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Chapter Nine

"There he is," muttered Max softly into his ear, appearing for the rest of the room like she was whispering sweet nothings in her lover's ear.

"I'm starting to really not like this guy," Alec muttered sweeping his eyes across the room once again and catching sight of him. Wearing your everyday tuxedo he made a show of his entrance trying to act like the higher class he was supposed to be but to Alec he simply looked like a little boy failing to fill his father's shoes.

Max had told him that Mr Geffen had passed away 2 years ago and left both of his casinos to his only son Gareth but what he had been surprised to hear was that the hotel had been left to Alden with an ample sum to keep running it too. He could however see why.

The huge hall was beautifully decorated for the evening. The dark reds and gold's warmed up the atmosphere and brought everyone together harmoniously. Staff, almost unnoticeably, fluttered around at everyone's every need, quickly and efficiently. If it had been left to Gareth, Alec very much doubted everything would be running this smoothly. The man didn't even know a good suit.

People were everywhere, in little groups or in couples. Men in tuxedos escorted beautiful women wearing dresses that could probably feed a family in Seattle for several weeks. Showing them off like dogs would a new bone.

As Gareth looked their way Alec grinned and wrapped his arm tighter around her waist almost possessively, "We're drawing attention Alec," Max said chuckling and rasing her eyebrows at him, looking him in the way he'd always hoped she would. No disgust, anger, hatred, not like he was a screw up but as an equal, like she liked his company, like she liked him.

"Want to give them something to stare at?" he asked smirk firmly in place and a ton of innuendo dripping from his seemingly innocent answer.

She laughed then and he smiled at the sound. Not even in a hundred years would he tire of it and in that second he understood Zack, her unit. He would have risked everything just like the other man to hear that sound, to revel in it. Zack's freedom had been seeing it shown on Max's face whether she realised it or not. And now it was Alec's.

These past few days had been a mismatch of emotions and happenings with not even enough time to arrive in one place that they moved onto another and Alec was glad for this breather. He didn't care that they were working; it didn't feel like it, it felt like a holiday. The best present he'd ever received.

"It would be my pleasure," he heard her say and for a brief moment he was confused, finally realising she was answering his earlier question. A smile of his own beamed and Max matched it as he led her further into the hall towards Gareth who seemed surrounded by his guests.

People stepped aside letting them through and Gareth spun around a smile on his face as he saw her, "You made it," he stated for no apparent reason taking her hand and lifting it to his lips noting smugly Alec bristle and unfortunately not noticing the barely repressed disgust that had flitted on Max's face.

"We were never properly introduced. I'm Gareth Geffen," he spoke his name like it was royalty and Max couldn't help picturing him as a pigeon as he ruffled his own feathers and pumped himself out. Amused by the visual she watched as Alec took the hand stretched out to him and shook it firmly, "Alec."

"Is there a surname with that?" Gareth replied amused, a sleazy smirk hiding his confusion.

"Yes," Alec replied again not at all perturbed by Gareth's unsettled features as he expectantly waited for him to continue.

Max was desperately trying not to grin at Alec's obvious refusal to say his surname and she let her eyes rove over her criminal match. Goddamn the man looked good in a suit, and black was definitely a becoming color on him. Course if I was on him I'd be coming… Thoughts stopped screeching to a halt as Max tried to banish images she shouldn't have conjured.

Cheeks flushing, she scolded herself. Yeah the man looked good but just because he looked like god's gift to women and things were over between her and Logan didn't mean anything had to happen. Not that she wanted anything to happen.

Right, course she didn't. Max rolled her eyes.

And just because she always had fun with him and he could always make her smile and he was always there for her didn't mean that she had to start having more than friends thoughts about him. Okay fine… continue to have more than friends thoughts about him. Sure, he was her ultimate match and where she lacked he was plentiful and vice versa but they were just FRIENDS.

"…what do you think?"

Suddenly aware that a question had been posed to her and that questions in general demanded an appropriate response called a reply or an answer Max froze, "Ummm… uh," completely lost at how to respond she stuttered her eyes searching Alec's for some sort of help.

Finding no clue whatsoever though she shrugged and guessed, "Yellow?"

Soft laughter from the diminished crowd around them filled the room, "You weren't listening were you?" Gareth stated tiredly and she could see his impatience try to show upon his brow. Successfully though he kept it inside, visible only to her because she'd seen it before, palpable only because she'd felt it before. Felt the annoyance and repressed anger roll off him in waves in the many arguments she'd witnessed between son and father.

"I'm sorry Gareth it was a long trip today. I guess I'm just a little bit tired. In fact I think I might catch up on my rest. Please excuse us," she apologised in incredibly believable gentility and what must have been the best and most real looking fake smile Alec had ever witnessed.

Letting herself be led away towards the elevators Max composed herself once again, banishing the thoughts that had distracted her. She had to focus, she wasn't gonna let one hot boy... one guy screw up her concentration. Max needed to be at the top of her game if she was to successfully pull this off.

"We're not going to bed are we?" Alec stated more than asked.

"You haven't tired me out quite yet," she replied with a small grin but as she caught his full beam smile her mind wandered once again and she slapped herself mentally. Damn, I've got to stop this before it gets any worse. Alec if you value your manhood, do not twist what I just said. I'm doing a good enough job by myself.

He could have made a comment, actually Alec was pretty sure he could have made several, but her expression had been good enough on it's own. From the way things looked, he was starting to pervert her… hey, points for Alec!

***

"So explain to me again why you can't stay in your dress?" Alec inquired relenting to the fact but not letting her know, "Well, you taking it off isn't the part I don't agree with, it's the fact you're putting something else on," he continued mostly to himself smiling at the thought but knowing she would hear anyway and curiously awaiting her rebuttal.

"I'm sorry Pookie," she replied dripping with sarcasm, "You see the problem is that if we're snooping around naked there's a higher chance we'll be noticed than if we're in black casual.

A grin spread on Alec's face as she walked out buttoning up her black pants, shirt slung over her shoulder not yet on her, revealing smooth supple flesh concealed by a bra that looked like a bitch to undo. For that matter all bras were. It was a secret stand against males everywhere, keeping them away from the happiness they could find in the rounded smoothness of a woman.

Alec had had few chances of coming in contact with said part of Max's anatomy, apart from a few times when he'd given her a lift. In his opinion he hadn't had enough close encounters with them. However the memory of her holding onto him, feeling her pressed into him as he zigzagged through traffic was firmly implanted into his brain.

Slipping into the long sleeved v-neck black cotton shirt she ran a hand through her hair taming it back, "I never said anything about both of us being naked," at her confused expression he explained, "You said if we're snooping around naked. Not that I'd mind being naked with you but I was talking about you specifically."

Max's cheeks flushed and quickly turning her embarrassment into anger she growled at his cocky smirk, "Argh you are such a prick."

Nostrils slightly flared she stomped frustrated picking up one of the boxes from their shopping excursion that still littered the floor and lobbed it at his head as he laughing barely avoided it making contact, "Hey, hey relax I can be naked too if you want me to."

Only making things worse with his words he watched as she launched herself at him, hands ready to throttle him as he continued to laugh, so much in fact he couldn't properly defend himself.

Alec tried his best to fight off her halfhearted attacks trying to stop his own laughter but missed one lunge.

Thwack. Ow. Pain                

Alec saw stars as his eyes threatened to roll back for a second. He'd always known Max was hard headed but this fact sunk in only now. Damn that girl had a serious hard cranium on her, "Shit!"

His forehead was throbbing as if he'd just played chicken with a cement truck and neither had moved. Falling back onto the pillows groaning in pain, his hands shielded his head gingerly like a little boy would a scraped knee scared of the disinfectant his mother approached him with.

Max wasn't quite so affected, having collided with the top of her head but still she rubbed sorely her scalp a flinch upon her features at the bearable ache. Sparing a guilty look at her fallen comrade she peaked a look in his direction where he lay muttering nonsensical muttering about steel hard skulls of genetically engineered women in general.

"I thought it was impossible but oh you've proved me wrong. You've got to have Robocop DNA in you, shit your head's hard! I'm gonna look like Wile E. Coyote now with a bump the size of Obelix's nose on my head… ahh," he whined with eyes still closed, features crumpled into a cringe.

Soft fingers brushed his face halting his complaints as she tenderly pushed his hands aside to take a look. A small pang of guilt hit her again as she saw the red mark where his forehead was starting to swell subtly. It would be gone in a matter of 10 minutes but it still must have hurt like hell.

Alec watched captivated as one fingertip slowly passed over the reddened skin, its cool texture lighting a shiver at the base of his spine as it passed through him, "I'm sorry Alec," she whispered quietly, "But I still think you watch way too much TV."

Confusion furrowed his brow and she smiled, "You managed to state three TV shows in one sentence."

Grinning then he shrugged not defending himself, "I was waiting for you to say something like that. It's just like you to focus and all the irrelevant pieces of information rather than the fact that you just killed several thousands of my brain cells with your noggin."

Rolling her eyes she sighed as she caught the teasing glint buried beneath his false kicked puppy look, "Oh give it a rest you baby. C'mon, everyone's at that function and we won't get as good a chance to look around for a while."

"And don't even think of complaining the whole way," she added that last bit seeing his expression change, "Alright keep your panties on… or not."

Laughing he dodged her hand and jumped off the bed, "C'mon Maxie, time's a' wastin'."

***

Getting in had been disappointingly easy. For one of the biggest hotels in Vegas with a casino built into it, it was remarkably lax security wise. He'd been expecting a headache.

He'd sorta gotten one, though not in the way he'd originally thought, Alec mused rubbing his forehead absentmindedly.

Hacking into the computers had been cake too. In fact Alec was quite sure that eating cake was way more exhausting than this. He was actually bored.

Watching Max's thoughtful features as she impatiently waited for the hard drive to copy onto their disc he studied her carefully. A thought occurring to him he took several deep breaths inhaling the air almost wearily. Nope she wasn't in heat.

That means old boy that you have in fact perverted her, he grinned, wow congrats man.

Now, however he had her scent impregnated into his mind and even the smallest of breaths he took he could smell her, feel her there and god it was good. Quick flicks of his tongue moistened his parched lips as his thoughts ran away with him. The blonde groaned in disbelief of himself attracting Max's attention as she looked at him confused.

Smiling nonchalantly waving off her perplexed expression he swore mentally. No man should ever put Max, tongue and lips in the same thought, especially if she was present in the same room.

Damn it was hot in there. The office walls seemed to shrink down around him as his breathing picked up. He definitely should have put something lighter on rather than the tight black turtleneck he was wearing. What the fuck, were you thinking? You moron. What kind of idiot wears a turtleneck in Vegas?

The way he saw it, he only had two options. One; grin and bear it till they got back to their room, then change and go for a swim in the hotel's pool or… two; annoy the hell out of Max so she was just as uncomfortable as he was. Not one to disappoint Alec went with the second one.

"So Maxie. After we download these classified plans of the building and get the layout of the vault. What do we do after that?" he asked indifferently focussed on getting something that appeared to be stuck underneath his fingernail.

Jolting slightly at the unexpected question she paused a second as if phrasing in her mind what she was going to say, "Well then we rip off the entire casino and drive off into the sunset."

Nodding his agreement he didn't meet her eyes, "And then, when we get back to Seattle with roughly 310 million dollars, because as you told me the casino vault also serves as the family vault, and we leave Gareth to try and rebuild what his father left him, something which he'll obviously fail at and in his failure will probably lose important allies, friends and make enemies, drive himself into a depression he'll most likely never get himself out of till he dies on the side of a street in the clothes of a beggar smelling like alcohol and vomit all alone and cold, what do you plan to do with all that money? And what was the point for the other scams apart from getting money for your shopping spree?"

Amazing how it doesn't matter where you are in the world, whether trapped in a Siberian blizzard, in the Amazon forest hunting for berries or in a Las Vegas Hotel manager's office. When someone kills the conversation you can still hear those pesky little crickets chirping in the background. Maybe that's how it started for Ben. Those chirps could drive anyone insane.

Shocked brown eyes blinked at him and then she grinned at him and shook her head hiding her chuckle as the computer beeped announcing it had finished and she removed the disc.

"What?" Alec asked confused at why she wasn't denying, defending or just plain getting aggravated at his questions.

"You are such a goofball sometimes," she stated smiling, "So then how bout that swim?"

His face must have been comical because Max laughed again and then continued, "I know you've been wanting to try out the pool since we got here. After that however we really need to get some sleep."

Following her quietly out of the office they walked silently, Max still grinning, towards the front desk where Alden stood smiling in their direction, "You're scary sometimes you know that?"

Rolling her eyes she chuckled.

Turning her attention back to Alden she smiled, "Hey Al. In our room there's several shopping bags that I placed near the entrance, don't worry bout the ones in the bedroom. Those other ones however, could you see that they're packaged and posted to this address?" she asked handing him a piece of paper.

Nodding politely he reassured her he'd have someone on it right away calling to some bellboys, "Oh and one more thing Mr Keating," keeping her pretence of a guest as a staff member came up to her. The last thing she wanted to do was get Alden in trouble or in suspicion after they blazed with the cash.

"Yes Miss Guevara?" he inquired halting the clerk that had come up to him in a signal to wait.

"Since last time I've been here it seems nothing had changed. Everything is wonderful, nothing's ever out of place," she complemented.

Alden smiled, "Nothing has changed Miss. Everything is in the same place as the last time you graced us with your visit."

Another round of smiles and they parted Alec with slight bafflement, "What the hell was all that about?"

Max grinned walking into the waiting elevator and watching the metal doors close, "I was just checking something," she replied as the lift began its ascent.

"Yeah and what was that?" Alec continued curiosity growing with every second of her being cryptic.

She didn't reply right away and for a moment Alec thought she wasn't going to but as the elevator continued on past their floor, confusion settled onto his brow as it came to a stop. Max pressed the wall slightly and Alec jumped when a number keypad slid out.

Grinning Max pressed her thumbprint onto the blue screen and punched in a code, a smile on her face, "Welcome Max," greeted the mechanical voice as the keypad disappeared back into the wall.

Alec was beyond lost as the doors opened, "Checking that they hadn't erased my clearance for the top floor access."