me into forgetting you could have been hurt.”
“And you’re not going to bully me into forgetting I have a job to do.”
He reached up and cupped her cheek. Izzie couldn’t help curling into his hand, loving the roughness of his skin against her own. “I would never bully you into doing anything, Izzie.”
They hadn’t yet talked about her job. They’d officially been secret lovers for two wild, passion-filled nights, and she hadn’t had a chance to even ask him if he was going to have some kind of macho problem with her dancing. Now he’d opened the door for the question.
“Are you going to be all right upstairs, watching me?”
He brushed his thumb over her jaw. “I love watching you.”
Nibbling on his finger, she murmured, “I meant, will you be okay watching everyone else watch me?”
His jaw stiffened and his dark eyes flashed. But he didn’t pull away. Instead, he drew closer, tipping her head back so sweetly, so tenderly, she knew he was still worried she could be hurt. “Izzie, I can’t promise anything because I haven’t experienced it yet. But I can tell you this...I know and want the real you...both sides of you. The Rose and the woman you become when you walk out of this place every Sunday night. I’m in this with both of you.”
Without saying anything more, he bent down and covered her mouth with his, kissing her sweetly and tenderly. Then, with one more brush of his hand on her face, he turned and walked out.
* * *
AS IT TURNED OUT, Nick did not have to test himself to see how he’d handle watching Izzie strip for other men. Because before she ever went onstage, Nick was forced to deal with a couple of punks who didn’t understand the rules of a place as upscale as this one. One of them had made a move on a waitress, another had lunged at a dancer. Nick and Bernie plucked the guys up and dragged them out the front door, where, high on liquid courage, they’d both tried to put up a fight.
Maybe it was the residual anger he’d felt at seeing the blood on Izzie’s fingertips. Or maybe it was the rage that flooded his head at the thought that it could have been Izzie the prick had grabbed, but as soon as the guy threw the first punch, Nick reacted harshly.
He’d had a few fights in his day, both before his military days and during them. And it was painfully easy to take down a drunk. The fight was over almost immediately after it had begun. Bernie dispatched of the drunk’s friend just as quickly and the two of them nodded to each other in appreciation for the backup.
“Thanks, man,” Bernie said.
“Not a problem.”
Bernie shook the bleary patron. “I think this is the same prick who grabbed Rose a month ago.”
Nick’s jaw went rock hard. If the man hadn’t already been in Bernie’s firm grip, he might have found a reason to throw another punch. But he was a fair fighter and wouldn’t do something so out of bounds.
Unless the guy got free...then all was fair.
The guy didn’t get free, Bernie had a tight grip and had begun chewing him out for harassing Rose. That incident had obviously been a more serious one than Nick had been led to believe, because Bernie hadn’t forgotten a moment of it.
Because things had gotten physical, Nick decided to cover his own ass as well as the bouncer’s and the club’s, and called the police. He wanted this thing on record, now, when there were plenty of witnesses who’d seen both the assault on the female workers inside, and the provocation in the parking lot.
It was just his bad luck that Mark heard the call to Leather and Lace and decided to respond. Nick saw his brother get out of his unmarked car and saunter over, smiling widely. “Get in a fight without me?”
“Just doing my job,” Nick replied, trying to figure out a way to get Mark to leave without going inside the club. If he was on duty, it wouldn’t have been an issue—his brother was too good a cop to go inside a strip club while on duty. But he knew Mark’s hours. No way was he working this late on a Saturday. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I heard it on the scanner. Noelle was already in bed—that woman goes to sleep by eight every night now. So I thought I’d head on