within the pride.
Beckett didn’t care how he made his mark, though. It didn’t bother him that he did it by selling alcohol and providing a dark place where inhibitions dropped and people hooked up.
Sex and sensationalism sold. Which was exactly why he needed V&D’s new social media app. Having a dozen Exposed locations was great. But allowing anyone with a smartphone to feel as if they were at his clubs...that would open his revenue stream up to every city in the country. Hell, in the world. Billions of people dropping in to watch and interact.
However, V&D refused to even entertain his offers.
Which just pissed him off.
It had been a long time since someone had been stupid enough to disrespect him to his face, but that was what V&D was doing. Treating his blood, sweat and tears like the ten-year-old banished to the kiddie table at Christmas. Dismissing him as if he was insignificant. That, more than anything, was what had lodged beneath his skin, itching and burning.
Well, they’d surely realized that was far from the truth by now. He was more than significant. He had them by the balls.
They wouldn’t listen to reason, so he’d simply take what he wanted.
He was going to enjoy watching them squirm. And while that would certainly be entertaining, what he really hoped to gain from this meeting was an understanding of what he’d done to piss them off so much they’d excluded him from the negotiations in the first place.
He hated to be in the dark. That’s when you were open and vulnerable. Beckett did not like being exposed. And the irony wasn’t lost on him at all.
Now V&D were scrambling, and Beckett was going to enjoy sitting back and watching the show. This would be fun.
He grasped the handle of the conference room door and his heart rate kicked. He embraced the physical evidence of his anticipation, letting it free for just a moment. A smile flickered across his lips. Then, completely in control, he wiped his expression clean.
Striding forward with confidence, he raked his gaze across the conference table and the people already waiting. And he nearly stumbled.
Blood, adrenaline and a bone-deep craving flooded his body. Every muscle went solid, straining against his skin and the need