Willie played friendly social director, chatting up a couple of guys Sax recognized from the Connections mixer. But he quickly moved on, skirting around the edge of the bar and opening a refrigerator to retrieve a tray of gelatin shots. Then he reached into the very back and pulled the last red cups from a cardboard box labeled with a big black X across the front. He tucked the two cups in the back corner of his tray. Now Jennessy purposely squeezed Sax’s hand. He gave her a nod of understanding at her suspicion: those shots contained ketamine.
“Intercept,” he mouthed as they trailed him.
The son of a bitch was whistling as he continued past a volleyball court where about a dozen people’s body parts jiggled and bounced as they dove for the ball.
“I could have lived my whole life without having that imprinted on my brain,” Sax whispered.
Her laugh was as light and warm as the sunshine. “I was thinking the same thing yesterday.” She wore the same expression he probably had—morbid curiosity topped by a grimace. And, he suspected, he probably had that same glint in his eyes that she had as their eyes held and their smiles faded into something softer.
They both pulled their gazes from each other and looked ahead. Willie offered the shots to those he encountered, subtly shielding the select two. Sax kept his gaze riveted on those shots.
“Hey, naked people only!” some guy shouted to them, lifting a beer and smiling to temper the order.
Sax gave him a quick, impatient smile. Then someone bumped into him from the side, shoving him into Jennessy and knocking them both into a bed of flowers. As Sax tried to get to his feet, the guy’s fingers tangled in Jennessy’s cover-up, blocking Sax’s view of Willie. Sax threw the guy off and discovered that Willie was gone.
“Well, well, we meet again,” the idiot said with a smile, his hand gripping Jennessy’s in a pseudo attempt to steady her. “Sorry about that. I thought I heard someone call my name and wasn’t looking where I was going.”
She gave the guy a vague smile. “Uh, no problem.” He still hadn’t released her hand, even though she was trying to pull away.
Sax intervened, tugging her out of his grip, even as he patted his pocket to make sure his phone was still there. “Excuse us. We have someplace to be.” He led her through the archway into the pool area. “Ah, that was one of your matches, right? I remember him from the mixer.”
“Magnum,” she said distractedly, brushing off a petal while searching for Willie. “And he’s just standing there watching us. Creepy.”
Sax casually swept his gaze backward, and yeah, he was definitely watching. “Guy gives me a hairection.”
“A what?”
“Sorry, it’s a phrase one of my military brothers made up. Means he gives me the hair-standing-on-end feeling I used to get when I’d spot a bad guy in the streets.” He led her around the pool bar area searching for Willie. “He’d seem normal, but the way he watched the crowds with intent, how he stood off to the side just slightly, would put us on alert. We’d move in and tackle him, and sure enough, the guy would be loaded with explosives or hiding a weapon beneath the folds of fabric.”
“You were in the military?”
He hadn’t even thought about what he’d revealed, too intent on finding Willie. “Yeah. A while back. There he is.” He pulled her back against the wall, draping his arms over her shoulders as he positioned her in front of him. “I can’t tell if the compromised shots are still on the tray. We need to get closer, but we stand out like—well, like clothed people at a nudist camp. Time to blend in, darlin’.”
“Blend?” By the way her face flushed, she knew what he meant.
He didn’t need to act like the stuffy business guy anymore, since he wouldn’t be asking Willie for another “sure thing.” Since Sax and Jennessy had clearly connected, it shouldn’t seem odd that he’d loosened up. And by necessity, he had to loosen up all the way and strip. He set his clothing on an empty chaise longue, folding them to make sure the phone didn’t show. “If you want to help, you need to be quick. Otherwise, I’m flying solo.”
“No way.” She pulled off her cover-up, leaving a modest bathing suit on a long, lean body. From her expression, she might as well have been in the dentist’s waiting room. “Ohmigod, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m watching Willie, not you.”
“But what about the hundred other people in the vicinity?”
“When you said you wanted to be wild last night,” he said, searching for people tapping gelatin into their mouths, “you also wanted to be naked.”
“I did?” She untied her top and pulled it over her head, then slid her shorts and bottoms down to her feet. “That’s why I never get drunk.” She gave him something that passed for a smile. If one didn’t look too closely. “There’s nothing like having someone tell you what you did and said while you have no memory of it.”
“You were a perfect lady. Other than tearing off your top.”
“Oh, thank you for that.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “And trying to take off my shorts.”
She flattened her hands over her ears. “Please, no more.”
He took her clothing and threw it on top of his. No need to tell her that she’d tried to give him head. He led her by the hand out into the open. “I see only one of those red shots left. Dayum, everyone’s already emptied their cups out here.”
She glanced around. Empty shot cups littered the tables. “We’re too late.”
“We have fifteen to twenty minutes before the drug takes effect. Let’s track Willie down, but we’ll come back here before the time’s up.” He took in her concerned expression. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to leave some drugged-out woman to be taken away.”
She nodded, letting him lead her toward Willie. Her disbelief was clear as she surveyed all the people lounging around, going about their business completely naked. One couple was making out in the pool, and as he and Jennessy passed, he heard her say, “Mm, you’re a great kisser. What was your name again?”
Jennessy shook her head. “This is surreal.”
Surreal was seeing body parts lying amid the rubble on the street of a shattered city. He glanced back to make a flip comment but was caught up in the sight of the sun glowing on the curves of her perfect breasts, kissing the tips of her extended nipples. Something he wanted to do.
“Just go with it,” he said, forcing his focus back to Willie, who was taking the path to the beach. Sax glanced back to find Magnum following at a slower pace. Maybe he was obsessed with Jennessy. Sax would keep an eye on him. Right now he needed to watch the man holding the drugged shot. “Look, he’s talking to a woman who’s by herself. The perfect victim. Hang back, Jennessy.”
The sunburned woman sat slumped in a chair, two drink cups containing only pink residue parked in the sand beside her. She smiled as Willie laid his charm on her. When she nodded, he chose the red one in the back. She reached out for it.
Sax stumbled into Willie. “Oh, sorry, man!” He put on a properly contrite expression as all the shots scattered in the sand. “I’ve been trying to catch up with you for the last five minutes.” He huffed, as though out of breath. “Lost my balance in this sand.” He helped to pick them up, making sure to dump the contents of the cherry one onto the sand.
Willie clearly fought to maintain his cheerful persona. “No problem, mon.” He tucked his tray beneath his arm and headed back toward the pool area.
Sax turned to the woman, still planted in her chair. “Sorry about that. The cherry ones aren’t so good anyway.”
“You did me a favor. I shouldn’t have any more.” She gestured to the empties. “I’ve had my day’s allotment, and it’s not even lunchtime.” She flopped back and closed her eyes.
Sax made sure Willie was, indeed, gone. Then he nodded for Jennessy to join him as he headed back toward the resort. “The less Willie sees your involvement in this kind of mishap, the better,” he said when s
he stepped up beside him.
She glanced back at the woman, then gripped his arm. “We saved her.”
“One down, one to go.”
This woman probably wouldn’t do a shot anytime soon. He and Jennessy reached the pool deck and searched for any woman alone who looked impaired. The drug should be taking effect any time now. Willie was chatting with a couple by the end of the bar, but he kept checking the deck, ready to sweep in to escort the victim to the man who had bought time with her.
“Let’s blend in,” Sax said, leading her by the hand to an empty chaise lounge chair. “I don’t see your weird friend.”
“He’s not my friend,” Jennessy said, playfully smacking him in the arm.
He chuckled. “Good, act like we’re a couple. Or at least a hookup.” He sat down, straddling the lounge chair, then tugged her down so that she sat in front of him, her bare back to his chest. That way she wouldn’t feel so conspicuous. He pulled her close, his arms draped over her collarbone and chin resting on her shoulder. She felt warm and soft and smelled faintly of perfume. He started to close his eyes, to savor her completely, before he realized he needed to keep them open.
A calypso band was setting up at the far corner of the covered area of the bar, getting ready to usurp the pop music playing on the sound system. The conversation and laughter outdid the music anyway. Just as in the pictures Chase had shown them, people sat at the in-pool bar getting both sun and drunk. There were a couple of babes, but none as sexy as the lady in front of him. He marveled at the continual pickup party that this place was. Couples were either deep in flirtation or almost to the get-a-room point. And yeah, it made him want to get a room with Jennessy.
“I feel so strange being naked in front of a bunch of strangers,” she whispered, positioning her arms across her chest and crossing her legs in front of her. “Have you ever done anything like this before?”
“I’ve been to clothing-optional beaches, but not a naked resort.”
“Did you get naked?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Sure. When in Rome and all that.”
She blew out a breath, shaking her head. “Up to now only one man has seen me naked. Now a whole bunch of people have!”
“Well, on the plane you did say you wanted to try different things. To explore your wild side. You were going to have sex with a guy you’d never see again.” An idea he hadn’t been fond of.
Her muscles tightened. “I did say that; I’m just not sure I meant it.” She turned, her cheek brushing his. “I’ve only been with one guy. I guess…well, I guess I don’t know what I want. Only that I want to be more adventurous than I’ve been.”
“With someone you feel safe with.”
“Exactly. It’s different now that I’m here on my own.” She faced forward again. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to do it with Lane now.” She shuddered. “It probably would have been boring anyway. He really was so vanilla.”
Did she feel safe with him? Sax wondered. He wanted to pull her flush against him, to feel the knobs of her spine on his chest, to feel all of her. Hell, he just wanted her, and he couldn’t let himself indulge. Not only because he was working. She wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of girl. That much he knew about her, even if she didn’t know. And he wasn’t a commitment kind of guy.
Sax was keeping his eye on Willie-the-shark trying to figure out whom he was watching. His beady eyes were spending a lot of time on a platinum blonde stretched out on a lounge chair. Sax’s suspicions were confirmed when she started to get up, then stumbled and plopped back down on the lounge. Willie started to make his way over with a professionally concerned expression. Sax tensed, ready to intercede.
“I’ll go,” Jennessy said, shifting forward. “It’ll make more sense to have a female come over and take her back to her room. Besides, Willie’s going to get suspicious if you keep interfering.”
A woman left the guy she’d been making out with and sloshed up the pool steps. “Missy, what’s wrong?” The woman rushed over, leaving a trail of water on the white deck.
The blonde put her hands to her temples. “Feel woozy.”
“What did I tell you about doing shots? You can’t handle hard liquor. I’m taking you back to the room.” She helped her friend up and gathered their robes. Willie watched them leave with a stone-cold expression, then turned and left.
Jennessy leaned close to Sax, her shoulder brushing his chest. “Now he’s going to find another victim.”
“He can’t, remember? He’s out of spiked shots, and he has that mixer to run, so he won’t have time to make more. The mixers last, what, an hour and a half? We’ll swing by at the end and shadow him.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“Very carefully.” We. Somehow she’d become his partner in crime—or anti-crime, as it were. A valuable one, though he didn’t like involving an untrained civvie. What would Chase think of that? He did let his operatives work in whatever way they thought best, and both Risk’s and Julian’s women had been assets in their investigations. Jennessy was definitely an asset, too. Just remember that she’s not your woman.
Sax mumbled a curse as the drugged woman was led away by her friend. “We should follow them. I don’t want to think about the girl overdosing or having some adverse reaction to the K and however much alcohol is already in her system.” He weighed his options. Potential witnesses, but only for the drugging aspect. And alerting them opened the possibility of a take-charge woman, like the friend, exposing his investigation.
“Oh!” Jennessy exclaimed.
Sax followed her gaze. Halfway down the winding beach path to the bungalows, the two women had drawn to a halt. The drugged girl was hunched over, heaving her guts into a hibiscus shrub. The friend held back her hair and applied the requisite back-patting.
“Looks like she’s getting the drug out of her system,” Jennessy said.
“Yeah. I don’t think we need to worry about them for the time being.” But Sax had other worries. “We need to find Willie’s stash, which may be at his residence. Ketamine usually comes in either powder or crystal form. Since he mixes it with water to make the gelatin shots, he might be buying it as powder. We need to switch it out for a benign concoction so no one’s drugged while we’re gathering evidence.”
“Willie will realize his drugs aren’t working, though.”
“True dat. He’ll think he was ripped off by his supplier, that they cut it. He’ll call and complain. The authorities will be able to track the number.”
She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “And we’ll identify the supplier, too. They’ll be able to pull the phone records.”
“Exactly. We also have to find out if he’s working alone. We don’t want Willie hung out to dry while the person behind it gets away.”
Her mouth tightened. “And keeps doing this.”
“Oh, this is going to stop. Count on that.”
They settled into the silence of Sax’s promise, watching a waiter wend his way around the pool area, delivering an array of shiny drinks to patrons.
“Do you think they drug the drinks, too?” she asked. “I’m thirsty, but I’m afraid to order one now.”
“I don’t think they arbitrarily spike the drinks. In fact, I doubt they compromise the drinks at all. They can easily be tested, and somewhere down the line a disgruntled bartender would shout to the world that he was instructed to drug guests. I believe it’s only through Willie and those gelatin shots. I haven’t seen him speaking to someone in a way that would suggest his partner is a bartender or server. I’ve also spent some time watching the bartenders and haven’t seen anything suspicious.” He reached into his pocket and produced a stick. “But I can test it, just in case. Willie is targeting women who are alone and somehow vulnerable.” He ran his fingers down her arm. “And you are neither at the moment.”
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “No, I’m not.”
“Everyone’s safe for the time being. Willie’s busy. Oscar’s
busy.” He checked his phone, keeping it hidden in his shorts. “And no activity from the bug. We have a few minutes to relax.” He waved the server over.
“Drinks?” the pleasant Bahamian waiter asked as he approached.
“Sure,” Sax said, turning to her. “What would you like, dear heart? Rum punch, margarita, rum runner?”
She blinked at the endearment. “I’ve never had a rum runner. It sounds exciting. Dangerous.” She gave him a wink. “Maybe that’s who I am: exciting and dangerous.”
Oh, she was dangerous, all right. To his ticker. He forced his gaze away from her impish smile to the server. “I’m feeling a little homesick. Think I’ll have my family’s version of whiskey lemonade. Gentleman Jack whiskey, dash of lemon, touch of sugar, and ice, shaken well.”
The server was jotting it down. “You got it.” He ambled off.
Sax spotted a bottle of suntan oil and silently asked the person in the chair beside him if he could borrow it. The woman handed it to him, and he squirted some into the palm of his hand. “You’re starting to get pink, darlin’. Let me put some sun protection on that lovely back of yours.”
“Is it zinc? Nice and solid white?”
He chuckled at her hopeful optimism. “Nope, that’s body paint you’re after. I think that party is tonight.”
Which prompted a very interesting visual of the two of them painting each other. Down, boy.
“Uh, I’m good.”
Yes, you are. He rubbed the coconut-scented oil down her back. Her skin felt exquisite, soft and smooth, as his fingers made circles over her shoulders, gently squeezing the muscles. He moved down each arm, taking his ever-lovin’ time. Then he squirted more oil on his palms and ran them down her sides, his fingertips brushing the curve of her breasts. It took everything inside him not to move his hands all the way over, to swirl that oil over those beautiful breasts she was still covering with her arm. Being naked with an attractive woman made it hard to hide the evidence…no pun intended.
She was using her arm to shield her breasts but let out a soft sigh.
“Your drinks,” the waiter said, setting them on the table.
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