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Flash of Death
Cindy Dees
Trent Hollings has been secretly engineered to be the fastest man on earth.But when Chloe Jordan walks into his life, with all her sexy reserve, time stands still for him. Not even the threat of retaliation from a powerful enemy can stop Trent from using his hidden skills to keep her safe…




“There’s something I’ve always wanted to try …”
“Do tell.” Trent smiled. “What does a nice girl like you think about alone in the deep of night?”
And in her whiskey-induced honesty, Chloe told him. Every lurid, naughty detail of every lurid, naughty fantasy she’d ever had. By the time she was finished, his eyes blazed with desire and his body was obviously more than eager to play along.
“I don’t think we can get to all of that tonight, Chloe, but we can definitely make a dent in your list.” He rolled out of bed and fetched her discarded panty hose. With quick efficiency, he tied her wrists together and then to the headboard and knelt between her knees, his eyes burning with dark fire.
“Let’s see just how far you’re willing to go, my nice, normal little accountant.”
Dear Reader,
This was one of those books that burst into life, hit the ground running and never looked back. It’s always a special treat for me when a pair of characters take over the story and drag me along purely to act as their typist. Chloe and Trent sent me on a particularly wild ride, and I really had to type fast to keep up with them.
Chloe was a ton of fun. It was a challenge to write the sibling of a former heroine and to find a completely unique story for her even though Chloe and her sister came from essentially the same background. Trent continues my exploration of the limits of current science and what the near future may look like. I continue to be amazed at how close we are to having abilities like Trent and the other members of the Code X team.
And then, of course, there was the sizzling chemistry between Chloe and Trent to capture on the page without burning it to ashes. Throw in a bad guy or two, attempted murder and kidnapping, and we’ve got a recipe for a fun read.
So pour yourself your favorite beverage, order out so you don’t have to cook supper, relax, put your feet up and dive into a flash of death, mayhem and true love!
Until next time, happy reading …
Cindy Dees

About the Author
CINDY DEES started flying airplanes while sitting in her dad’s lap at the age of three and got a pilot’s license before she got a driver’s license. At age fifteen, she dropped out of high school and left the horse farm in Michigan where she grew up to attend the University of Michigan. After earning a degree in Russian and East European studies, she joined the US Air Force and became the youngest female pilot in its history. She flew supersonic jets, VIP airlift and the C-5 Galaxy, the world’s largest airplane. During her military career, she traveled to forty countries on five continents, was detained by the KGB and East German secret police, got shot at, flew in the first Gulf War and amassed a lifetime’s worth of war stories.
Her hobbies include medieval re-enacting, professional Middle Eastern dancing and Japanese gardening.
This RITA
Award-winning author’s first book was published in 2002 and since then she has published more than twenty-five bestselling and award-winning novels. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at www.cindydees.com.

Flash of Death
Cindy Dees


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Kathy, you keep me sane even when I accept insane
deadlines. Thanks for everything. You’re the best!

Chapter 1
Chloe Jordan knew one thing: the combination of turning thirty and being one of the only single women at her little sister’s wedding was thoroughly depressing—expensive-chocolate-and-cheap-wine-binge depressing. The hell of it was that she, as the maid of honor, emphasis on maid, old maid, had an ironclad obligation to be the life of the party. No matter how much she loved her little sis, this night officially sucked.
A chorus of spoons knocking on glasses startled her out of her momentary slip into melancholy. Shouts of laughter went up as the groom laid a smoking-hot kiss on the bride. Sheesh. Somebody throw a bucket of ice water on those two.
Chloe checked her bitterness. Sunny’d had a really crappy run of luck and deserved all the happiness she could get. The lucky groom, Aiden, obviously loved Sunny fiercely. Next up on her personal hit parade of depressing events was bound to be playing indulgent auntie to their perfect children. Yippee.
The band resumed playing too loudly to talk over, and thankfully a mob of guests piled out of their seats, relieving her of any duty to go out onto a painfully empty dance floor and “get things started.”
It didn’t help her mood that she’d had a little too much champagne and was starting to feel a little weepy. Sunny was so beautiful and radiant, and she was so proud of her little sis. Chloe noticed from her seat jammed in the corner that it had started raining outside.
One of the groomsmen got the bright idea to light up a cigar, and furthermore, to pass out cigars to all the other groomsmen. A cloud of noxious blue smoke enveloped her. Her stomach roiled ominously.
Enough was enough. She took her queasy stomach and crazy mood swings and fled the reception in search of fresh air. She burst out of the private club that was one of Denver’s most exclusive addresses and inhaled deeply. But even the rain wouldn’t give her a break and the skies opened up without warning. Her hotel was right across the street and she ran for it, racing down the club’s wide steps. Streetlights glittered off the wet pavement as she dashed between cars.
She never saw it coming.
A big, dark SUV accelerated toward her out of nowhere, its engine growling hungrily as it shot forward. Its headlights were blinding and she stared into them in shock.
The impact was incredible, knocking her completely off her feet and sending her flying through space splayed out on her back. Something powerful wrapped around her torso, yanking her in a midair one-eighty so she landed on her stomach. She slammed into something …
… and didn’t die horribly. Whatever she’d smashed into had definitely been hard but not nearly as unyielding as concrete. Her breath was knocked clean out of her, though, and she gasped frantically to no avail. Disoriented, she stared down at the man lying beneath her. Had she been thrown into him and knocked him down?
An engine revved and tires squealed behind her. She looked up in time to see a black, shiny, wet SUV disappear around a corner at a high speed.
She’d nearly died. And the man lying so still beneath her had probably saved her life by breaking her fall. Had she killed him? All of a sudden, she was able to breathe again. She sucked in a sobbing breath and rolled off of the man.
“Are you okay?” she asked urgently.
His eyes blinked open, and silver eyes stared up at her, laser-intense. Eyes she recognized. Ohmigosh. He was one of Aiden’s groomsmen. Trenton something. Hollings. That was it. She’d heard some of the other guys call him Trent.
“I’ll live,” he rasped. “You?”
“I’m fine. You broke my fall. I’m so sorry—”
He cut her off. “No need to apologize. Who was in that car?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anything, and then those headlights were coming at me. I guess the SUV hit me and sent me flying into you.”
“Actually,” he murmured, sitting up carefully, his dark hair tousled and sexy, “I’m the only thing that hit you. I knocked you out of the car’s way at the last second. Had that SUV hit you, something that heavy moving that fast would have killed you instantly.”
She stared, stunned anew. He really had saved her life. For a man who’d just been knocked flat by a human-sized flying object, he popped to his feet with a speed and grace that shocked her. A hand materialized in front of her eyes. It was big and tanned and calloused in stark contrast to the pristinely starched white cuff and onyx cufflink above it.
She took his hand and floated to her feet.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, his voice deep. Rough with concern.
She looked down at her red silk gown ruefully. The side seam had torn from the hem almost all the way to her hip. Her slender leg was entirely exposed. “I’m fine. But I can’t say the same for my dress.”
He looked down critically. “I like it better like this. A woman with legs like yours should show them off.”
Her startled gaze lifted to his, and he smiled at her. But not just any smile, rather a sizzling hot one that promised a long night of steamy seduction if she was interested. She about fell off her three-inch stilettos in shock. Trenton Hollings was flirting with her? The hottest groomsman out of a whole batch of ridiculously hot men? No way.
He offered her his forearm, and she looped her hand around it in minor shock. The hard muscles beneath the soft Italian wool contracted sharply. “Ready to try crossing the street again?” he murmured.
“I swear, I looked both ways. I never saw that car coming. One second the street was clear, and the next, there it was, running me down.”
Trent nodded, frowning. “I believe you.” His frown deepened as they stepped gingerly back out into the wide boulevard. They managed to cross to the other side of the street without incident, although her escort did pause as they reached the far curb to take a long look back over his shoulder at the scene of her near miss.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked cautiously.
Her words seemed to jolt him out of his reverie and he gave himself a little shake. “Getting you up to your room in one piece and cleaned up is on my mind.”
She looked down at herself in alarm. Just how bad did she look? As if it mattered. She was darned lucky just to be alive, for goodness’ sake. They stepped into a hotel elevator, and in the small, enclosed space, her tall escort dwarfed her. She was not short herself at five foot seven, plus three inches of heels, but he still had several inches on her. He was muscular without being thick. His shoulders filled out his tuxedo nicely, and well-defined biceps flexed within his sleeves. No wonder the impact of him slamming into her had knocked her halfway across the street.
“Do you save women from being run down a lot?” she asked to fill the silence.
His mouth twitched in humor. “Not often.”
“What do you do when you’re not doing that?”
He shrugged. “I’m a bum.”
She blinked, startled. “You clean up pretty well for a bum.”
A full-fledged grin flashed her way, all but knocking her off her feet again. Nobody got teeth that perfect and white without expensive orthodontic work. And that tuxedo was no rental monkey suit. It was cashmere with Italian lines exquisitely tailored to his athletic physique. Not to mention Sunny’d told her how wealthy and successful all of Aiden’s groomsmen were, not so subtly hinting that Chloe should pick one and go for the gusto. The guys had all gone to college together, apparently. Frat brothers, in fact. And most of them worked with billionaire Jeff Winston at Winston Enterprises. Bum. Right.
“Tell me another lie,” she murmured.
“You’re ugly and not the slightest bit sexy.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “Excuse me?”
“You asked for a lie.”
Before she could think up a snappy comeback the elevator door opened and he reached an arm out to hold it open. His free hand came to rest lightly in the middle of her back as he shepherded her out. She felt surrounded by him, and it was the strangest sensation. Maybe it was because she was with men so rarely, or maybe it was because he was so freaking hot, but either way, her breath shortened disconcertingly.
As she exited the elevator, her heel caught in the door’s track and stuck momentarily, pitching her off balance. Instantly, Trent’s strong hand was on her elbow, steadying her. “I’m such a klutz,” she mumbled.
“Good thing for you I’m not,” he replied wryly.
She started down the hallway toward the snazzy suite Aiden had insisted on paying for. Chloe wasn’t penniless anymore, but she surely wouldn’t have wasted so much money on an extravagant hotel room that, outside of sleeping and showering, she’d spent about five minutes awake in each day.
She glanced sidelong at Trent. “Are you one of those athletic people who always manage to land on their feet and make the rest of us mere mortals look silly?”
He shrugged modestly.
She sighed. “That’s what I thought.” As she fumbled with her room’s key card, he lifted it from her shaking fingers. Wow. That near miss with the SUV must have rattled her worse than she’d realized.
“Let me get that.” He reached past her to open the door and then did a strange thing. He put a restraining hand on her arm. “Wait here.”
She frowned as he disappeared into the dark suite. He was back in a minute, flipping on light switches as he came. What was that all about?
“What are you standing out here for?” he asked.
“You told me to—” She broke off as she caught the glint of humor in his silver eyes. Dry sense of humor this guy had.
She followed him into the suite.
“When did you get into town?” he asked as he moved over to the picture windows and inexplicably pulled the blinds closed on a magnificent view of Denver’s night lights glittering in the rain.
“Three days ago.”
His brows flickered. “And you haven’t had time to unpack?”
She glanced around the suite, startled. “I am unpacked. Clothes in the closet, toothbrush in the bathroom.”
“Jeez. The room doesn’t even look occupied. Are you always this … neat?”
“Well, yes.” There was nothing wrong with order. It made life infinitely easier. She could always lay hands on exactly what she wanted when she wanted it.
“And what do you do for a living, Chloe?”
She winced at his question. She’d give anything to do something exotic and sexy that would impress this man. But she was who she was. She sighed and answered reluctantly, “I’m a forensic accountant.”
“What does that mean? You do dead people’s taxes?”
She smiled. “No. It means I take apart companies’ books and find the discrepancies they may or may not be trying to hide.”
“You’re some sort of auditor, then?”
“Not exactly. Forensic accountants are used mostly in criminal investigations to find the money trail.”
“Who do you work for?” Trent asked.
“I’m a freelance consultant at the moment.”
“Sounds … interesting.”
She laughed. “About as interesting as watching grass grow, right? Actually, I find the work fascinating. But I don’t expect other people to get it.”
He wandered around the suite examining every detail, and although she enjoyed the view of him from so many angles, she was eventually prompted to ask, “Are you always so restless?”
“Hmm, what? Oh. Yes.”
“And what do you do for a living?”
“Nothing.”
She frowned. “How do you support yourself, then?”
He stopped roaming and turned to face her in surprise. “You mean you can’t smell the trust fund at a hundred yards? I thought all women could do that.”
“Sorry. Not me.” Trust fund, huh? Big enough that he didn’t have to work at all? Must be nice.
He resumed roaming, poking around behind the bar. “Aha!” he crowed. He turned around with a bottle of whiskey in hand. She recognized the label vaguely as an expensive single-malt variety.
“So, how do you fill your time if you don’t work?” she asked curiously. She’d put in sixty- and eighty-hour weeks for so long, juggling bookkeeping jobs and school while she got her accounting degree and master’s in forensic accounting she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
He set two shot glasses side by side on the wet bar and poured generous shots of amber liquid into each. He looked up at her and grinned. “I play for a living.”
Play? She couldn’t ever remember a time when she’d done that. Maybe when her folks were still alive. But even then, her hippie parents had been such flakes about money that she’d ended up taking over the family finances before she’d turned ten. She’d always been more of an adult than anyone else in the Jordan clan. And when her parents died in a boating accident halfway around the world from her and Sunny, orphaning them at ages thirteen and ten respectively, she’d grown up for real. Fast.
Trent thrust a shot glass at her and, startled out of her grim thoughts, she took it.
“Drink up. You need it.”
She frowned down at the whiskey.
“You had a bad shock and your nerves are fried. Think of it as medicine,” he coaxed.
Mentally holding her nose, she lifted the shot glass and tossed down the shot of whiskey in a single gulp. Fire exploded in her throat and roared down into her belly. She coughed and swore as tears streamed down her face. Trent, the cad, laughed as she mopped at her eyes.
He neatly downed his own shot and went back to the bar for refills. When he came back with another shot glass for her, she waved it off.
“Second time, it goes down as smooth as silk. I promise.”
She snorted. “That’s because every nerve in my digestive track is incinerated at the moment.”
He smiled winningly. “Exactly.”
“I shouldn’t. I’ve already had too much champagne—” she started.
He cut her off gently. “Don’t overthink it. Just trust me. You need this.”
She did have a tendency to talk herself out of everything fun in life. And she was safely in her hotel room with a man her sister swore was a great guy. That pleasant, warm feeling spreading outward from her belly button really was very nice, too. She took the second shot and slammed it back before she could change her mind.
This time it made her feel light-headed. A little silly, even. Just what the doctor ordered.
“Another?” Trent asked.
“Are you trying to get me drunk, sir?”
He grinned unrepentantly. “I am.”
“Why?” she blurted. Whoops. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it just slipped out all by itself.
He answered, “You’ve looked uptight all day long.”
“I am not uptight!”
“Honey, if you were wound too much tighter, you’d snap in two.”
Okay, she was starting to feel a little dizzy. But nice dizzy. Like she wanted to throw her arms out and dance to the sensation.
“Why don’t we get you out of those shoes?” Trent murmured, guiding her over to the edge of her bed and sitting her down on it. He knelt at her feet, sliding his big hand down the back of her calf with sensual leisure. “I never have been able to understand why women wear these things. They look blasted uncomfortable.”
He tossed one red shoe over his shoulder and she giggled as she wiggled her toes. “But heels make our legs look so nice,” she explained earnestly.
“You don’t need any help to make your legs look great,” he announced as the other red stiletto went flying.
She stood up and hiked up her torn skirt enough to reach under it. It occurred to her in a distant corner of her mind that she would never, under normal circumstances, do something as intimate as take off her hose in front of a man like this. She stated, “Now if you want to know what’s really uncomfortable and stupid in women’s fashion, it’s panty hose.”
She started to peel hers down, but then warm, strong hands were there, pushing her fingers aside.
“Let me get those for you.” His hands were a warm slide down her thighs, leaving a trail of wanton destruction in their wake. As her legs positively wobbled, she grabbed his shoulders to steady herself. She lifted first one foot and then the other so he could remove her hose.
“I say we outlaw panty hose,” he declared as hers went flying over his shoulder.
She laughed gaily. “I second the motion.”
“Turn around,” he instructed.
She did so and was startled to feel her gown’s long zipper sliding down. Cool air caressed her back. Warm hands kneaded her shoulders and she let her head fall forward with a groan of pleasure. His clever fingers went right to the massive knot that perennially twisted at the base of her neck.
“Are you always this tense?” he asked. His voice was smooth and deep and warmed her from the outside the same way the whiskey warmed her from the inside.
“Pretty much,” she answered honestly.
“Do you need me to do something about it?”
He already was. The knot was unraveling beneath his fingers like magic. And then his clever plan dawned on her. She craned her head around to look at him over her shoulder. “Are you seducing me?”
“Would you like me to?”
“Well, duh. You’re a complete hunk. But me? What would a guy like you see in a girl like me?”
He laughed softly. “Have you looked at yourself in a mirror? You’re a knockout. Not too many women can pull off sophisticated and pure-as-the-driven-snow in the same look.” He ticked off her additional attributes with his fingers against the side of her neck. “You make me laugh. And you’re smart or you wouldn’t be a forensic accountant. And you have a kind heart or you wouldn’t have suffered through your sister’s wedding with a smile on your face all day.”
“I didn’t suffer—”
“Sure you did. Anyone who really looked at you could see it in your eyes. The way I hear it, you practically raised her. She’s your only family and she’s starting a new life with someone else. No matter how much you love her, that has to hurt. Has to make you feel all alone in the world.”
What a perceptive man to have noticed. And he must have a pretty kind heart himself to be here comforting her like this. “You’re right, of course,” she murmured. As the truth of his words sank in, a knife of grief and loss stabbed at her heart. She’d faced terrible loss in her life, agonizing loneliness. But this was right up there. Oh, Sunny. I’m gonna miss you so much. Tears sprang to her eyes.
She started to turn around to face Trent, but his big hands forestalled her. And then something warm and resilient moved against her neck where it joined her shoulder.
“You’re not alone, tonight,” he murmured against her skin.
Desperate need for that to be true had her leaning back toward him, her whole being reaching out toward the solace he offered. Just once in her life, she would love for someone to be strong for her, to take care of her. His hands moved slowly across her stomach, easing her back against him even more closely as if he was telling her to lean on him. But if his hands were there, what was that touching her neck?
His mouth! As realization dawned, a host of delicious sensations ripped through her, radiating outward from where his lips moved across her skin. Languor and lust rolled through her, making a beeline for her knees and threatening to collapse them. Whiskey, thy name is temptation.
Was she seriously going to do this? Trent Hollings? The bachelor every female at the wedding had been throwing herself at? Of course, he’d been the one to throw himself at her. Literally.
“Tell me again not to overthink this,” she muttered.
He turned her around then, his hands unerringly finding every hairpin and tossing them aside. He plunged both hands into her thick, blond hair and pulled the French twist down around her shoulders in lush waves. Her hair was her secret pride, and she was glad he could see it like this. She never wore it down in her daily life. In her career field, she needed people to take her seriously and not treat her like some kind of sex kitten. But tonight, she was okay with that. If Trent Hollings thought she was hot, she was darned well not about to talk him out of it.
“Mmm. Better,” he murmured. “I’ve been itching to do that all day.”
“Really?”
He took her face in his big hands and tilted it up to his. “Really.”
She tensed as his head lowered toward hers. He paused, his mouth inches from hers, and breathed, “Don’t overthink this.”
Right. Live in the moment. Go for it. Carpe diem. His lips touched hers and the platitudes fled in the face of this stunningly sexy man kissing her. His mouth was warm and smooth and confident, and in about ten seconds, he’d blasted past all her experience in kissing. His lips parted hers and his tongue tested her teeth. She gasped at the invasion and he took immediate advantage of it to taste her more deeply.
His arms tightened around her, lifting her against his big, warm body. A hand slid up her back to her head, cradling it in a large palm and drawing her even further into the kiss. And then he was kissing her with his whole body. Whether that was him moving against her or her moving against him she couldn’t tell and didn’t care. Her dress gaped open in the back and his hand burned her bare flesh as it dipped inside the gown. She was shocked when his hand slid down to cup her derriere and … Oh, God, she’d forgotten she was wearing that silly thong Sunny’d talked her into. Something about panty lines ruining the lie of the gown.
He made a sound of surprised approval.
“What?” she blurted.
“I didn’t peg you for a naughty-lingerie kind of girl.”
Painfully aware of the drawer full of cotton granny panties across the room, she didn’t disabuse him of the notion. For the first time all day, she was grateful for the tiny scrap of spandex and lace nestled a little too intimately in her nether regions. Trent’s finger traced the thin line of the thong downward and she groaned in pleasure and embarrassment.
“You’re overthinking,” he warned laughingly. “Let go and enjoy yourself.”
Her knees did buckle then. He caught her up against him with ease and kissed her with gusto until her knees would bear her weight again. “Ahh, you’re going to be a joy to seduce. So artless. So natural. Such a nice young lady.”
“Is that bad?” she asked, frowning up at two of him swimming in her gaze. She did believe she was officially buzzed.
“Not at all.” His fingers slipped under the shoulders of the lined gown with its built-in shelf bra. Which meant she wasn’t wearing a blessed thing under the gown. Except that sexy little black thong, of course. He hooked the red silk and slipped it off her shoulders, kissing her skin as it was revealed. The gown whispered down her body to the floor in a bloodred puddle and she shivered. Whether it was the cool air on her skin or Trent’s hot mouth on her skin that caused it, she couldn’t say.
“You’re magnificent, Chloe. How is it some man hasn’t snatched you up and made you his?”
She blinked up at Trent as he straightened and shrugged off his tuxedo jacket. Nope, no padding in them there shoulders. His starched, white shirt clung to a physique that could make a girl weep with appreciation. Realizing belatedly that she was all but drooling at him, she answered, enunciating carefully so she wouldn’t slur her words, “I’m too boring. And neat. Men hate neat.”
Trent laughed as he stripped off his cummerbund and tossed it aside. “That’s not how I hear it. Most men love a woman who’ll pick up after them. When I settle down, I’ll hire a butler to do the job. It’ll save on resentment from the ladies in my life.”
Ladies. Plural. Of course a man like him had scads of women chasing after him. “I’m just one more in a long string of conquests, aren’t I?” she accused. Who knew whiskey brought out such a brutally honest streak in her?
He laughed lightly. “Never. You’re one of a kind, Chloe Jordan.”
At least he knew her full name. The way she heard it, that was an exception for most pick-up artists. For surely, this man was a master of the art. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to care as his hands slid over her ribs and cupped her breasts, lifting them and testing their weight. She wasn’t all that stacked, although she’d always privately thought her breasts were rather nicely shaped. Trent seemed to think so, too, as his mouth captured one pert, rosy peak and sucked gently. Lightning bolts started at his mouth and spread outward through her body.
“Oh, my,” she sighed. “That’s lovely.”
A strong arm swept behind her knees and she was tipped on her side all of a sudden as he picked her up and laid her on the bed. The down comforter gave beneath her weight, and the room spun lightly around her. And then Trent was there, stretched out beside her, propped up on one elbow, yanking the knot out of his bow tie with his free hand. Shirt studs went flying as he jerked his shirt free of his trousers and all but tore it off.
She reached up to help push the shirt off his shoulders and gaped as acres of tanned chest appeared before her eyes. “Yowza,” she breathed.
He laughed heartily and she glared up at him. “Are you laughing at me?” she demanded.
“Yes, I am. It has been a while since I’ve gotten that sort of reaction out of a woman from taking off my shirt.”
“Do you only date blind women?” she retorted.
He leaned close to kiss her lightly before answering, “No. Jaded ones. Like I said, you’re one of a kind.”
“Hey. I didn’t fall off the pumpkin truck yesterday, you know. I live in San Francisco and work at a very upscale address. Of course, I’m going to take that company down, but—”
He stopped her rambling with his mouth against hers. She wasn’t sure how he got his trousers off or how the covers got thrown back, but in a moment, she was lying on her back on Egyptian cotton sheets with a thread count so high they felt like velvet against her skin, and Trent was stretched out in all his naked, unconcerned glory beside her.
“Please tell me you’re a little bit drunk, too,” she muttered.
He grinned, flashing that million-dollar smile at her again. “I’m drunk on you, baby.”
She rolled her eyes and he laughed back at her. He really was incorrigible. But then the smile faded from his eyes, leaving them a dark, smoky gray that pierced through her whiskey-induced fog like high-beam headlights. All of a sudden, heat radiated from him. A promise of sex so steamy it would burn away all the fog and bring the night down around them.
Her breath caught on a gasp as, without breaking his gaze into her eyes, his hand traveled down the valley between her breasts, across the flat plane of her belly, and hooked inside the thong that was her only remaining defense. His fingers slid across soft flesh that was so sensitive she thought she was going to come apart this very second.
And then his fingers dipped lower, sliding across strangely swollen flesh that raged with lust in response to his touch. “Whoa!” she exclaimed.
He froze against her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong!”
“Then why did you yell for me to stop?” he asked cautiously.
It took her whiskey-fuzzed brain a moment to sort that one out. Then she blurted, “Oh. I get it. No. I was reacting to how great that felt. You know. As in, whoa, that’s awesome, dude.”
He burst out laughing. “So you don’t want me to stop?”
“No!”
“You have no idea how glad I am to hear that,” he murmured. For a second time, the humor fled from his gaze, leaving behind a raw, sexual hunger in his eyes that completely undid her. Men never looked at her like that. And certainly not men like him.
He whisked the thong off her and it joined her other clothes somewhere across the room. And then he did that surrounding her thing again, all muscle and heat and impatient man. The room spun more wildly now. Where the whiskey stopped and the intoxication of this man making love to her took over, she couldn’t rightly say. It was a heady cocktail, though.
His muscular thigh nudged hers apart and she tensed. He stared down at her as if waiting for her to say something.
“I’m overthinking again, aren’t I?” she mumbled.
“Relax. Enjoy. Let go.”
His voice was so darned seductive. It was so easy to sink into the pleasure of the moment, to lose herself in the whirling lights and giddy lust dancing around her and in her.
His other thigh joined the first one, and he levered her legs wide apart. This time she arched toward him with a soft cry of need. If she was going to do this, then by golly, she was really going to go for it. She flung caution to the wind and launched herself toward him. He caught her up against his shockingly hard body and kissed her deeply. And then he took her. There wasn’t another word for it. He invaded boldly, filling her to the point of delicious discomfort, and then he made her his. Fast then slow, gently and then with driving force, he made love to her.
When she would have closed her eyes, embarrassed over how wantonly she was throwing herself at him, he wouldn’t stand for it and made her open her eyes to look at him. When she would have shrunk away from the hoarse cries of pleasure torn from her own throat, he kissed her until she gave those cries to him. And when he drove her to release a second and even a third time, he ripped away any last vestiges of inhibition she might have clung to, with the sheer excess of pleasure he gave her.
Her entire being was raw and exposed to him. He played her body and soul like the master artist he was before he finally joined her in one last, shattering climax. It tore his name from her throat on a primal note she’d never sung before. It was, in a word, magnificent. And better yet, she wasn’t alone.
He collapsed beside her on the now-damp sheets, breathing heavily. She rolled over and pushed up on his chest to stare down at him, and that was when the full broadside of the whiskey hit her. Dizzy and reckless, she retained just enough reason to know this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a girl like her. One not to be missed.
“If I let you rest a little, do you think we could do that again?” she asked.
A broad grin spread across his face.
She added hastily, “Well, not that exactly. There’s something else I’ve always wanted to try …”
“Do tell. What does a nice girl like you think about alone in the deep of night?”
And in her whiskey-induced honesty, she told him. Every lurid, naughty detail of every lurid, naughty fantasy she’d ever had. By the time she was finished, his eyes blazed with desire and his body was obviously more than eager to play along.
“I don’t think we can get to all of that tonight, Chloe, but we can definitely make a dent in your list.” He rolled out of bed and fetched her discarded panty hose. With quick efficiency, he tied her wrists together and then to the headboard and knelt between her knees, his eyes burning with dark fire.
“Let’s see just how far you’re willing to go, my nice, normal little accountant.”

Chapter 2
Trent slipped out of the hotel’s delivery entrance in the last dark before dawn. He couldn’t sleep anyway, and there was no sense humiliating Chloe by strolling out through the hotel lobby in his rumpled tuxedo for all the staff to see.
Normally, he would’ve spent the night in her bed and enjoyed a morning-after brunch with her, but he had a hunch that, after last night, she’d just as soon wake up alone. For one thing, she was going to have a hell of a hangover. And, if she was telling the truth and had never done any of the things they’d done together last night, he’d lay odds she was going to suffer a rather large dose of morning-after embarrassment. He hadn’t been kidding when he called her a nice girl.
Who’d have guessed such a prim-and-proper lady would be such a wildcat after a few shots of whiskey? She’d pushed even a few of his sexual boundaries last night, and that was saying something. He’d spent most of his post-pubescent life enjoying the favors of beautiful women. But he’d never met one quite like Chloe Jordan, all sweet and virginal in public, and jaw-droppingly not virginal in private.
He crossed the street, stopping at the spot where the SUV had nearly run her down last night. As he’d thought. Not a skid mark in sight. That vehicle had accelerated toward her. Now why would anyone be out to hurt an uptight accountant who lived and worked half a continent away?
And more importantly, who would want to kill her?
Frowning, he returned to his own suite in the men’s club where the wedding had been held. His family owned the apartment, and he used it when he was in town. As its dark wood, leather and Ralph Lauren décor surrounded him, he breathed in the easy, old-world elegance with guilty pleasure. Most of the time he shunned the trappings of his family’s wealth. He was much more likely to be found in a shack on a beach, waxing a surfboard than lounging in high-end men’s clubs. And frankly, he was more at ease in the shack. People were more real there. Had a better sense of what really mattered in life.
Being diagnosed with his illness in his second year of college had put everything in perspective for him. Life was too short to waste doing things or being around people who made him crazy.
But he had to admit, this condo’s luxury was nice once in a while.
He took a six-jet steam shower to work out the worst of the kinks from last night’s athletics with Chloe, and shaved and dressed quickly. Then he sat down at the walnut desk in the corner and made a phone call to Winston Ops.
It was the headquarters of a private, corporate intelligence network for all of the many Winston Enterprises companies around the world. The duty controller, a computer genius named Novak from somewhere in eastern Europe, took his call.
“Trent Hollings, here. I need you to run a quick background check for me on Chloe Jordan.”
“Sunny’s sister?” Novak asked, surprised.
“I think someone tried to kill her last night.”
“Are you serious?” Novak exclaimed.
“As a heart attack.”
The duty controller instantly shifted into all-business mode. “Got it. So, we’re looking for enemies in her life.” Trent heard clacking keys in the background as Novak typed furiously. “How was the wedding?”
“Great party,” Trent answered. “Can’t remember the last time I saw Aiden so happy. He’s a lucky man.”
“Maybe you should find yourself a nice girl and settle down, too.”
He laughed. “Not me. I’ll never slow down enough for any girl to catch me.”
“When you least expect it, one’s gonna come along and trip you all up, buddy.”
Visions of a blonde accountant blowing his mind in bed flashed through his head. “Nah,” Trent replied. “Not me. It’s not like I can give any girl a life evenly faintly resembling normal.” Hell, he couldn’t even promise to give a girl children. With his inherited disorder, careful genetic counseling would be necessary to ensure that his condition—spinal muscular atrophy—wasn’t passed on to his offspring.
“Okay, Trent. I’ve got a preliminary report on our girl. She’s a certified public accountant. Just finished a master’s degree in forensic accounting. Company called Paradeo filed a W-2 on her about six months ago. But they’re an investment firm, not forensic accountants.”
She’d said she was freelancing. And there’d been that reference to taking a company down. Must be investigating her employer for someone else. “Where’s this Paradeo company headquartered?”
“San Francisco. No satellite offices. Anything else you need to know right away, Trent?”
“Do you see anything at a glance that could explain someone trying to run her down in a large SUV?”
“Other than some rich, pissed-off CEO she might have put in jail? Nope. You don’t suppose it has anything to with Code X, do you?” Novak asked.
The controller’s question made Trent’s blood run cold. That was the one place he’d been mentally avoiding going this morning. He’d known it would give him exactly the headache he felt coming on. “I don’t know. Keep digging and let’s see what you come up with before we go there.”
“Roger. I’m on it.”
Trent paced the spacious room restlessly. He never had been able to sit still even before he’d accepted the experimental stem cell therapies that were both his miracle cure and the heart of the Code X project. Toss in a liberal dose of stress and worry now, and he could forget sitting down, let alone being still. He changed out of the clothes he’d donned only minutes before and into running gear. It was early enough that he should be able to stretch his legs a little without anyone seeing him.
He jogged down the stairs, too jumpy to wait for the elevator, and restrained himself until he’d cleared the lobby of the club. But when he hit the sidewalk, he couldn’t contain the bursting energy any longer. He exploded into motion, sprinting down the street with strides that grew longer and faster with every step. In moments he was flying along at twenty-five miles per hour, the wind ripping through his hair and making his eyes water. God, it felt good.
Every time he ran like this, he remembered the early onset of his disease, the progressive muscle weakness, the loss of tendon strength, the continuous respiratory infections, the pain. And the fear. Not knowing what had been wrong with him was the worst of all as his body had literally wasted away before his eyes. It had taken over a year to get the diagnosis. SMA usually showed up in infants and small children, and it threw the doctors off when his case waited until adulthood to present itself.
A delivery truck backed out of an alley in front of him and he dodged around it with a lightning-fast move a professional football player would have envied.
He accelerated again, reveling in the flow of muscles and sinew and blood working in extraordinary harmony, his quick twitch muscles reacting completely off the charts for a normal human. But then, he wasn’t normal at all. Not anymore. Not since Jeff Winston had called and suggested that there might be a radical cure for Trent’s disease. It was highly experimental and had side effects, of course. He’d grabbed on to the lifeline his old friend had thrown him and never looked back. He was entirely and for the rest of his life a creature of Code X.
He ran for nearly an hour, slowing only when people began to emerge onto the streets and he risked someone seeing him race along at world-class sprinter speed for block after block.
He’d turned around to head back to the club when the cell phone in the breast pocket of his skin-tight running shirt vibrated. He slowed to a walk to take the call. It was his boss and friend, Jeff Winston.
“Hey, Jeff. What’s up?”
“Couldn’t you at least sound out of breath after tearing around like you do?” Jeff groused.
Thankfully, along with his quick twitch muscles had come extraordinarily quick oxygen uptake. “Sorry, bro. I’ll try to huff and puff a little. What can I do for you? It’s early for you to be up, isn’t it?”
“I need you here at the club ASAP. Take a cab.”
“I can get there about as fast if I run.”
“I don’t need you drawing any attention to yourself just now,” Jeff answered in clipped tones.
“What’s going on?” Trent was alarmed. It was completely unlike Jeff to be this terse.
“When you get back.”
Trent spotted a taxi stand and jogged to it at normal human speed, chafing at the slowness of the pace. He jumped into the first cab in line and gave the club’s address. Had Novak uncovered something else about Chloe? Something that would explain her attempted murder? What on earth could it be?
The first thing Chloe became aware of was that her brain felt twice its normal size inside a skull that hadn’t expanded one bit. Every beat of her heart sent throbbing pain through her head. As she swam slowly toward consciousness, she registered lying on her stomach among wildly tangled sheets and blankets, which was strange. Usually she was a quiet, neat sleeper who didn’t disturb her bed much. And the rest of it registered. She was naked.
That startled her the rest of the way to full consciousness. She never slept in the buff. What if there was a fire and she had to race outside to safety? She rolled over onto her back and groaned as her entire body protested, sore. God, she felt like she’d been run over by a truck. Vague memory of that exact thing nearly happening tickled the edges of her fuzzy brain.
Memory of Trent came back to her. He’d been such a smooth operator, and she’d been so blessed eager to have him seduce her. Where was he now? Peeling one eyelid open, she groaned as sunlight creeping insidiously past the curtains pierced her skull like a sword. Agonizing pain exploded behind both eyes. No sign of Trent. He and his sexy tuxedo and bedroom eyes were gone. It was as if he’d never been here and knocked her world completely off its foundation.
The old hurt stabbed at her heart. Everybody always left her. Every time she took a chance on caring about someone, she ended up all alone. Her parents. Her foster families. Even Sunny. They all abandoned her sooner or later. An urge to cry nearly overcame her. Was it too much just to want a normal life? To find a nice man, settle down in a modest home, have a few kids and a dog, and be happy?
By way of an answer, her stomach gave a mighty, and threatening, heave. Moaning in pain, she forced herself upright and ran for the toilet. After duly worshipping at the throne of the porcelain god and emptying what little remained in her stomach from last night’s binge, she felt a few inches further away from death. But that wasn’t saying much. A shower sounded good, but the idea of listening to the pounding of water sent her back to bed showerless.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hangover, and she’d never had one that even began to compare to this. Prepared to sleep for another, oh, decade, she crawled back into bed and threw an arm across her eyes.
A jangling noise that nearly split her skull in two made her swear and dive for her cell phone on the nightstand. “‘Lo,” she grumbled.
“Hey, sis! I missed you leaving the party last night.”
Oh, God. Did Sunny have to sound so darned perky this morning? “Sorry. I drank a little too much champagne, and then some guys lit up cigars. The smoke made me nauseous, so I snuck out early.”
“Rats. I was hoping some hot guy picked you up and took you back to his place.”
Visions of the hot guy who’d knocked her off her feet, and then brought her back to her room and knocked her world completely out of orbit flashed into her mind.
Oh. My. God. Had she really asked him to … Had they really … She would never be able to look anyone from this wedding in the eye again … And she could never, ever, face him again … Mortification almost sent her back to the toilet a second time.
“Chloe? Are you still there?”
Her brain engaged belatedly. “Uhh, yeah. I’m here. Why are you calling me, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?”
“Aiden and I are at the airport. He won’t tell me where we’re going, but Jeff loaned us the Winston jet to get there. I just wanted to say goodbye. Aiden says I won’t have phone service where we’re headed.”
“Wow. Sounds private and sexy. Have fun, eh?”
“It’s my honeymoon and my hubby’s a hottie. How can I not have fun?” Sunny retorted, laughing.
The cheerful sound nearly made Chloe’s eyeballs fall right out of her head. She pressed a hand to them to hold them in. “Love you, baby sis.”
“Love you, big sis.”
Chloe groaned as she disconnected the call and turned her cell phone completely off. She prayed to sleep off the mother of all hangovers before she had to go back to San Francisco tomorrow. And then she prayed fervently that Trent Hollings would leave town today and go somewhere far, far away. Forever. There was no way she could ever look him in the eye after what they—what she—had done last night.
She took a solemn vow then and there never to touch alcohol again as long as she lived. The idea of losing all her inhibitions like that again made her positively ill. Who’d have guessed a few shots of whiskey would turn her into such a slut?
Groaning in pain and embarrassment, she pulled the sheet up over her head and prayed for death. Or at least a long, long unconsciousness.
Trent burst into the conference room Jeff Winston had appropriated from the gentlemen’s club to do business in while he was here for the wedding. Several of the other Code X operatives were there, complete with their own genetically engineered mutations, and they all looked worried.
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded without preamble.
Jeff answered, “Novak scared up some video from a traffic camera and ran the license plates of the SUV that tried to run down Chloe Jordan last night.”
“And?”
“And it belongs to a corporation that doesn’t exist.”
Trent frowned. “Come again?”
“It’s registered to a dummy company. Address is a P.O. box that doesn’t exist, phone number is a fake and no company by that name is currently doing business in the United States. It’s a cover for someone.”
“Like who?” he asked his boss.
Jeff shrugged. “No idea. But it does lead me to believe it was no accident last night. Someone was out to hurt Chloe.”
Trent replied grimly, “Wrong. Whoever gunned that SUV at her was out to kill her.”
And that meant Code X had a problem. Chloe’s sister had just married one of Code X’s charter members—a guy who could hold his breath under water for over twelve minutes. And Chloe had spent the past two days in the company of the lot of them at various prewedding functions. How could her attempted murder not be aimed at the Code X team?
Trent suggested hopefully, “She said she’s a forensic accountant. Maybe it was just a bit of revenge by an enemy she’s made in her job.”
“Possible,” Jeff replied slowly. “If that’s the case, we’ll need a complete list of companies she has investigated.” Trent watched as his boss pulled out his cell phone and dialed Chloe’s cell phone number. As Jeff’s frown deepened and he didn’t speak into the device, Trent’s apprehension grew.
Jeff put the phone down. “Her cell’s turned off.”
Trent winced. “She probably turned it off so schmucks like us wouldn’t disturb her.” She was probably sleeping off her hangover. But he wasn’t about to share that little detail with the guys in this room. They would want to know how he knew that, and then they would inevitably draw the exactly correct conclusion. Frankly, it was none of their damned business how he and Chloe had spent the evening. Hell, even if he told them exactly what the two of them had done, these guys would never believe it. They would guffaw that quiet, controlled Chloe Jordan couldn’t possibly be that wild.
Hah. Little did they know. He was a pretty adventurous guy in the sack, but that girl had made him blush a time or two last night. She was some woman.
“Maybe someone should go to her room and check on her,” Jeff suggested, startling Trent out of recollections that were going to get him all hot and bothered very fast.
“Nah. I’m sure she’s just sleeping. She was pretty wiped out last night.”
“You walked her to her room and locked her inside sit?” Jeff asked.
“Yes. I searched her suite from top to bottom before I left. She clearly wasn’t planning on going out again last night and was safe and sound when I left her.”
Of course, she’d also been sexually sated and sleeping like the dead when he slipped out of her bed. She no doubt would need most of today to sleep off the booze and sex, though. A few of the things she’d asked for were going to leave her good and sore for a couple of days, but he’d been careful to do nothing she wouldn’t recover from.
He wasn’t sure he would recover anytime soon, though. How was any woman going to top that for him?
“Rather than bother her, couldn’t we call her employer and ask for a list of companies she’s investigated?” one of the twins, recent Code X additions with truly scary mental skills, suggested.
Trent shook his head. “She mentioned that she’s a freelance consultant. I assume she contracts with law enforcement agencies or maybe banks. If we leave her a message, when she wakes up she can fire us a list of companies she has investigated.” He desperately hoped his efforts to protect their little secret weren’t rousing any suspicions.
Jeff nodded. “In the meantime, someone should keep an eye on her.”
“As in surveillance?” Trent blurted, surprised. Damn. He’d been plotting ways to arrange a repeat of last night, but if the other guys were watching her around the clock, that was going to be hard to pull off. Unless he was the guy doing the surveillance …
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” he volunteered.
Jeff nodded. “I’ll spell you when you need to sleep.”
Speaking of which, it was about time for him to pop some sleeping pills and power down for a few hours. He might be able to go like the Energizer Bunny for days at a time, but when he crashed, he completely shut down. To that end, he commented, “I’m going to go catch a few zzz’s now, so I’ll be good to go tonight.”
Jeff nodded. “I’ll make a call to the concierge at her hotel. He can give us a heads-up if she leaves her room in the next few hours.”
The powwow adjourned, and Trent headed for his own room. He showered again, popped his pills—a sleeping medication that would drop an elephant—and fell into bed. The soft sheets against his naked skin made him think of Chloe draped across him last night, and he fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Trent rolled over and glanced at the clock beside his bed. Six o’clock? Wow. He’d slept all day. Chloe’d tired him out more than he’d realized. Another side effect of his special abilities kicked in and his stomach growled loudly. He’d been known to burn in excess of twelve thousand calories a day when he was really active.
After ordering a steak, two baked potatoes, a large salad and a chocolate milkshake from room service, he moved over to his window to have a look across the street. Chloe’s room was on the fourth floor, last one on the left. No light showed through the curtains. Given that Jeff had left no messages indicating that she’d left her room, she must still be sleeping off last night.
He probably shouldn’t take satisfaction from that, but he couldn’t help it. The idea of having made love to her until she had to sleep all day to recover made him smile. The last time he’d felt this kind of adolescent pride had been his first time with a girl when he was about sixteen.
A houseboy arrived with supper, and he pulled the wheeled cart over by the window to eat. His body eagerly absorbed the calories, and he eventually pushed back his empty plate in deep satisfaction. That should hold him for a few hours. He picked up a newspaper and browsed it while he kept an eye on Chloe’s window.
Somewhere between the business and sports sections, her lights finally came on. Good thing. He was starting to get a little worried about her. About a half hour later, his cell phone rang. His pulse leaped as he dug the device out of his pocket. He was disappointed to see Jeff Winston’s name on the phone.
“Hey, boss.”
“Chloe just sent me a text. Turns out this Paradeo company is her first forensic accounting job. She says she’s been hired to take a look at their books. Didn’t say who hired her, so I assume she doesn’t want to name her employer. We’ll be in the conference room, researching Paradeo if you feel up to helping. You may have a long night tonight watching our girl, so don’t feel like you have to come down.”
“No problem. I slept and just finished eating. I’m on my way.”
As the group researched Chloe’s employer, nothing seemed out of the ordinary about it. Paradeo was a smallish investment firm specializing in Central and South American markets. They reluctantly concluded that the Code X team might be forced to follow her and wait until another attempt was made on her life before they identified her attacker. Assuming there was one.
But Trent knew what he’d seen. That SUV had waited until she stepped into the street and then gone straight at her with the intent to seriously harm or kill her.
“Anybody know Chloe’s travel schedule?” Jeff asked the room at large.
Novak’s voice came across the speakerphone almost immediately. “She’s flying out of Denver Stapleton tomorrow morning. Arrives in San Francisco at 2:10 in the afternoon.”
Jeff nodded. “We’ve got the manpower here to get her to Stapleton and onto that plane safely. Trent, if you want to go on ahead to California and get into position at the other end to take over watching her, that would be great.”
He didn’t like the idea of leaving her, even for a few hours. But what choice did he have? The odds were much greater that she’d be attacked at home rather than here where she was surrounded by Jeff and the rest of the Code X team.
Reluctantly, he packed his bags and headed for the late flight Novak arranged for him with Jeff’s last warning ringing in his ears. “It would kill Sunny if anything happened to her sister. And you know what’s on the line if this thing turns out to be aimed at Code X. I’m counting on you, Trent.”
One thing he knew for sure. Chloe Jordan was not getting hurt on his watch.

Chapter 3
Chloe inhaled the seaweed and fish smell of San Francisco Bay, and grief that never grew less painful washed over her. The scent reminded her painfully of living on the boat with her family for that last year, before Mom and Dad had left her and Sunny behind and sailed to their deaths in the Indian Ocean to protest commercial fishing practices decades before it was cool to do so.
It had been a mistake to take a job in this town. Too many memories lurked here, waiting to ambush her. Too much loss. Too many ghosts. This was the last place she’d been happy, innocent, carefree. But all of that was long gone.
Not that Denver was destined to fare much better in her memory. Her experience there had been an embarrassing anomaly in too many ways to count.
In spite of it being in San Francisco, she was glad to get back to her regularly scheduled life. Her orderly, quiet, controlled life. No more whiskey, no more drunk hookups, and no more unleashed fantasies.
She took a taxi to her modest apartment in a relatively quiet corner of downtown. Stepping into the spartan elegance of her modern Asian-fusion flat, she soaked in the calm of it. She hit Play on her phone’s voice messages while she set about unpacking her things.
“Chloe, Don. We need to talk. Call me.”
Don Fratello was the FBI agent-in-charge of the secret investigation into Paradeo Inc., a firm that was suspected of being a money laundering operation for a Mexican drug cartel. Despite her inexperience in forensic work, Don had cut her a break and given her a shot at this gig, for which she would be eternally grateful to him. It was nigh unto impossible to get hired without experience, and until she got hired for some jobs she couldn’t get any experience. This chance he’d given her was a huge deal and she wasn’t about to blow it.
She was working as quickly as she could on the case, but the firm used the most complicated accounting system she’d ever seen—a possible sign that Paradeo was playing fast and loose with where its dollars came from and went.
She put a load of laundry into the tiny washing machine that was one of her flat’s best selling points and picked up the phone. “Hey, Don. It’s Chloe.”
“Are you back in town yet?” he demanded without preamble. “How was the kid sister’s wedding?” he added as an obvious afterthought.
“Great. She’s safely married off, and I’m a free woman now.” She’d meant the comment as a joke, but what Trent said about her being alone in the world came back in a flash. A hot knife of pain twisted in her gut. Damn him, anyway.
“There’ve been a few developments at Paradeo since you left.”
Interested, she replied, “Do tell.”
“A new guy’s been brought in. Name’s Miguel Herrera. Title’s Chief of Security. He looks like a major thug to me. My contacts south of the border have heard rumors of the guy strong-arming various judges and political officials.”
“Which means what? You want me to target him specifically because he’s a big fish?”
“No!” the FBI agent replied sharply. “Steer clear of him. This man could be dangerous. As in you disappear and never come back if he figures out what you’re up to.”
She highly doubted it was as bad as all that. This was San Francisco, for goodness’ sake. Not some lawless Mexican frontier town.
“This guy could be a drug cartel hit man. If that’s the case, he won’t hesitate to kill you or worse.”
“What’s worse than being killed?” she asked.
“Trust me. You don’t want to find out. Just be careful, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll be careful.”
She’d accuse Don of being a nervous Nellie if he wasn’t an experienced FBI field agent. But if he was that uptight about Herrera, she’d take his advice and stay away from Paradeo’s new security chief.
She hung up the phone and resumed listening to her messages. There were the usual hang-ups from telemarketers, a request for gently used clothing items for some charity, and then another male voice began to speak in hushed tones.
“Chloe? It’s me, Barry Lind, from Paradeo.”
Barry? She looked up, surprised, at her telephone. What was he doing calling her? He was a bookkeeper and did basic data-entry work for the firm. He was very good at his job but not particularly social with his coworkers. Chloe considered him at best a casual acquaintance.
His tense voice continued, “I didn’t know who else to call. Can we meet somewhere to talk? Outside of the office. Call me as soon as you get this message.”
Bingo. This was exactly the sort of break her professors had told her to look for during an investigation. The statistics were shocking as to how often the break came from a low-level worker. They always knew all the dirt.
Eagerly, she dialed the number Barry had left for her. “Hi, it’s Chloe. I just got back into town and got your message—”
He cut her off sharply. “Can’t talk now. Julio’s after work? Say six o’clock?”
“Uhh, sure. I’ll be there.” Wow. He really sounded nervous. Her stomach leaped in anticipation. He must have stumbled onto something big. Perfect. The faster she took down Paradeo, the faster she could get away from thugs like this Miguel Herrera guy.
She unpacked, shopped, finished her laundry, and generally put her life in order while she waited for six o’clock to roll around. Finally, it was time to go. The streets were crowded at this time of day as workers poured out of their offices and headed for home.
Barry was waiting for her when she got there. His sandy brown buzz cut was distinctive in the shadows. The guy was not ex-military, but at a glance, someone might mistake his short hair and beefy build for that of an ex-Marine. He looked past her nervously as she slipped into the booth, predictably a dark one in the back corner.
“Hey, Barry. How are you?”
“I’ve been better,” he muttered without moving his lips, his gaze sliding away from her and over her right shoulder. Wow. He was acting really nervous.
She smiled broadly. “A word of advice. If you act like a criminal with a big secret, people will watch you more closely. Relax. Try to look natural. No one’s going to walk up to the table and shoot us.”
“That’s what you think,” he grumbled. His hands were planted on the table like it was going to fly away if he didn’t hold it down.
She reached a sympathetic hand out to him and gave his icy fingers a squeeze. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“So, yesterday I was working late. With the end of the quarter coming up and you out of town, we were behind.” She nodded her understanding. “Anyway, I took a break to go to the bathroom. Except the one on our floor was closed for cleaning. No problem. I went upstairs to use the john.” A sheen of sweat broke out on his upper lip, and he paused to mop at it with a cocktail napkin.
“So there I am, sitting on the can doing my business, and these guys walk in. And they’re talking, see. In Spanish. My wife’s from Mexico, and I’ve learned it from her over the years. Anyway, these two guys are talking about needing to destroy records.”
“What kinds of records?” she prompted while he paused to mop his face again and grimaced.
“Financial records from Paradeo. They said there was this new accountant poking around and they had to get rid of the paper trail.” His gaze darted toward the door yet again. Man, this guy was tense. And the feeling was contagious.
If Paradeo’s executives were onto her, she would never get the dirt on them. They’d erase everything from the company’s computers and she’d never find a trace of anything. She asked, “Who were the executives? Did you recognize their voices?”
“I think one of them was the new guy. Herrerra. Oh. You haven’t heard about him, yet, have you? New Chief of Security. Supposed to be a real hard-ass.”
Crud. The last thing she needed was a violent killer suspicious of her.
“What did you do?” she asked Barry belatedly.
“I waited till they left, then I went back to my desk and I copied every last financial record I could lay my hands on in the company’s computers.”
Chloe gaped. “Are you serious?”
“Yup.” He reached into his jacket pocket then laid his palm flat on the table and slid it toward her. “Take this,” he muttered ventriloquist style.
She laid her hand over his and as he withdrew his, she felt the oblong shape of a flash drive. She palmed it unobtrusively and stuck it in the pocket of her jeans. “What do you want me to do with these files?”
“You are the new accountant they were talking about, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then poke around and see what you can find, eh?”
She blinked, startled at how directly this guy was telling her to uncover the dirt in his company. “What do you have against Paradeo?”
His gaze hardened. “My wife is Mexican, remember? I have heard of Miguel Herrera’s associates. If Paradeo is mixed up with animals like that, then the company needs to go down.”
“Fair enough. I’ll take a look at these files and see what we’ve got.” She finished the soda the waitress left her and tried to engage Barry in small talk for long enough that it wouldn’t look suspicious if she got up and left. But the guy was so freaked-out he couldn’t follow the thread of even the simplest conversation. Eventually, she gave up and signaled for the bill. And all the while, that flash drive was burning a hole in her pocket. She couldn’t wait to see what it revealed.
Trent fidgeted in the produce market across from some dive called Julio’s. Who was the guy Chloe was with? He gnashed his teeth as she reached out again and touched the guy’s hand across the table. Was that her boyfriend? He looked pretty normal. Could no doubt give Chloe a white picket fence and 2.2 kids and a Volvo station wagon. All the things Trent could never give a woman. His gut twisted in something resembling jealousy but a hundred times more painful.
Since when did this particular green monster bite him in the butt? He never cared who women slept with besides him. He’d always figured what was okay for him was okay for the women he had sex with, too. And it wasn’t like he was looking for a permanent relationship complete with all the trappings. But Chloe … she had managed to blow his mind sufficiently that he might consider pursuing an actual, exclusive relationship with a woman like her. Okay, with her specifically.
But as that bastard in the bar leaned across the table to murmur something intimate to Chloe, Trent tasted for the first time the bitter gall of having been a one-night stand when he wanted to be more.
Had she played him? Was she the accomplished pickup artist who’d conned him into giving the hot sex she wanted and then walked away without a backward glance? He was pretty sure he could hear women laughing uproariously on several continents at this very moment.
And to think he’d been plotting ways to romance her, to sweep her off her feet and into a relationship with him. All the while, she’d just been using him. Damn, she had that vulnerable and lonely act down to a fine science. He could not believe he’d fallen for it!
Fuming, he moved to another vantage point inside the small grocery store he was using for surveillance. In this day and age, a guy couldn’t lurk in a dark alley for too long without someone calling the cops. No one wanted a terrorist hanging out on their block.
“You gonna buy something, mister, or are you just fondling the fruit?”
Trent glanced down at the tiny Korean woman glaring up at him like he was some kind of pervert. “Yeah, sure. I’m buying.” He threw a few bananas, a bunch of grapes and a container of cut, fresh pineapple into a small basket and shoved them at the woman. He hated leaving the window, but he had no choice. And he could do without seeing the bastard kiss Chloe. The way the guy was leaning across the table, he was gonna lay a big wet one on her any second.
Trent threw a couple of bills on the counter and waited impatiently for the proprietor to ring up his sale and count out his change. Hurriedly, he grabbed the plastic bag and headed for the front of the store.
Dammit! Chloe and Lover Boy were no longer at their table. Trent bolted out the grocery’s front door and looked up and down the street frantically. There. Pale, golden hair in a flawless French twist. Relief made him faintly nauseous as he hurried after Chloe. She was almost a block ahead of him.
Not that he had any trouble catching up. Even at a walk, his extraordinarily quick reflexes allowed him to cover a lot of ground fast without really seeming to. Chloe crossed a street, but a changing traffic light forced him to wait at the corner. She opened up a gap with him again. But he had gotten close enough to realize with a start that Lover Boy was not with her. Where had he gotten off to?
Trent didn’t know whether to be more relieved that Chloe hadn’t gone home with the guy or worried that she was out strolling around after dark by herself when someone wanted to kill her.
The light changed and he pushed through the thinning foot traffic until he was within about fifty feet of her. She walked another three blocks or so and never once checked behind her to see if anyone was following her. Someone had to have a serious conversation with her about situational awareness. Of course, she probably had no idea that she was in danger, let alone the target of a would-be assassin. Despite Jeff’s decision not to alarm Chloe until they had proof someone was trying to kill her, Trent was going to have that talk with her. Soon.
Although how he was supposed to just call her and casually bring up the fact that she was in mortal danger, he had no idea. Hell, she probably wouldn’t pick up the phone if she knew it was him. Not after the way she’d taken advantage of him in Denver.
He was irritated enough that his attention lagged. One second she was in front of him, and the next, she was gone. Startled, he darted to the spot she’d been standing in a few seconds before. Where did she go? He was at the mouth of a dark alley full of trash Dumpsters and piles of bulging garbage bags. Several apartment buildings were nearby and she could have ducked into any one of them. Her place was still a half-dozen blocks away … maybe she was rendezvousing with the eager schmuck from Julio’s.
Trent heard a muffled noise behind him and leaped into the alley. He made out violent movement in the gloom and a female form being dragged deeper into the alley by a much larger male form. A flash of pale hair caught what little light trickled in from the street.
His muscles coiled and sprang so fast he barely managed to control the motion. He regained his balance and his fist shot past Chloe’s head to smash into her attacker’s face almost too quickly for his eye to see the movement.
The mugger grunted and shoved her hard into the brick wall beside him. She cried out and her knees crumpled, but Trent had no time for her, yet. He threw punches at lightning speed until the mugger started to draw a weapon in slow motion from the back of his waistband. It was ridiculously easy to knock the weapon out of the guy’s hand with a fast chopping blow. The guy’s mouth opened slowly and his arm cocked back at what seemed to be about one-tenth that of normal speed.
Trent brought his right knee up as fast and hard as he could and slammed it into the guy’s crotch. The attacker grunted and doubled over right into Trent’s best uppercut. The guy went down like a rock.
Trent spun toward Chloe. She was slowly sliding down the wall toward the ground. He reached out, grabbed her shoulders and dragged her upright. She let out a squeak of terror.
“Chloe. It’s me, Trent. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
She sagged against him, taking huge, sobbing breaths. He held her for a moment, registering for the first time the stench of the alley.
“Honey, I need you to stand up on your own for a minute, okay?”
She nodded against his chest but made no move to step away from him. He pushed her gently back against the wall and knelt down to check on the status of the attacker. The guy was out cold. He looked about thirty and was dark-haired and scruffy. Might be Hispanic, maybe Mediterranean. Hard to tell in the dark.
Trent reached into the guy’s back pocket and whipped out the attacker’s wallet. He pulled out his own cell phone and took a quick picture of the guy’s driver’s license. Trent put the I.D. back and stuffed the wallet back in the man’s pants. He searched the guy’s pockets for anything else that might be informative and found nothing. He did pick up the attacker’s .38 pistol, which had skidded a half-dozen feet away, and tucked it in his sweatshirt’s front pocket. If they got lucky, the gun might tell the guys at Winston Ops who this yahoo worked for.
“Is that really you?” Chloe asked tentatively. “You’re not a hallucination?”
“Yup, I’m me. In the flesh.” She looked like hell warmed over. “C’mon, Chloe. Let’s get you home.”
“The police … arrest him … report …”
“I’ll take care of it,” Trent answered smoothly. He pitched his voice to calm and reassure her. The last thing he needed was police snooping around and asking too many questions. Besides, the beating he’d administered to her would-be assailant was a more effective deterrent than anything the cops could do. However, it also opened Trent up to some questions by the police that he’d really rather not answer. Like how he was so fast, and had disarmed the assailant so easily, and why he didn’t have a scratch on him.
“I didn’t recognize you in those clothes,” Chloe commented randomly.
He glanced down at his jeans riding low on his hips and his University of Hawaii hoodie sweatshirt. This was what he usually wore. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’ve only seen you in a tux or—” She broke off.
Or naked. He grinned down at her. If she could think about sex after having just been assaulted, she was going to be just fine once she got over the initial shock.
They walked the rest of the way to her place in silence. He watched without comment as she let herself into her apartment. But when she reached for a light switch, he forestalled her. “Stay here,” he murmured.
She nodded as he slipped into the darkness and took a quick look around her place. It was as tidy as her hotel room had been. Its spare, modern furnishings left little or no room for someone to hide, and his search was complete in under a minute.
“Okay, Chloe. It’s safe. You can turn on the lights.”
A row of recessed halogen lights went on in the snug kitchen that was open to the living room. He watched cautiously as she dumped her coat on a bar stool and unceremoniously started stripping off her outer clothes in front of him.
“Whoa, there. What are you doing?” he asked in alarm. She wasn’t going to jump his bones here and now, was she?
“I stink. I can smell him on me,” she muttered.
And then he noticed her hands were shaking and she was unnaturally pale. In fact, her entire body was trembling. He moved to her swiftly and wrapped her in his arms. She went stiff against him.
“It’s okay, honey. I’ve got you. You’re safe. I swear. You can let it go, now.”
She might have been close to tears in the alley, but she didn’t break down like he expected. Instead, she pushed against his chest and he turned her loose, surprised. Where was the funny, relaxed, adventurous woman from two nights ago? Surely she was locked inside Chloe somewhere.
“Turn your back,” she ordered tightly.
He did so, frowning. He felt her move past him and head for the single bedroom that opened off the living room. The door closed with a thud and a lock snicked into place. She thought a lock would work against him, huh? He didn’t disabuse her of the notion. All the guys at Code X learned how to pick nastier locks than her little bedroom door’s as part of their extensive military-style training.
He sat down on her sofa to wait her out. He didn’t buy for a minute that this tense, uptight woman was the real Chloe Jordan. She’d emerge eventually, and then they’d have that conversation about who might want to kill her.
Chloe scrubbed furiously at her skin under a scalding hot shower until it was red and felt raw. Whether she was trying to get rid of the feel of her attacker’s arms or the feel of her rescuer’s she couldn’t say. Where in the heck had Trent Hollings come from, materializing out of nowhere to save her? He must have been following her. But why? Obviously, he was some kind of stalking creep. She couldn’t believe he’d followed her from Denver all the way to San Francisco. Apparently his notion of playing for a living included terrorizing single women. Was he some kind of pervert?
An insidious thrill that he might have flown halfway across the country to see her again insinuated itself into the back of her brain. She tried to scrub it away, too, but failed.
After rinsing shampoo out of her hair for the third time, she gave up on getting any cleaner and stepped out of her shower. She felt horribly vulnerable being naked with Trent in the next room, and forewent her usual, meticulous drying and moisturizing ritual to hurry into clothes. She pulled on jeans and a bulky sweater that was the most concealing article of clothing she owned. She even put on socks and shoes. Anything to cover herself from him. The humiliation of waking up stark naked in that hotel room and knowing he’d seen her—all of her—and done all those things to her, and that she had let him, was far too fresh in her mind.
She dried her hair and pushed it back from her face with a simple headband. In her efforts to delay facing him even further, she even applied a little makeup. Finally, when even her watch was strapped to her wrist and she couldn’t think of a single thing more to do, she gathered the rest of her filthy clothing in her arms.
Oh, God. The flash drive. The mugger had groped her coat pockets—no doubt looking for her wallet. She didn’t remember if the guy had reached into her pants pockets, though. She’d been too panicked to register such details.
Chloe reached frantically into the pocket of her jeans and felt a hard rectangle of plastic. Exhaling in relief, she tucked the drive into her underwear drawer. It wasn’t the most original hiding place ever, but it would do until she could get rid of Trent Hollings and make a bunch of copies of the data files. And she wasn’t giving him permission to go fishing through her lingerie anytime soon.
Steeling herself to face the devil, she opened her bedroom door and stepped into the living room. As she’d expected, he was still sprawled on her sofa, waiting. In that baggy sweatshirt and tennis shoes with his hair all tousled, he looked like an overgrown kid. She could barely believe he’d been the dark, dangerous lover of two nights ago.
“Feel better?” he asked neutrally.
“Yes, thank you,” she answered equally neutrally. Lord, she barely recognized him like this with that tousled hair, sloppy clothes and dark stubble on his jaw. He looked nothing like the wealthy trust-fund playboy he apparently was. He reminded her of some surfer-dude, hippie throwback of her parents’ days. Ugh. She much preferred him in an Italian designer tuxedo.

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