Big Easy Temptation (28 page)

He deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding along her lower lip and begging for entry.
She parted her lips for him. Yes, the case would eventually end and she would be alone
again. But for a few weeks, she could be his lover, gorge herself on the pleasure
he could give her.

She let her hands slide along the strong muscles of his back, and he groaned against
her mouth. He pressed deeper, letting her feel every bit of his passion. He’d never
held back or pretended with her. He’d always let her know how much power she had over
his body.

“God, I’ve missed you, sweetheart. I’ve missed everything about you. I want to touch
you everywhere, remind myself of just how beautiful you are.” He whispered the words
across her skin. “I want to taste you again. You can’t possibly taste as good as I
remember.”

Her body moved with his instinctively, as though they’d never been apart. He slid
his hands down to cup her backside. She arched closer.

“Let me take you to bed,” he offered. “I swear everything will make sense in the morning.
You’ll see.”

She wasn’t sure about that, but she also knew she didn’t have the fortitude to turn
him down.

Holland peered up at him, fearing she’d regret this. But she no longer cared. She
nestled her body against his and nodded.

“Down!” another voice screamed. “Shooter! Three o’clock.”

Her eyes widened as a shot cracked through the
air.

D
ax moved the minute he heard the voice.
Down! Shooter! Three o’clock
.

On his right.

He tightened his arms around Holland and shoved her down, to his left, just as the
bullet whizzed past them.

Someone was shooting at them from the rooftop across the street, and he’d gotten caught
without his gun. Since realizing that his dad’s death had been part of a larger plot,
he hadn’t been without a weapon of some kind on his body. He was always ready to defend
not only himself, but his friends and family. But when he was with Holland, he forgot
about everything but her.

“Are you all right?” He covered her body with his.

Dax had tried to take the brunt of the fall, but he was sure she was scraped up.

She nodded. “But we need to get inside. We don’t have much cover here.”

He’d rolled her to the back of the balcony where it would be harder for the gunman
to spot them, but she was right.

Another volley of gunfire sounded, and he turned them again, exposing his back and
using his body to protect her. Dax tensed, waiting for the feeling of the bullet piercing
him.

“We need to move,” she whispered. “I hear two types of fire. One is from a handgun
and the other a rifle. I think whoever has the handgun is giving us some cover. But
we need to get inside and now.”

She was right. There were definitely two shooters, and one had tipped them off. Good
to know they didn’t have two armed bastards with murder on their minds after them.

He rose to his knees. “You stay close to the wall. We’ll move as quickly as we can.
When you get inside, stay down and away from the windows.”

“My gun is on the bar. I can get to it with minimal exposure. You find your phone
and call the police,” she said calmly.

His girl was good under fire. “I don’t think getting the cops here will be a problem.”

Tourists screamed on the streets below as they realized people were exchanging gunfire.
The Quarter would be a chaotic mess in minutes, making it very simple for the assassin
to slip into the crowd and fade away.

Dax crept across the rest of the balcony and let Holland in first. He could still
hear screaming and intermittent gunfire, but now the sweet sound of sirens joined
the mix.

He shoved the balcony door open and forced his way through. By the time it slammed
behind him Holland had already retrieved her SIG and was easing toward the front door.

“I don’t think that’s a great idea, sweetheart.” He knew she wanted to get out there
and search for the person who’d shot at them, but they had no idea who they were looking
for.

Holland paused at the door, glaring. “You can’t expect me to sit on my hands. I need
to figure out where the asshole was perched. He might have left something behind.”

“I think we should figure out who warned us first.” The voice had
been deep but he would bet anything it had come from a woman. “Besides, the police
are on their way. We’ll have to give a statement.”

Suddenly, he heard a crashing sound. Glass shattered all around them. Dax whipped
around to the balcony windows. As the curtains caught fire, horror dawned. Someone
had tossed a Molotov cocktail through the window.

“The files,” Holland said, her eyes widening.

Already Dax could feel the heat as her thin curtains flamed and the carpet caught
fire. He ran for the files as another bottle sailed onto the balcony and added to
the flames. He could hear more gunfire but it didn’t matter—nothing did except getting
Holland out. He grabbed one of the laptops and the file folder, leaving everything
else behind.

“Go,” he ordered, aware they had to escape onto the street to avoid the blaze . . .
where they would have nowhere to hide.

Holland snatched up his bag from the couch and slung it over her shoulder. It would
give them an extra weapon. He would take it.

He took her hand and threaded their fingers together. No way he was losing her.

“The door in the back leads out to the streets. Unless they have someone on the top
of the building or waiting for us, we should be able to slip out and take one of the
side streets away from the Quarter. We can get in touch with the police from there.”

He already had his cell in hand. One of the great things about dating Holland Kirk
was that when assholes tried to assassinate them, he could divert his attention enough
to call for help because his woman knew what she was doing. She took the lead, making
sure the hall and stairway were empty as they began their descent.

He called the cavalry. It only took a single ring for Connor to answer.

“What’s happening, brother? Is Holland proving to be stubborn? I hope so because Lara
and I have a bet riding on this. Actually, I have a bet. She told me it was nasty
and inhumane to bet on a friend’s love life.”

Good for Lara. “No time. Someone just took a shot at us and torched Holland’s apartment.
I need a safe house. We’re heading out of the city and I’ll call when it’s safe. Make
transportation arrangements for us, too.” He disconnected the call and slid the phone
in his pocket.

“We should make our way to the police station,” Holland said.

“I’m rethinking NOLA PD involvement, sweetheart. Only two groups know I’m in town—the
cops and your team.”

Her jaw tightened as they made it to her building’s back door. “You think someone
on one of the teams is working for the mob and you’re probably right. Both teams also
knew I had the photos. One of them has to be responsible for this.”

As he poked his head outside, he cursed. “Damn it. You take the nine and I’ll take
the three.”

She nodded, and they both burst through, him veering left and ensuring no one shot
them from that direction, and her preventing the same on the right. When their surroundings
looked clear, he took her hand again.

“Let’s head toward Canal Street. We can find a bar and wait until Connor calls.”

She gritted her teeth, as though the idea of running upset her. But she slid her gun
into the back of her jeans and hid it with her shirt, nodding. “All right. I need
to text my uncle though, otherwise he’ll put a BOLO on my ass.”

The last thing they needed was the police hunting them. Oh, someone on the force might
be, but they didn’t need it to be official. “All right. Let’s go.”

He squeezed her hand and they lost themselves in the crowds as sirens filled the air.

As they crept out of the Quarter, Dax had to wonder about that woman who’d screamed
a warning for them to move.

Her identity was a mystery, but one he intended to solve.

*   *   *

H
olland frowned at the text as Dax turned off the highway and straight into bayou country.

Worried about you. Call me when you can. And watch your back. Trouble is following
your old boyfriend everywhere. He’s not to be trusted.

Her uncle. She’d managed to convince him not to send a SWAT team her way, but he wasn’t
convinced she was safe. Of course, since it looked as if she was headed into
Deliverance
territory, she wasn’t certain, either.

“Do you know where you’re going? Are you sure this is where Connor told us to hide
out?” Because she’d just seen an alligator lazing on the roadside and that didn’t
give her a warm fuzzy.

Dax grinned as though this was all just one big adventure. “What’s wrong, city girl?
Can’t handle a few critters? I thought you were raised in New Orleans.”

“Exactly. New Orleans. I was raised in the city, not the swamp. My aunt always told
me the swamp was for gators, tourists who wanted to get eaten by gators, and criminals
who knew no one wanted to hang out with gators. Which of those categories does your
friend fall into?”

If anything, his lips tugged up higher. “He falls into the crazy motherfucker category.”

“You’re awfully happy for a man on the run.”

He turned back to the road with a shrug. “I wouldn’t say I’m happy. I’m just content
that we’re going to solve this thing. Now that we’re on our own, we’re going to focus.”

“Focus? You think I haven’t been focused? I’ve spent years trying to figure this damn
mystery out.”

“How about this, then?” he said. “I’m optimistic because we’re
together. We’re a good team. The last time we worked a case together we were so damn
good the Russian mob came after us.”

“And that was such a plus.” He was infuriating and yet she found herself smiling at
him.

“Call it what you like, but we’re perfect together.”

He focused on the road again and she fell silent. She should probably disagree . . .
but she didn’t.

The minutes rolled by as she looked out on the moonlit bayou. Silvery beams illuminated
the still waters of the swamp. Every now and then it reflected off the light from
creatures’ eyes. She shuddered.

“Can we talk about us now?” Dax asked softly.

She wasn’t ready, though she’d started to believe that at some point she might be
able to discuss that with something other than sarcasm and cynicism. “Not yet.”

He was quiet for a moment, the only sound between them the pounding of the Jeep against
the pavement. “All right. Let’s talk about the fact that someone warned us today.
Any idea who?”

She’d heard the same thing he had. “It was a woman. I don’t know. It was chaotic and
she didn’t yell out after that. From what I can tell, they were both across the street
from my building.”

“Why would they have two agents across the street from us and why would one sell the
other out?”

It was a question she’d been asking herself. “I don’t think they were together. One
of the buildings across the street is a good two stories taller than the other. Whoever
called out to us must have had the better vantage point. I suspect she’d positioned
herself on that taller building. She took multiple shots at him, I’ll bet with the
handgun. The guy with the rifle was directly across the street from us, so his perch
was closer to my window. That’s why he had an easy time throwing those Molotov cocktails
into my place. The competing gunfire had ceased by then.”

“She obviously wasn’t there to kill us.”

“Agreed. I wish I’d gotten a look at her. Unfortunately, that whole running-for-our-lives
thing got in the way. That really rankles.”

It did. It made her restless that she’d been so vulnerable, that not one but two people
had been watching them. If Dax hadn’t been there, she would have hauled off in hot
pursuit. With him by her side, she’d had more than herself and her pride to think
of.

She’d sat quietly in the bar of one of the larger hotels while texting her uncle and
trying to figure out who would have warned them. While they’d waited for the Jeep
Connor had arranged she’d come to terms with the fact that her only real concern in
that moment hadn’t been herself or her apartment or even the files.

It had been Dax.

At the end of the day it didn’t matter how tough she was. She was a stupid girl at
heart. She was still foolishly pining for a boy. No, a man. She could trust him with
her life, just not with her heart.

“According to the directions, we’re not far now,” Dax said as he turned again, this
time onto a one-lane dirt road so narrow that trees brushed the sides of the Jeep
as though reaching out to pull them into the thick gloom of the swamp. Wherever they
were headed, it was isolated.

“Did your uncle mention how much of the building was lost?” Dax asked.

“The good news is the fire department got there quickly. Uncle Beau thinks there’s
no real structural damage. He was there when the fire department arrived, and he signed
all the paperwork for me. He’s going to send in an engineer to make sure. He’ll keep
in touch by e-mail, but at some point he’s going to want to see me.”

“Let’s give it a day or two.”

“How’s your mom?” It was so much easier to talk about family than the elephant in
the Jeep. They hadn’t talked about that kiss yet or the fact that if some asshole
hadn’t started shooting, she very likely would have surrendered to Dax on the balcony.
She would have spread her legs wide without a word of protest and welcomed him inside
because she hadn’t cared about anything in that moment except being close to him.

“So far, so good. I tried to get her to go to D.C., but she’s being stubborn.”

All the Spencers were stubborn. It seemed to be bred into their DNA.

Finally, a building came into view, illuminated in the twin lights of the Jeep. She
couldn’t make out many details in the surrounding dark, but at least it wasn’t one
of the small fishing camps that dotted the bayou. It looked like a cabin big enough
to actually live in. The door opened and out stepped someone she hadn’t seen in years.

“Is that Connor?”

Dax stopped the Jeep and killed the engine with a smile on his face. “Asshole didn’t
tell me he was already here.”

“Maybe he came out this afternoon.”

Dax shook his head. “Nah. He’s probably been here since I hit New Orleans, waiting
for the minute I needed backup.”