being out on the balcony only reminded her of the way he’d once touched her out here. In fact, she couldn’t forget what it felt like to have his hands on her. Dax was a furnace in bed. He gave off so much heat she didn’t need a blanket, only his body wrapped around hers. She didn’t remember a time she’d felt so safe. So loved.
She rubbed at a spot just above her chest. It felt tight. The ache just wouldn’t go away.
“Holland, we can’t ignore it forever.”
Naturally, he wouldn’t give her a second alone. “Watch me.”
“You were always stubborn.”
“Tell me something, Dax. Would you have come back if you hadn’t found that lead on your father’s case?” She knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from him. He would never have come back. He wouldn’t have spoken to her again.
He moved beside her, leaning against the wrought-iron balcony. “Eventually. Maybe not so soon, but yeah. I would have come back.”
“Liar. You never would have forgiven me.”
“I was angry, I’ll admit. But even when I was pissed as hell at you, I still knew that you were the center of my world. You have been since the day I met you. You were my dream girl back then. When I thought you betrayed me, you became my nightmare. But I was focused on you. Loving you, hating you, it didn’t change the fact that you were and always will be everything to me.”
Holland closed her eyes. Sweet words . . . but she wasn’t sure she believed them. “It doesn’t matter. I moved on. I knew when I let you go that it was the end of any relationship we had.”
“Did you?” He turned to her, looming over her in the late afternoon light. “Really?”
She forced herself to face him. “Yes, Dax. I knew it the minute I got that call.”
“So why did you get involved with a boy you knew you could never love or marry if you had truly moved on from me?”
She’d asked herself that question a lot, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him. “I liked Chad. We move in the same world.”
“Law enforcement.” Dax scoffed. “That means nothing. If that pretty boy cares more about his arrest record than his hair gel, I’ll eat my khakis for dinner. I know his type. We have them in the Navy. They want to be officers for the privilege it affords them. They view it like a corporate job and start climbing the ladder.”
“And you don’t, Captain?”
“I work my ass off for my country and my men. I’m not stupid. I’m not going to move much above where I am now. I might get a better ship because I’m damn good at my job, but after the scandal with my father my name is crap.”
Thereby proving her point. “Hence we’re working to clear your name so you can achieve your destiny, Admiral Spencer. I’ve always known that’s where you were headed.”
“You know so much about me, huh? Did you know I was ready to leave the Navy that day?”
“Bullshit. I know you said that, but I doubt you really would have done it.” He couldn’t have been serious.
He simply nodded. “I’d made the decision that having a family with you was more important than my career. I’d decided to call Zack and ask for a job since you could easily transfer to D.C. I didn’t want to end up like our parents. We need to be together every day, every night.”
Had he really decided that? Or was this little speech something he’d dreamed up to appeal to the romantic in her so he could insinuate himself back into her life? She couldn’t go down this road with him again. The last time had hurt too much.
She’d been right to fear the power he could wield over her. Growing up, she’d feared being like her lonely, heartsick mother who had waited her entire adult life for a man. After Dax had left New Orleans, Holland had become that woman. He alone could twist her inside and out.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she insisted.
“Yes, it does. I want you to tell me what you really saw in Chad Michaels.” He gritted the words out between his teeth as he moved in, invading her space. “Why did you date him?”
“I was attracted to him.”
“That’s a lie.” He moved in, forcing her to take a step back. “I know the kind of guy you’re attracted to, and it’s not a metrosexual boy posing as a man. Try again.”
She didn’t want to play this game with him and yet she couldn’t force herself to move away. If she wasn’t careful, something would give way between them. Holland felt helpless to stop it. Her rational side seemed to have shut down. Her softer side was more than willing to play the antelope to Dax’s prowling lion. “I was lonely.”
He shook his head as he moved in again. “You’ve never minded that before.”
He was going to make her admit it. Out loud. She suspected this was Dax’s version of therapy. Chad would have hauled her into an expensive shrink’s office where she would have discussed her feelings for fifty minutes at a time. Dax’s therapy would involve something more physical.
Somehow, she thought Dax’s methodology would be way more helpful.
Maybe he was right. Maybe they needed to have it out. Maybe they needed to be honest with each other once and for all.
“I dated him because I didn’t give a shit, Dax.” She retreated again until her back hit the wall and she had nowhere else to escape.
He didn’t stop coming for her. He moved in until mere inches sat between them. His chest almost brushed her breasts. When they did, would he be able to feel how hard her nipples were? When his hips locked against hers, would he feel her heat and know she was wet and ready for him simply because he was close?
She knew she should, but she couldn’t force herself to push him away anymore.
He was wrong. She had been lonely. Chad had taught her that no one could fill the void but Dax.
“Finally, we’re getting somewhere.” He lifted his hand, fingers brushing back her hair. “You knew you couldn’t love him. Tell me how you knew.”
She looked into his eyes, nearly getting lost in the depths. She’d been cold for so long. But not today. Not right now.
Between dealing with Chad, being so close to Dax, and talking to Gus for the first time in years, she teetered on an emotional edge. Just a little shove would send her over. Then she could let go of the terrible past and dismal future. She could forget sorrow and heartbreak and what might have been for a few hours in Dax’s embrace. She could sink into him. Of course it wasn’t forever. She knew how this would end, but maybe if she went into it with her eyes open this time, maybe she could preserve a piece of her heart.
“You know why.”
He lowered his head down, their foreheads touching. “I need to hear it.”
“You’re a bastard.” She wanted him to kiss her so she didn’t have to admit it. If he took her lips with his, pressed their bodies together, she could forget everything except how good it felt to be with him.
“Yes, I am. But that doesn’t change anything. I need to hear the words from you.”
She shouldn’t give a damn about his needs, but she wasn’t sure she could go another second without his kiss. Her desperation underscored all the reasons she should run as fast as she could. She simply couldn’t deny him. “I knew I couldn’t love him because he wasn’t you.”
Relief and triumph consumed his expression. He cupped her face as if she was something infinitely precious and breakable. “That’s how I feel, too. For me, it’s always been you. It always will be you.”
He leaned in, his mouth descending on hers. For the first time in years her body sprang to life. She couldn’t wait to wrap her arms around his lean waist and tug the T-shirt from his jeans. Not to get it off his body. That could wait, but she needed to feel his skin under her palms, warm and alive.
She’d dreamed of him dead so often. After those nightmares, she’d closed her eyes, hating the fact that he was still miles from her, despising the fact that she couldn’t touch him and assure herself that he was still somewhere out there. Their breakup had been like a
death, killing something deep in her soul that she’d thought gone forever. Touching him now felt like a reawakening. Holland knew from experience that the love she gave to him could be filled with such beauty and pleasure. It could also cause immeasurable pain.
She shoved the thought aside. She would have time to decide her future later. For now, all she wanted was to revel in how right it felt to be pressed against him, open to his touch.
He deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding along her lower lip and begging for entry. She parted her lips for him. Yes, the case would eventually end and she would be alone again. But for a few weeks, she could be his lover, gorge herself on the pleasure he could give her.
She let her hands slide along the strong muscles of his back, and he groaned against her mouth. He pressed deeper, letting her feel every bit of his passion. He’d never held back or pretended with her. He’d always let her know how much power she had over his body.
“God, I’ve missed you, sweetheart. I’ve missed everything about you. I want to touch you everywhere, remind myself of just how beautiful you are.” He whispered the words across her skin. “I want to taste you again. You can’t possibly taste as good as I remember.”
Her body moved with his instinctively, as though they’d never been apart. He slid his hands down to cup her backside. She arched closer.
“Let me take you to bed,” he offered. “I swear everything will make sense in the morning. You’ll see.”
She wasn’t sure about that, but she also knew she didn’t have the fortitude to turn him down.
Holland peered up at him, fearing she’d regret this. But she no longer cared. She nestled her body against his and nodded.
“Down!” another voice screamed. “Shooter! Three o’clock.”
Her eyes widened as a shot cracked through the air.
FOURTEEN
Dax moved the minute he heard the voice. Down! Shooter! Three o’clock.
On his right.
He tightened his arms around Holland and shoved her down, to his left, just as the bullet whizzed past them.
Someone was shooting at them from the rooftop across the street, and he’d gotten caught without his gun. Since realizing that his dad’s death had been part of a larger plot, he hadn’t been without a weapon of some kind on his body. He was always ready to defend not only himself, but his friends and family. But when he was with Holland, he forgot about everything but her.
“Are you all right?” He covered her body with his.
Dax had tried to take the brunt of the fall, but he was sure she was scraped up.
She nodded. “But we need to get inside. We don’t have much cover here.”
He’d rolled her to the back of the balcony where it would be harder for the gunman to spot them, but she was right.
Another volley of gunfire sounded, and he turned them again, exposing his back and using his body to protect her. Dax tensed, waiting for the feeling of the bullet piercing him.
“We need to move,” she whispered. “I hear two types of fire. One is from a handgun and the other a rifle. I think whoever has the handgun is giving us some cover. But we need to get inside and now.”
She was right. There were definitely two shooters, and one had tipped them off. Good to know they didn’t have two armed bastards with murder on their minds after them.
He rose to his knees. “You stay close to the wall. We’ll move as quickly as we can. When you get inside, stay down and away from the windows.”
“My gun is on the bar. I can get to it with minimal exposure. You find your phone and call the police,” she said calmly.
His girl was good under fire. “I don’t think getting the cops here will be a problem.”
Tourists screamed on the streets below as they realized people were exchanging gunfire. The Quarter would be a chaotic mess in minutes, making it very simple for the assassin to slip into the crowd and fade away.
Dax crept across the rest of the balcony and let Holland in first. He could still hear screaming and intermittent gunfire, but now the sweet sound of sirens joined the mix.
He shoved the balcony door open and forced his way through. By the time it slammed behind him Holland had already retrieved her SIG and was easing toward the front door.
“I don’t think that’s a great idea, sweetheart.” He knew she wanted to get out there and search for the person who’d shot at them, but they had no idea who they were looking for.
Holland paused at the door, glaring. “You can’t expect me to sit on my hands. I need to figure out where the asshole was perched. He might have left something behind.”
“I think we should figure out who warned us first.” The voice had been deep but he would bet anything it had come from a woman. “Besides, the police are on their way. We’ll have to give a statement.”
Suddenly, he heard a crashing sound. Glass shattered all around them. Dax whipped around to the balcony windows. As the curtains caught fire, horror dawned. Someone had tossed a Molotov cocktail through the window.
“The files,” Holland said, her eyes widening.
Already Dax could feel the heat as her thin curtains flamed and the carpet caught fire. He ran for the files as another bottle sailed onto the balcony and added to the flames. He could hear more gunfire but it didn’t matter—nothing did except getting Holland out. He grabbed one of the laptops and the file folder, leaving everything else behind.
“Go,” he ordered, aware they had to escape onto the street to avoid the blaze . . . where they would have nowhere to hide.
Holland snatched up his bag from the couch and slung it over her shoulder. It would give them an extra weapon. He would take it.
He took her hand and threaded their fingers together. No way he was losing her.
“The door in the back leads out to the streets. Unless they have someone on the top of the building or waiting for us, we should be able to slip out and take one of the side streets away from the Quarter. We can get in touch with the police from there.”
He already had his cell in hand. One of the great things about dating Holland Kirk was that when assholes tried to assassinate them, he could divert his attention enough to call for help because his woman knew what she was doing. She took the lead, making sure the hall and stairway were empty as they began their descent.
He called the cavalry. It only took a single ring for Connor to answer.
“What’s happening, brother? Is Holland proving to be stubborn? I hope so because Lara and I have a bet riding on this. Actually, I have a bet. She told me it was nasty and inhumane to bet on a friend’s love life.”
Good for Lara. “No time. Someone just took a shot at us and torched Holland’s apartment. I need a safe house. We’re heading out of the city and I’ll call when it’s safe. Make transportation arrangements for us, too.” He disconnected the call and slid the phone in his pocket.
“We should make our way to the police station,” Holland said.
“I’m rethinking NOLA PD involvement, sweetheart. Only two groups know I’m in town—the cops and your team.”
Her jaw tightened as they made it to her building’s back door. “You think someone on one of the teams is working for the mob and you’re probably right. Both teams also knew I had the photos. One of them has to be responsible for this.”
As he poked his head outside, he cursed. “Damn it. You take the nine and I’ll take the three.”
She nodded, and they both burst through, him veering left and ensuring no one shot them from that direction, and her preventing the same on the right. When their surroundings looked clear, he took her hand again.
“Let’s head toward Canal Street. We can find a bar and wait until Connor calls.”
She gritted her teeth, as though the idea of running upset her. But she slid her gun into the back of her jeans and hid it with her shirt, nodding. “All right. I need to text my uncle though, otherwise he’ll put a BOLO on my ass.”
&
nbsp; The last thing they needed was the police hunting them. Oh,