Hot damn, she was on fire. Her taste seared deep, a hint of the fruity alcoholic drink she’d been sipping sliding from her tongue to his. Her mouth was wet and warm and so damn inviting his groin tightened and his pulse pounded in his veins. But it wasn’t until she moaned that he lost all control.
The dream—the X-rated one that had left him hot and sweaty with a massive boner the last few nights—spiraled to the front of his gray matter. Urgency pressed in. Took over. Demanded more. He kissed her deeper, stroked her tongue faster, pushed his hips into hers, pinning her against the wall so he could feel every inch of her supermodel curves against his own.
He’d kissed a lot of women. Had been kissed by just as many. And when done properly, he considered kissing an art form. With Lauren Kauffman, though, it wasn’t art. It was a frantic race to the finish. To see who would break first. Instead of one taste satisfying his curiosity, he wanted more. More of her mouth, more of her skin, more of everything. He wanted to possess her on a level he’d never experienced.
His hand dropped from the wall to her waist. The other tangled in her long, silky hair to tug her head back so he could show her with his tongue what he wanted to do to her body. As his mouth moved to her ear, then her neck, sampling her delectable skin, her fingers gripped his shoulders, slid down his sides, landed on his hips and tugged him close so his erection pressed into her belly.
“Tierney . . . oh, God.”
His pulse picked up speed. He pressed into her. Sucked on her neck. Pressed again. She moaned her approval, pushed against him, gripped his head in both hands and brought his mouth back to hers. One long, luscious, bare leg lifted around the outside of his thigh to rub against his jeans, easing his cock down into the vee created by her body.
Oh, man, she was hot. Fire gathered in his groin, turned his blood to a roar in his ears. His hand dropped to her bare thigh, slid beneath her skirt to grip her tight ass. She moaned into his mouth, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and lifted herself higher, granting him access. His fingers found only skin, juicing his need. His hand slid lower, searching. When he grazed the thin strip of cotton that was her thong, he followed it until his fingers pressed against her swollen center.
“Tierney . . .”
He wanted to touch her skin, needed to know if she was . . .
“Fuck, you’re wet,” he said as his fingers slid under her panties and into her slick folds.
She groaned as he stroked her, pulled his mouth back to hers again and kissed him deep. He wanted to unzip his pants, lift her around the waist and slide inside her, but hearing her moan, watching her writhe, feeling her hips moving against his hand was too damned erotic. He pushed his thigh between hers, continued to kiss her like a man starved, stroked her faster and slid his other hand across her chest to graze her nipples.
Her entire body tightened. She pulled free of his mouth, closed her eyes and tipped her head back on a long moan. Knowing she was about to peak, he latched on to her earlobe with his mouth and let her ride his hand until she came, the sound of her release pushing him from crazed to out of control in the breadth of a heartbeat.
He let go of her leg, reached for the button on his jeans. The rasp of the door at the base of the stairs opening and closing froze his hand against his waistband.
Lauren went still, too, but her chest continued to rise and fall with her rapid breaths as she peered over his shoulder into the dark. No one came up the stairs. No one said a word. Whoever had pushed the door open had obviously changed his mind.
Lauren released a long breath. In the little bit of light shining down from above, Finn saw her kiss-me lips curve in a seductive smile seconds before she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned into him. “Where were we?”
About to make one monumental mistake.
Perspiration dotted Finn’s forehead. What the hell was he doing? He pushed back from Lauren, his cock still at rock-hard attention but his brain now firing, at least on a few measly cylinders.
Lauren’s hands dropped to her side. “What’s wrong?”
He turned away, wiped a hand down his face. That was . . . shit. That was not what I planned.”
Silence met his ears. Followed by the click of her heels against the concrete floor. “Me either, but I’m not complaining.”
He turned to look at her as reality slammed into him full force. She was a supermodel, he was her bodyguard. Yeah, there was an attraction there, but in the end he was nothing more than another conquest for her. He’d protected celebrities before. Knew how spoiled they were and how they expected everyone to be at their beck and call. And that wasn’t him, not by a long shot, not anymore. As hot as she was, she wasn’t worth that kind of humiliation. No woman was. Not ever again.
“Yer done for the night, Ms. Kauffman. I suggest you go out there and tell Santiago yer heading back to yer suite.”
“With you?” she asked with just enough eagerness to waver his resolve.
“No.” He moved back out of her reach so she couldn’t tempt him again with those wicked fingers or that smokin’ body. “Alone.”
“But . . . but I thought—”
“By the time we get to the hotel, Hedley should be back from his scouting trip with Moira. You have a photo shoot in the morning.” His gaze roamed over her features and even in the dark he could see her hair was a wild tangle around her face, her lipstick smeared. She looked wanton and hot and ready to be fucked, and it took all his strength to take another step away from her. “I think it’s safe to say you need your beauty sleep.”
She pushed away from the wall, her features tightening in the dim light. “You know what you are, Tierney? You’re a coward.”
“Why?” he asked as she pushed by him, knowing she was good and pissed now. “Because I changed my mind?”
“No.” She turned to face him. “Because you’re afraid. I don’t fit into a nice, neat box and that’s driving you nuts. You want to label me, but every time we’re together you can’t figure out how to act, what to say, so you resort to snide comments and a pissy attitude to turn me off. Well, you know what, buddy? Your plan finally worked. I don’t need this kind of aggravation, especially from you.”
She headed for the stairs. There was just enough truth in what she’d said to reignite his temper. He caught her before she reached the bottom step. “Hold up.”
She whipped back, swatted his arm away in a move that was a little bit self-defense, a little bit kung fu and a whole lotta surprise. “Don’t touch me. I’m going out to tell Javier I’m done for the night. But not because you ordered me to. I’m doing it because I want to go back to my room so I can get as far away from you as possible.”
Finn let her go, following as she headed back out into the writhing bodies and swirling lights of the club and made her way to Santiago, who was talking with a duo of women. As Finn stood in the shadows watching Santiago slip his arms around Lauren’s neck and whisper something in her ear, he realized he should have felt relief—he’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted, in a roundabout sorta way—only all he felt was . . . more pissed off than he’d been before.
She was wrong. This wasn’t about his fear, it was about his job. He’d made the mistake of falling for a principal once before. When he’d been young and stupid and new on the job. Then he hadn’t just lost his heart, he’d lost his self-respect. And he’d almost lost a gig he was actually pretty damn good at. He wasn’t about to go down that road again. Not for her. Not for anyone.
One more day. H could make it through one more day on this shitty assignment. Then he was on a plane back to the States and as far away from Lauren Kauffman as was humanly possible.
Movement to his left drew his attention. His gaze shifted that way to where a group of local police stepped out of the crowd on the far side of the dance floor. His instincts went on high alert. Cops in a bar were never good, but something about this group struck him as totally out of place.
They were all in their early to mid-twenties. And the
way they held themselves—arrogant, as if they owned the place—and the gang-style tattoos on their forearms didn’t jibe with the uniforms. Finn shifted to find Lauren. He wanted her out of the club before the shit started flying.
He pushed his way through the mass of bodies. Strobes pulsed shards of light over skin and leather and hair. He made it only two yards before a shout echoed to his left and some kind of commotion erupted. He looked that way just as the sea of bodies parted, leaving Javier Santiago and his circle of women in clear view of the newcomers.
Shit. Finn pushed harder through the crowd. “Goddammit. Move!”
The two women Santiago had been talking with scurried off. Santiago looked up, locked eyes on the group of men and barked something in Spanish. His big hand landed on Lauren’s shoulder. He shoved her behind him. Lauren yelped. She slammed into a man at her back, ricocheted off his chest and hit the ground on her ass just as the cop at the font of the group whipped out a semi-automatic and unloaded into the crowd.
Finn’s heart lurched into his throat. Screams erupted in the club and bodies rushed from the center of the dance floor in mass exodus. He pulled the weapon from the holster beneath his shirt and fought against the flow of bodies like a salmon swimming upstream. Through the crowd he saw Santiago sail backwards, crash into a high table and slump to the floor. Tables and chairs toppled with a loud crash. For a split second, time stood still as Finn took in the blood spray, the other bodies down behind Santiago, and Lauren laid out on the ground feet away, covered in red.
God, no . . .
The blood drained from his face. His chest squeezed so hard, he couldn’t breathe. Just when he was sure he’d fucked up for good, her head came up, her eyes grew wide and she screamed, shifting to her side to push herself up.
Relief released the freeze in his muscles and Finn sprang into action. He darted across the floor. Other cops in the group of assailants screamed orders at the club inhabitants, waving their guns over their heads in a show of force. Bodies darted in every direction. The music died, but the lights continued to pulse in an eerie glow, rippling over bodies and limbs and terror-filled faces. Finn counted six, eight, ten terrorists, not including the shooter. Four he could probably take down, but not the rest, not alone. And his first priority was Lauren.
He reached her in seconds that felt like a lifetime. She was on her hands and knees crawling toward Santiago. Wrapping one arm around her waist, he pulled her back behind an overturned table. “Stay down!”
“Javier! Oh, my God, Finn. Javier!”
She fought his hold but he gripped her tightly, his mind spinning with exit options. “Hold still, dammit.”
The terrorists shouted orders in Spanish that echoed off the walls. Women cried; men stood frozen in fear. As Lauren quieted in his arms, Finn glanced toward the darkened hallway they’d just come from. It was ten feet away, the distance littered with downed tables and chai But there was no exit. The hallway ended with bathrooms. The narrow stairs went only up, not down. He peered over the table blocking their view of the horror now strewn across the dance floor. The leader stood over Javier’s lifeless body, muttering something in Spanish. Finn might not be able to understand the words, but he knew the intent.
Shit. This was no random shooting. That guy knew Santiago. Finn would bet his left arm on it.
“Lauren Kauffman!” The leader’s voice rang out strong and heavily accented. He turned away from Santiago and looked toward the crowd. “Which one of you bitches is Lauren Kauffman?”
Every one of Finn’s muscles went tight and rigid. In his arms, Lauren stilled and sucked in a breath.
“Don’t you fucking answer,” he whispered in her ear.
She swallowed hard, her eyes as wide as saucers.
“Lauren Kauffman,” the leader said again, his shoes clicking across the floor as he advanced on a group of women huddled near the far wall. “We have business, you and I. Come out and no one else shall be hurt.”
Lauren’s fear-filled eyes shot to Finn’s. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he was sure if Lauren showed herself, she’d wind up just like Santiago, and he wasn’t about to let that happen.
Finn saw only one way out of this.
“Are you hit?” he whispered.
She shook her head.
“Can you crawl?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“Go slow, on your belly, behind those tables over there.” He pointed toward the hallway. “It’s dark enough to cover you. Can you do that?”
She looked, nodded again. He had to give her points. She wasn’t hysterical like a lot of the women around them. She was scared, but she didn’t look ready to lose it. At least not yet.
“Las luces, rapido.”
Finn knew just enough Spanish to know they were about to lose their one shot to make it out of here alive. He let go of Lauren, pushed her forward. “They’re about to turn the lights on. Hurry. I’ll cover you.”
She flipped over onto her stomach and didn’t look back before belly crawling toward the first table, three feet away.
There was trust there. Regardless of how pissed she’d been a few minutes before, she trusted him to keep her safe.
Finn’s anxiety ratcheted up as she inched away from him. From his hiding space behind the table, he trained his gun on the closest thug, the man’s profile outlined by the throbbing lights. Lucky for the idiot, he didn’t turn their way, didn’t even notice Lauren crawl just feet to his right and disappear behind another table.
Relief rushed back, hard and fast. Finn shifted to his stomach and followed her path. Together they made their way to the hall.
When he reached the darkened threshold, Lauren was waiting for him in the shadows. He pulled himself to his feet and stepped around the corner into the stairwell just as the lights in the club flipped on behind them.
“Go,” he whispered, pushing her up the stairs. “Fast.”
Lauren’s face was famous. In the light it wouldn’t take the thugs long to figure out she’d escaped. As she gripped the banister with one hand and skipped stairs in those sky-high heels, Finn pressed one hand at the small of her back, both to steady and urge her on.
A heavy metal door blocked their exit. Finn brushed past Lauren, pushed against the waist-high bar with his hip. The door stuck. He pushed again, his anxiety amping up. With a long groan, the door finally gave and he stumbled out on the roof of the club, pulling Lauren with him.
The lights of the hotel district twinkled far below the Las Brisas hillside. To the right, the blackness that was Acapulco Bay was littered here and there with ship lights. Finn dragged Lauren to the edge of the roof and looked down. At least three stories below and another twenty vertical feet, cars whizzed by on the busy street. Even if they could get down there, chances of being seen were pretty good, and he bet the terrorists had the front of the club covered. That left the back of the building and the hillside jungle behind. He turned and looked over the roof. Triangular glass skylights, vents and what appeared to be an air-conditioning unit filled the flat space.
Lauren peered over the edge. “How are we going to get down?”
One hand wrapped around hers, the other holding his gun, Finn looked right and left. “I don’t know.” He spotted a curved metal arch on the opposite side. “Look. That could be a ladder.”
Lauren turned to look just as voices echoed in the stairwell behind them.
“Shit. Go!” Finn pushed Lauren toward what he hoped was indeed a ladder. Because if it wasn’t, they were fucked. And definitely not in the way he’d been thinking of earlier.
CHAPTER 3
The Givenchys were the first thing to go.
Lauren stumbled, would have gone down but Finn’s death grip on her arm prevented her from slamming face-first into the hard surface. He pulled up, shooting pain down her shoulder. “Come on!”
“Wait!” She pulled back.
He gave her just enough time to slip out of her three-inch heels, pick them up
by the straps and start running again.
They reached the curved white metal Finn had spotted earlier, which was—thank God—a ladder that disappeared over the edge and hugged the side of the building.
Finn pushed her forward. “Go.”
She hooked her shoes over her fingers, turned and put her first foot on the top rung. Across the roof, the door to the stairwell flew open and two men—two really big-ass, threatening men Lauren had seen downstairs in the club—spilled out of the space.
“Go!” Finn ducked behind a venting unit with his gun gripped in both hands.
Lauren’s heart rate shot into the triple digits. Shouts exploded from the opposite side of the roof. Gunfire lit up the night sky. She ducked out of the way, her hands shaking as she grasped the metal rails and lowered her foot to the next rung. Holy shit, what the hell was going on? What did these men want? It was as if she’d stumbled into a scene straight out of a James Bond movie, only this wasn’t fiction, it was real life.
Sweat broke out over her palms, making the bars hard to grip. She lowered herself down another rung, said a prayer she wouldn’t slip and kill herself. Just before she cleared the roof, she caught movement as a man charged Finn’s hiding spot.
Her adrenaline surged. “Finn!”
Finn ducked back behind the metal vent and shifted to the other side. From his vantage she knew he couldn’t see the gnman. Reacting without thought, she pushed back up on the ladder and chucked one beaded strappy Givenchy heel his way. It hit him in the face with a thwack. Dazed, the man stumbled, righted himself, shouted something in Spanish Lauren didn’t understand. She hurled the second shoe and yelled, “Finn!”
Finn was on his feet in a split second. His fist plowed into the gangster’s chin, knocking the man back and down. The gun sailed from the man’s hand. A blur caught Lauren’s attention. Fear closed her throat. Before she could even scream, Finn lifted his gun, whirled and fired toward the second man, charging from the other direction. The bullet struck the man in the shoulder, the impact jerking him off his feet.
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