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  “I’m okay, Aidan. I’m fine.”

  “Thank god, get over here,” he said, his voice thick with emotion though his eyes still remained glued to her assailant. He had been a good cop and was an even better bodyguard and Summer had never been so glad that all six foot two of him was on her side.

  She came to her feet and crossed the room on shaking legs. Her mind might be telling her she was out of danger, but her nerves were still completely shot. She found herself darting nervous looks in Kelly’s direction as she made her way to where Aidan stood, a part of her expecting the woman to pull another gun out of thin air and start firing.

  Instead, she suddenly spun and ran for the door.

  “Stop it, right there!” Aidan ordered, bolting after her.

  But Kelly was a hell of a lot faster than Summer would have expected. She was out the door and halfway down the street by the time Aidan burst through the front entrance with Summer close on his heels.

  “Get back in the shop and call the police,” Aidan shouted.

  “No way, you’re not going after her. You’re not a cop anymore.”

  “Summer, let me go. That woman tried to kill you, I can’t let her—”

  “And she might try to kill you if you follow her. I didn’t see where her gun went.”

  “It’s on the floor of the shop somewhere. She’s unarmed, I’m—”

  “You can’t know that for sure. She could have another weapon and she’s crazy enough to kill. Please, I don’t want to lose you.”

  Aidan’s jaw clenched in response, but he didn’t run after the woman swiftly disappearing down the darkened street, away from the lights of the strip.

  “Let’s go call the police and let them handle it,” Summer pleaded, tightening her grip on Aidan’s muscled forearm. He spent at least four hours a week pumping iron at the gym and could have pulled away from her with the slightest effort, but he didn’t. Instead he took a deep breath, the muscles under her hand tensing for a second before he relaxed and holstered his weapon.

  “Thank you, you know I—”

  “God damn, don’t ever scare me like that again,” he said, sweeping her up in his arms until her legs dangled in the air. Then he squeezed her hard enough to make a few bones crack down the length of her spine and Summer surprised the hell out of herself by starting to laugh.

  “I don’t know what you’re laughing about, you nut. You were almost shot in the back.”

  “I know. Shit, I was scared.” Summer giggled before burying her face in Aidan’s neck and inhaling the musky scent of him. Realizing she might not have lived to smell that heady fragrance again was enough to make her laugh even harder. It was either laugh or cry at this point and she was grateful she wasn’t bawling like a baby. That would wreck all chances of pulling off the night she’d had planned.

  Aidan would still want to have their special night, wouldn’t he? Even after having to draw down on a crazy would-be client and nearly seeing his main squeeze shot full of holes?

  “Well, it’s good to hear you laughing, at least,” he said, holding her close with one arm as he turned and pushed open the door to the shop.

  He dialed the number to the police department and reported the incident to a detective friend of his all while holding her pinned to his side, feet still dangling in the air. This only made Summer feel even more ridiculous and inclined to giggle. Still, Aidan managed to concentrate on the job at hand even as he shot her looks that clearly conveyed he thought she was insane.

  He hung up after giving a detailed description of Kelly and the direction in which she’d last been seen running away from Ink Me Studios. From what Summer could hear of the conversation, it also sounded like he’d committed them to staying at the studio until a couple of men made it down to take their statements and a few pictures of the crime scene.

  Summer’s heart sank as Aidan hung up the phone. After surviving what she had so far tonight, she knew she should just be grateful to be alive, but a part of her couldn’t help but mourn the evening she’d had planned. She’d waited so long for this night. Between work and family obligations, they so rarely had the chance to indulge their wilder side anymore and Summer had never dared think about doing the things she had planned to do with Aidan tonight.

  Though the way he held her right now left no doubt how much Aidan treasured her, Summer had felt the passion between them simmering at a much lower level in recent months. She’d tried to do her part to kick it up a notch in the bedroom, but far too often found herself too tired to play the games they used to play or take their bedroom antics past the point of a slow, comfortable screw. A comfortable screw with Aidan was still intense, but she hated to see that wild, abandoned lovemaking they had once had become a thing of the past.

  She’d planned this evening for over a month, putting her heart, soul, imagination and a healthy dose of purely lustful fantasy into creating a night neither of them would ever forget. If they let this chance pass them by, a part of her worried the opportunity might not come their way again for a long, long time.

  By then, would it be too late?

  “So I guess this means we’re going to have company, huh?” Her disappointment was clear in every word, but Summer couldn’t seem to help herself. Having Aidan so close, feeling her breasts smashed against the hard muscles of his chest, made it hard to hide.

  “Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to call the cops,” he reminded her gently, his brows arching over his bright blue eyes as he set her down behind the counter.

  “Right.” Summer sighed, kicking the safe closed with the toe of her boot. Her sensible, low-heeled brown boot, not the four-inch fuck-me knee-high boots still waiting patiently on the floor of the bathroom in the back.

  “But that doesn’t mean our plans have to change,” Aidan said, sweeping her long braid over to one side and pressing a single kiss on the back of her neck. Summer shivered at the contact and felt things low in her belly clench with excitement. “Unless you’re not feeling up to a date night anymore?”

  “Oh, I’m feeling up to it,” Summer said, smiling widely as she turned in his arms. “As long as you’re feeling up to it.” Slowly she scratched her nails up the front of his jeans, feeling him immediately start to swell beneath her touch.

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.” His voice grew husky as he watched her caress the bulge in his pants with obvious interest. “When did you paint your nails that color?”

  “This afternoon,” Summer said, increasing the pressure of her candy apple red nails up and down his shaft.

  “You look like a dirty little slut,” he said, his laugh ending with a hiss as she guided her other hand to cup the heavy weight of his balls.

  “Honey, you have no idea,” Summer said, standing on tiptoe to whisper her next words directly into his ear. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  She pulled away as the front door opened and two cops entered the studio amidst much blaring of walkie-talkies, leaving Aidan to do his best to conceal the raging erection straining the front of his jeans. Summer smiled at the two men and offered them some coffee, suddenly pleased she had an excuse to make Aidan wait even longer for his satisfaction. This game might not have started off the way she had planned, but she was a girl who could roll with the punches.

  Sneaking a look at him now, there was no doubt that Aidan was intrigued, and already on his way to be mightily frustrated.

  She had him exactly where she wanted him and in less than an hour Lady Tigerlily, her highly researched alter ego, would be making her first appearance. Now, if she could keep from chickening out and remember how to tie her ropes properly, she and Aidan would be in for a very, very interesting evening.

  Chapter Two

  “Summer?” Aidan stepped back into the staff only section of Ink Me and immediately did a double take.

  What the hell had she done with the place? And how had she managed it in less than ten minutes?

  He’d only been out with Officers Dick
ens and Chavez for a few minutes, he was sure of it. Summer was supposed to be back here changing for their date, but by the looks of things she’d spent the time redecorating instead.

  Black and red candles burned around the entire circumference of the room and in the center of the space, the old futon couch had been made into a bed and covered with some very silky looking red fabric. Black pillows of various shapes and sizes littered the futon and the floor and incense burned in a small pot in the corner. Light sitar music played on the sound system, completing the mood and leaving little doubt what Summer had in mind.

  “Take a seat, I’ll be right out,” she said, her voice muffled by the bathroom door.

  “No problem, take your time,” Aidan said with what he knew was a shit-eating grin on his face.

  He’d made reservations at one of the most exclusive steakhouses in town for nine o’clock in an attempt to do something special for the occasion, but if Summer would rather celebrate five years together with a more personal, private party, who was he to argue? It had been way too long since they’d had time to enjoy each other in an intimate, sexy atmosphere. Hell, he couldn’t even remember the last time they’d made love with the lights on, let alone on satin sheets with music and candles.

  And after the scare he’d had tonight, he couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms, to feel her almost unbearably soft skin against his own. He wanted to bury his face between her thighs and taste her, make her scream her release before he worked his cock into her tight, slick pussy and fucked her until they both forgot how close they’d come to losing each other. God, if that woman had pulled the trigger, if she’d shot the woman he loved more than anything in the world, Aidan didn’t know what he would have done.

  Killed her, most likely, without a second thought.

  “Summer, babe, you want to get out here? I’m dying to give you another hug,” Aidan said, his heart lurching back into his throat as a mental image of the red-haired woman raising her gun and starting to squeeze the trigger flashed through his mind.

  Too close. It had been entirely too close and Aidan promised himself he’d look into hiring twenty-four hour security for the studio first thing in the morning. He’d always felt nervous that Ink Me was on the fringes of the strip, near where the bright, flashy lights started to fade away as you moved closer to the airport. He would have felt safer if Summer were working in one of the casino tattoo parlors, but she was way too independent to give up ownership of her shop and work for someone else.

  “A hug? You’re looking at that futon and all you want is a hug?”

  “I didn’t say all I wanted was a hug.” He laughed. “I just said I wanted a hug. After that, I’m more than ready to get down to some serious fucking.”

  “How serious?” she asked, her voice sounding breathy, nervous.

  They’d been committed to each other for five years, living together for seven and fucking each other for even longer than that. The last time he remembered her sounding nervous before sex had been a very long time ago and he thought there had been handcuffs involved. She was a control freak, his Summer, and not into the idea of being blindfolded and cuffed to his four-poster bed. At least not at first…

  “What have you got in mind?” Aidan asked, his cock already voicing its enthusiastic approval, no matter what her answer. He was painfully erect, his usually loose-fitting jeans uncomfortably snug. But that’s what she always did to him. Just the thought of Summer naked was enough to give him a boner, let alone the suspicion that she wanted to get up to something decidedly kinkier than their usual bedroom fare.

  “Are you sitting down?” Summer asked through a tiny crack in the bathroom door.

  “No.”

  “Well, sit down!” she said, that same breathless quality in her voice that made him insanely curious to know what she was up to.

  “I’d prefer to lay down, preferably with you under me and my cock between your legs,” Aidan said, starting to walk toward the bathroom when he was stopped dead in his tracks.

  “I said, sit down.” Summer posed in front of the open door, the light from inside turning the barely there kimono she wore completely transparent. Her small, but perfectly proportioned curves were stunningly highlighted. Aidan felt something low in his body clench violently as she turned slightly and the tightened points of her nipples rubbed against the thin silk.

  “Jesus,” Aidan breathed, not knowing what else to say. There she was, the woman he woke up next to every morning, but it was almost like he was seeing her for the very first time.

  Summer just barely topped five feet and had always complained about her short legs, but those legs seemed to stretch on forever as she strutted forward in boots that, god help him, were almost enough to make him come just looking at how they caressed Summer’s tawny thighs. Her pale gray kimono barely covered her ass and flared open as she moved, giving him tantalizing glimpses of sheer black panties, sheer enough that he could see the mound of her pussy clearly through the fabric.

  See it clearly enough to notice that her soft thatch of black hair was completely gone.

  “You shaved,” he said, swallowing hard as she stopped a few feet in front of him. She was taller in her boots and barely had to tilt to her head to capture his eyes with her own.

  “I can’t believe you noticed that in less than ten seconds.”

  “I’m a quick study when it comes to your pussy.”

  “So I see,” she said, tossing her long, ebony hair over her shoulders in a motion that made it seem to dance around her body, a live thing that ached to caress her as much as he did.

  He couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn her hair down. It was always twisted up in a knot on her head with a few chopsticks shoved through it or tied back in a braid. She didn’t like it getting in the way at work or at home, but he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed seeing her like this, looking like some erotic fantasy come to life.

  God, he suddenly wanted to fist his hands in all that hair, to force her neck back until she opened for him completely. He wanted to ravage that blood red mouth, let her lipstick smear across his face as they saw how close two people could come to orgasm from a single, fevered kiss. He wanted to rip off her kimono and see what other surprises she might have in store, to slide his tongue between her newly shaved folds, to watch her clit rise and swell in response to his attentions, completely exposed to him in every way.

  “Come here. Now.” His voice was thick with the lust every inch of her inspired. She was gorgeous, extraordinarily sexy and he couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to call her his own.

  “Bossy tonight, are we?” She smiled, a small, confident smile, her nerves evidently appeased by his more than positive reaction to her outfit.

  “Fine, I’ll come to you.”

  “Not so fast,” she said, stilling his advance with a single finger held up in the air.

  Her fingernails were longer than they had been that morning as well as a shockingly different color. Aidan hadn’t thought he’d go in for the long, fake nail thing. But it had been indescribably hot watching her rake those nails across him through his jeans. He was dying to see what they’d look like wrapped around his bare cock, to see the contrast between her pale hand, those bright red nails, and the engorged length of his own arousal.

  “I believe I told you to sit,” she said, moving away from him with a seductive little walk that made her hips roll teasingly beneath her robe. He could just barely get a glimpse of the underside of her ass cheeks, but it was enough to learn she was wearing a thong.

  Shit, he didn’t know how much longer he could wait to get his hands on her.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He forced himself to sit on the futon. He had to rearrange a few painfully aroused parts of his body to do so, but he did it. If she wanted to lead the festivities for a while, that was fine with him. He could sit and be a good boy as long as she made damn sure she was wiggling that fine ass into his lap in the next ten seconds.

  “You may ca
ll me Lady Tigerlily.”

  “Lady Tigerlily?” He laughed, he couldn’t help it, but the second the sound was out of his mouth he wanted to take it back. The hint of hurt and uncertainty in Summer’s eyes made him feel like the biggest ass in Vegas, and in Sin City that was saying something. “I’m sorry, babe, I mean, Lady Tigerlily.”

  “No, forget it. I should have known this wouldn’t work,” she said, clutching her kimono closed and visibly shrinking before his eyes. “I’ve been researching a lot and in Japanese Tigerlily is Oni Yuri, but I didn’t think you’d understand that so I thought English. But I should have—”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the bathroom to change. I should have known that this was stupid, that my name was stupid and my—”

  “No it’s not, it’s not stupid. I’m stupid. Give me another chance. Don’t go change. You look beautiful. I’m dying to touch you, to make love to you.” Aidan was surprised to find himself on his knees in front of Summer, his hands digging into the soft flesh of her hips through the silk of her robe. He hadn’t meant to beg her this literally. Guess her outfit had gotten to him more than even he realized.

  “I know how to play. You know that,” he continued, his voice once again betraying his need. He needed her, not just wanted or desired, needed, and felt like he’d fall apart if he didn’t get to make love to her tonight.

  “I don’t know. Not any more,” she said, making Aidan realize he’d been even more of an ass than he’d thought.

  She wasn’t just talking about tonight, she was talking about the last few months. He’d noticed her efforts to add a little spice back into their lovemaking, but he hadn’t felt free to make any demands of his own. She had so much on her plate right now, both at work and at home, and he hadn’t wanted to pressure her. He’d had no idea she would take that as a lack of interest, or, god forbid, a lack of passion on his part.

  “Well then, let me convince you. Give me a chance, Omi Yami—”

  “Oni Yuri,” she corrected with the smallest of smiles.