by Tara Janzen
Nikki.
She was his, every cell, every sigh. Her thoughts of love—his. Her thoughts of sex, those sweet, dark yearnings that had her unbuckling his belt and lowering his zipper—all his.
Paris could wait, and those damn packed hot pink, mock-croc suitcases—they could all wait.
He slipped out of his shoulder holster, then lifted his hips and helped her get rid of his pants. When she sat back down, she was straddling him again. It was such a perfect tease, being half naked with Nikki in his lap, the way she grazed his lips with her teeth, gently biting him, licking him with her tongue and moving back inside his mouth, and all the while she was kissing him, she was stroking him.
He was floating in carnal bliss, the sweet weight of her holding him in place, her hand small, exciting, and so much less predictable than his own.
“Geez, Nikki. Don’t, yes . . . ah, God.” She was incredible this way, destroying him with soft, wet, deep kisses, the exquisite friction of her palm, and the lazy trailing of her fingers going around him, over the top of him, all over him.
Suddenly, he needed to see her naked—her shoulders and breasts and between her legs, where she was practically riding him, the naked curve of her hip. He needed to see it all.
He started unbuttoning the rest of her dress, then gave up. There were about a hundred and eighty thousand buttons, all of them too tiny to grip. “Can this come off over the top of your head?”
“Yes, I think.”
“Lift your arms.”
They struggled for a minute, with him pulling the dress up, and her trying to shimmy out from under it. Finally, it came off, and he let it fall into the pile of his clothes.
The first thing he noticed was what else she was wearing.
“Matching panties,” she said, lifting her hips a little so he could see.
“Heartbreaking.” He didn’t know what else to say. It was a miracle he could get even the one word out.
“My panties break your heart?”
“Oh, honey. They’re breaking everything I’ve got.” Slain, by a matching bra-and-panty set. “Take them off.”
She stood up, still wearing the killer stilettos, and God, he wondered if it was possible for anything to be more erotic. Then she slipped the panties down her legs and stepped out of them.
Equal parts lust and love welled up in his chest and literally dropped him to his knees. She was so incredibly pretty there.
He pulled her to him, kissing the soft skin of her belly, the silky length of her thighs, the even silkier, softer place between her thighs. He buried his face in her dark curls, then buried his tongue even farther, finding the sweet place that made her melt.
And he stayed there, played there, teased her until he thought he’d die, everything else becoming so elemental. The way she gave it all up for him, her knees weakening, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders, the taste of her, the lovely female scent of her. It all made him drunk.
When she came, it was with a soft moan and her body shuddering against his mouth. It was with him stroking her deep inside with his fingers and her silken contractions rippling over him.
He licked her until she pulled away, trembling. Then he lifted her up and lay down with her on the desk. His lips were still warm with her heat, still tasted of her, when he kissed her. This is love, he thought, to be able to feel a kiss in the marrow of your bones.
Slowly, he pushed into her, lifting his head to watch her face. Her eyes were dreamy, the tip of her tongue tracing her upper lip. She sighed, and he brought his mouth back down to hers, letting her breath infuse him with a light sweetness. It was unlike anything he’d ever known except when he was inside her, a part of her, their heat and bodies joined.
It wasn’t sex. It was sacrifice, and he gave himself willingly. When she took him, he felt taken, absolved.
“Kid, please,” she whispered, and he thrust—flesh of my flesh, my pleasure for your own. It was so sweet. A soft sound escaped her and her head went back, her throat arching.
She’d told him once what it felt like to have him inside her, the aching tenderness, the heavy fullness that opened a whole new dimension inside her body, how intensely lovely it was to have him moving in and out of her, how the rhythm he set and the way he changed it was like a journey where she never knew what would be around the next bend.
How he never disappointed her.
And not tonight, either. Her body was growing taut beneath him, so slick and heated and wanton, her breath coming in pants. He was on his forearms on either side of her, his hands in her hair, his thoughts dissolving into mindless sensation and need, desperate, compelling need, and his cock—oh, God. He bent his head to look down between them, to where he was sliding in and out of her, a driving heat. His cock was rock hard, his belly tight, his chest, his thighs, his balls, tight.
“Kid,” she gasped his name. “Please . . . oh.”
He pulled the cup down on her cherry red lace bra and took her breast into his mouth, laving her nipple with his tongue, warming her skin, and when he sucked, she came undone.
A cry left her lips, and sharp, sweet pleasure shot through him, gathering instantaneous force. He rocked into her, pumping hard and deep, his teeth gritted, his body rigid—then release, even sweeter. Fuck. It was heaven, pouring out of him, all consuming . . . transcending.
“Oh, my god, Kid,” she said a couple of minutes later, her body lying limp next to his.
Oh, my god was right. He pulled her closer to his side of the desk.
“Are we going to do that again?”
“Yeah,” he said, and dragged his hand back through his hair, trying to catch his breath, trying to ground himself. Then he kissed her shoulder and her cheek. A grin teased his lips. “Yeah. We ought to have another go. Just give me a minute.”
The minute passed, and then another, before he felt her laughing.
“What?” He looked down at her face.
“We couldn’t do it again in another hundred minutes.”
He grinned. “I don’t know, Nikki. You’re pretty inspiring.”
“Nobody’s that inspiring.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Her eyes widened slightly. “You’re kidding.”
He shook his head, and she looked down between them.
“Oh, my god, Kid.”
Oh, my god was right. No woman had ever done this to him, done it so quickly. No one except her.
CHAPTER
20
JUAN CONSECO had Benito circle the block around the Toussi Gallery three times, slowly. There was an alley, and that was good. They cruised it twice, locating the gallery’s back door, which had been propped open for the caterer.
God truly was on Juan’s side in this mission.
There were hundreds of people in the gallery, and that, too, was good. No one would notice them, at least not overly much. From what he’d seen, the mix of gallery-goers was eclectic, people from all walks of life. He and Benito and Sergio could hunt without fear. No one would recognize them or remember them. No one was expecting a heinous crime.
“Benito, go ahead and let us out at the front of the gallery, then park in the alley. Don Drago, Sergio, and I will go in and find the woman. Simón,” he said, turning toward the other man in the backseat. “You stay here with Benito, see if you can find something in the trunk to tie her up with. When we locate her, I’ll call. Come in then, and we will give Señorita McKinney a proper escort out.”
“Sí, Don Conseco.”
The plan was simple, Juan’s favorite kind. The simpler, the better. Nicole Alana McKinney was no high-ranking judge or wary newspaper reporter. She wasn’t a manager for one of the big oil companies. There would be no ransom. She had no worth, except as bait to bring him the ghost killer.
Juan didn’t know how long that would take. Perhaps days, depending on where the man was, but the time didn’t matter. They weren’t going to wait for him in Denver. As soon as their plane was ready and their escape route planned, they
would head back to Colombia. Let el asesino fantasma come to him there.
Drago had already made a number of phone calls, setting the wheels in motion for their return trip. Juan had no intention of getting arrested by some low-end border guard or immigration agent who hadn’t been paid to look the other way. Using the same route to get out of the country that they’d used to get in was a bit risky. The less recent activity on the airstrips they used the better.
Benito pulled the Cadillac to a stop at the gallery’s front door, and the three men got out. As Juan had predicted, no one took undue notice of three more men entering the crowd of people in Toussi’s.
Finding Nicole Alana McKinney in the same huge crowd, though, proved to be annoyingly difficult. With only a black-and-white photograph on a flyer to go by, it took far longer than he had planned, a good forty minutes, but when Tío Drago gave him the sign, Juan’s hopes rose, and when he saw the girl Drago had picked out by the buffet tables, he knew there had been no mistake.
He took his phone out of his pocket and called Simón in.
Unbeknownst to her, Nicole Alana McKinney’s life had just become forfeit. With luck, she wouldn’t live out the night. If it took longer to bring el asesino to his side, the only change would be that the girl would wish she hadn’t lived out the night—and she would be wishing it with all her heart. Juan could guarantee it. Within the next few minutes, without doubt, her life would become a living hell.
He was going to see to it personally.
SHIT. Fast Jack ducked into the alley behind Toussi’s, running flat-out. He’d had to leave the last two kids who had called him where they were. But they should be safe now, because fat-ass Raymond was after him.
Right on his butt in his big black Escalade.
Shit. He skidded to a stop behind a Dumpster and tried to get his bearings. There were two options: the caterer’s truck was a big white van with the back doors open and its interior lights on full blast. But hell, if he could see all the way to the guy’s croissants, he figured Raymond could, too.
Toussi’s was his other option, but hell, there was a for-real gangster at the back door, an uptown barrio badass. Jack knew one when he saw one, and he knew better than to mess with one, especially with the guy packing a piece and looking like he was on the lookout for trouble.
As Jack huddled there, sweating it out, trying to cut his losses, option number one disappeared. The caterer came out Toussi’s back door, all but jumped when he saw barrio boy, then got in his big van and drove off—with the doors banging and the lights still on. He was no fool.
But Jack was, getting himself stuck between a rock and a hard place like this. Damn.
He peeked around the Dumpster, and fucking-A, Raymond was cruising in with his brights on, looking for Jack-knew-who.
He looked back to barrio boy, and noticed a black Cadillac had been parked in front of the caterer’s van. Its trunk was open.
Bad idea, Jack, he told himself, and knew it to be true.
The sound of a phone ringing almost had him wetting his pants, but it was the gangster’s. Jack watched him answer the phone, then turn, open the back door of Toussi’s, and look inside.
Instinct, more than reason, propelled Jack down the alley like a shot, keeping close to the wall, and before he had time to talk himself out of it, he was in the trunk, scrambling under a piece of cardboard, a tangled pile of rope, and a pair of jumper cables.
NIKKI had gone for a cup of coffee and a soda, after Kid had assured her she didn’t look like she’d been put through a blender twice. Once was fine, a look she actually cultivated, but twice was merely an unkempt mess, she’d said.
What he hadn’t told her is that they both probably looked like they’d fucked themselves goofy—because they had.
A big grin split his face. He couldn’t help it. He and Nikki couldn’t possibly keep surprising each other forever, but they’d sure done it tonight. Did other people make love like this? he wondered. What did Nikki call it? Crazy-wild-monkey sex?
Crazy-wild-monkey-on-fire sex was more like it.
He finished strapping on his shoulder holster, his grin broadening even more. She was his down to the red polish on her toenails. All his.
And he still hadn’t told her about the rings. Damn. He really needed to do that.
And he really needed to find his other shoe. That’s why she’d gone to get the drinks off the buffet instead of him. She still had two shoes.
They had found a light switch for the closet, over by the window of all places, but the bulb was dim. Even so, when he got down on the floor to look around, he was able to finally spot his shoe. Somehow, it had gotten jammed into the swivel gear on the chair.
He worked it free, put it on, and tied it up, then noticed something else on the floor: a pile of blue flyers, about half a ream of them. Flyers, he guessed, that hadn’t been handed out.
He shrugged into his jacket and checked both guns to make sure they were riding right and not showing. Everything was fine. He was good to go—but his gaze was drawn back to the flyers. A black-and-white photograph, the blue edge of the paper.
He’d seen one somewhere.
Probably in Toussi’s front window, he figured, but he went ahead and bent down to pick one up.
The minute he had one in his hand, a bad feeling went through him. A very bad feeling. He had seen one of the flyers before. The same shade of blue on the paper, the large square of a black-and-white photograph covering the top half.
He lifted it up to the light to read it, and everything inside him went cold. Nicole Alana McKinney, it said, was having a showing at Toussi Gallery, and the photo was of her. The time, date, and place—Denver, Colorado—were printed at the bottom of the flyer along with her Web address.
Like a strobe, a series of images flashed across his brain: his kitchen table in Panama City; her purse and a blue-edged flyer lying next to a half-empty cup of tea; Nikki in the chair; Javier Mancos coming up behind her; Hernando Sanchez dead beneath him.
Smith had said there’d been nothing to identify her in the house—but that damn poster had been in the house when he and Nikki had left, and the identification was undeniable, absolutely solid. Fuck. Her photograph was right on the goddamn thing.
He was running out the door even as the images were still forming, even as he was trying to make sense of them.
NIKKI had been doing a pretty good job of juggling a lukewarm cup of coffee, a soda, and a small plate of shrimp, until somebody bumped her elbow.
Dammit. The shrimp went flying, and she lost half the cup of coffee, fortunately not on her dress, which she still wasn’t sure didn’t look like it had been ridden hard and put away wet.
She was debating whether or not to try to go back for more shrimp, when somebody else shoved up against her.
The crowd tonight was simply amazing, and amazingly rude, but also a blessing of sorts. She’d seen over a dozen sold signs on her way over to the buffet.
A man backed into her then, almost knocking her over, the jerk, but there was another guy behind her, so instead of falling, she just sort of bounced off him and managed to stay on her feet and keep what was left of her drinks in their cups.
Still, it was disconcerting, because suddenly there were three men, instead of two, and she was definitely getting shoved.
“Good God,” she all but yelled. “There’s plenty of food. There’s no need to—” She looked up from the coffee and soda, and the rest of the words died on her lips. The men were foreign, Hispanic, and looked frightfully like the two men Kid had killed—rough-edged, even in their suits, and empty-eyed.
She wasn’t normally paranoid, but the men unnerved her, especially the way they were gathered around her, especially after last night. While she was wondering what it all meant, somebody grabbed her arm from behind, grabbed it hard. The soda fell to the floor.
Fear shot through her. She tried to shake free, but whoever had a hold of her tightened his grip. Then a large hand clamped o
ver her mouth, and the men closed in around her. Suddenly, she was being half carried between all of them.
And no one was noticing. There was a lot of jostling around the buffet table by everybody. She kicked and squirmed, but the men just tightened their ranks, closing her off from the rest of the crowd.
She doubled her efforts. There wasn’t much time. She’d been close to the back door to begin with, and she could tell that was where they were taking her—out the back door, into the alley.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
When the cool night air hit her face, she knew it was all too late.
She’d been kidnapped.
CHAPTER
21
A LOT OF commotion outside brought Fast Jack’s ears up like a terrier’s. He peeked out the back of the trunk, through the small crack he’d left. Raymond was still halfway down the alley, his SUV parked in the shadows next to the Dumpster, nearly invisible in the darkness, but Jack could tell it was there, waiting.
The commotion, though, was going on at the side of the car nearest Toussi’s back door. He couldn’t see what was happening, and he really didn’t care what the excitement was all about, as long as it wasn’t going to include the trunk.
Suddenly, a scream rent the air, a woman’s scream at very close quarters, sending a chill down his spine before it abruptly stopped. Too abruptly. Somebody had shut her up damn near instantly, and Jack started to get an idea of maybe what was going down. Like maybe somebody was taking a woman out of the art gallery against her will—and he was in the getaway car.
He couldn’t believe his frickin’ luck. He’d gotten himself into the middle of a kidnapping, that was for damn sure. One minute, everything had been fine—okay, not so fine—with stupid Raymond wondering where in the hell he’d gotten off to, and the next minute he had to wonder where in the hell he was going. The trunk of the Cadillac might not have been his best choice after all.