“Look…” Nicki glanced at the stage, then raised a brow as one of the male dancers kissed Lucia’s neck.

Jon ripped his gaze away from the scene. “What?”

“If you came all the way to Vegas just for some hidden media storage stuff, you’re wasting your time. If you came about my sister…” She crossed slender arms over her chest and grinned. “Then your timing is perfect.”

“She looks occupied to me.” Crap, he hadn’t meant to sound jealous.

“Not yet. You know she’s turning twenty-five tomorrow?”

Jon swallowed. No, he hadn’t known, but it reinforced the rea- sons he’d left her untouched two years ago. Though he was barely ten years Lucia’s senior, twenty-five sounded damn young to him. Given their differences in life experience, that ten years might as well be a hundred.

“So your dancing goons down there are a birthday present?” He nodded to the stage.

“Nah. My employees just like her.”

“Well, then she won’t be spending her birthday alone.” And wasn’t that a bitch?

“Maybe not. But she likes you more.” Nicki’s direct stare chal- lenged him.

Jon knew that. God, didn’t Nicki realize that he’d had to force himself to leave Lucia once before? Twenty-three had been too young for what he’d wanted to do to her. He’d taken one look at her then and known that she was a virgin. Glancing at her giggling embarrassment around the male strippers currently thrusting their dicks in her direction, Jon wondered if anything had changed.

“Your sister is beautiful and kind. She deserves someone great who will come home to her every night, kiss the kids, and snuggle up with her on the couch. That’s not me.”

“I didn’t ask you to marry her and knock her up. I only meant that maybe you’d take her out for a drink or something and talk.”

“Where do you think that talking would lead, Nicki?”
She shrugged. “Maybe to just a nice evening. Maybe to bed.”

He shot her a skeptical glance. “You’re encouraging me to sleep with your younger sister?”

Shifting her weight from one platform to the other, Nicki sighed. “She’s still a full-fledged V-card member, but probably not for long. I’m…worried about her.”

Jon was far more worried about what would happen if he spent any time alone at all with Lucia DiStefano. She made him hungry. And after too many tense, sex-related cases, his strings were pulled damn tight. Knowing that she was still a virgin… Well, everythingabout her was so sweet and pure. And couldn’t he use some of that 
in his life?

Great, except he’d sully her all up. He couldn’t bear to be the one to disillusion a girl as tender as Lucia.

“Want to know what I did on my last case?” Jon asked Nicki. He was sure that she didn’t, but was going to tell her anyway. “I 
ensured that one of my analysts trained properly to pose undercover 
as a submissive at a BDSM resort. I watched her get naked. I watched 
her get spanked by one man … and get off at the hands of another—at the same time. I saw her publicly flogged and fondled, then I had 
to send her to a place where orgies and whippings are common. Your 
sister’s idea of racy is probably reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover 
aloud at a book discussion group of her fellow academians. Don’t get me wrong; I’d be a lying motherfucker if I said I didn’t want to be the man to take Lucia’s virginity, but she deserves someone who hasn’t lived too long on the edge. Trust me, I’m doing her a favor.”

“Oh, get over yourself.” Nicki rolled her eyes. “So she’s been sheltered. That makes her corruptible, not breakable. I’m only telling you this because I know you have some feelings for her, and I think you’d make her first time better than any drunk slob she’s 
going to meet at that stupid singles’ resort she’s jetting off to for a 
week. But you know what? If you’re determined to be all self-sacrificing and white knightish, then let her go to the Bahamas and get her brains fucked out by a stranger. I’ll slip a box of condoms into her suitcase and tell her to have a good time.” Nicki shoved away from the wall. “You’re welcome to stay for cake. If not, you know where to find the door.”