Smart and Sexy (19 page)

She had a little bite mark right beneath her ear.

His.

And just beneath the bite was a patch of red skin, from his two-day-old beard.

He’d marked her.

The thought should have disgusted him, but apparently he was just Neanderthal enough for the opposite reaction.

He wanted to pull the falling-off-its-own-axis Blazer over to the side of the road and haul her into his lap and start all over again. He wanted to put his hands back on her, and while he was doing that, he wanted to be buried deep inside her body, his mouth on hers, swallowing those sexy little panting cries she made as she came—

“Noah?” Shayne said.

“Yeah.” He tore his eyes off Bailey and her body. “I flew commercial.”

“Oh, Christ. You’re in deep.” This was also said with disbelief. “You’ve fallen and can’t get up.”

“Shayne—”

“Maddie said you were in love with her, but—”

“Maddie needs to mind her own damn business.”

“We are her business,” Shayne said.

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is there a point to this?”

“Sure.”

“Are you planning to get to it anytime soon?”

“Look, man. I know she means something to you. That’s new.”

Noah didn’t say anything to that. Yeah, she meant something to him.

Everything.

And yeah, it was new. Not to mention a little unsettling.

“You’re going to see if you can find the money and get those guys off her butt.”

“Yes.”

A sigh sounded through the phone. “Maddie’s going to give you a whole ration of shit.”

“No, she won’t. She thinks it’s romantic. Stupid, but romantic.”

He got another long-suffering sigh. “You’re making the rest of us look bad, dude.”

“Got to go.”

“Fine, but given the situation, you’re going to get yourself in more hot water, right?”

Yeah. Of that much, at least, he was quite certain.

“Give me your location. I’ll fly down there and provide the getaway.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No shit, Sherlock. Location.”

Noah knew it wasn’t just the getaway. Both he and Shayne knew that being here was a problem for him. And then there was the commercial airline factor. If he could get out of the return flight…“Meet us back at the Baja airport in a few hours.”

“Done.”

Still debating with himself over whether having Shayne come was a good idea or a bad one, Noah shut his phone.

Bailey directed him along the main drag. It was only early afternoon, but the heat beat down on them as they drove, the Pacific Ocean tumbling the shores on the right, the hotels and resorts lining the beach.

“It’s up ahead,” Bailey told him. “Turn right here.”

Instead, he drove right by the construction site.

“Noah?”

“Hang on.” He turned into the next property, which was, surprise surprise, yet another hotel. He drove along the far side of the parking lot until he found a vacant space, and pulled in.

They had a perfect view of Alan’s resort. The Fun and Sun’s lot was still unpaved, and opened to the hotel itself, which competed for attention with the two hotels it was sandwiched by.

The site was far messier and more disorganized than either Mammoth or Catalina, with equipment and huge piles of materials like brick and mortar lying everywhere.

But there was no doubt, the place had that same deserted feel as the others.

“I don’t see anything,” Bailey said. “No cars, no movement.”

“Which, as we’ve discovered the hard way, means nothing.”

Yeah, Noah was quite certain of two things as he sat there in the Blazer next to Bailey and surveyed the situation. One, the money hadn’t yet been found.

And two, they weren’t alone. “I’m assuming there’s a suite here where Alan stayed, just like the others.”

“Yes.” Bailey eyed the buildings, which had been designed and built in a slow-arching half circle around a natural bay, only feet from the waves.

The hotel itself was one building, with a series of bungalows, all undoubtedly pricey and absolutely showy, and all clearly designed for the Hollywood celebrity crowd.

“One of those bungalows was built as a prototype, to show off during tours while construction went on.” Her voice changed, almost indelibly so, but he knew her now, and he heard it.

A new tension.

“This way,” she said before he could figure out what exactly was wrong. She got out of the Blazer.

He followed, and ignoring the sun, the heat, the salty air, hooked a hand around her elbow and pulled her back around.

She avoided looking at him.

Ah, hell. “What is it?”

She merely pulled free and turned her back on him, and a full five-alarm raced up his spine.

She was omitting again, which didn’t bode well.

“B
ailey,” Noah said quite calmly to her back. “What’s wrong?”

What was wrong?
Was he kidding?
Bailey whirled around to face him. “You mean other than my life is in shreds, and that I have guys with guns after me, and oh, yes, let’s not forget the fact that my brother is very likely a lying, thief bastard to match my dead husband and father.”

“Yes,” he said without giving in to her. “Besides all that.” He caught up to her, and in a gesture she hadn’t expected but should have, one that tugged hard at her poor heart, he took her hand and looked right into her eyes. “Something else is getting to you.”

She turned away and studied the resort. How did he see everything?

“Have you been here before?”

Ha! If he only knew. She’d honeymooned here. “You might say so,” she managed, her gaze on the bungalows lining the beach.

“Might you say exactly?”

Shrugging out of his grip, she began walking toward the beach. He followed her. Of course he followed her, but he was a smart man and didn’t say a word. She had no idea where he’d learned such a useful tactic, holding his tongue so effectively, so that the silence filled the air, her head, and drove her absolutely insane with the urge to fill it, but he could teach government officials volumes on how to get information out of the bad guys. “I honeymooned here,” she finally admitted, and glanced up at him. “And when I say I, I mean me, myself, and the television set. Alan got called away the moment we arrived.”

“So Alan was an even bigger idiot than I gave him credit for.”

They walked closer, and she had to admit, looking up as they moved into the shadow of the building, the place had a certain charm. If one was into ostentatious, over-the-top expensive beach resorts.

They bypassed the large hotel and moved toward the bungalows, specifically Alan’s.

Oddly enough, the door wasn’t locked. They pushed it open, and could immediately see why. The place had been pillaged and pilfered through. Tiles missing, trim gone, door handles, even whole windows…The finished suite was no longer “finished.”

They stood in the middle of the main room, which had once held gleaming wood floors and beautiful furniture, but was now empty. “The local builders must have used this place as a freebie,” Bailey said in disbelief.

Noah was looking around, quiet, alert, braced for trouble.

“I don’t think it’s here, Noah.”

“Yeah. You know, I’m beginning to think it was never here.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense to take it out of the States, where it wouldn’t be safe.”

They left the bungalow and stood on the beach. Bailey sighed and rubbed her temples. “Another dead end.” Which was going to lead to a very dead her. “Let’s get out of here, away from one of my most unfortunate mistakes.”

He touched her cheek. “Yeah, I’m with you on the leaving part. But about the mistake.” He waited until she looked at him. “Sometimes they just have to be made. It’s a part of the experience; it makes life real.”

Tipping her head up, she looked directly into his warm eyes, and her heart squeezed. “I’ve never thought about it like that.”

“Maybe you should.”

“But I was—”

“What, young? In love? You were entitled, Bailey. We’re all entitled to our mistakes.”

“Really?” Going up on tiptoe, she cupped his face, bringing it down close enough to gently kiss him on the lips. “Even you, Noah?”

His eyes shimmered as he stared at her, silent again.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Even you.”

His voice was low, and just a little bit husky. “You undo me, you know that?”

She let out a low laugh. “Is that a good thing?”

Instead of answering, he turned his gaze to the building behind them, and frowned.

“What?”

“Go back to the car,” he said, and turned her in the right direction.

“What? Why—”

“Go.” He added a small but inexorable push this time.

She didn’t stop to question him, but before she’d taken a step, her gaze locked on the parking lot where they’d parked, and the two men there, one at either corner, watching her, watching them.

Stephen’s men.

“Damn,” Noah said very softly, and pulled her back to his side. “Okay, you’re with me.”

Good.

“Stick close.”

Uh huh. “Like glue,” she promised.

They ran toward the large building. She really had to stop wearing her cute little shoes. Her feet were killing her. All this running for her life was exhausting business.

Noah pulled her into the alley between Alan’s resort and the hotel next to it. Now they had some cover, that being lots of overgrown bushes, some blown and scattered trash, and two stray, mangy-looking dogs who lifted their heads but didn’t even bother to growl.

Noah held Bailey behind him and peeked around the corner, looking back to the lot while Bailey took the time to huff like a woman who hadn’t put nearly enough time into her cardio workouts. She’d change that.

Assuming she lived, that is.

A sobering thought, so instead she concentrated on Noah’s body, and what it could tell her.

And what it told her, with his broad but stiff shoulders, and tense, tight profile, was that once again, they were in deep trouble.

He didn’t say a word as he pulled her through to the front of the resort. As before, at Mammoth and also Catalina, the glass doors were now broken. So they had the two goons in the parking lot, and who knew how many more within somewhere.

Waiting.

Noah swore again, quite colorfully, and in Spanish to boot, which was pretty impressive. They went back through the alley to the neighboring hotel this time. The parking lot here had plenty going on: cars, buses, taxis, people walking, talking, staggering with drinks in their hands.

Using the chaos, Noah and Bailey headed through the lot toward the beach, where every inch of sand was covered with cabanas, chairs, lounges, towels, carts with people selling sandals, hats, towels…

Noah kept them moving.

“As far from the guns as possible.”

Her heels sank uncomfortably in the sand, and she struggled to both keep up and keep her mouth shut as the complaints racked up in her head. Hot. Toes cramped. Thirsty.

Terrified.

They moved past the hotel and came upon yet another, this one smaller, more accessible, and even
more
crowded.

They let the people sort of swallow them up. Finally Noah came to a stop in the middle of an outdoor cantina. The barstools were all filled, as were the spaces in between. Everywhere were bodies in bikinis and swim trunks, shirt and shoes optional.

Noah nodded to the bartender, and two beers appeared, the chilled bottles already weeping condensation. Bailey grabbed hers and brought it up to her lips, grateful for the cold liquid soothing its way down her parched throat. Far before she’d sated her thirst, Noah tugged her away, and damn it, they were on the move again.

“I just wanted to—” She sent a longing look back at the bottle she hadn’t managed to grab fast enough, but Noah didn’t wait, and then she saw why.

One of the baddies had come to the edge of the beach, between the sand and the parking lot, and was surveying the crowd intently, his hand in his pocket.

Looking for them.

Oh, God. She kicked it back into a high gear, and they ran through another cantina, and then a mini swap-meet of some kind, slipping between two aisles filled with wooden donkey statues, leather purses, woven ponchos, and sombreros. Noah stopped so abruptly, Bailey plowed right into the back of him.

Reaching behind him to steady her, he spoke in rapid-fire Spanish to the tiny, old woman sitting on a stool watching them. The next thing Bailey knew, she was standing in a dressing room—nothing more than a bright red shower curtain wrapped around a stand—with Noah crowding his way in, arms full.

“Strip,” he commanded.

“Uh—”

He dropped his booty at his feet and began to strip her himself. “Lift up,” he said, and yanked her sweater up to her forehead before he let go, leaving her arms caught straight up.

“You get that,” he told her. Then without so much as glancing at her breasts, he bent his head and unzipped her skirt.

She fought with her sweater, but he hadn’t undone that zipper. Worse, her hair had caught in the metal catch, threatening to rip out a good chunk by the roots. “Hey.”

“Hang on.” His long hair brushed her belly, and unbelievably given the circumstances, it quivered.

Then he shoved down her skirt.

Her panties accidentally went with it, and she was left standing there with her hands over her head, the zipper caught on her ponytail, wearing only her bra because her panties and skirt had twisted around her thighs, leaving her hanging out in the wind.

Literally.

Oblivious, Noah was fighting with her strappy sandals. “Lift up,” he instructed, trying to get her skirt off without removing the heels.

She could have told him it wasn’t going to happen, but it was hard to talk with her panties down and no foreplay involved. She struggled to free her hands and hair of her sweater, to no avail.
“Noah—”

Sitting back on his heels, he glanced up, his hair brushing at her upper thighs as he did, and for the first time since he’d shoved her in there, he went absolutely still. In the charged silence, he took in the sights right at his eye level.

Her
sights.

His eyes darkened, and he dragged his teeth over his lower lip. “Good Christ,” he whispered.

All around them, on just the other side of the curtain, in fact, were people everywhere; talking, bartering, going on with their day—and yet just in here, alone, together, she felt as if—there was no one else on earth except Noah. An incredibly sexy Noah, whose mouth quirked.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned him.

Slowly he shook his head, still not lifting a finger to help her. “Not feeling like laughing,” he said silkily.

Oh, God, she knew that voice. It was his aroused voice. It was the voice he used right before he took her out of herself, every single time, and while being taken out of herself right this minute would be a good thing, she was absolutely not going to have sex in a makeshift dressing room in Baja, with guns looking for them.

She wasn’t. “Noah—” Again she struggled to free her arms, the movement jiggling her breasts.

Noah watched, and let out a low groan that she sensed more than heard. “Hold still,” he commanded.

But then instead of freeing her, he ran a callused finger over the pushed-up curve of first one breast, then the other, making her let out a sound that shocked her in its neediness.

“You should see yourself,” he whispered, and that finger snaked in beneath the lace and rasped over her bare nipple, eliciting another gasp from her.

“Noah—” This got choked off when his other hand slid down her belly, then lower, gently gliding right over ground zero.

“Ohmigod,” she gasped. “Stop that—”

But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t, and with the intimate knowledge he had of her body, he knew exactly what to stroke and how hard to stroke it and oh, good Lord, the man pressed his mouth to her hip as he played with her, nibbling his way across her low belly to her other hip, all the while keeping his fingers very, very busy, taking her right to the edge of an orgasm, something she would have bet her own life would be impossible at this moment. “Noah—
please.”

“I will most definitely please,” he promised hoarsely, and tugged on her.

“Ack,”
she said as she fell.

He caught her. She had a feeling he would always catch her, and as he did so now, he maneuvered her so that she was sprawled in his lap. With her skirt trapping her at the knees, and her sweater trapping her arms, there was little she could do to save herself.

Not that she tried.

Nope.

Not with his head bent and his mouth seeking out her breast, and then, oh, God, her nipple, sucking it into his mouth, his fingers still between her legs…

Beneath her, pressing into her bottom, he was hard, gloriously so. It would take nothing, she knew, for him to unzip and push inside her, and as far gone as she already felt, she knew it would take less than a minute for them both to go off.

But though he gripped her hips and rocked once against her, eyes closed, his face a mask of desire and pleasure, he then set his forehead to hers and just breathed.

Finally he lifted his head. Heat and desire had darkened his eyes to two black pools of lust, but there was also regret, and after one more rock of his hips and a low groan, he sighed and reached up to untangle her hair from the grasp of her sweater.

And then he helped her stand, handing her a Mexican white sundress, and then a poncho. When she had the dress on, he placed the hood of the poncho up over her head himself, and then pulled a poncho over his own leather jacket as well.

Together they left the sanctity of the dressing room, and after a quick exchange with the old woman, during which Noah slipped her some cash, they stepped out of the booth and back into the main aisle of the swap meet.

She could hardly walk, she was still so turned on that her legs were rubbery. But Noah pulled her along the maze of aisles as if the past few minutes had never happened, as if he knew exactly where he was going, holding on to her with one hand, speaking into his cell phone with the other. And then suddenly they were out in a parking lot a good quarter mile down from their Blazer, and a cabby was waiting for them.

“How did you—” she started in sheer amazement as he hurried her into it.

“Maddie is a goddess,” he said, and then switched to Spanish to direct the cab driver.

While she just stared at him. “What are you saying?”

“That we want to be driven back via the main drag, so I can see if our favorite goons are still there.” He switched back to his cell phone, speaking English again, and she realized he was talking to Brody, who she gathered was in contact with Shayne, who in turn was on his way.

They’d beaten the odds again, and better yet, were still alive. She knew it wasn’t her who had kept them that way, but Noah and his unique ability to twist any situation to his advantage.