Give Me Your Night

Black hair, tousled with a careless style. A nose that ran straight and smooth, lips pressed into a hard line. Beneath thick brows, the eyes were cut deep and sharp, and the pale gray irises—so light the pupils showed clear through them—were transparent as ice.

Zena's pulse climbed fast. The sensuality coming off him was thick and fierce enough to catch the breath in her throat. Even that imperious, cutting impression landed as nothing but the magnetism of a powerfully built man.

"I'm fine."

She had gone rigid without meaning to. The words barely made it past her lips.

"I don't think anything's broken, but just in case, an X-ray—"

"I don't need a hospital."

"If it's the bill you're worried about, I'll cover it."

"I have that kind of money."

The brazen answer leapt out of her, and Dane angled his head. Her small face, gone pale and set, caught his eye. The silence before she spoke again did not last long.

"Then give me your night."

Resolve settled over her face. So this is where it goes again. A wire of tension hummed between their locked gazes.

"Look at this."

He bent and braced an arm on the foot of the bed, and the muscle of his shoulder rolled, slow. When his face drew close, the unsteady breath she let out touched just above his lip. His mouth went dry all at once. A base impulse surged up on instinct, and Dane frowned.

"With that hand the way it is, you're still going to dig in?"

Zena met the pressing weight of his stare and said nothing.

"Can't you treat yourself with a little more care?"

"Throw your self-respect away and chase easy money, and all you'll have left is the damage."

He sounded like an adult delivering a stinging rebuke to a child.

Zena only bit down hard on her lower lip and refused to answer. Every word he spoke jabbed at her heart. Why didn't she treat herself as precious? Ryan's face rose in her mind. The weight of the debt on her conscience was heavier than any pride she held as a woman.

"Don't sit there turning your head for an excuse."

Dane went on as if he could see straight through her, and she felt the censure soaked into his voice. At this rate, what she had come here to do would slip clean out of reach.

There wasn't time to find another way. Zena's gaze went blank and fixed on the knot of the towel at Dane Hunter's waist. She had no skill at seduction, but she knew that once a man's body stirred, he could take a woman he didn't even want.

Her hand crept down over the sheet. The bandaged wound stung, and her knuckles throbbed. She knew what she meant to do was reckless, but there was no other way. Lips bitten tight, she reached without warning for the knot of the towel in front of her.

…!

A shock he couldn't hide passed across Dane's face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Wrist caught, Zena swallowed against the tension. Tendons stood out sharp along the forearm cutting across her view. She tried to pull free and couldn't move an inch against his strength. Still bound at the wrist, she was hauled upright, her body lurching as he pulled her to her feet.

Dane was past disbelief at her nerve. Before he could even get angry, her breath touched the underside of his jaw. Zena pressed in until their bodies were flush, then set her lips softly against the hollow at the center of his chin.

A small breath broke from between Dane's lips. The feel of her against his skin was light as a feather. He swallowed dryly, without a sound. Hot breath caught in his throat, and something tickled low in his gut.

Zena looked over his bare torso with hesitant eyes, then carefully laid a hand near his chest, her wrist still caught in his grip. When her slender fingertips met him, his body flinched.

"Do you really not want this?"

She looked up at him, provocative. The lips that had touched his jaw drifted slowly, brushed his cheek, and aimed for his mouth, which carried a faint trace of alcohol. It was nothing if not bold, and wanton.

"You don't hate it."

Close enough that their breaths swallowed each other, she lifted the corner of her mouth in a faint smile. Dane drew a line between his brows as if he couldn't believe her nerve.

"Fearless little thing, aren't you."

And for what. Her clumsy caress felt like an enormous temptation. The urge rose to throw the slender body clinging to him onto the bed that instant and swallow her from head to toe.

But she was only twenty-two. A woman who had walked all the way here with nothing in her head but finding a sugar daddy. Just the fact that she had come looking for him in his room told him she was no ordinary girl. He couldn't even be sure she carried no hidden aim beyond a sugarship.

"What's there to be afraid of? If you'd meant to do anything to me, Mr. Hunter, you wouldn't have refused from the start. Am I wrong?"

Zena answered, watching him with clear eyes. Just feeling the muscle of him under her fingers was enough to make her think her heart might stop, but she forced a calm face so she wouldn't look like a novice. His languid gaze traveled down over her eyes, her nose, her mouth, and settled on her lips. Zena held her breath without meaning to. She was so tense a hiccup felt ready to escape.

Their eyes crossed and tangled. There had been no fierce caress, no kiss, and yet the look between them was one that would not have surprised her if anything happened.

Warning bells were going off in Dane's head. The scent of a woman's skin circled the closed room. His mouth kept refusing her, but beneath the towel his cock stood hard and surged, greedy, aching for her body.

"I'm only asking for one night. Is that so hard?"

Dane had nothing left to say. He clicked his tongue, and only then did he loosen the hand locking her wrist.

An awkward air hung in the quiet. Dane stepped back and raked a rough hand through his hair.

Whatever had brought her here, refusal was the only answer. Giving a woman like this even a moment at his side broke an iron rule he had set for himself. And yet she had a strange air that drew him in. Her eyes, her breath, her warmth, her touch—all of it stirred him.

"Listen to me, little girl."

A dry laugh came with a voice gone slightly rough. It grated on him, badly, that he was being shaken by a temptation this young.

She was a woman who let men have her for money. Give in to what stood in front of him and he would wake tomorrow morning to an awkward mess, no question. Taking her just to enjoy himself, filling his lust and then turning her away cold—that didn't feel like something he could stand behind either.

Irritation piled up in a body left wanting, and it twisted. Dane forced down the edge creeping into his tone and spoke.

"Go home. No matter how hard things get, you're better off not stepping into something like this."

The voice was packed with an authority that left no room to refuse. Dane put a call through to the lobby at once and had the hotel's VIP limousine standing by. Then, watching Zena open her mouth to resist, he laid a deliberately stern look over his face.

"Take the car. Don't even think about slipping off somewhere else."

Faced with that brutally indifferent voice, Zena fought to hold an expression that felt ready to collapse. From Dane Hunter's manner, she could tell the purpose she had come with had failed, miserably.

She hadn't failed to consider the chance of refusal, but the way he meant to send her off without a second thought felt nothing but cruel. Disappointment and self-reproach pressed heavy on her chest. Knowing Liam Carlson's cold nature, there was no version of this in which he would go easy on Ryan now that she had failed the task. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do anymore. She couldn't see a single crack to slip through in Dane Hunter.

"It's fine. I'll go on my own."

To hide the look welling up in her, Zena dropped her head and curled her faintly trembling fingers. A deflated laugh slipped from Dane. Before the amusement had even left his mouth, Zena quietly turned.

"I'm sorry for the trouble."

Blinking fast to hide the tears gathering on her lashes, she moved toward the door. Dane lifted a brow, just slightly.

"Wait."

He followed her, took his wallet from his suit, and without counting pressed cash into her hand.

"Take it."

"I don't need it."

Zena looked at the bills in his hand and shook her head. She turned her back without noticing the way his expression shifted into something hard to read.

She vanished from sight as suddenly as she had appeared. Her face, darkened as far as it could darken, stuck in his mind. He remembered her breath breaking against the point of his chin, the faint trail of her hand climbing his chest.

Beneath the towel, the column standing rigid protested in the open, as if resenting its owner. A hollow breath escaped him.

"Christ. A sugar daddy. What a ridiculous thing to say."

But the unsettled feeling was hard to shake, and Dane stood for a long while with his eyes on the door she had left through.

Two days passed.

Beyond the open-kitchen counter, the chef and the line cooks moved in a busy rush that drew the customers' eyes.

Tori's, where Zena worked as a waitress, was a strict vegan restaurant that used no meat, no eggs, and no dairy at all. Thanks to a chef who could turn out whatever a customer ordered on the spot, the place was well regarded in the neighborhood—enough to land in famous blogs and even the newspaper magazines. Because the owner was Chinese, it was also known for every waitress wearing a white qipao patterned with gray flowers.

After carrying a box of vegetables in from the pantry, Zena hurried toward the service counter.

"Zena, table fifteen."

Plates waited for her, steam curling up. To the customers it was a mouthwatering smell. After hours of breathing it in, it wasn't, for her. Zena wiped the sweat from her brow and glanced around. The tables were already full, and several people sat in the chairs by the entrance, waiting for a seat to open.

On days this crowded, running the floor back and forth left her worn to nothing, but the tips came in just as thick, so she couldn't complain.

Only after the lunch rush had been served in a blur did Zena step out through the back door. A small space set aside for the staff greeted her: three plastic chairs, sitting there alone.

There had been so many parties today she'd had no chance to rest. While she served, the smell of food worked its way into her hair and clung. The muggy air outside didn't help at all.

Zena dropped into a chair and kneaded her throbbing right knuckles. The swelling hadn't fully gone down, and it hurt whenever she put any strength into it, so she figured she'd be paying for this a while. She had tried not to show the pain, but she couldn't help the faint tremor in her hand when she picked up a plate.

She let out a small sigh. A few hours ago, Liam Carlson had contacted her. He wanted to hear what had happened two days ago in Dane Hunter's room.

After turning it over, that was the reply she sent. She had said as much, but the thought of facing Liam Carlson left her heavy.

For the past two days she had tossed through the night without sleep, tangled in miserable feelings and the guilt of having missed her chance to save Ryan. She hadn't completed the mission Liam Carlson had given her, but she couldn't give up like this. Somehow she had to persuade him again and win a little mercy.

"Even if I sold every organ in my body, it still wouldn't come to ten million dollars."

The strength seemed to drain right out of her. Zena buried her face between her knees and let out a sighing lament. Emotions that wouldn't settle twisted her insides.

What Dane Hunter had said in that room kept ringing through her head. At the sudden hard pounding of her heart, Zena brought a hand to her chest.

She didn't know why, but ever since she had met that man, her heart had been answering her uneasily. Was it because he was the one she had done something so shameful in front of, something that wasn't even in her nature? Just thinking of him sent heat rising through her whole body.

Then the back door dragged open with a creak, and the thread of her thoughts broke. Luke, who served alongside her, came outside. Covered in tattoos and piercings, he had a look no one would have called ordinary, and he had been working the same shifts as Zena for about eight months.

"Zena, they're saying there's a VIP at dinner tonight and we need to be extra careful?"

The piercing hung at the tail of his brow caught the light as it moved with his expression.

"A VIP?"

"Yeah. A reservation got dropped on us out of nowhere. God, it's hot. Let's go back in."

Tori's was not an upscale, genteel room. It was a casual restaurant full of families. There was a section for VIPs on the second-floor indoor terrace overlooking the first floor, but because the interior opened to the space below, it was nowhere near strictly private.