Surviving Ice

  “Wanna grab a drink?”

  EIGHTEEN

  ICE

  Seven hours of casual probing and I’ve gotten nothing out of her that I didn’t already know or guess. And nothing at all that gives me a clue about where this videotape could still be hiding.

  But after seven hours of her hands on me and her scent around me and her breath skating against me, I’m having a hard time giving a shit about anything that’s on this tape.

  It’s been so long since I’ve actually tried to seduce a woman, I don’t even know if I’m capable of it anymore. Even when I was a newly minted SEAL and my teammates and I would head to the local bars, I wasn’t much into chasing skirts and placing bets on whom I’d bring home, and how many drinks it would take to get her there. Maybe it’s because I never had to put much effort into getting someone to come home with me; or maybe it’s because I knew it wouldn’t last past the night.

  My ex-fiancée, Sharon, was the first woman to grab my attention. I met her at a friend’s BBQ, on a Sunday afternoon. No booze involved. She was feisty, opinionated, and beautiful.

  And I thought she was for me.

  Maybe she was, but it turns out I wasn’t the one for her because she kept trying to change me, right up until two weeks before the wedding, while I was between tours. I guess she realized she couldn’t change me, and the things she didn’t like—my desire for solitude, my reclusive nature, my “shitty” communication skills, my reluctance to have children—were amplified after all that I had seen and done abroad.

  I haven’t had to make an effort since then. All it’s ever taken is my wallet.

  But Ivy’s done the tattoo and I’m supposed to go home, and I both can’t and don’t want to.

  “A drink? Now? I mean, tonight?” She frowns, her eyes shifting from my bandaged side to the clock. “Aren’t you exhausted? And sore?”

  “Nothing a few stiff drinks won’t fix.” I know she drinks, because she had that flask last night. I also know she probably has no plans to go to sleep anytime soon, given her nocturnal habits.

  And I know she’s not ready to leave me yet either because . . . I can just feel it.

  She bites her lip in thought. “Okay, fine. But I need to clean up here. And you”—she holds up the clipboard that I haven’t looked at since she handed it to me seven hours ago—“were supposed to fill this out. It’s a regulatory requirement.”

  “And charging me tax is a government requirement, but you’re not doing that, are you?” My ID says Gregory White from San Diego. I don’t want to have to explain why I introduced myself as Sebastian. I don’t want anything documented about my time with her, period.

  She twists her lips and tosses it aside. “If you die of a staph infection, I’ll deny ever having met you.”

  “I think that’s best.”

  She smirks, rifling through her purse to pull out and hand me a business card. “Meet me here in an hour. Give it to the bouncer and he’ll let you through the line with no questions. I’ll be upstairs in the VIP section.”

  Daredevil. “A club?” Deafening music, disorienting lights, a thick crowd of people that I can’t tell apart. Tension slides into my back. “I don’t dance.”

  She begins taking apart her tattoo machine, her back to me. “Then you can watch me, because I feel like dancing tonight and this is where I’ll be.”

  After seven hours of a different, friendly, more vulnerable side of Ivy, she’s reasserting her cool, indifferent side, and every vibe radiating from her right now tells me that if I want to continue tonight, it’s on her terms. Fuck. She just better not be trying to ditch me as part of that display of power. “I have no problem waiting around for you. I can search for that rat.” And anything else that the cops may have missed.

  She shudders. “There’s no rat. I’ve been listening for it. You may as well go. I need to clean this up and then run home to shower and change.” She glances over her bare shoulder at me. “And you’re not coming home to watch me do that.”

  I’ve already seen you do so much more than just shower.

  “Even though we’re practically married now?” I’ve been saving her earlier words for the right moment.

  She lifts an eyebrow but says nothing.

  I could step up my game right here, right now. Rub her shoulders again, take her hand again . . . kiss her. Maybe we could avoid the club altogether. I consider this as I watch her methodically wipe down the components of her tattoo gun and fit them into the foam inset of her carrying case. I’m guessing she cares for her equipment like a mother would care for her child.

  No. This is on her terms and she bristles easily. I can’t come on too strong. Not yet. “I’ll see you in an hour, then.”

  “Yes, at twenty-three hundred hours, Navy Boy,” she mocks as I head out the back door.

  Ivy stalks past the lengthy line without a care, a siren amid a sea of commoners in her royal-blue and black dress and clunky platform boots, her jet-black hair hanging like a smooth and shiny curtain around her face. She looks like a small child next to the towering bouncer who has to stoop to hear her, even with her added four inches. They share a few words and then he laughs and waves her in, the thick band of ink circling his biceps proudly displayed. I’m assuming either she did it or her uncle did. I’m betting that all her associations are somehow tied to her profession.

  I watch all of this from an alleyway across the street, hidden by shadow, the effects of Ivy’s needle beginning to burn my ribs. But nothing I can’t handle, nothing that will stop me.

  Now that she’s inside, I stride forward, card in hand. Just as she promised, it’s a simple wave to the bouncer and he’s unfastening the rope.

  The music rattles in my brain as I push through a red velvet curtain, my senses on overdrive. I’ve been trained to block out unimportant distractions and to focus on the important—the target I need to take out, the code exchange I need to catch. But eighteen months of listening to bombs blowing up buildings, gunfire raining down on insurgents, and the screams of anguish when human beings don’t die instantly from their injuries doesn’t simply vanish when you get on that plane for home. That shit tends to follow you wherever you go and manifests itself in everyday life—cars backfiring, people shouting, plates shattering—pulling you back thousands of miles and years in the past in a single heartbeat. Places like this . . . they’re my nightmare.

  Forcing that all down, I quickly zero in on the closest set of stairs. I take them up, two at a time, passing several waitresses dressed in sparkly short dresses and garter belts, navigating the dark and the steep steps in their gold heels while they balance cigar trays in their hands.

  In my jeans and T-shirt, I’m sorely underdressed, but so is everyone else. Everyone except Ivy, maybe.

  My tension eases up a bit when I reach the VIP section on the second floor and see that there’s actually space between bodies, and a soft breeze coming from the fans above. And two exits by conventional means—stairs—plus six more by necessity—the windows lining the walls. A large opening in the center, lined by a glass rail, allows people a view to the main dance floor below and the chance to drop a beer bottle onto someone’s head.

  Ivy is impossible to miss. She’s the woman standing at the rail, drink in hand, observing the mass of gyrating bodies below like a queen. An ice queen, who dismisses the line of lackluster candidates for her attention with nothing more than a glare when they attempt to strike up a conversation about her tattoos. I know I should go in and save her from them, but instead I watch from my corner for fifteen minutes as she deftly rejects them two . . . three . . . four times, sneering at one who has the audacity to touch her arm.

  I smile, feeling triumphant, because she hasn’t rejected me. Yet.

  Her eyes are glued to the crowd below, as if she’s not waiting for anyone. But I notice the two covert glances at her phone as well as the single glance at the stairwell closest to the front entrance, which I took to get up here. She’s almost finished her drin
k, and by the irritated drum of her fingertips against the glass rail, I know that she’s about to ditch me, even though she made a point of making it sound like she had plans to come here anyway.

  It’s time to move in.

  Her body, already tense, goes rigid as my hands find her hips from behind. I use the loud music as an excuse to lean in and get my mouth nice and close to her ear. “Anything interesting from up here?”

  She relaxes against me for a moment, but then snaps, “I thought soldiers knew how to tell time.”

  “I’m not a soldier anymore.” Not the kind that she thinks I am, anyway.

  She turns to peer into my eyes, her face inches from mine. “Did they kick you out for tardiness?”

  It’s an innocent dig, but it drills me right where it hurts all the same. “No, not for that.” That would have been more palatable than how I got discharged.

  She eyes me, curious to know more but not about to ask—that’s what I like about her, she can tell when I’m not willing to talk about something and she doesn’t prod.

  “Actually, I’m never late. I was standing right over there for the last fifteen minutes, watching you get hit on.” I point to my hiding spot.

  Her brow spikes. “You like watching me?”

  I chuckle. You have no idea how much. “I guess I do.”

  She tips her glass back to finish her drink, the ice shards rattling in her glass. “Jameson and Coke, when the waitress comes back around.” She twists out of my grasp and shoves the empty glass into my chest, holding it there until I take it.

  Then she begins walking away.

  I reach out and seize her wrist with my free hand, faster than she expected, I think, and pull her back against me. I could hold her against me all night if I wanted to. “Where are you going?”

  “You said you like watching me. So you can stand here and watch.” She slithers out of my grasp and carves a path through a group of bodies to an open area. She doesn’t care that she’s alone, as she begins to sway to the beat, in her own world. While I have no interest in dancing, watching her is more than enough to get my blood flowing, the pulse of the strobe lights that I normally hate making her simple movements more electric, more sexual.

  I’m here to find incriminating evidence against Alliance, I remind myself. It’s so easy to forget that when I’m watching this creature, but I can’t let myself forget. I already expect Bentley’s call in the morning, and if I don’t have something to give him, those fuckups are going to come in and wreck any chance I have with Ivy. When they don’t find the video in the house—because they won’t; I was thorough—what’s next? Will Bentley at some point decide that I’m not getting anywhere with Ivy and it’s their turn with her?

  I don’t trust guys who are motivated by self-preservation. They’ll do anything to cover their asses. And I’m guessing in this case, “anything” could result in one of those low-key, coincidental deaths Bentley mentioned.

  She’s lucky she has me here, then. Even though she has no clue.

  I’m not the only one who’s interested in Ivy. A quick glance around this VIP area finds men and women alike sharing curious glances as she sways with perfect rhythm, her movements sleek yet graceful. There is something about this woman—a dangerous, unapproachable quality that I find alluring.

  Two schmucks to my left elbow each other, each goading the other on. I wonder which poor sucker is going to make a move. It’s a meat market in here, and this crowd of late-twenties and up has come for one reason, and one reason only.

  To get fucked tonight, either by booze or bodies. Or both.

  I’m not judging. As I watch her hips move, I know I’ll gladly take the latter.

  I sense the waitress approach a second before her shouts catch my ear. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Jameson and Coke, and a straight Coke.” I never drink in these types of situations. It dulls the senses, which are already severely challenged in here.

  “Anything else?” She bumps my biceps with her tray and she winks, her long eyelashes fluttering. I take quick inventory of what’s on offer—rows of cigars and cigarettes, which is amusing given you can’t smoke them in here; and a selection of Trojans in various varieties. I already know that I won’t need those if I go back to Ivy’s. She has a decent stash waiting. “Not for now. Thanks.”

  The waitress disappears with a nod, and when she arrives moments later to deliver our order and settle up, Ivy magically reappears. “Thanks.” Her dark eyes settle on me as she sucks back her drink in a few gulps, leaving nothing but a pile of ice chips.

  “Thirsty?”

  “Very.” She eyes my glass. “What are you drinking?”

  “Rum and Coke,” I lie, because I think she’s the type of woman to take my drink right out of my hand and devour it just to prove a point—that she can, and I’ll let her, because I want to fuck her tonight, and she knows it.

  And she’d be right.

  But then she’d also know that I’m not drinking alcohol, even though I got her out under the guise that I was going to get drunk tonight.

  Her face pinches up. “I hate rum.”

  I know. That’s the beauty of doing my own recon. All those trivial, seemingly useless bits of information can come in handy. “Then I guess it’s a good thing this drink isn’t yours,” I say through a smile and a sip.

  She hands me her empty glass and then struts back to her spot, the little game she’s playing with me becoming all the more obvious.

  That’s fine. I’ll play, happily. As long as she doesn’t stoop to pitting me against any of these assholes in here, because I don’t do well in those kinds of situations and, frankly, I’d be extremely disappointed in her.

  Just in case, I do a quick scan of my “competition”—most of them Silicon Valley–type geeks, smart entrepreneurs who will probably make a ton of money and will use that to land themselves a hot wife.

  The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly spike.

  Someone’s watching me. I’m surprised my senses picked up on that, with all the distractions in here.

  It’s not Ivy.

  It’s not the horny cougars to my left.

  It’s the guy to my right, whom I noticed standing on the other side earlier. He has shifted closer now. I keep sipping my drink, using the reflection in a mirror on a nearby wall to watch him alternate his attention between Ivy and me.

  Wondering who I am, if we’re together, if she’s working for me maybe . . .

  My gut says it’s all that and something else.

  He’s military, even though there’s nothing about his outward appearance that would label him as that to an unsuspecting person. His dark cropped hair is gelled back, his black pants and black button-down and suit jacket stylish. Plenty of room to hide a piece under there, if he wanted to. Then again, my Beretta’s strapped to my ankle. It’s not hard to hide anything anywhere if you want.

  But I know he’s military because of the way he moves, how he blends into the background.

  And his shiny black boots. Even in the poor lighting, the gleam from the polish is impossible to miss, and it triggers something that Ivy said. Something that could be a complete coincidence, and yet I can’t ignore. Listening to my gut has saved my ass more times than I can count.

  I continue my covert appraisal of the guy through four more painful songs, while Ivy dances and pretends to ignore me. Aside from the occasional typing into his phone, he does nothing but watch both of us. And the more he does that, the more I know this isn’t just someone looking to pick up a hot chick for the night.

  This has to be one of Bentley’s Alliance guys.

  Why the fuck is he here?

  He has a drink in hand, so he’ll need to use the restroom soon. He’s a guy, it’s inevitable. Hell, I already need to piss, too. I could follow him in, corner him, get him to talk. It’ll be loud and crowded in . . .

  “What’s going on with you?”

  I start, surprised. At some point, I stopped watchin
g Ivy completely and she snuck up on me. No one should be able to sneak up on me. This is why I hate clubs. I’m not at my best in here.

  I push aside thoughts of the guy for now and focus on her, on the thin sheen of sweat that makes her cheeks glow and the swell of her breasts—pushed up in a top made to look like a corset—glisten. “Nothing. Why?”

  “You looked like a fucking statue just now. It was weird.”

  “I’m sorry. Something distracted me. I’m fine.” But I’m not fine, because that guy is still there watching, and I’ve reached my sanity maximum of strobe lights and head-splitting music.

  She follows my gaze, though she’s not noticing the mirrors, with the reflection of him. She’s zeroing in on two college blondes with shorts that barely cover their asses, and her eyes narrow.

  “That’s not what distracted me,” I scold.

  “How do you even know what—”

  I loop my arm around her tiny waist and pull her into my good side, holding her tight. “Can we please get out of here?”

  Fire dances in her eyes as she glares up at me. “Maybe I still feel like dancing.”

  “Then you can dance all you want at home.” For me.

  She smirks, opens her mouth to answer, but decides better of it. She flags down the waitress passing by instead. “How much for the Cohibas?”

  “Twenty each,” the waitress answers with a grin.

  I feel a hand slip into my back pocket, but I don’t panic because I already know it’s Ivy, fishing out two twenties. “I’ll take two.”

  My brow spikes, watching the exchange with amusement. “Who are those for?”

  “One’s for me.”

  “And the other?”

  She tucks them into her cleavage, the ends sticking out. Making my mouth water. “I haven’t decided yet.” The way she’s staring at me now, I can’t tell whether she wants to undress me or slap me. Her words, though, are clear. She’s still undecided about what—if anything—to do with her attraction to me.