With stunning technicolor eyes…
Hair like a summer sun…
The body of a goddess, the curves of a siren…
When I woke up this morning, my only concern was getting a bead on Pugli's last known location.
Now?
For a split second, the whole world fades into the background as she gazes up at me with shock and anger and confusion and fear…and arousal, attraction…
Her lips are soft and plump and pink, open to speak, glistening where her tongue slid along them…
She tastes like red wine. For a microsecond, she's frozen. But then her lips soften against mine, the tension in her body ebbs, and she presses her breasts against my chest and her hips against mine, soft thick thighs sliding against mine. I slide my hand over the bare warm expanse of her exposed back and find the swell of her ass, dig my fingers in; I caress her cheekbone, taste her breath, and never in my life have I felt such an intense reaction to a mere kiss.
Not even when I kissedherfor the first time did I react like this.
With an immediate erection, yes.
But with a mindless ravaging desperation—not to possess, not to own…but to worship.
It's insane.
It's immediate and wild and gutting.
A single kiss, a momentary touch of lips, a brief press of her curves against me, and I'm destroyed.
I feel the blitz of a light on our faces.
"Do you fuckingmind?” the woman snaps, and either she's a world-class actress…or she’s not faking the annoyance at having our kiss interrupted.
I'm not thrilled either, but then, I know who these men are and what they want.
Which is when my heart sinks down to my toes—they've seen her face. And Roberto Pugli doesn't take any chances. Anyone who could evenpossiblyidentifyanyoneeven remotely connected to him is eliminated. Quickly and brutally.
And these men have seen her face.
2
A BARNACLE ATTACHED TO A VERY FINE BACKSIDE
BRYS
"Wait," Jakob says. "Just…wait." He presses me flush against the wall and peeks around the corner. "Okay, we're good. Go, go."
I feel silly, scurrying barefoot toward my door like I'm sixteen and late for curfew all over again. If it wasn't for the very immediate and very visceral memory of gunfire still ringing in my ears, I'd think this whole thing was a big joke or prank. It's the type of idiotic, over-the-top bullshit my idiotic brother Bryan would pull because he thinks it's funny. Only the fact that the armed men chasing my mysterious companion were absolutely firing live rounds convinces me that even Bryan isn't stupid enough to hire men to fire live rounds at me. I know Bryan doesn't like me, but I don't think he's malicious enough, or clever enough, to pull off an assassination attempt like this. Never mind the fact that if this is an assassination attempt on me, it's a very roundabout way of going about it. And he is exactly that stupid, admittedly, but even for him, this would be a cockamamie way of trying to get at me.
All of this runs through my head in the space of fifteen seconds, and convinces me that this situation is most likely exactly what Jakob is claiming—Occam's Razor and all.
Which means creeping cautiously up to my door and trying to unlock it silently feels a lot less silly. There could be killers on the other side of this door.
I pause with my hand on the knob, look over my shoulder at Jakob. "I'm scared to go in."
He doesn't say anything, and his expression doesn't change—stony, impassive. He pulls me away from the door and pushes it open from one side; when we aren't immediately cut down in a hail of gunfire, Jakob enters the condo.
"Wait here," he says, once we're both over the threshold.
I hang back just inside, perfectly content to let him sally forth boldly into possible danger, closing the door and putting my back to it as Jakob moves through my home. He peeks into the powder room off the kitchen, then vanishes into my bedroom suite.
