Page 9 of Filthy Little Games
“Bullshit.”
Carmine lifts his phone and snaps a photo. “Pretty girl, but I think she’s more my type than yours,” he teases with a grin before he finally shows the image to me.
He’s wrong. The woman in the miniscule green dress isn’t simply pretty. She’s beautiful, tall andthickwith long, wild auburn curls. And she’s looking right at his camera. At us.
I lift my eyes from the phone and search the general direction of where my brother’s phone was aimed.
It only takes a moment to spot her. She stares back at me, her gaze unwavering. And the image doesn’t do her justice.
She’s hands down the most gorgeous woman in the city, and she’s…crooking her finger at me?
I can’t say I’m not tempted to go over and talk to her.
But I’m not a dog to be summoned by anyone.
“Well? Aren’t you going to go talk to her?” Carmine asks as if he’s so certain she’s interested in me and not himself.
“I haven’t decided yet. I don’t appreciate being ordered around by a woman I don’t even know yet.”
Instead of caving, I nod my head to the empty stool next to me at the bar as a counteroffer.
She shakes her unruly head of tight spirals and purses her pretty pink lips together. Shoving her fingers through her hair to toss it out of her face, her eyes dart around the crowded club before she tips her chin up stubbornly as if to say,get your ass over here right now.
“Either she doesn’t know who you are, or she’s got some big brass balls in her panties.”
“No shit,” I agree with a frown, not a fan of my brother imagining anything in her panties.
When I don’t make a move, her gaze scans the club, and she looks exasperated. Once our eye contact is broken, her gaze lowers to the phone in her hands, her thumbs typing away to someone.
I wait for her to lift her head again, but she doesn’t, too engrossed with her device.
Carmine shoves his elbow against mine. “You should hurry over before someone tells her who you are and scares her off.” When I hesitate, he adds, “Or maybe I’ll just go talk to her.”
“Vaffanculo,” I snap while straightening and buttoning my suit jacket. Realizing exactly why he said that shit. “Well played.”
He laughs. “I expect you to thank me profusely in your wedding toast for not taking her home with me tonight.”
As I reluctantly begin to make my way toward her, I flip him off without glancing back until the woman’s eyes widen when she looks up and sees me approaching her.
Rather than giving my brother the middle finger, I should’ve been thinking of what the hell I’m going to say to her. First words are important, and I can’t seem to come up with any to negate who and what I am.
Before I have a chance to say a single word, she sucks in a deep breath that lifts her shoulders and then blurts out loud enough to be heard clearly over the thumping music, “You and your friends should leave right now, Mr. Ferraro.”
Okay, so she knows exactly who I am. And she still called me over? That’s…interesting.
Moving in closer, I study the trail of freckles that start between her auburn eyebrows and sweep down her nose before locking eyes with her again.
Eyes that sparkle like light shining through green glass.
“You called me over here, and before I have a chance to even tell you how gorgeous you are, you’re telling me to…leave?”
“No. I mean, yes!” She says as she adjusts one of the thin straps of her tiny dress that matches her eyes. “Go!” She points her finger toward the entrance, as if I’m an idiot who can’t find my way out. With those parting words, she turns toward the bar, in a clear dismissal of me, which is pretty damn infuriating.
Refusing to let this baffling and infuriating woman slip through my fingers so soon, I grab her bare forearm to stop her. “Wait a second. You’re not even going to tell me your name?”
“I can’t,” she replies just before chaos erupts around us.
When I hear the familiarpop-pop-popsound, rather than reach for my gun in my holster to shoot back, I tackle the woman to the ground, shielding her body with my own, even though I have no idea which direction the bullets are flying from.