“Let go, please,” she whispered, hating the slight bobble in her voice.
“I was simply trying to prove my point.” His arms slid away. He wasn’t cheesy about it, no copping a feel, but the simple brush of movement still jangled her already off-kilter nerves.
“People who insist on being right all the time are really annoying.”
“That will give you the perfect motivation to be a good student so you can kick my ass. Unless there’s some reason you’re afraid of the challenge?”
Did this guy take mind game classes in between saving the world? Regardless, his blasted psychology was effective. She was a fighter. “Where do we start?”
He swept a hand ahead of him, his ever-stoic face betraying no emotion. “This way, maestro.”
“Maestra, for females.” She deserved to indulge in just a little condescension, damn it.
“Right, definitely maestra then. Get ready to rock out, Sun Tzu style.” He charged down the hall with confident strides she had to double-time to match.
* ADANA, TURKEY
Nunez baked in the afternoon sun even without a suit jacket and tie. Nothing new. A large portion of his job included sitting around and waiting as inconspicuously as possible.
At least the food rocked at the tiny café across from the nightclub. Sitting at an outdoor table, he tore off another bite of his Lamb Adana—a cross between a gyro and his mother’s meatloaf—while skimming through a local newspaper. All of which provided the perfect vantage point to catch sight of Ms. Surac when she reported for work.
Over the past couple of days, he’d been rotating through the local bars on his list but still hadn’t connected with the Oasis’s cagey waitress again or found out anything more about the older Surac woman. He turned a page on the paper and paused mid-flip. Oh yeah. Good things came to those who waited. Anya approached the club, winding around pedestrians picking their way through vendor stalls. She strode down the cobblestone street, blond hair catching on the air with each gliding step.
Her steps faltered. She frowned, looking around and hitching her purse more securely on her shoulder. Her face tipped to the wind as if she could scent danger.
Then she looked straight at him.
Instincts such as hers were golden. Or deadly. He stared right back, allowing himself a small smile. Her exotic dark eyes widened. He didn’t even bother deluding himself. The static between them crackled with raw lust.
He reached for his money clip and tossed double the cost of the meal on the table. He wove through traffic at a slow jog, his eyes on the target.
The door fascist descended the steps and blocked his path, leaving Anya free to bustle past and up the marble steps. She cast a quick glance at him over her shoulder.
Nunez didn’t even bother smiling this time, just stared back. He could have sworn he detected vulnerability in her eyes, but he’d grown too jaded. All he could see was her marked resemblance to the older woman in the photo of his suspect. That she would be here, at a bar under suspicion, couldn’t be coincidence.
The door dude crowded his space and defused the static. Did this guy ever sleep? Yet another sign the man was a cokehead or doing some other brand of speed, which made him unpredictable.
There was no pushing past him without creating a scene. She opened the door herself, small price to pay for a clean getaway.
“We’re closed.” Mr. Slick’s sunglasses shielded his condescending look today. The guy clearly clocked double duty as a doorman and bouncer.
The Terminator with a fedora and a Valentino suit.
“I’ll wait.” Nunez didn’t budge.
Neither did the doorman. “Be careful of pickpockets. They prey on those who loiter.”
A stare-down later, the doorman sniffed and turned away, back to his post, offering a quick flash of his braided ponytail and 9 mm tucked in the small of his back. He parked his uptight ass on a wrought-iron bench, snagging a newspaper from beside him.
Nunez studied the door closing behind Anya Surac, half registering the cacophony of car horns on the pedestrian-packed street. Wafting scents of roasting kabobs in a nearby stall presented a far greater distraction, since this mission left more time for drinking and little for eating. He eyed the vendors lining the street.
“Crash and burn, my friend,” a male voice rode the smell of cigar smoke. “Crash and burn. Your lady does not seem interested.”
Nunez pivoted fast and found the man standing in a nearby doorway. Now that guy’s accent was easy enough to place. The dude hailed from somewhere around Greece. Nunez catalogued the piece of info before moving closer for details—a man in his fifties, graying curls, thick brows, and an even thicker stogie.
The stranger nodded a dismissal to the glorified bouncer. Nunez’s mental antennae went on alert, hands sliding up to ride on his belt, within reach of his own concealed weapon. “The tougher they are, the greater the victory.”
“True. True.” The man stubbed out his cigar on the sole of his Barker Black ostrich-capped shoes. A downright sacrilege. “You throw around much money.”
Nunez fed the guy a noncommittal, “I believe in enjoying life.”
Wait for it. Wait . . . for . . . it.
The man thrust out his hand. “Spiros Kutros.”
Nunez’s antennae homed in. Kutros, a man who claimed distant kinship to a defunct Mediterranean royal family. And an investor in this very club.
Interesting. “Miguel Carvalho.”
“Carvalho? Ah, I have heard of you.”
Of course he had. The NSA and CIA built a variety of covers, sometimes years in advance, planting reports, photos, and gossip for times when an undercover agent had to launch a sting quickly, without the luxury of months to build trust. Stepping into Miguel Carvalho’s “life” had been simple.
Kutros flashed perfect teeth that only the very wealthy around here could afford. “That waitress, she is a hot one.”
“Do you have a prior claim?”
“None. I prefer my women to be like . . . How do the Americans say? . . . Like my whiskey, smooth and easy.”
Was it a coincidence that he mentioned America so early on? “Ah, but the bite sneaks up on a man faster that way. At least I know what I’m in for with ones like that.”
“To each his own, my friend.”
Miguel would want a woman like her. But what did Mike want? He never took the time to consider relationships. Any sort of real connection had been discouraged the second his family entered the witness protection program.
He’d enjoyed plenty of sex but not entanglements. And always with women who shared his lack of expectations. There were plenty of female agents in his shoes, needing physical release between undercover assignments.
“So,” Kutros spoke through puffs of smoke, “you are alone on your vacation?”
“Who says I am on vacation?”
“If you are not on vacation, your employer must be very frustrated.”
“Who said I need a job?”
Kutros threw his head back and laughed until his amusement turned into a raspy cough. “My kind of person.”
“I take that to mean you do not have a job calling you?”
“Investments to oversee.” Kutros pulled out a new cigar and pointed it toward the club. “Not a bad job checking the alcohol and service, eh?”
“You’re a lucky man.”
“That I am.” Kutros extended the cigar. “Welcome to Turkey.”
Mike took the Cuban smoke he knew sold for four hundred dollars. Connection made. “Thank you, my friend.”
SEVEN
What the hell had he gotten himself into?
Jimmy swung open the door to an exercise room full of blue mats and no people. If the threat around here was real, did he truly expect Chloe to fight her way free with a crash course in kickboxing a guy in the stones?
Two seconds into disproving her mace theory, he realized this was a bad idea. He’d never been attracted to someone who irritated him before, and the
feeling chapped his hide.
Damn it, excuses were for the weak.
Get this lesson over, and move on.
He powered deeper into the musky room, echoes from an intramural volleyball match thundering on the other side of the partition. The universal feel of the space wrapped around him with a comforting familiarity, and he couldn’t resist a vertical leap to touch the basketball rim.
Chloe’s laughter rocketed around the metal rafters at the slam dunk pantomime.
He cat-footed his landing and shrugged. “Sorry—habit, I guess.”
“That’s like me trying to conduct the music on my iPod.”
“Pretty much.” He jockeyed forward with a boxer’s bounce.
She stood waiting on the mat, her khakis and flowing white shirt casual enough for her to move around. “Ready whenever you are, Sugar Ray.”
Eyes off the exposed line of her jaw. Her jaw, for crying out loud. A curve with creamy soft skin he could still feel imprinted on his wrist.
He shook off the distraction. “If you’re serious about learning self-defense—and I think all women should be—when you get back to Atlanta, consider taking a course in Krav Maga for women. You have to know Atlanta isn’t exactly the safest city in the world.”
“Krav Maga?” She gathered her curls in her fist and looped the length into some kind of loose knot behind her neck.
“Krav Maga is the official self-defense of the Israeli forces.” He settled into explanation, into the zone, more comfortable in this instructor role. “It’s a take no quarter, practical style.”
“I thought you were into defense with the least damage to the attacker.”
“In my case, the enemy has valuable information, and I want to keep them alive. If you’re in a fight, I doubt the person downing you holds top secret info about enemy forces.” How much would it have taken to bring Chuck down? At what point would he crack? The thin layer of camaraderie he’d felt with Chloe evaporated. “But learning that takes intense training. For now, we’re going to cover some quick and easy techniques.”
“Self-defense 101 for dummies.”
He ignored the quip. “First tip, use anything around you for a weapon: a rock, a pencil, an umbrella. Smash hard things on bone and pointy things into softer areas.”
“The old ‘hold keys between the fingers’ principle. Right. I’m not a total dunce when it comes to being safe. I read all those safety tips forwarded over the Internet.”
“The Internet, huh?” How naïve could she be? “Then I guess we’re done here.”
“Watch it, pal, or I’ll come after you with my conductor’s baton.” The glint in her eyes mixed impish fun and wicked revenge.
He was wading into deep waters here. Back to the instructor role. “And if you do decide to use that conductor’s stick, the most vulnerable strike points are the eyes, nose, throat, groin, and knees.”
“I thought all guys were on alert for the old knee to the groin defense.” She shifted her weight from foot to foot, eying him with an intensity that suggested she wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to have him singing soprano.
“That’s why you have to be certain of success if you try it. Another option: squeeze the guy’s testicles until he passes out or pukes.” Even the thought made him queasy. Images of overrevved soldiers launching on the stage toward a pale-faced Chloe made him sicker. “If you’re fighting a woman, pinch the inside of her thigh as tightly as you can. It works on a man, too.”
“Pinching?” She tapped her index finger and thumb together, already eying his thigh as if assessing whether she should give it a try right now. “That seems too easy.”
“Hurts like hell.” Even trained in martial arts, he’d used the old pinchers during an escape attempt in Afghanistan. He’d downed the guard until the sadistic bastard hurled, then commandeered his gun and made it out the window to a crappy ass side street before being caught.
In retribution, his captors had strapped him to a metal table and hooked him up to a car battery.
He shoved aside the nightmare and the remembered burn it brought. Sensory recall sucked. “Sure, there are other moves that could be more debilitating, but they’re also more complicated. When that adrenaline’s flooding your system, it can be difficult to remember intricate moves unless you’ve been highly trained.”
“Since I don’t have time to earn a black belt, I take it there won’t be any high-flying kicks.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, damn.” She hitched her hands on her hips, full breasts straining against her shirt. “I always wanted to be Kung Fu Barbie.”
Why couldn’t she grasp how serious the stakes were here? He was trying to help keep her safe. Couldn’t she understand how vulnerable she was? Even with the crash course, her odds sucked against a seriously trained opponent.
“I prefer Street-Smart Barbie.” Jimmy snapped his fingers repeatedly. “Now, let’s move along. Your attacker may have captured you from behind, immobilizing your hands. That leaves just your legs and feet free.”
Jimmy settled behind her and slid his arms around her waist. “Raise your foot as far as possible and boot your attacker in the knee. Once you’ve done that, let your foot slide downward to ram his instep.”
Her breasts grazed his hands. Her bottom nestled against him. Her scent, something flowery and intensely feminine, teased his nose.
Ah, hell.
He continued his instructions through gritted teeth and willed his body not to respond. He would just think about emergency procedures. As a flight tester, he had numerous planes to pick from. Today he would go with emergency procedures for the T-37, a trainer and appropriate choice, since he was in uncharted territory with this woman.
How to recover from a spin?
Throttles—idle.
Rudder and ailerons—neutral.
Stick—abruptly full aft and hold.
Rudder—
His buckling knee shouted a warning to his testosterone-fogged brain a second too late. Chloe’s foot nailed his instep. Pain shot up his thigh as he struggled to keep his balance. A roar from the crowd next door rivaled his mental yelp of pain.
He swallowed back a grunt and held tight, managing to keep them both on their feet. “You’re a fast learner.”
“The upside to being a prodigy.” She glanced back over her shoulder at him.
Her smile lit up the room like a blinding flash to night-vision goggles, and he resented the feeling. Big time. He tightened his hold and resolve. He swept his foot behind her knees and downed Chloe before that smile of hers could blast him out of the sky.
Jimmy followed her to the mat in a textbook-perfect pin, dancing right into danger with this woman against his better judgment. “It doesn’t pay to get too cocky, Baby Einstein.”
He couldn’t tell if he’d stunned her quiet or just knocked the wind out of her, but she just stared up at him with wide green eyes, her blond curls a riotous fan spread over the mat. Jimmy cupped the back of her neck, his hand moving instinctively, much like how he jumped for the rim without thinking . . . or how she conducted her iPod music.
Chloe didn’t pull away.
She inhaled gusty little breaths that puffed peppermint into the sparse space between them. “Why did you do that?”
“The tables can turn fast, and the stakes are too high around here.” He would be wise to remember his own advice. Like now. He should get off of her. And he would.
Just not yet.
Confusion flickered through her eyes, pretty much the same thing batting around inside him. His eyes settled on her lips, plump and moist and just begging to be—
The double doors clicked open.
Jimmy jumped off Chloe just as she sat up, an inch away from head-butting his chin.
“Whoops,” a male voice from the entrance broke the moment. “Sorry, sir.”
Jimmy pulled away in time to see a pair of young airmen backing out. Chloe flattened her palms to the mat for balance, her pupils wide.
&nb
sp; Living in the moment was one thing. Outright recklessness was another altogether. His instincts told him he needed to get away from Chloe before his control snapped.
He rolled to his feet again. “I have to hit the bunk for a power nap. I’m flying later.”
Flying? Chloe steadied herself with one hand, while her mind raced to catch up with what had just happened between them—or rather what hadn’t happened. “Are you leaving Incirlik?”
His face blanked. “No.”
“Why would you fly here, and at night? Is something wrong?” She stood up, her brain filled with all the dangers in the Middle East that he’d harped on so often. She wanted to believe his concerns were skewed because of his military experiences. They were in Turkey, after all, not Afghanistan or Iraq.
But still.
She swayed on her feet. His hand shot out to steady her, fingers landing right over her transplant scar. She jerked back instinctively.
His eyes shuttered. “We’re flying a demo of the new aircraft for the local military, showing off night moves. What are your plans for tomorrow?”
The abrupt subject change let her know loud and clear her questions were unwelcome. “Security cleared us for sightseeing around the base and into that city close by . . . uh . . .”
“Adana?” He sounded irritated again. “You’re leaving the security of the base to pick up a few souvenirs? Have you forgotten someone may have tried to blow you up back on that boat?”
“Apparently the security people here feel they have that well in hand. We can go to Adana as long as we have a security escort.” She stared back at him.
“Have you not listened to anything I’ve said? Good God, woman, I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall.”
“I hear that happens quite often to hardheaded people.”
His jaw flexed. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you have got a serious chip on your shoulder.” He raised his hands in surrender, backing a step. “Forget it. Lesson over. I’m out of here.”
“Wait,” she gripped his arm, “I don’t get this, get you. Security tells me it’s fine to leave the base. I do what they advise, and you rip my head off. How am I in the wrong here?”
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