by Cindy Dees
She pegged them as finance types in town to arrange some sort of business deal. She asked just enough questions about what they did to get them going and then tuned out the steady stream of self-aggrandizing patter to follow as they tried to impress her into sleeping with them. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Brady blow off a few more hopeful coeds. He was very good, freezing out the girls with no more than a disdainfully polite look.
A little older crowd of women moved in on him then. And these ladies were more confident and more aggressive. Eve brimmed with amusement as she watched Brady suddenly have his hands full with four cougars on the prowl.
Unfortunately, her bankers were drinking hard, and their forwardness was growing by leaps and bounds. Time to bail on these guys. She took the least obnoxious one by the arm and announced that she felt like dancing. As she passed Brady, she flashed him a brief look that dared him to join her on the dance floor.
Equal parts irritation and amusement glinted in his narrowed gaze. Didn’t like watching her flirt up other men, did he? Satisfaction flashed through her. Good. She didn’t particularly like watching him get pawed, either.
Her banker was an enthusiastic, if not tremendously skilled, dancer. Thankfully, he was drunk enough to want to dance with everyone around him, too, and afforded Eve plenty of opportunity to observe the comings and goings of the mob crammed on the floor.
A hand touched her elbow briefly from behind. A flare of recognition burst inside her. Brady. How had he managed to sneak up behind her without her seeing him? He was taller than most of the people here; he should have been a breeze to spot. She threw him a sidelong glance so hot it would melt most men’s shoes. He smiled briefly and turned away, ostensibly dancing with a cougar who was so a bleach blonde and had definitely had some surgical work done to get that chest and that pert little nose. Her lips were suspicious, too.
Realizing belatedly that she was glaring at Brady’s partner, she turned to her own partner and was mildly relieved to see that one of the coed girls from the table had come out onto the floor and was all but crawling down the guy’s shirt. With a toss of her hair, Eve spun and walked away. Thank goodness that banker had made himself so easy to dump.
“Need a refill?” a deep, masculine voice said in her ear under the din of the music.
Brady. She glanced up at him and, laughing, poured the remainder of her drink on the floor. The guy whose shoe she’d just watered complained, but she ignored him. To Brady, she replied, “Why, yes. I do.”
Grinning, he took her by the elbow and led her back to her original side of the club where it was marginally more quiet. He casually used his bulk to open a space at the bar for her and then tucked himself in beside her.
“Your friends are watching us,” he muttered in her ear as he leaned past her to signal the busy bartender.
“Then we’ll have to put on a good show,” she replied. “So, sailor. Where are you from?”
He blinked, startled. “I grew up in Miami. My work forces me to travel a fair bit, though, so I’m a bit of a nomad. You?”
“French father. American mother. Living in London,” she replied, keeping up the charade for Annika and her stooges.
She and Brady traded small talk for a few minutes while the bartender poured their drinks. She actually learned a few things she hadn’t known about him, like his mother was his only living immediate family member, but he wasn’t close to her. In fact, his jaw went noticeably tight when the subject of the woman came up at all.
The bartender passed a tab to Brady, and he casually wrote down a room number and signed it.
“You’re staying here at the resort?” she asked him.
“I am. I’m here on business. Nice place. I might have to come back sometime on vacation,” he answered.
She nodded. “I haven’t seen the grounds. I hear they’re beautiful.”
“They are. Maybe when you’re done with your drink you’d like a tour?”
She smiled up at him. “I’d like that.” She added under her breath, “For a man who doesn’t like women, you’re very good at this seduction thing.”
“Where did you get the idea I don’t like women?” he asked a little indignantly.
She laughed. “You’re kidding, right? You made it clear from the start that you have no use for them.”
“Having no use for them and not liking them are two entirely different things,” he retorted.
She chugged down the rest of her drink in a single gulp. “Let’s take this conversation outside and continue it in private, shall we?”
His eyes blazed momentarily before he banked the fire in them. “The grounds are nearly as magnificent as you, Miss Dupont.”
“Please. Call me Eve,” she purred back.
“God, you’re sexy,” he muttered. “Is it really as effortless as it looks, or do you actually have to work at it?”
She grinned. “You have no idea how hard a girl has to work to look this cheap.”
“Honey, you are a lot of things, but cheap is not one of them.”
“You have no idea. I expect payment in full, in cash, in advance.”
He laughed openly, then. Heads turned and disappointment rippled outward around them as two of the most beautiful people in the joint had obviously hooked up and were out of the potential dating pool for the evening.
Brady led her out onto a patio and down a set of wide steps into a truly spectacular tropical garden. Cobblestone paths wound off enticingly in several directions.
She reached for his elbow. “I believe this is the part where I tell you I’m feeling a little tipsy and you offer to put your arm around me to steady me.”
“Ah, just how I like my women,” he quipped back. “Half drunk and looking for excuses to get their hands on me.”
She laughed, but then broke off abruptly.
“What?” he bit out, abruptly serious.
“Is big brother listening to us?” she breathed.
“Every word.”
“Oh, Lord. They’re going to think I’m a complete tramp.”
Brady took her hand and tucked it under his elbow as he turned and headed down a path. “I’ll beat up anyone who thinks such a thing of you.”
“How gallant,” she sighed theatrically.
“H.O.T. Watch reports that one of Annika’s boys has moved out of the hotel and is trying to follow us.” He added apologetically, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take this little show to the next level.”
“What does that mean?” she asked a little breathlessly as hope sprang up within her.
“This.”
Chapter 11
Brady stepped forward to kiss Eve, vividly aware of how natural and easy a thing that was becoming for him. Joy unfolded in his chest at having a valid excuse to kiss her again. Nobody at H.O.T. Watch could accuse him of being unprofessional for kissing his informant to protect her cover.
Her mouth was soft and eager beneath his, the tangy remnants of her gin and tonic giving her natural sweetness a pleasing bite.
“You taste good,” she murmured.
“You like single malt whiskey, then?” he replied.
“I like the taste of you.” Her slender arms wrapped around his neck and their bodies fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. It made him think of their bodies fitted together in other ways, and his raged in response. He was getting used to being permanently uncomfortable around her and he did his best to ignore the lust bordering on pain that she aroused in him.
It didn’t work, of course. The longer her mouth moved across his the more sinful his thoughts became. Except it was hard to see it as sin when Eve felt this good in his arms. He snorted. Adam probably said the same darned thing in the Garden of Eden.
He stepped back reluctantly. “That was supposed to be a getting-to-know-you kiss. We’d better cool it or your watcher might get suspicious.”
“He’ll think it’s a free sample to entice the customer to pay for more. He won’t be shocked if I let yo
u put your tongue down my throat.”
Hmm. An interesting prospect. Regretfully, he held his elbow out to her. When she took it, he continued their moonlit stroll, leading her toward the water. The sound of the ocean grew louder as they neared the resort’s private beach. They stepped out of the tree cover and Eve gasped softly beside him. He smiled as she took in the pristine white sand, the bonfires at each end of the beach lending it warmth and light, and the authentic tiki hut housing a fully stocked bar.
“Like it?” he asked.
“I love it.”
His cell phone rang, and it turned out to be Harry Sheffield at H.O.T. Watch, which surprised Brady. He was currently wearing an earbud with streaming live audio communications from Harry and company. Why the phone call?
“What’s up?” he muttered.
“Annika’s goon has followed you to the beach. He seems to be closing in and trying to signal Eve. We think he wants to talk to her. We thought you could tell her this is a business call and step away from her so Baldy can approach her.”
“That’s the one they call Curly,” Brady replied. He put a hand over the receiver and glanced at Eve. “This is a business call. I’ve got to take it. Stay here and order a drink. Put it on my room tab.”
She frowned, not understanding. She also knew he was wearing an earpiece. Nonetheless, she nodded and turned to the bar. He strode down the beach, out of earshot to pretend to have a private conversation. He hated to be so far away from her, but he had no choice if Curly was going to feel safe enough to move in on her.
“Let me know when he’s mobile,” Brady said into the phone.
“Roger.” A brief pause, then, “He’s closing on her.”
His hand strayed to the pistol concealed in a hidden pocket at the back of his waistband. It was a compact model that didn’t pack as much firepower as he liked, but it was small and easy to hide under clothes. “Call out any aggressive or suspicious move he makes.”
Harry replied dryly, “We won’t let him hurt your girl. The slightest hint of a threat to her and we’ll let you know.”
Brady winced. His girl? Was he really that transparent? And then the rest of his response hit him. He didn’t mind at all the idea of her being his girl. He just didn’t want H.O.T. Watch to know about it yet. Whoa. His mind blown, he stared unseeingly at the ocean.
Eve sipped at her mineral water over ice. The bartender had been kind enough to add a twist of lemon to it to make it look alcoholic. She wanted her head clear as long as she was working under Annika’s nose.
She glanced up and started as Curly stepped out of the jungle. Speak of the devil. She pasted on a falsely pleasant expression and waited, tense, for him to belly up to the bar beside her and order a beer. The guy’d given her the creeps from the first time she met him, and further acquaintance had only heightened her unease. Annika might be violent and unpredictable, but this guy was just mean. He clearly took pleasure in causing pain, and just as clearly, he had a thing against women. Beautiful blonde women, in particular.
He mumbled in Basque beside her, which alarmed her even more than his sudden appearance. What did he have to say to her that he couldn’t chance anyone around them understanding?
Initially, he groused about the outrageous cost of a beer in this joint, and then he got down to business. “Annika wants you to go back to the disco. You’re supposed to be working the place.”
Eve’s Basque was rusty at best. She fumbled for the words to retort, “I’m supposed to be establishing a cover. She told me to be a hooker, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m working a customer. Now go away. He’ll leave if he sees me talking with you.”
“You’re to come back to the club with me,” Curly insisted.
Irritation climbed in her gut. She switched into French to properly vent her anger at getting ordered around like this. This was a world she knew better than Annika or Curly by a mile. “Look, smart boy. Hookers at this place are not desperate junkies who charge twenty-five bucks a trick. The working girls here are high-end, and the men who hire them expect a modicum of class. Which means me not going into some club and throwing myself at every male who comes along.”
Something ugly simmered in Curly’s gaze, which made a shiver ripple ominously down her spine. He snarled, “I’ve got my orders and you’ve got yours. Let’s go. Now.” He grabbed her upper arm and commenced dragging her away from the bar.
Eve threw a panicked look down the beach to where Brady had disappeared into the shadows. No sign of him. She was on her own. In desperation, she signaled the bartender, who came over quickly. The guy’d been keeping a close eye on Curly ever since he arrived.
As Curly yanked at her arm, she resisted long enough to say to the bartender, “Will you tell my friend when he gets back that I’ve gone back to the Monte Carlo Room and will meet him there?”
That was all she got out before Curly hauled her away from the bar by brute force. She slogged after him through the sand, barely managing to stay on her feet as the angry terrorist stormed toward the trees. This was not good. She emphatically didn’t want to be alone with Curly.
They started down a path and darkness swallowed them. The shadows and swaying palms that had been moody and romantic before with Brady were suddenly menacing. Where are you Brady? What am I supposed to do? Her instinct said to tear away from Curly and run like hell. But she was supposed to be bottom dog in the gang and not cause trouble. The burly man made the decision for her, though, by maintaining an iron grip on her arm that she couldn’t possibly escape.
Without warning, Curly turned left, pulling her off the path and into the jungle. Uh-oh. How was Brady going to find her in this tangle of branches and undergrowth?
“Where are we going?” she demanded, her voice higher and more querulous than she would have liked. “I thought Annika wanted me at the club.”
“You need an attitude adjustment first,” Curly growled. “Bitchy women need to get put in their place.”
Oh, my God. She was in serious trouble. How was she supposed to defend herself from whatever this gorilla had planned? Brady had warned her about this way back when. He’d tried to tell her the men she’d be working with could be brutes. Unfortunately, she hadn’t even begun to comprehend him. She understood all too well now.
They emerged into a tiny clearing ringed by spiky bushes and overhung by heavy palm fronds. Brady would never find her here. Frantic, she described it for the bug in her purse. “Where is this clearing? I can’t hear the beach anymore. And the palms overhead are so tall and thick. At least it’s sandy underfoot.”
“Shut up,” Curly snapped. “Women should be seen and not heard.”
“Does Annika know you think that?” Eve countered.
“She’s okay. She’d put a bullet in another woman’s head as fast as I would.”
“Then why hasn’t she done that to me, already? How come she let me live in the morgue when she had a gun to my head?”
“She thinks she owes your brother. But that sorry bastard’s been dead for years. Her debt to him is expired. She’s just too damned sentimental to admit it. But I’m not.”
“How dare you say something like that about my brother,” she hissed, genuinely furious, and also desperate to keep Curly talking until Brady could come to the rescue. If he came to the rescue. “At least my brother had the guts to step up and do something about his beliefs. I don’t see you doing anything concrete to act upon what you believe.”
He swore and called her a foul name before shoving her so hard she fell to her knees.
She popped back up to her feet fast, terrified at the idea of him getting her down on the ground and pinning her with his superior weight. What had Brady said about situations like this? Crud. They hadn’t talked about situations like this. Her own street instincts took over.
She spoke with desperate calm. “Look, Curly. I talk a lot of smack, but I don’t mean anything by it. It’s tough to be a woman and get taken seriously. I’m just trying to get by in t
he world like everyone else.”
“I told you to shut up.” He slapped her viciously across the face before she could dodge the blow. As the sharp crack rang in her ears, her cheek exploded into fiery pain. Worse, Curly’s gaze lit up with unadulterated lust. Of course. He took pleasure from causing pain. And if she was going to be a slut for some other man, why not him, too?
“How am I supposed to work the nightclub with a handprint on my face?” she demanded. “Use your brain, Curly. Annika wants me casing this resort. I can’t do that if I’m too beat up to show my face.”
Apparently, logic wasn’t the way to this man’s heart. He made an incoherent sound of rage and charged her. For a big man, he was surprisingly fast. She turned to flee, but he tackled her around the knees and knocked her to the ground, face first. Panic exploded in her brain. He was going to hurt her, and her gut screamed that he’d kill her if he could. She scrambled away from him, but he had a death grip on her ankle and inexorably dragged her back toward him.
Kicking frantically with her free leg, she caught him across the nose with her foot, and he swore violently. “You’ll pay for that, you will, you stuck-up bitch. I’ll show you who’s in charge. I’ll teach you some manners.”
Eve had no desire to find out what his teaching method was going to be. No doubt it involved his fists. She stopped struggling, overpowered for the moment, but watching for her chance to escape. Something feral broke free within her. She had no illusion that this would be anything other than a fight for her life. Curly climbed to his feet, shoving her back down to her knees when she would have gotten up.
His tirade flowed around her, but she ignored it mostly, catching only fragments of it, accusations about wiggling her various body parts in front of him and teasing him, and ranting about her getting what she deserved.
He reached for her dress, and that was when it hit her that this man was really going to rape her. The reality of it, the horror of it, hit her with the force of a freight train.
She panicked completely. Terror overrode all rational thought, and she flipped into full fight-or-flight mode. She screamed bloody murder and kicked, clawed and scratched at her attacker like a wild animal. Curly slugged her, landing a heavy fist under her jaw and snapping her head back so hard she saw stars. But she didn’t stop. She kept flailing through the pain. Some part of her accepted that she was going to be damaged, maybe badly, tonight. But by God, she was going to survive. He might rape her, and he might beat her black and blue. But she would live. She went silent then, fighting grimly, forcing him to struggle for every bit of power he gained over her.
