Paris
On a different day, for a different girl, with a different purpose in being here, the narrow, winding streets of Montmartre—with its bright storefronts, streets artists and acrobats, diverse mix of laid-back locals and fussy tourists, and chocolate shops selling mouth-watering slivers of divinity—would have felt like a home away from home.
Instead, I’m stuck watching locals shop and tourists’ profiles being sketched and everyone around me eating chocolate like it’s their last supper.
Even the Pricks I’m following.
The sunshine should feel welcoming after days tracking them underground. Except wouldn’t you know it’s raining?
Not that a little drizzle stops the locals or tourists. Or me.
I bought an umbrella with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it, so I blend in with the tourist crowd. Following and watching the three Pricks work out some kind of business deal with six Frenchmen.
As discreetly as possible, I snap pictures with the disposable camera I purchased. I’ve already written down the license-plate numbers of the three black Mercedes parked at the foot of the hill. Yeah, I’m beginning to hate that car. Bad enough the City of Love is the unsuspecting host to a strengthening global criminal cell. Giving the local police a heads-up that their own countrymen are bedfellows with Novák’s men is my gift to Paris.
I’m going to take care of their problem just as soon as the right opportunity to present itself.
If I’m going to poison them, I’ve got to get in close. Except, blond or not, they know who I am. My befriending them, using “my skills” as Declan advised, isn’t an option. Finesse and a whole shitload of strategy is what I’ll need to pull this off. Don’t want to give Paris a nasty reputation for food poisoning; the Lucky Six will be my only fatalities.
If only my main mark, Novák, was sunny-side up.
Patience. Yeah, yeah, it’s a virtue, right?
I tap my foot on the pavement, then fiddle with the umbrella, rotating it like a top around my head while performing my own mental rendition of “Singin’ in the Rain.” Biding my time on the sidewalk across the street and waiting for them to finish lunch. Hoping Novák will slither out of his hole to join them.
As I give my umbrella one last twirl, something catches my eye half a yard up the hill and located dead center in the road. Something shiny, like a coin. Rain dances across its body and its nozzle points straight at me. I lift my eyes, and my hold on the umbrella tightens.
Jaxson’s pistol.
Is he following me or the Pricks? I wonder.
My favorite line from a poem by Lord Tennyson pops into mind, which goes something like, “Now is not the time to reason why, now is the time to do or die.”
And, I do. I really do want to do. Not die.
I turn and hurry down the hill. Once around the curve and out of sight, I take off in a full sprint, weaving my way between tour buses and shoppers, mindless of how the sky seems to have opened up. The open umbrella slows me down. With no time to close it, I reluctantly let it fly loose over my shoulder.
They’ll be others.
“Damn it,” Jaxson curses. Far too close for . . .
His arm snakes around my abdomen.
I jab my elbow into his, and he lets go. Releasing that umbrella had been a mistake; I could use it right now to jab him in the eye or that fickle heart of his. Instead, I try to nail him with my satchel, but he’s too fast. I blink as he slams me up against an old iron fence, hauling my arms overhead and using his body to hold me in place.
“Meeting friends for lunch?” he asks.
I buck my ass against him, wanting to maim him. Except on the next thrust, I feel him hardening beneath me. Years ago, he’d teasingly said, “I like it rough.” Maybe not such a lie, after all. “You’re wearing on my nerves.”
“Well, sweetheart, the feeling is mutual.”
“Call me sweetheart one more time, and I’ll reintroduce your face to my boot,” I hiss.
He brings his face close, brushing his lips against mine. Warmly. A feather’s touch. My tongue touches my lower lip, unconsciously . . . yeah, right. Nothing I have ever done with this man has been unconscious. He has a knack for making me want him. Making women want him. He swoops back in for seconds, a light, teasing touch. I catch his lower lip between my teeth, applying enough pressure to show him I mean business.
“Not so sweet anymore,” he says, pulling away.
God, drive a dagger in my heart. “Sweet gets you nowhere. Right, player?”
He looks at me, really looks at me . . . like he wants to say something.
“Let’s go,” he says, grabbing my wrist in a death grip and dragging me with him.
“Why are you doing this?”
“The answer’s damn clear, sweet thing.”
Grrr. “We need to talk,” I snap. Talk being an understatement.
“Talk? Fuck maybe, now that you’ve got me hard. Say our good-byes—yeah, that too. Time for talking expired nine months ago.”
Did I hear him correctly? “You stubborn, arrogant jerk. Like I’d let you inside my panties again.”
Liar, liar, panties on fire.
Jaxson stops short and I plow right into him. His nostrils flare and I swallow hard, but before I can say “boho”—like in the long pretty printed skirt I’m wearing—,he holds me up and flings me like some amateur lightweight across his shoulder. I wiggle wildly, halfheartedly trying to dislodge myself when I feel his palm connect with my ass.
Smack.
Game on, asshole.
I cease my struggles. Patience is a virtue, remember. Wait for him to exit this back alley that no one seems to know about. To stop this maddening pace he’s set, his heartbeat thumbing wildly beneath my palm. To put me down so I can kick his ass.
Except when he stops, we’re still in the empty alley and he doesn’t put me down. No. He thrusts me into a wall nestled back between two limestone buildings, out of sight from prying eyes.
My head rolls backward and hits the wall. “Asshole,” I cry out, more angry than anything. Because he’s got me rooted in place, his big body man-blocking me, my feet dangling, and my mouth opened wide in shock. I’m instantly that same naive girl I was a year ago, keeping company with a masterful player.
My skirt’s caught up around my waist.
His fingers brush my hip bones.
And with one smooth tug, he rips my Shelby faux-lace panties right off me.
Oh. OH! He’s proving a point right now?
I feel his hand on my belly. But damn if I’m going to let him discover what I suspect he already knows—that I’m wet for him. And it’s not this piddly Parisian rain responsible for the flood of moisture between my thighs.
I grab his head and pull him closer, thoughts of kissing him overshadowed by the desire to head butt him. Except as I arch my head back slightly, preparing to attack, he bounces me in his arms and angles his head. I gasp as our lips smash into each other. From that point onward, everything becomes muddled.
The past, the present, the rain, the wall, our bodies shifting into one another, our tongues intertwining in an aggressive dance.
His taste is familiar, like cinnamon toast. The kind I’d eat not just for breakfast but all day, every day.
Deepening his kiss, he simply devours me, his tongue wrapping around mine, touching me everywhere, making me feel things I shouldn’t. His mouth pressing firm and hard against me, telling me that I’m going nowhere. When where I want to be is here. Raw and aggressive. Bittersweet.
What happened to us?
He shifts, then I feel his hand between my thighs and his fingers between my folds. I hear him groan.
I quiver beneath his touch. My excitement, my desire, my need for him obvious, my happy place an open floodgate of untapped pleasure.
He breaks our kiss. Then smashes my heart.
I feel the tingling scrap of lace on my skin as my panties—caught between our bodies and forgotten in a blind moment of passion—fall free to my ankles.
You’ve been played, I think. You want him so bad, you’d let him take you up against the wall in the rain. Anywhere. Anytime.
Score, Jaxson.
“You didn’t show up,” he gruffly says, his beautiful eyes, blue like a cloudless September sky, narrowing on mine.
“I did but not in time,” I whisper. Choking on the words, choking on the overwhelming agony of having—of all people—failed him. I want to explain . . . need to explain about Madelyn . . . but his expression changes from what might have been hurt . . . God, I think it was hurt . . . to loathing.
Actions have consequences . . .
“What did Novák do to you?” I demand.
He removes his hand from between my legs and lets me slide to my feet. Distancing himself, from me.
I grab his arm. “What did that Prick do to you?” I repeat, abruptly overcome with a sneaking suspicion that those scars on his chest aren’t the only wounds he carries.
He jerks free of my hold. “The question is, what didn’t his men do?”
I feel sick, bile rising up in my throat. Tortured. In all the time I’d thought he was dead and with Hayden’s right-hand hit man after me, I never considered the extent of the pain he had to endure . . . because of the choice I made.
Now I find out—the hard way, nevertheless—that he’s alive. Yet a changed man. He’s not the same balls-to-the-walls charmer I knew. Familiar yet a stranger. Harder, more cynical. More dangerous than ever.
My emotions bounce about like ping-pong balls, from sadness, to rage, to disappointment, to love . . . regret . . . And in the end, what remains is need. I need to fix this. I need to avenge my father. Avenge those scars on Jaxson’s chest. I need Hayden to forgive and forget. I need Jaxson to understand why I was late. Why this happened to him . . . us.
“Did you locate where Novák is staying in Paris yet?”
“What makes you think I’m looking for him?”
Jaxson gives me a smug, knowing smile. So familiar. So devastatingly heartbreaking because it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Fine. I’m finishing our assignment. I’m terminating that Prick.”
“No. You’re not.”
I scowl. If Jaxson believes he’s going to breeze into Paris . . .
“My orders are to interrogate him,” he says, his tone firm, full of purpose.
I grit my teeth. Hayden and his goddamn orders. “It’s going to be hard, even for a good little soldier like yourself, to question a corpse.”
“Unless I complete my other order first.” He cocks an eyebrow at me. “One quick phone call . . .”
“Oh my God. Have you even reported in to Hayden yet?”
He shrugs.
“He doesn’t know you’ve found me? Jesus, do you have a death wish or something?”
“Sweetheart, you’re the last person who should be asking me that.”
“Damn it.” I stomp my foot. “Stop with the sweetheart bullshit. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking what a traitorous bitch you are.”
His tone is harsh, brutal. My throat hitches and I fight back the wave of sadness trying to overshadow everything else. “It’s you and me,” he once said.
No more. Yeah, the idea of us, in any shape or form besides enemies, died back in Shelby. Right alongside a little piece of me.
“I’ve got seven bullets in a pistol I’ve been saving for a special occasion. The first is earmarked for Novák after Hayden has his answers. The next four are for the Pricks you’ve rooted out for me.”
“No. I rooted them out for me. This is my termination. My assignment to finish.”
“Not anymore.”
Okay, now I’m seeing red. No freaking way. “Back off. This has been a long time coming. I need to finish this. Novák is mine.”
“Not if I can help it.”
Grrr. I hit him in his hard, unyielding chest.
“Besides, we all know how well you keep your promises.”
It’s like the air’s been sucked out of my lungs. I can’t breath. Jesus, if words could kill, he’d have me six feet under.
“An order is an order, right? Not to be ignored or there’ll be consequences. Why not terminate me now?” I snap.
“All in good time.”
“And the two bullets that remain?” I demand. “For me?”
“Figure it’ll take two. One in the head for setting me up.”
“I didn’t . . .” Jesus, it’s no use reasoning with him, when it seems like he’s ready to believe I’d intentionally do anything to harm him. “And the other?” I gasp, sensing the truth buried deep within his answer.
He places his hand over my left breast, squeezes gently, then without another word, turns and stalks off into the miserable Parisian rain.
He loved me. He loved me once.
My gaze follows Jaxson to end of the roadway and, as he disappears around the corner, I let out a low sigh of relief and regret. Tugging my skirt back into place, I step into the road, my movements hampered by the object of my failure that is snagged on my sandal.
I shake off the traitorous material along with any lingering pangs of remorse. I’ll shop Paris lingerie stores for a replacement. A little thong therapy might help ease this overwhelming sadness inside. Silk, and so bleeding tiny, it’ll redefine the word miniscule. Not that I’ll ever let him get too close again.
Once bitten, twice shy.
Jaxson the distraction—it’s a far-too-fitting rhyme.
My eyes track the path Jaxson’s taken. Back toward the direction we’d come . . . back to . . . Novák’s cafe . . .
I scoop up my satchel—when had I dropped it?—and take off running. Not after him per se, but desperately needing to get ahead of him, to backtrack to the cafe, to find out if Novák’s shown his ugly mug. To get to him first.
When I arrive just south of the cafe, the Mercedes are gone.
Just as well.
“Pas de parapluie?” a young man about my age asks, gesturing strangely. It takes a second to realize he’s pretending to be putting up an umbrella.
Oh la la. The rain—that’s right.
I shrug, realizing how I must look, like a drowned rat whose head has been held under water by a viciously manipulative cat. The man shakes his head and moves on.
And so do I.
I’ve got to get it together if I’m going to outwit and survive Jaxson. I’ve been so careful in my movements, so sure to cover my tracks. Yet he keeps managing to track me down. How?
The answer is as clear as the sky overhead—which is to say it’s not.
Patience, remember? You’ll figure it out.
En route to the swank lingerie store I passed on my way here, I make a pit stop into Paris’s version of Staples. Except purchasing a disposable phone and calling Francis isn’t part of today’s plan.
Instead I get down to business: the business of waiting for the pictures to be developed. Two copies of each. One for the French police, on which I write “people of interest” on the back, place in a postage-prepaid envelope, and quickly scribble the words Urgent: Gendarmerie Station-Montmartre.
I struggle over what to do with the second set of pictures. Keep them? U.S. Homeland Security—I have their address recorded in my little back book? Or . . . the third option?
He doesn’t deserve it.
But it seems my fingers are itching for a little payback. I find myself writing a note on the backside of the most incriminating photo, where I’ve done a bang-up job at capturing all five faces. Hey, Paris brings out the artist in everyone, oui? My message sounds like something you’d send home while on vacation, my twisted version of a postcard.
Enjoying the scenery. Except for the thorn in my side, the same one that’s so fond of pricking you. Alive and flourishing. As am I—sadly, the player hasn’t located me yet.
All my love (gag me), Kylie.
I scribble out the address to the Ranch. No return address—of course. Then, before I can change my mind, I drop both envelopes into the mailbox on the sidewalk outside.
Just doing my job. Hope you choke on that, you misguided bastard.
And despite everything that’s transpired between us, I lie and cover for Jaxson. Yeah, if anyone is going to kill the smug-faced misbeliever, it’s going to be me.
The rain slows to a sprinkle, the boulevard springs to life again, and Jaxson be damned. Because, come hell on a high Montmartre breeze, by the time my present is delivered stateside, Novák’s last glimpse of Paris will be my smiling face.