by Karen Rock
“Later, Deke,” Erica said without tearing her cool gaze from Ryan.
“Oh. Sure.” The man backed off, then disappeared through the stage curtain.
“Did you enjoy the show?” She put one hand on her hip, and holy hell, Ryan didn’t need to see her face to feel the slow drag of her eyes down his body.
“I didn’t come for the show.”
She raised her pert nose. “What did you come for?”
“You.” Despite himself, his voice grew hoarse.
Erica smelled like no other woman Ryan had ever known, a tantalizing combination of sweet and spicy. Her scent, and the view of her mouthwatering body, pushed all his sexual buttons, despite—or because of—her challenging stare.
He wanted to devour and be devoured—and with Erica, who radiated confidence and unbridled sensuality, he sensed his sexual appetite would overtake him again if he lingered. Time to get to the point and beat it.
“Can we talk somewhere private?”
“I don’t give private dances.” Erica lifted an eyebrow. Mocking him?
“You used to…” Ryan narrowed his gaze, his world condensing down to her. Erica and no one else. He could no longer see the dancers hustling around them to reach the stage, although he could hear the young women’s heels clattering on the wood floor.
Erica brashly held his stare, but Ryan saw past the bravado in the way she slipped her fingers through her hair, trying to tame the tousled strands…a nervous habit he knew well. Good to see not everything had changed.
Her chest moved with each breath of air. Her breasts strained the silk of her robe. The remembered taste of her nipples, sweet like cherries, filled his watering mouth. “Come on, Erica…or should I say Blaze?”
“Only my friends call me Blaze.”
He jerked his head toward the whistling crowd on the other side of the curtain. “Some company you’re keeping these days.”
“It’s an improvement over the old.” Her mouth pursed as she shot him an assessing stare, and his gaze latched on to her lips. Full, lavish, painted the color of a scarlet sunset. “You’re here because of my call?”
“It wasn’t to catch the show, darlin’, much as I enjoyed it.”
She pulled the edges of her robe even tighter, frowned, and pointed to a side door. “We can talk in there.”
Ryan followed her into the small, windowless dressing room, ducking his head so it wouldn’t graze the low ceiling. “Nice digs.”
“Cut it, Ryan. Did Terrance send you?” she asked once she closed the door, referring to the deputy chief.
“Yes.” He helped himself to a bottled water from a mini fridge humming beside a full-length mirror. Anything to cool the fire raging inside him and keep his hands from reaching for Erica. “He said you have a tip for us.”
“Why are you even in Dallas?” She fidgeted with the end of her belt. “Of all the gin joints in all the world…”
“You had to step into mine,” he finished for her, quoting their favorite black-and-white movie, Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart, he was not. “I’m here on personal business.”
“Personal?”
He pressed his lips shut. The need to confess, to unburden himself as he used to with Erica, swelled his throat.
After a beat of silence, she flung herself onto a stool by a mirror and waved to the empty seat beside her. “Okay. Fine, tight lips. It’s about ‘Al Monitor.’”
His body stiffened at the nickname of the disgusting animal leading Jabhat al-Nusra. “Tell me more.”
“Heard a couple of guys at the bar earlier tonight speaking Arabic.”
Ryan nodded and grabbed a stool. Erica spoke six languages fluently, one more than him. “What’d they say?”
“He’s coming to Dallas.”
He met Erica’s hard stare. “No, he’s not.”
In fact, before his mother’s frantic call, Ryan’s team had been chasing a lead to the elusive terrorist leader’s alleged hideout: a rural by-lane in West Bengal. He expected an update within the hour from the agent he’d temporarily left in charge.
“How do you know?” she demanded.
“It’s—”
“Classified,” she ground out. “If you hadn’t let me get fired, I’d have access.”
“You got yourself fired. You broke protocol. You caused an international crisis. You—” He stopped and raked a hand through his hair. “Look, let’s skip the history lesson and cut to the chase. It’s been a hell of a long day.”
The admission slipped from him, too quick to stop. Once again, Erica picked the lock he kept on his feelings. He shuddered slightly, just thinking about it.
“Fine.” She averted her face. The brief glimpse of pain on it plugged him straight in the heart.
“You think they’re working for Khalid?” he asked, using Al Monitor’s real name. Khalid Muhammad al-Harbi.
“I’m not sure. They’re associated with Jabhat al-Nusra. Weapons suppliers.” She rattled off a couple of names he recognized as ones they’d investigated before without result.
“And they just happened to wander into a bar you’re working at?”
She shrugged, and her left eyelid drooped, one of her tells.
“What are you hiding, Erica?”
“Maybe it’s classified.”
He tamped down the surging curiosity to know why she’d chosen to work here, what she’d done these past two years, and how she’d been. When it came to Erica Keely, knowledge could be a dangerous thing. The less he knew, the less involved he’d get. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”
When he stood to leave, she rose and shoved herself between him and the door.
“Wait.” The strand of hair she blew from her face landed against her cheek again. Unable to resist, he slipped the curl behind her ear, his fingers lingering on her soft skin.
“After—after—” She faltered and dropped her eyes. “After I left Amman, I stayed overseas and tracked Jabhat al-Nusra on my own.”
“You went rogue?” he asked, not entirely surprised. Erica had always acted like a free agent, even when she’d been part of his team.
That brought Erica’s eyes to him. Jesus, she had the most gorgeous eyes. They weren’t sapphire blue or sky blue or even marine blue. They were more of an azure frost, and, at the moment, pointedly icy. “After the embassy bombing, I vowed not to quit until I nailed those bastards. A tip helped me locate a couple of Jabhat al-Nusra associates. I’ve been following them ever since, hoping they’d lead me to Khalid. When they came stateside last month, I followed. They move around a lot, so I haven’t picked up their central command yet…if they have one…but since I saw them frequenting the burlesque night here, I applied for a job to get close to them.”
“And how does dancing figure in to that?”
“They weren’t hiring bartenders, so I took some offered classes and applied, anything to get me a foot in the door. When a bartender quit, they gave me his job on the condition I’d fill in if any dancers missed their spot. It all paid off when I heard them mention Al Monitor.”
He reached around her for the doorknob. “Thanks for the tip.”
She pressed her back against the door. “So that’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Wait. I can help.”
“Thanks, but no.”
“You need me.”
He peered into Erica’s eyes and glimpsed something melancholy lurking in their depths. Old memories shimmered between them like heat waves rising off a dusty plain—thin, fragile, elusive as snow in a Texas July.
A chord struck for a fraction of a second. Yet it was enough to draw the breath from their lungs in a simultaneous exhale. His gaze zoomed to her mouth. A mouth he yearned to kiss. A mouth that’d beckoned to him in the dim recesses of dreams he hadn’t known he’d had until this moment. He edged closer. Not thinki
ng, just longing, craving, wanting.
She didn’t sidestep him. He didn’t expect her to. It wasn’t her style to retreat.
Ryan never took his eyes off her face. It seemed completely natural for him to kiss her. To haul her into his arms, rekindle their history, fan the embers, strike a new spark.
He closed the small gap between them, and their lips almost touched. Yet she didn’t flinch. She seemed as enthralled as he.
Knock it off, Arnell, this is completely unprofessional, though that didn’t stop you before. And look where that landed you.
And yet he was unable to stop himself. He didn’t want to stop. Was he trying to prove something? Intimidate her?
Not cool.
So much for his belief he’d moved past his resentment over Erica’s betrayal. He was a rational man, but around her he became… What did he become? Irrational? Heated? Out of control?
A miserable and uncomfortable combination of all three, the conclusion reinforcing his decision to call off their relationship. The CIA was all about rules, rational decisions, and calculated risks, while Erica was rebellious and opinionated and rash. She blazed her own path and didn’t give two fucks about what anyone thought.
And the hell of it was Ryan had fallen for her because of—or in spite of—those things.
Her skin radiated heat, zapping into him. It took every ounce of self-control to ignore his impulse to take her right there in the small changing room. Her eyes widened, and she tucked her elbows at her sides. All at once, she looked completely vulnerable, as if made of fragile glass that would shatter if he touched her. Ryan glimpsed his own fears reflected in her eyes. She was as unsettled as he by the chemistry time hadn’t erased.
They stared at each other with a mix of bemusement, affection, and raw sexual need.
It was all there. The old sparks. The glowing embers waiting to be stoked to life. He still burned for her after two years apart. A thousand fantasies—and he’d had many when it came to Erica—couldn’t have prepared him for this moment; it shook him to his core.
Fate had reunited them.
Reunited.
The idea felt treacherous and wondrous. A pang of longing pierced him as he forced himself to step back. “I’ll get the CCTV footage and run the guys through facial recognition software to see if any other aliases or local addresses come up.”
“There’s more,” Erica insisted. “They’re looking to hire girls to entertain at a party for an important, visiting dignitary. They asked if I’d be interested.”
“And you accepted.”
“Of course. The dignitary could be Al Monitor.”
Concern burned in his chest. “You could be recognized.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think anyone’s going to be looking at my face, do you?”
“I don’t want you in that kind of danger.” His voice came out harsher, more impassioned than he’d intended. He inhaled deeply and waited to speak until he trusted his voice. “Notify me when they contact you with the party’s address. I’ll follow the men—you’re not to get further involved.”
“If you truly wanted to protect me, then you should have spoken up at my disciplinary hearing.” Her jaw worked, and she flipped blinking eyes to the ceiling. “Defended me.”
“I did what was required. I wish you’d done the same.”
After a tense moment, she moved aside and yanked open the door. “I never have regrets.”
“I know,” he replied, pausing in the doorway. With her small chin lifted, her shoulders squared, Erica exuded equal parts defiance and hurt. A wounded lioness. But she’d hurt him, too…and he’d never risk opening himself up to such an intense level of pain or betrayal again. “That was always the problem.”
And with that, he shut the door.
Chapter 2
Two days later, Erica Keely huddled behind an outdoor café’s tall menu, sunglasses shielding her eyes from the midday sun. Her T-shirt lay stickily against her skin, and she gently pried the collar from her neck as she inched forward, peering at the two men seated across the crowded patio, striving to identify the shapes their mouths made and translate them into words, sentences…a conversation.
One was younger, wiry with crooked teeth and a shaved head. A scar, paper thin, sliced through his eyebrow, causing his right eyelid to droop ever so slightly. The effect was unsettling. Intimidating. The other man wore a red ball cap, a full beard brushing the top of his paunch. After spotting the Jabhat al-Nusra weapons suppliers carting luggage from their duplex, their third move in a month, she’d tailed them here.
The listening device in her ear warred with the voices spilling out of the crowded café onto the street. Were they leaving the country or relocating to another house? Planning an attack on US soil? Meeting Al Monitor?
Her heartbeat doubled. She still hadn’t located an al-Nusra central command. Yet the men’s frequent moves, their secrecy, and their mention of Al Monitor the other night was sketchy as hell.
And yeah, that wasn’t some stuffy CIA term, but she was a rogue agent now, as Mr. Protocol himself, Special Agent Ryan Arnell, dubbed her. No matter what he thought, she trusted her instincts.
Her fingers clenched around the plastic menu. Rogue my ass.
Two years after her humiliating dismissal, she remained as committed to serving her country, taking down al-Nusra and avenging the deadly bombing of Jordan’s US Embassy as any official CIA agent—more so, since her good name and reputation had detonated, too.
Her jaw clamped tight.
She’d never stop until she captured Khalid Muhammad al-Harbi, aka Al Monitor, the maggot who’d orchestrated the attack in Amman. Deep down, she blamed herself. Her all-consuming affair with Ryan stole her focus from their mission. If they hadn’t been involved, perhaps they’d have spotted a crucial red flag and prevented eighteen Americans and fifty-four Jordanians from dying.
The carnage rose in her mind’s eye, curdling her stomach. Choking dust had shrouded the former embassy’s rubble. The acrid scent of burnt flesh, of blood, had filled her nose, the shrieks of the wounded deafening her ears.
Her heart drummed a painful dirge: You. Should. Have. Stopped. This.
A failure she’d never repeat…regardless of Ryan’s dismissal the other evening. She winced at the remembered accusation in his eyes. As if she had done him wrong.
Well screw him and the stick up his ass he’d flown in on.
She’d prove him wrong. What’s more, she’d convince him to include her in the investigation, even if working with him again was akin to jabbing a fork in her eye.
Over the edge of her raised menu, she glimpsed the ball-cap-wearing man signal a passing waiter and point to his empty espresso cup. When his gaze roamed her way, she slid further down in her seat, her pulse kicking up.
They still hadn’t contacted her with the address to the private party. The one Ryan had warned her to stay away from. She swallowed back a snort. Even when he’d been her boss, she’d rarely followed orders clashing with her own objectives.
And look where that got you, taunted a voice in her ear.
Fired. Disgraced. Alone.
She shifted in her seat, unsettled.
Ryan, on the other hand, was a walking CIA manual and about as dry and emotionless. Most of his colleagues called him the toughest field agent in the world, but he’d taken zero risks when it came to opening up and expressing his feelings to her. Nada. Zip. Why she’d imagined she could break through his walls, she’d never know.
Temporary insanity, she supposed.
And, hey, it got damn lonely in the desert. A girl had to cut herself a little slack. Not to mention the mind-blowing sex. No one else had ever made her lose her mind, her control…herself like Ryan.
Though it’d been more than just a physical connection…at least for her.
Overhead, a ruffle-edged
canopy snapped in a brisk wind, obscuring bits of the weapons suppliers’ exchange.
“Al Monitor is—”
She swore under her breath when the flapping fabric drowned out most of her target’s voice except “unpitted olives.”
Great. Just great.
Her first big lead today was about condiments.
“Destruction.”
Her muscles clenched, and she held herself perfectly still to decipher the rest of the muffled words.
“Are you ready to order now?” demanded an impatient waiter, making her jump.
“Um…uh…” If only the tall couple she’d sat behind hadn’t cleared out a few minutes ago. They’d blocked her targets’ view. What if the weapons dealers recognized her from Dallas Heat and grew suspicious that she’d followed them?
“Look, miss.” The server slapped a dish towel over his shoulder. “You’ve been here thirty minutes without ordering.”
Erica shoved a couple of twenties at him. “Here’s my order: beat it.”
“Well… I…” At her scowl, the waiter backed away. “Yes, ma’am.” He whirled and scuttled back inside the restaurant.
Erica released a breath and tuned into the conversation again. Luckily the wind had died, and the rapid Arabic flowed clearly into her ear.
“He will be most pleased with the redhead,” one said.
The redhead? Did they mean her? She stifled a groan. She should have donned the scarf she’d brought along then promptly forgotten. When she reached down for her purse, she came face-to-face with a support dog vest-wearing Chihuahua. It retreated to its owner’s table, dragging her bag.
“Be a good boy,” she whispered, grabbing the strap. The men’s conversation droned on. At least they hadn’t noticed her tug-of-war with a dog weighing less than her firearm. “Let go.”
The dog’s lips lifted in a snarl, and white appeared around its wet, bulging eyes.
“Fifi?” A young woman with an aggressive headband—nothing else could describe something purple-and-white-polka-dotted—peered under her table. “What are you up to?”
“Stealing my purse!” Erica hissed beneath her breath. “Make her let go.”