On The Rocks (36 page)

Which meant he had to figure out how to
steal a little more time.

Kizzie neared the main doors, where so many
people were coming and going there was a bottleneck. She kept
moving, and then she stopped abruptly. Her head swiveled back to
him, and then she went forward again.

Now she was moving away from him fast. Too
fast. Pulled along by a tall man with dark hair. Kizzie didn’t
resist, just picked up the pace to match his.

Xander hesitated. Then a flash of fire
ripped through him. He should have listened to Phil. Should have
come in here armed to the teeth.

His head swiveled, looking at his options:
Champagne glasses; vase; napkins.

Then he stared down at his hands.

Those would do.

Marching through the cluster of bodies, he
headed for the door.

Someone cut off his approach and he looked
down. Naima stood before him, looking a little ill. She swallowed
and frowned up at him. “Where have you been?”

He glanced up just as the last flash of
Kizzie’s red dress disappeared.

“Xan? X, are you all right?”

No, he wasn’t.

No wonder they couldn’t find the man in
Detroit.

Lennox Tate was in Amalfi.

And he’d just gone into a room with Xander’s
sub.

21

LENNOX CAME INTO the party already in full
swing, so many bodies moving through the doors it made it easy for
him to slip the security check and get inside. People were
everywhere, a mix of fancy clothes and über casual threads packing
the place from wall to wall. Beautiful women were a dime a dozen
here. None caught his eye. He was entirely focused on finding
Kizzie.

“Hey!” a sultry voice called. A sharp tug on
his jacket sleeve brought his head around.

Lennox frowned. He didn’t know this woman
with the brown hair and too much makeup, but that smile of hers
said she knew him the way Eve knew Adam. His brain went on
autopilot, flipping through the rolodex of names he’d accrued over
the years. Erika? Lydia? Susan? Sus
anne
?

“Christoph, right?”

Okay, that was definitely an alias he’d used
before. A chick once told him Christoph was an easy name to scream,
so he’d hung on to it.

And heard it often.

As for this girl’s name, he was still
drawing a blank.

“It’s me…? Jennifer…?”

“Jennifer!” he echoed enthusiastically.

Nope, still didn’t ring a bell. Smiling,
Lennox took her hand and spun her around slowly, getting a nice
long look at her ass. “Of course!
Jenn
ifer!”

Flight attendant Jennifer. Red eye from New
York to Naples Jennifer.

Airplane bathrooms are notoriously cramped.
Much more practical to hit it from the back. Also made forgetting
faces he didn’t see that much easier.

“I thought you said you were gonna call.”
Jennifer twirled a strand of hair around her fingers, then stepped
closer to walk those fingers up his chest. “I’ve been all alone in
my hotel room just
itching
to get into something… Or have
something get into me.”

She bit her lip and flashed a set of doe
eyes up at him. Took everything in Lennox not to groan.

He didn’t need this right now, and since
he’d shown up here tonight determined to be honest, Jennifer
—Jessica? Wait, no, definitely Jennifer, right?— was going to be
his crash test dummy.

“Look, Jen, you’re not surprised that I
lied, are you? I mean, I fucked you in an airplane stall. The
mile-high thing was nice, but it was a one-time thing…
maybe
twice depending on the length of the flight… Did we fuck
twice?”

A burst of red went by, and Lennox followed
it with his eyes.

Not his girl.

Jennifer was still standing before him, and
frankly that confused the hell out of him.

“This is the part where you storm off,” he
supplied. “Maybe a dramatic huff.”

Her eyes glistened, and those glossy pink
lips quivered. “You’re an asshole.” She lifted her hand and swung
hard. He grabbed her wrist at the same moment he reached for the
KA-BAR in his pocket. Paused before he sliced her throat and
brought a permanent end to this conversation.

Deep breath.

He let her hand go. “You’re right. I’m an
asshole. I’m the worst possible kind of guy and you’re better off
without me.” His gaze drifted but his mouth kept moving. “Some day
you’re gonna find a guy who respects you and—”

The sea of people parted like Moses popped
in for a visit.

There she was, an angel steeped in sin in
that deep red dress that plunged dangerously low in the front and
back. The high, off-center slit up the front separated with each
step, flashing one toned brown thigh as she came toward him. Her
hair was… messy. Not the same up do as when she’d left, but it
still looked good on her.

Anything looked good on her.

Everything looked better off…

Nope. Not going to be that guy right
now.

Kizzie bumped into someone coming across the
dance floor. Kept moving. Spun back and then was coming his way
again.

Every nerve in Lennox’s body came alive,
jacking his adrenaline up like he was on the most perilous op of
his life.

Because he was.

With a deep breath, Lennox stepped away from
Jasmine —no, that wasn’t… whatever— his entire focus now on getting
to Kizzie. What he had to tell her had been stuck in his throat for
almost ten years, and it was finally time to get it out.

No more secrets.

He stepped into her path as she neared.
Frowning, she cranked her neck over her shoulder and then zipped
her gaze straight to his again.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. He knew that
and didn’t care. He
had
to be here. Had to do this now
because time was short.

He grasped Kizzie’s arm and pulled her
close, guiding her away from the crowd and down a short hall toward
what once might have been a staff office.

“What are you doing?” she asked lightly. The
smile on her face was all kinds of fake, but she wasn’t about to
make a scene.

Lennox kept quiet.

Inside the little room, the loud music was
more a dull thump than a full on clanging, and he could still see
the dancers from where he stood. Without closing the door, he
stopped short and pulled her around to face him.

“Lennox, what the hell is the mat—”

He crashed his lips to hers, melting into
the pillowy softness and warmth. His hands molded to her face and
her hands curled over his forearms. He could stay like this
forever. Right here with his girl, and forget that the world
existed.

Everything about this kiss felt right.
Perfect.

Like coming home.

She felt it too. He just knew it.

Kizzie ripped away from his mouth, eyes
wide. “What the hell was that about?” She struggled to get out of
his hold but he held her firmly. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Five minutes,
chuchu
. Just five
minutes to hear me out.”

Her gaze darted away, came back. “We need to
get this op over with, Tate.”

“Please,” he begged softly. Swallowed hard.
“Please, just hear me out.”

She fixed him with a look so cold it gave
Elsa a run for reigning ice queen.

“I want you…” He cleared his throat. “I want
you… to forget this job. We’re not ready. The risk on this—”

“Is minimal compared to what’ll happen if
that list gets out, Tate, and you know it. So stop bullshitting me.
What is it?”

Lennox inhaled a breath. “We gotta talk
about Belém. The night before.”

Heavy on the frown, Kizzie backed up until
she was practically in the doorway. He pulled her back and closed
the door, shutting out the noise and distractions so the entire
world was just the two of them.

“Yes, Kizzie. We have to. Do you remember
that night? We’d just made love, you were naked on top of the
sheets ‘cause of the heat. We were talking about random things, and
I asked you ‘what do you want after this?’ Do you remember?”

Those big brown eyes were steady on him, and
the frown lingered. But she nodded slowly. He pressed on.

“You said you didn’t know, and you turned
the question on me, like you always do,” he teased. “I said
something silly to make you laugh. God, it was always amazing to
hear you laugh. You didn’t do it very often, but when you did…

“What—” He took a breath. “Whatever I said
to you was a lie. Because I was afraid to tell you I wanted time. I
wanted time with you then. And I want it now.”

That was all he could say. And it was the
truth. Once his purpose here was done, he’d never see Kizzie again.
He wasn’t going to waste his last chance at being with her.

“You want surfing? There’s this amazing spot
in Zanzibar. Beautiful beaches, private villas on the water. Or
Australia. New Zealand. Wherever you want. I just want to be with
you.”

She stayed silent so long if she hadn’t been
standing in front of him he wouldn’t have known she was there.

“Last night was my bad,” Kizzie finally
said. “I let things get too far, and if you feel like I led you on,
I’m sorry. But I told you, I’m seeing somebody.”

He blinked, reminded, “‘You think.’”

“No,” she said, head shaking. “And as nice
and safe as it is to remember the night
before
in Belém, the
night after was a doozy, Lennox.”

“You really are going to hate me forever for
it, aren’t you? But you can’t hate me more than I hate myself,
Kizzie. It
killed me
to walk away from you.”

“
Killed
you?” she asked.

He nodded. Didn’t she know? Didn’t she see
all the signs? “Don’t tell me you didn’t know how I felt about you
then? How I still feel about you?”

“How you feel?” Kizzie stepped back, brows
lowered so far her eyes were just two thin, dark slits. “You
couldn’t give two squid shits about me, Lennox.”

He chuckled. “Always did have a way with
words.”

“It’s called the truth, you should try it
some time. You
left me
on a live op, just… abandoned me in
the heart of one of the deadliest cities on the planet with a
dealer who made Whitey Bulger look like Santa Claus. And as much as
that ticked me off, that’s not the half of why I’m pissed about
it.”

Lennox ground his teeth. Fine, she wanted
truth? What better one to start with than the truth of that
mission. He was tired of shouldering the burden on his own. Tired
of being the scapegoat when he wasn’t the person making the
calls.

No more secrets.

“All this time and you haven’t figured it
out, rook? Training you was a side thing. Something I was forced to
do between
my
missions. I was an assassin, Kizzie. Bill’s
hired gun. My ultimate job in Belém was to follow through on a
sanctioned hit. Until that opportunity presented itself, I was to
figure out how you’d best fit in with The Crew.”

He touched his fingertips to her chin,
tipping her face up to look into her eyes. “For some reason, Bill
thought you could do what I do. Kill people in cold blood.”

Emotion flared in the brown depths, but she
tamped it down quickly. Why wouldn’t she let him in?

“As much of a hardass as you were, even with
all that pain I could see but you never wanted to share with me, I
knew you didn’t have it in you. There’s too much good in you.

“That left direct contacts… infiltrations…
that sort of thing. So I trained you with the goal of getting you
in good with Mendoza’s camp. But it was Bill who ordered me to
leave you.”

She blinked, long lashes waving, dark eyes
steady on his. “I know.”

“And—” Lennox frowned. “You… knew?”

Her head bobbed. “I’m not an idiot,
Lennox.”

“Then why aren’t you mad at Bill? Why are
you blaming me when you know I wasn’t making the call?”

“Because orders or not, I would have
never
left you.” Kizzie swallowed hard. “Never. And you know
what else, this guy? I know he wouldn’t leave me.”

“No you don’t.”

Kizzie’s neck jerked back like he’d slapped
her. Then her eyes darted away, a near enough admission that what
he’d said was spot on.

“You don’t know what he would do in my
position. Easy to think that and say that in the civilian world,
where chivalry doesn’t have a chain of command to answer to. But
you know how it is in The Crew. Bill’s running the show. That
sonuvabitch is always running the goddamned show. Asking so much
and giving nothing back…

“This guy of yours, he doesn’t know you like
I do. He doesn’t know our world.” He shook his head. “He doesn’t
love you, Kizzie. Can’t possibly love you as much as I do.”

Her eyes widened and her nose twitched.

He’d never said those words to a woman.
Never. And now that they were out, it felt like his heart was
beating for the first time, and the damn thing was doing it way too
fast. He stepped forward, “
Chuchu
, I love—”

“
No
.” Her hands came up to keep him
from touching her. Then her face went blank, as though he hadn’t
just made the biggest confession of his life. “The mission.”

“Kizzie—”

“Recon. Strategize. Execute. We’re in the
final portion of the trio, agent. We do the job, we get out. That’s
what we are right now, you and me.” She pointed a finger from his
chest to hers and back again. “But do me a solid and tell me up
front if you’re jumping ship on this.”

“You don’t understand.” His eyes slipped
closed and he tipped his head back. God, she didn’t understand…

“I think I do. I’m on my own.”

“No, you’re not.” Lennox snapped. “I’m
here,
chuchu
. Now.
We’re
what matters. Forget
this job, Kizzie.
Please
.”

“Are you in or out, Tate?”

Lennox looked away. Came back to her face.
“I’m here.”