by Lisa Hughey
“Close protection format,” John instructed Marissa, who’d watched the quick exchange with a stoic expression.
“Okay.”
He wondered what the hell her deal was. But that was a mystery for later.
“Maria, you stay between us. We’ll protect you.” Marissa’s voice had lowered, gentled, and she seemed almost compassionate when she spoke to the other woman.
“Thank you.” Maria’s mouth tipped up and John was happy to see that color was returning to her cheeks and her breathing was already easier.
He patted Maria’s shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”
Marissa stared at his hand on Maria’s shoulder for a long second. Then she jingled the rental keys in long fingers tipped with no-nonsense, short and unpainted nails. “Let’s go,” she said curtly.
Ball Buster was back.
Chapter 2
Could she be more of a bitch?
Probably not. All Rissa wanted to do was bury her head in the fluffy pillow on her bed and be miserable for the next hundred years.
John Pulaski had patted Maria on the shoulder to comfort her, and all Rissa had wanted was for the same attention from the hulking former Marine. A moment in his large, muscled biceps so she could get her shit together and go on.
Because dammit, she hadn’t wanted this assignment. She wasn’t ready. Her damn head was still fucked up.
Yet her boss had sent her to Las Vegas to help John Pulaski and Stone Consulting track down two women who were abducted eight years ago. She wasn’t ready for a partner, she wasn’t ready to be in the field, and she damn sure wasn’t ready to watch over one traumatized victim.
She identified far more with the victim—and yes she fucking hated that word—than the protector.
Instead of being able to put herself in some sort of quit-losing-it timeout by hiding in her bed, she had to hang out in the common area of the suite.
Maria needed some time alone, which Rissa got, she really did. They were housed in an off-Strip hotel in a three-room suite. A common area with a full kitchen, table, and living room was flanked by two bedrooms. The main bedroom had a king-size bed and Jacuzzi tub while the other bedroom sported two queen beds and a nice bathroom.
There should have been enough room for them all, even if they were virtual strangers.
Unfortunately, the three-room, two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite felt way too small while Maria was locked away with a cold cloth over her head and the curtains drawn in the bedroom they were sharing.
Rissa gently closed the connecting door between her and Maria’s bedroom and the living area.
The tension headache that throbbed behind her left eye was getting worse. When she’d been on the Strip, she’d been doing okay in the straight sections, crowded but not too bad. But when she’d hit the street corner and the people started piling up waiting for the light to change, her mind had gone to another place. Her breath had shortened, as if she could draw in only tiny sips of air, and all her doubts and fears had pinged around her brain like those balls banging around in the lotto machine, bouncing off each other in a frantic mess. And suddenly, she had needed to get out of there. Away from the press of humanity.
She could empathize with Maria’s panic. But Rissa hadn’t even noticed. She’d been too caught up in her own drama to see that Maria was having similar issues. Dammit. So freaking unprofessional.
She was not ready to be back in the field.
The living room was blessedly empty. She needed to apologize to John but that would have to wait until he was around. Right now she could relax in peace.
That was when she noticed that the sliding door to their third-story balcony was open about an inch. She could see John’s silhouette through the filmy curtains that hid the interior of the suite from prying eyes.
John Pulaski was, physically, just her type. His black hair sprinkled with gray was just long enough brush his ears and collar. His face was all angles and lines, a long nose with a bump on the bridge, high cheekbones, and a strong uncompromising clean-shaven jaw. He had thick shoulders, a large chest, and thighs the size of the palm trees lining the Strip. His chest tapered in to his waist and led to a world-class ass. She hadn’t had any idea that he was also missing part of his left leg until this afternoon. Something no one bothered to mention to her.
Then she wondered why she thought she had any right to know his business. She certainly didn’t want to share hers with anyone.
Ugh, if he was out there, she needed to apologize.
She wanted to have this conversation about as much as she wanted to be in the field. But she wasn’t about to back away from an uncomfortable few moments. She did have her pride. Truth be told, she probably had too much pride. But that was inconsequential right this minute.
Rissa eased the slider open and stepped out onto the small balcony. The old Las Vegas Hotel, newly named Westgate something or other but everyone still called it the LVH, was to their left. She focused on that giant sign rather than stare directly at John.
The wall of heat hit like a three-hundred-pound linebacker, making it momentarily hard to breathe. This dry heat was so very different from the humid soup of DC, but so hot it could sear your lungs. As she sucked in air, she inhaled cigarette smoke.
And her apology disintegrated when the acrid odor hit her brewing migraine.
She turned her head sharply and glared at him. “That’s a filthy habit,” she said. Anger and shame roiled in her stomach because she was giving him a hard time.
Something about this man and nearly every move he made caused her to want to strike out, strike back. As a result, she had been a flaming bitch all day, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
“True.” His perfectly formed lips wrapped around the white tip as he sucked the nicotine into his lungs. She was mesmerized by the sensual curve of his mouth, and the absolute lack of remorse as he blew the smoke right in her face. “You’re welcome to leave.”
Her gaze flicked to his lips, then back up to his darkened eyes, the hazel taking on more of the color of the whiskey in his glass. God, she was such a bitch.
Rissa shunted her attention to the chairs on the balcony, the slightly opened sliding glass door that shielded their charge from view, the curl of smoke in the air, anywhere but on the serious, pissed-off man whose commanding presence filled the airspace around them with a pulsing masculine energy.
Her traitorous body reacted to that testosterone-laden vibe. She didn’t feel threatened by him, instead she had that “I want to rip your clothes off” heightened awareness that had her hormones on red alert.
She didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand her reaction to him either. For the most part, men didn’t affect her. She could take them or leave them. Of course, she’d taken plenty when she’d been trying to drown out the noise in her head after the incident. But sleeping with every man who crossed her path hadn’t helped. And she’d gone back to being her more typically reclusive self.
Rissa dropped into one of the painted metal chairs, and pressed her knees together, wishing she could rest her forehead on her knees. It would be so very unprofessional to curl into a fetal ball and start rocking back and forth. But something about this man had every one of her defenses going on alert and she was terrified to relax her guard around him. She took a deep breath, straightened up, and forced herself to look him in the eyes. “I apologize.”
“For what?” He wasn’t being dense. He just wanted to make her say it. She could see his refusal to let her off easy in his narrowed gaze. She appreciated his insistence to hold her accountable, even as she was tempted to bash him over the head for making her voice it out loud.
But there was more to his perusal. The annoyance in his gaze was layered with heat. The sexual pull between them was difficult to ignore when she could tell he was feeling it too.
Fine, he could be as annoyed as he wanted. She wasn’t about to air all her secrets, but she also needed to acknowledge her bitchy attitude. Then she realized she ha
d no idea how to explain without actually explaining. Rissa hesitated, wondering just what she could or would share, and kicking herself for not figuring out earlier exactly how she was going to handle disseminating information without baring her soul and her mistakes.
She’d been so concerned about the handling the weapons segment of this assignment that she’d completely forgotten she’d have to deal with the emotional impact of just…being on the job. As he blew another stream of smoke toward her, she abandoned those thoughts. Screw it, she’d apologized. As far as she was concerned, that was the end of it.
If he could be a dick, then she’d just continue to be a bitch. Not a very mature attitude but fuck it. Now that she’d gotten that out of the way, they needed to focus on logistics.
So she shifted the conversation to the job. “Let’s talk strategy.”
His left hand rested on his left knee, the cigarette held comfortably between his index and middle finger. He stayed silent, watching her like a hawk waiting for the mouse to give away its position. She refused to be a scared mouse. He lifted one of the kitchen glasses to his lips. The amber liquid rocked in the glass as he took a healthy slug. Smoke curled lazily in the air between them. She watched the muscles in his throat move when he swallowed and her mouth went desert dry.
“We can’t keep dragging Maria around. She can’t handle it,” Rissa said sharply.
“Cut her some slack. She’s dealing with a lot of stuff.”
Weren’t they all? She threw up her hands. “I wasn’t being critical. I don’t want her to have to handle it.” Rissa huffed out an irritated breath. “I am not the enemy.”
He merely raised an eyebrow and wrapped those sinful lips around the cigarette again. It was a filthy habit. So why was she so aroused by the simple purse of his lips as she imagined him sucking on other, more intimate, things with as much force.
Jesus. She was losing what was left of her mind.
Rissa licked her lips as her nipples tightened and heat pooled low in her belly. “We’re on the same side here.”
“Are we?” he asked neutrally.
Frustration, fierce and sharp, stabbed at her head, but she resisted the urge to rub the back of her neck. “Of course we are.”
Just because she wasn’t sure she could handle the emotional pressure of being in the field again didn’t mean that the effort wasn’t worthwhile. It just meant that she didn’t know how she was going to hold up. But he didn’t know anything about her problems, and his passive-aggressive needling guaranteed that unless she somehow put him in danger, he wasn’t going to know.
It was her weakness, her problem, and she’d be the one to deal with it.
John eyed Marissa through the screen of smoke. Dusk was starting to fall, painting the sky an artistic mix of pastel blues, pinks and yellows.
“What do you suggest?” he finally asked.
“Anything that keeps her safe and in her comfort zone.”
“Agreed.”
The intelligence they had so far indicated that Manuel Ortega was the man who had brokered the deal for the girls. But he was a shadowy figure, a resident of Mexico who traveled to the US regularly for business. He had plenty of legitimate businesses, and until his name came up in the search for these girls, there had been very little chatter about any illegal dealings.
Ortega owned a high-end strip club in Vegas. For the first time, there was a hint that there was more beneath the surface of the legal façade of the club. The reason they’d put together this op so quickly is because they found out that Ortega was in Vegas right now.
It was possible that the kidnapped girls had been forced into prostitution. On paper, in any computer records, the link between José Fernandez, the disgraced politician, and Manuel Ortega was nonexistent.
Until Fernandez had given up Ortega’s name.
If Fernandez hadn’t fingered the businessman, the investigation would still be in the dark and a total dead end. Fernandez had denied any additional involvement in the kidnapping of the four girls. He’d insisted that he didn’t know what had happened to them after his guys had handed them over to Ortega. But Jack Stone was convinced that the SOB was lying.
She didn’t know why Jack thought the girls might be in Vegas. However if Jack’s information indicated a connection between the missing women and this club, Rissa was going to follow up on it. Even if every lead went nowhere, Rissa would spend the time to track it because those girls deserved justice.
“What if we check out the strip club?” She wanted to go to a strip club with John Pulaski about as much as she wanted to fire her weapon again. She kept all reluctance out of her voice. “We could leave Maria here tonight and take a field trip.”
The earthy peaty scent of fine liquor lingered in the hot air.
John took another sip of scotch and eyed her over the rim of the glass. “You want to go to the strip club.” He hadn’t made it sound like a question, more of a derisive statement.
She knew what she looked like. Uptight. Prim. Overly proper. Those words described exactly how she’d been acting. But dammit. Even with her limitations she was a capable, sharp investigator or her boss, Jillian Larsen, would have never sent her on this mission.
She ignored the fact that he doubted her. After all, she had doubts about herself. But she’d never admit that to anyone. Most especially John freaking Pulaski.
Her stomach sloshed at the thought of doing undercover reconnaissance with him. Not just him, any partner.
He flicked ash into the little black tray, and glanced at her almost mannish blouse and boring navy pants. “You need a different wardrobe.”
The tailored suit and plain blouse were her armor, engineered to make her seem competent, in control. Exactly what she had been…before. Back when it wasn’t armor but just her uniform. Now she employed the motto: Fake it ’til you make it.
She’d come prepared for undercover work even though the idea had her waking up in a sweat and wanting to toss her dinner.
“I’ve got appropriately slutty clothes.” She fought to keep her voice level, even as she felt his gaze on her chest, lingering.
And those inappropriate feelings were back. Stronger than ever. Her girl parts tingled and her head went a little light.
“Only if we can get a babysitter for Maria.” John shifted back into business mode, his face blank, and his warm eyes went flat, cool. He stubbed out the butt in the plastic ashtray on the little glass end table between their chairs. “I am not leaving her alone tonight.”
That protective streak of his was damn attractive. And while she could take care of herself, she appreciated his instinct to care for others weaker than himself.
He was right. Maria was frightened by the crowds and lights and noise. Understandably so. She’d been alone with only her own company for eight years. A cruel form of solitary confinement. The last time Adams-Larsen had been in charge of Maria there had been problems. Problems like Maria freaked and bolted. She had trouble trusting people. Not surprising.
“She’s got some serious balls,” Rissa said wistfully, remembering back to the time when she had considerable mission mojo. Now her moxie was gone. It had disappeared in a puff of cordite when her partner coded on the floor of a dirty warehouse.
John smirked. His lips pursed like he was holding back something. Then suddenly a chuckle escaped, his mouth curved, his cheeks puffed and mirth sparkled in his eyes. A laugh erupted sounding like it was from deep in his belly and he bent over.
“What the hell is so funny?”
“Nothing, BB.”
“Just call me Rissa.” She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know what BB stood for.
This whole mission was like one great big test of her mental stability.
She knew for a fact that this job was a trial mission for him. If it went well, he would join Jack Stone’s company. He likely couldn’t afford to fuck up either.
John wiped at his wet eyes.
“You going to explain that?” He wasn�
�t laughing at her. Somehow she knew that instinctively but his obvious amusement was irritating as hell.
He studied her for another second. “Nope.”
Rissa didn’t want to let Jillian down. On the surface, Adams-Larsen was an image consulting firm which they did in a very limited capacity. In reality, their agency helped people disappear legally, whether they were the target of stalking, or threats from exes, or other forms of harassment. Last month they even helped a whistleblower set up a new life free from worry about being harassed.
They didn’t find missing people. Sure, in theory they could work backward, but it wasn’t really their strength. And since she’d been out of the game, in the office working as the receptionist and doing research, for over two years, she was more liability than asset.
Rissa’s heart thudded hard and frantic in her chest. She could barely worry about herself let alone another person. What if she couldn’t handle a situation or something happened and she had a flashback?
She cursed her boss, but whining about her fears wasn’t going to change her mission. Time to get back to it.
“All we really have are the age progression photos, and a very vague tip from Fernandez. Manuel Ortega’s strip club is one of many in the city.”
“Jack has been digging further into Ortega’s network investigating for new information.” His voice was mild.
“I still feel like it was premature to come to Las Vegas and start with only two sketchy pieces of evidence.” Her frustration at her own very real issues made her voice sharp and her throat tight. Sweat sheened on her brow. Her stomach twisted and whirled like the roller coaster on top of New York-New York. Her doubts crowded in again.
But Rissa kept her chin up, shoulders squared, and mentally projected an air of efficient competence, refusing to show any weakness in front of John freaking Pulaski.
“Doesn’t matter what we think.” John drained the amber liquid from the glass, placed it deliberately on the little table between them, and then stretched his arms over his head and his legs out in front of him. The move lifted his cotton polo and exposed a strip of ripped flesh at his waist. His abs were a work of art. His shoulders popped and his biceps bulged straining the ribbed cotton hem of his polo shirt.
