Skin Deep (14 page)

A minute ticked by, then another before she finally gave up a broken nod that sent relief careening through Isabella’s veins. “Rampage and Franco keep us locked up most of the time when we’re not here for parties, but they don’t watch us as close as they do the girls they’re still breaking in. My room has a window. It’s not too big, but I think I can get out.” She paused, her voice growing small. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to get out.”

Something twisted, hard and deep in Isabella’s chest, but she buckled down over the sensation. “Good. This is really good,” she said, although it was the world’s most gigantic understatement.

She’d just smashed this case wide open. She was going to help these girls and make it so no one could ever hurt them again. Ever.

Isabella lowered her hands from Angel’s shoulders but kept the connection of their eyes firmly in place. “I want you to meet me at the diner across from the Thirty-Third precinct, tomorrow morning at nine. Can you do that?”

Angel fiddled with the silver chain at her throat. “So soon?”

God, as far as Isabella was concerned, right now wasn’t even soon enough. But giving Angel time to get scared or reconsider wasn’t on her agenda. “This will be your last party, Angel. I promise.”

“I’d…really like that,” she whispered. “Okay. Tomorrow morning.”

Not wanting to leave anything up to chance or circumstance, Isabella said, “In a few seconds, I’m going to go into the bathroom down that hallway.” She paused for a brief second to flick a glance at the just-visible doorway off the living room where they stood. “I’ll leave my card hidden behind the toilet tank for you. If you run into problems—anything at all—I want you to call me, day or night. Okay?”

Angel’s nod was answer enough, and they were running out of time. Turning toward the hallway, Isabella took a forward step so she could get into that bathroom then get the hell out of Dodge, when Kellan’s hand slid around her body to pull her in close.

“Keep walking,” he said in a quiet demand, and really? He’d trusted her this whole time, for God’s sake, even though he’d surprised the hell out of her while he was at it. Was he really going to get bossy about chaperoning her
now
?

“You can’t go to the bathroom with me,” Isabella argued under her breath, but his proprietary grip around her shoulders grew even tighter as he dipped his mouth to her ear.

“Yeah, well, the blond guy in the million dollar suit who’s been watching us talk to Angel for the last couple minutes is moving in on our six, so I hate to break it to you, but you’re not going into the bathroom
without
me.”

Ten more seconds had them to the threshold of the bathroom, two more and Kellan had shut and locked the door, and dammit, she needed to breathe, to form an exit plan, to
think
. She moved to say just that, but Walker’s fingers pressed hard and quick to the center of her mouth, stopping her words before they could form.

“Wait.” He surveyed the bathroom, his eyes ice-blue and meticulous as they moved over the cream-colored hand-embossed wallpaper, the marble and mahogany vanity topped with copper fixtures and a mirror large enough to span half the wall behind it, and the four corners where the crown molding met the ceiling on perfectly drawn seams. After one quick slide of his fingers around the mirror’s frame, he lifted his chin in a nod.

But just because this tiny, windowless bathroom didn’t seem to be under video surveillance didn’t mean there weren’t listening devices they’d missed. Or that the man who had been following them wasn’t listening in at the door the old fashioned way. She couldn’t be careless now. Not when she was so close.

Isabella pulled the burner cell from her purse, flicking the screen to life. DuPree? she typed into an empty text message field, showing the screen to Walker before deleting the single word.

He took the phone from her with a nod. Best guess. Don’t think he knows what we came for. But he knows we’re here, and that we’re not regulars. We’re probably going to have to talk our way out the door.

Her gut squeezed, but still, she typed, copy that. Making sure to delete their back and forth, she placed her phone back inside her purse, lifting the edge of the satin lining to pull out the business card she’d tucked beneath it. Reaching around to the back of the toilet tank, she slipped the top corner of the card noiselessly under the spot where the smooth porcelain tower met the tank lid, trapping it into place.

“Okay,” Isabella mouthed, squaring her shoulders and standing tall. She took a step toward the door, her intentions set on beating the fastest path to the elevator without being noticed.

But then Walker was close enough for her to breathe in the dark, spicy scent of his skin. With a swift advance, he pressed her back against the vanity, dropping his hands to either side of the edge of the countertop and caging her body with his own.

“Laugh.”

He placed the word just behind her earlobe in the barest of whispers. Isabella pulled back in shock, attempting to gain some space between them to figure out what the hell he was up to.

But again, he leaned in to put his mouth to her ear. “Trust me, just laugh. Out loud. Right now.”

It might’ve been her adrenaline, which had been free-flowing long enough to shred even the calmest composure. Maybe it was the absurdity of the situation—of being stuck in one of the most luxurious bathrooms in all of Remington with a ridiculously hot firefighter and a Hail Mary exit plan. But something prompted Isabella to do what Walker had asked. While her performance wouldn’t win her any Academy Awards, she pushed out a laugh that seemed to do the trick. As good as he smelled all pressed up against her (and damn, he smelled good enough to eat with a spoon), Isabella wasn’t about to just comply without getting a little information.

She slipped her hands into her clutch to produce her phone, pressing both against the front of his crisp black dress shirt as she keyed in, Why laugh?

Walker eased back, but only a fraction as he took the phone to answer. Because there’s no video in this room.

Her brows shot upward in a silent
so?
and he continued to thumb-type in the tight space between their bodies. So that gives us an advantage.

Isabella paused, rolling through the tactics in her head until…

A bolt of heat arrowed down her spine, landing directly between her hips. You want whoever’s on the other side of that door to think we’re having a bathroom quickie?

The smile hooking over Walker’s mouth was all the confirmation she needed, although he typed in an answer anyway. It’s a solid explanation for me following you in here in case DuPree is watching. Plus, when in Rome…

Ah, hell. Isabella had to admit, he had not just one point, but two.

She shifted, her lower back still pressed against the cool marble of the countertop. So how much longer is our quickie going to take? Because no offense, but I’d really like to get out of here.

Wasn’t it you who said patience is a virtue? Walker typed, but she had his number, big time.

Yes. And you said you weren’t virtuous.

Clearly. Since I’m having sex with you in a bathroom.

Isabella couldn’t help it. A laugh that came suspiciously close to a giggle barged out of her mouth. Touché. What do you say we go at it for five more minutes then get gone?

Walker nodded. His step back allowed her the room to replace her phone in her purse and muss her hair just enough to look appropriately sex-tousled. The five-minute wait-time eased her adrenaline and set her determination in bedrock, and as soon as it was up, she pointed to the heavily paneled mahogany door.

“Shall we?” Isabella purred, throwing her persona back into place.

Faking a sexed-up flush wasn’t tough as Walker fixed her with a slow stare. “After you, sweetheart.”

Unlocking the latch with a flick of his wrist, he pulled the door quietly inward. The hallway beyond was shadowed but empty, and nothing about the party seemed to have changed. Although it took all the effort Isabella could muster, she kept her eyes far from the side of the room where they’d left Angel—God, had it really been less than ten minutes ago? She followed Walker’s lead as he aimed himself toward the exit, but they’d barely made it past the piano in the living room before a man with white-blond hair and the world’s most calculating smile stepped smoothly into their path.

“Pardon me. I don’t mean to interrupt your evening,” he said, his platinum cufflinks winking coldly in the overhead light as he extended a well-manicured hand in her direction. “My name is Julian DuPree. I’m hosting tonight’s party.”

Isabella’s stomach pitched like a rowboat on the open sea. “How lovely to finally meet you, Mr. DuPree.” She sweetened the bitter-burnt taste of the lie with a splash of truth and a smile she had to work for. The guy’s stare alone made her skin crawl. “We’ve heard all about you and your gatherings. You certainly don’t disappoint.”

“That’s very kind, Miss…?”

“Isabella,” she said, biting past the urge to gag—or worse yet, punch him directly in the perfect white teeth—as DuPree lifted her hand to his mouth.

A move Kellan cut short with an unsubtle clearing of his throat. “Walker.”

DuPree’s clean-shaven jaw tightened just enough to be visible, hardening the edges of his smile. “Yes, well.” He lowered Isabella’s hand. “My security specialist has told me you’re quite the jealous type. It’s good to see I haven’t been misinformed.”

“I like control,” Walker grated, and damn it, if this quick exit turned into a testosterone-fueled pissing match, she honestly didn’t know which of them she would strangle first.

But much to Isabella’s shock, DuPree laughed. “I understand perfectly. And with a companion like Isabella here, how could you not?” He paused, raking her with a gaze that made the feather-fine hairs on her arms stand at full attention. “At any rate, I must apologize. I would’ve introduced myself sooner, but I saw you were chatting with Angel, and I wanted to give you three a chance to get to know one another. Was she not to your liking?”

Dread exploded in Isabella’s chest. “Oh no, quite the opposite,” she said, forcing her words to a slow, steady drawl. This guy might be a creeper of the highest order, but he was shrewd. Calling too much attention to Angel would trip his trigger, no doubt. “We found her very eager to please.”

“And yet you didn’t take her into a private room to play.”

Thank
God
for fake bathroom quickies. “Of course, we considered it, but…” Isabella leaned forward as if confiding a secret even though she’d rather cuddle up with Hannibal Fucking Lecter. “Angel inspired us to get creative. Walker and I decided to play in a private room on our own.”

She aimed a pointed gaze at the hallway leading to the bathroom, where she’d bet her next six paychecks DuPree had seen her go with Kellan on her four-inch heels.

“I know the powder room is a little unconventional.” Isabella paused just long enough to let a manufactured smile unfold over her face. “We came here looking for a third, but we got so caught up in the moment. We just couldn’t help ourselves. Surely that happens at this type of party, doesn’t it, Mr. DuPree?”

He straightened, lean shoulders coiling tight beneath his navy blue suit jacket, and for one pulse-rattling second, Isabella thought he’d call her bluff six ways to Sunday. Kellan must’ve made the same logic leap, because he tensed ever so slightly beside her, and oh God, oh God oh God. She had everything she needed to get the FBI to investigate this bastard. She
had not
come this far only to get busted twenty yards shy of the goddamn door.

But then DuPree stepped back, gesturing to the wide expanse of the living room around them. “Yes, of course. Impulse can be so difficult to deny.”

“I knew a man like you would understand.” Isabella pinned her very best sexy smile to the words, sealing them into place to cover her relief.

Thankfully, DuPree bought every word. “Well, I won’t keep you from indulging those impulses further. Do enjoy the rest of your evening, and please. Feel free to take that third when you’ve regained your energy. I wouldn’t be a good host if I didn’t see you…fully accommodated.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Walker said, his smile all teeth.

Isabella lifted her lashes at DuPree to soften the sting.
You got what you came for. Play the part. Get out the door
. “We certainly will. Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure, I assure you. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you both again quite soon. Isabella.” With one last up and down look, DuPree turned on his polished heels and moved his way through the crowd.

Holy hell, she’d done it. She’d found a victim willing to make a statement. She was going to make sure none of these women ever got hurt again.

She was going to take this asshole down.

After a beat, then two, Kellan sent a covert glance over the party-goers, still caught up in every possible level of debauchery. “DuPree just went through the service door at your three. Path to the door is clear,” he murmured.

“Copy that. Let’s get the hell out of here. I have to be at work bright and early tomorrow.”

K
ellan waited
until he and Isabella were a block and a half away from the Metropolitan before he allowed himself the luxury of relief. Between the endorphins from their kiss and the anger-laced adrenaline at their getaway conversation with DuPree (holy
hell
had Kellan wanted to smash the guy’s face in. Smarmy bastard), he was so redlined on emotion that getting it all to fit into the boxes in his chest was a mountain-sized chore.

Isabella, however? Looked cool as a cucumber in the middle of the Arctic Circle. At least, she did when she wasn’t smiling her face off. But with the meet-up with Angel set up for tomorrow, Isabella would have everything she needed to nail DuPree.

Kellan threw a healthy dose of satisfaction on top of the giant pile of emotions zinging through his bloodstream. They might have done a risky thing—a downright fucking dangerous thing—not going by the book. But they were going to get the bad guy, and Kellan couldn’t deny it.

That felt pretty goddamn outstanding.

Isabella moved her fingers to the small of her back, sliding a two-inch ceramic blade from its hiding spot in the fabric of her belt and putting it safely in her purse. Ah, he should’ve known she wouldn’t come to this party unarmed. He had to admit, the weapon was pretty slick—not only would it not trip metal detectors, but the tiny, razor-sharp knife was small enough to be hidden in any one of a dozen places, even as scantily dressed as she was. Hell, she could be damn near naked and still be armed enough to do some serious damage.

The thought of Isabella naked slammed into him in an oh-so-sexy slideshow, and okay, yeah, he needed to focus on something else. Now would be good.

They took a handful more steps over the well-tended sidewalk before she finally set aside her grin. “Tonight might’ve been a total win on recon, but I’m still mad at you, you know. You completely ambushed me.”

“You didn’t give me much choice,” he argued, albeit with more reason than heat. “I’d never run into a fire without Shae and Gamble and Slater on my six. Not even if the place was burning down at my feet.”

She examined him with a sidelong glance. “No offense, but how does that make you a good firefighter? It’s your job to run into burning buildings.”

“It’s my job to fight fires,” Kellan corrected. “And I can’t do that if I’m dead.”

He knew the adrenaline still pumping through his system was making him loose-lipped, just like he knew he was going to crash like a semi on a steep grade as soon as he got home. But as mad as Isabella might be that he’d showed up unexpectedly tonight, she still should’ve trusted her team, or hell,
someone
to back her up.

“You want to know the absolute hardest part of my job?” Kellan asked, her silent, surprised expression giving him the leeway to answer his own question. “When I
can’t
go into a building that’s burning down at my feet.”

Isabella’s brow folded. “I’m not sure I follow.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, giving up a shiver against the nighttime air around them, and he slid the jacket from his shoulders to place it around hers.

“One of my first big fire calls was at a warehouse down on Edgemoor. Huge, three-story building, and the place was showing flames from every freaking window it had. Of course, we all wanted to run inside like gangbusters.” God, he could still see Hawk and all the guys from squad practically jumping out of their boots to vent the roof and bust down the door. “But Captain Bridges took one look at the scene and gave the order to stand down.”

“What?” Isabella came to a stop beside her street-parked Mustang, disbelief coloring her shadowy features as she pivoted to face him. “But you just said the fire was huge.”

“Yup.” Kellan nodded. That damned blaze was still one of the biggest he’d ever seen, even two years later. “I couldn’t believe it. In fact, I was so pissed that I tried to go in anyway.”

“You did? What happened?”

He let his gaze take an ingrained up-and-down tour of the sidewalk where they stood and the street beyond it before telling her, “Bridges stepped right in my flight path and said, ‘Son, you know what happens if I don’t stop you from going into that warehouse right now?’”

The sheer curiosity glittering in her pretty brown eyes under the light of the streetlamp prompted him to continue, and so he did. “When I mouthed off with a ‘what?’ Bridges just looked at me and said, ‘Your whole team runs in after you, and then whoever gets here next pulls us all out in body bags.’ Three minutes later, the roof collapsed. Warehouse came down like a house of cards.”

“Holy shit,” Moreno said on a soft exhale. But her lack of mettle didn’t last for long. “I know you think that what I did tonight was stupid. But there are lives on the line here, Walker. What if someone had been trapped in that warehouse? Then what would you have done?”

“I don’t know,” Kellan admitted. “But what I
do
know is that whatever we’d have done to save them would’ve been done as a team. Look”—he stepped in, his body only inches from hers, and even though he knew it was impulsive, he really didn’t care—“I don’t think you trying to help those girls is stupid, Isabella. In fact, I think it’s really fucking brave. But you’re working without backup, and sooner or later, no matter how brave you are, that’s going to blow up in your face if you don’t let someone help you.”

She didn’t acquiesce, but she also didn’t argue, simply angling her head to look at him. Her expression, so serious and tough, was completely at odds with the understanding glinting through her wide-eyed stare. The suit jacket Kellan had wrapped around her swallowed the slim line of her shoulders, making her look that much smaller than him despite her larger-than-life moxie, and damn, he couldn’t tell what was more enticing. The brass she flashed like armor or the softer side she was surely guarding underneath.

Finally, Isabella released a sigh. “All right. Angel’s meeting me tomorrow morning. As soon as I get a statement from her, I’ll loop Sinclair and the intelligence team in on everything. I swear,” she added.

“Okay. That’s all I can ask for.”

For a second, they stood there, face to face on the pavement, and the urge to kiss her—not for show or pretense, but
really
kiss her—stole through him. But Kellan knew all too well that adrenaline was a bitch best left undisturbed.

Damn, Isabella was beautiful.

Even though his body sent nine kinds of what-for and why-not to his brain, Kellan took a step back on the pavement. He’d done what he’d come here to do. Moreno was safe at her car. The scene around them was secure. “I guess I should get out of here. I called in for the first couple hours of my shift tomorrow, but I still have to punch the clock at oh nine-hundred.”

“Oh.” Isabella swiveled a glance over the quiet street. “Did you park nearby?”

Ah, hell. “No, I…walked.”

“You walked?” Her tone painted the question as a direct descendant of
are you crazy?
and screw it. He nodded, letting one corner of his mouth drift up into a half-smile.

“I was in the Army. I’m used to humping it places. Anyway, the trip’s not too far.”

At Moreno’s lifted brows, he caved the rest of the way. “Okay, okay. My apartment is six miles from here. But the walking clears my head.”

It would have to do for an explanation, because if she thought the walking part was nuts, he was pretty certain the whole
I walk to get my emotions in check otherwise there’s a decent chance I’d fucking self-destruct
thing would go over like a two-ton boulder.

“If you say so.” Isabella laughed, the soft, throaty sound hitting him right in the center of his chest. “Six miles is kind of a lot, though, and you’ve already done it once tonight. Do you want a ride?”

Kellan realized in that moment that she’d stepped toward him to regain the space he’d given her; that suddenly, her body was very much within touching distance, and that despite the warning coming from the small corner of his brain still allowing rational thought, the darker, baser rest of him wanted nothing more than to make their earlier kiss a prelude to better things. Hotter things.

Naked things.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” he said, the roughness in his voice spotlighting the words as a lie. But the hungry look in her eyes, along with the current of want burning in his veins at the sight of it, was the product of circumstance and nothing more. They’d just snuck into a sex party thrown by a highly dangerous criminal and garnered a lead that would blow Isabella’s case wide open. Of course they were wired. They probably had more adrenaline winging through their bodies than blood right now. But Kellan of all people knew that actually acting on those keyed-up endorphins was dangerous as hell.

Fuck
, he wanted her anyway.

Isabella’s catlike smile—this one genuine, sweet and sexy and shared like a naughty secret—ensured he wouldn’t get a blink of sleep tonight, even after the six-mile haul home. “Not a good idea,” she repeated. “Because?”

He weighed his options. Saw that he had no good ones. And went with the truth.

“Because if you give me a ride back to my apartment, I’ll be tempted to ask you to come upstairs.”

“Ah.” But rather than retreating or clamming up in awkward silence, Moreno tilted her head to bring her mouth mere inches from his. “Is that what you want? For me to come upstairs with you?”

“Yes.” His honesty flew out, hot and unchecked.

Isabella met it with a twist of her lips that made his cock go hard and his pulse rush fast against his throat. “Good,” she whispered.

And then she slanted her mouth over his.

Her heels gave her enough of a height advantage to line their bodies up with near perfect precision, and Kellan wasted no time taking full advantage. Pressing his chest flush with hers, he cupped her face between both palms, hooking his fingers into the wild fall of her hair. Of course she gave as good as she got, her tongue darting over the seam of his lips in an eager bid for entry. For a wicked second, Kellan considered denying her just to hear the noise of want she’d make in the back of her throat as she tried again. In the end, his greedy impulses won out, and he deepened the kiss with a sweep of his tongue, then another.

Isabella sighed, and he caught the sound with another greedy kiss. Her lips opened easily, her tongue stroking and seeking, but Kellan held off her advances. He wanted her—Christ, his cock was hard as steel, begging to be pushed deep into the heat between her legs—but that was the point.
He
wanted
her
.

And so instead of letting her have control, he took.

Tightening his fingers in her hair, he angled closer, parting her mouth with his tongue. He sucked and licked, pulling her bottom lip between his teeth and applying just enough pressure to pull that noise from the back of her throat after all.

Ah
, the gravelly moan shot straight to his balls, but still, he didn’t hold back. Kellan ravaged her mouth, exploring her tongue and teeth and lips until he’d tasted every part of her mouth, priming her for what was to come. Coaxing his way back inside, he pushed deeply with his tongue again and again, fucking her mouth the way he’d fuck her pussy, until he realized the truth with startling clarity.

Kissing Isabella wasn’t going to be enough. And if they didn’t stop
right now
, they weren’t going to stop at all.

Kellan broke from her mouth, his breath heavy against the line of her jaw. “Moreno,” he warned, but she captured the rest with a quick slide of her lips.

“Get in the car and ask me upstairs, Walker. My answer’s not no.”