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One quick glance over her shoulder, and she let out a sigh of relief. Nobody had followed her. Why would anyone be following her? As far as the CIA knew, a North Korean soldier had shot her dead in the DMZ and a trustworthy navy SEAL had witnessed her death.
She could trust Quinn not to out her. Besides, if he did and the CIA brought her in, he’d be going down with her. She’d make sure of that.
Traffic got heavier as she got closer to the French Quarter. She kept her eye on the side mirror to monitor anything unusual behind her, and would slip between cars if someone seemed to be following too closely or for too long.
When she reached the streets of the French Quarter, still teeming with tourists, she located the bar and then stashed the scooter on a side street. She slid from the seat and ran her fingers through her hair. Her contact had indicated the bar had a casual atmosphere, but she didn’t want to look like she’d just come in from a horse ride.
She ducked to peer into the side-view mirror and pulled a lipstick from the purse strapped across her body. She hadn’t thought to primp before accosting Quinn in his apartment, but then she hadn’t thought much at all about what she wanted to accomplish by seeing him.
To make sure the heat still blazed between them? Check. To see if he still had a body that could weaken her knees? Check. To find out if her presence would make him happy? Check.
She had to admit to herself that seeing him...disheveled had given her a small, petty sense of pleasure. It had also backed up his claim that he’d had a change of heart about shooting her. Quinn wouldn’t be drinking if something weren’t troubling him.
Now that she’d confirmed that, she’d have to tell him about Bella. He deserved to know about his daughter, even though he’d never mentioned wanting children to her.
She straightened up and pulled her blouse over the gun in her waistband. She didn’t expect trouble from her contact, but she had to be prepared for anything. Ariel had vouched for him, and that was good enough for Rikki.
She’d know her guy by his blue Dodgers cap in a city with no pro baseball team. Rikki joined the throng of tourists still crowding Bourbon Street after midnight, and quickened her pace when she saw the street for the bar up ahead.
Someone plowed into her and she spun around, her hand hovering at her waist. The drunk who’d bumped her gave her a sloppy smile and raised his drink. She stepped to the side and rounded the next corner. A green neon sign announced the Gator Lounge, and Rikki surveyed the pedestrians behind her before ducking inside the darkness.
She shivered as the air-conditioning hit her warm skin. She’d overdressed for the heat and humidity in jeans, a blouse and tennies, but shorts and a T wouldn’t have worked for breaking into Quinn’s place and carrying a weapon and cuffs.
Her gaze flickered across the small cocktail tables and then rested on the back of a man seated at the bar, a blue baseball cap on his head.
Rikki scooped in a breath and threaded her way through the tables. As she hopped onto the stool next to her contact, she waved at the bartender.
“What can I getcha?” The bartender slapped a napkin on the bar in front of her.
“Light beer, no glass.” She slid a glance to her right to see if her words registered with the man in the Dodgers hat.
She waited for his prearranged response—a folding of all four corners of his napkin.
He picked at the label on his beer bottle with his fingernail.
She held her breath.
The bartender placed her beer on the napkin. “Three dollars. Running a tab?”
“No.” Her eyes glued to her contact’s cocktail napkin, she unzipped the front compartment of her purse and pulled out a five.
Finally the man beside her dipped his head. “I have what you want, but who are you?”
The question had her convulsively clenching her fist around the bill in her hand. That was not part of the deal. He wasn’t supposed to ask any questions. He was supposed to hand over a flash drive with information—after folding the damned corners of his napkin.
She turned toward him and smiled sweetly. “You can’t possibly have what I want...sugar. And who the hell are you?”
He jerked his thumb upward, hitting the bill of his cap.
Rikki’s heart stuttered. None of this made sense. He had half of the plan right, and it couldn’t be just a coincidence. Who else would be wearing a Dodgers cap in this particular bar in New Orleans at this exact time?
Her laugh tinkled as she creased her money and tucked it beneath a candle. “Sorry, I’m no Dodgers fan. In fact, I don’t even like baseball.”
Wedging one foot on the floor, she took a quick gulp of her beer. She needed to abandon this rendezvous—and fast.
As she shoved herself to her feet, the man grabbed her wrist and growled in her ear, “I have a gun pointed at your ribs. Make a move, and I’ll take you down.”
Chapter Four
Quinn plowed through the crowd of people on Bourbon Street, stepping on a few toes and upsetting a few drinks. The Gator Lounge occupied a side street, and he made for the corner of that street like a heat-seeking missile.
Before he stepped through the front door of the bar, he tugged his baseball cap low on his forehead. If Rikki made him as soon as he walked into the bar, he’d lose his chance to find out what business she had in New Orleans. He might lose his chance of ever seeing her again.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he hunched his shoulders and dipped his head. Two steps into the bar, he scanned it quickly, and his heart jumped in his chest.
His gaze locked onto Rikki and a man in a blue cap heading for the back of the bar. Quinn had frequented enough bars in the past few months to know this one led to an alley running behind it. Rikki and her companion were headed either for the restrooms or out the back door. Either way, he’d be in the vicinity to intercept them.
He backed out of the Gator Lounge and jogged through a small courtyard between buildings. He hugged the side of the bar and poked his head around the corner into the alley.
The blood in his veins ran cold as he watched the man propel Rikki in front of him—by force. Every line in her body screamed that she didn’t want to be in his company or be going anywhere with him.
Plenty of people had seeped into this alley off the main street, and Quinn joined their ranks, edging closer to Rikki and her abductor.
The guy in the cap seemed distracted. He didn’t notice the pedestrians who passed by him and Rikki, wasn’t expecting any kind of intervention—and that was the way Quinn liked it.
Quinn joined a trio of late-night revelers and as they walked past Rikki and the man, Quinn dropped back. He reached out and grabbed the man’s arm, twisting it behind him before he could use the weapon gripped in his hand.
Rikki made a muffled cry and dropped to the ground.
Quinn gave the man’s arm a quick yank and heard the crack of his bone.
The man howled, his legs buckling beneath him.
Quinn heard a shout behind him. “Hey, hey. What are you doing?”
Plucking the gun from the man’s useless arm, Quinn kicked him in the gut for good measure.
Someone came up behind Quinn and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”
As Quinn shrugged off the stranger’s hand, he slid the man’s weapon beneath his shirt. “Dude was taking off with my girl. You’re comin’ home with me, Lila.”
Rikki grabbed the sleeve of Quinn’s T-shirt, glanced over her shoulder at the concerned onlooker and shrugged. “Jealousy.”
Quinn hustled Rikki out of the alley before someone called the cops or an ambulance. When they hit Bourbon Street, Quinn whipped the hat from his head and clasped it against his side with his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. How the hell did you know where I was?”
“Car?”
“Scooter a few blocks away.”
“You wear a helmet with that thing?”
She poked him in the side. “You’re concerned about helmet safety at a time like this?”
“Let’s get that helmet from your scooter, and then we’ll hop on my bike.”
“If you see me to my scooter, I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” He gripped her upper arm. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. Some guy with a gun almost took you away—again. I wanna know what kind of danger you’re in, and I wanna help. I owe you that.”
“Really...” She tripped as he pinched her arm tighter. “Okay. My scooter’s around the next corner.”
Quinn loosened his hold on her and smoothed his fingers over the bunched material of her blouse. If he’d learned anything about Rikki during their short affair, he knew she didn’t respond to halfhearted attempts at persuasion—or lovemaking.
She pointed to a small electric job with a white helmet locked to the back. “That’s it.”
“Let’s grab it and go. You don’t know if they ID’d your vehicle or followed you.”
“No.” She bent over the scooter and released her helmet. “I was not followed from your place—unless it was by you. How’d you know where I was?”
“Later. My motorcycle is back toward the bar.” He patted his waistband. “I got the guy’s gun, so unless he has a backup he’s not going to be taking any shots at you.”
“The way his bone cracked when you twisted his arm behind his back, I don’t think he could handle any weapon right now.” She crossed her arms over her helmet, hugging it to her midsection.
“When I saw him hustling you away at gunpoint, I wanted to do worse than break his arm, but I don’t need to be charged with murder or even questioned at this point. Who was he?” He placed his hand at the small of her back and propelled her across the street.
“Later.”
As they reached the other side of the street, Quinn ran his hand along the waistband of Rikki’s jeans, sitting low on the curve of her hips.
She stiffened beneath his touch. “I don’t think it’s the time or place to be groping me.”
“I’m not groping you, unless you want me to.” He briefly cupped her derriere through the tight denim. “What happened to your gun and handcuffs?”
“He relieved me of them and dropped them in a Dumpster right outside the club.”
Quinn muttered an expletive. “Maybe we can retrieve them tomorrow.”
“We?”
“Here’s my bike. Get that helmet on and hop on the back.”
She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay to drive this thing? You were sleeping off a bender when I sneaked into your apartment.”
“The events since that time have gone a long way to sober me up.”
She held out her hand. “Doesn’t matter how you feel, Quinn. Your blood alcohol level is probably still over the legal limit. You don’t want to get arrested for murder or driving while under the influence.”
He jingled the keys and glanced down at his Honda. “Can you manage a bike this size? It’s not your little scooter.”
She snorted. “Hop on the back.”
Rikki handled the bike like she handled everything else—with confidence and ease. He did have to help her hoist the bike onto its kickstand, but she’d been right about taking the wheel—or the handlebars. He’d been an idiot to take a chance like that on the bike, no matter how sober he felt, but he couldn’t stand to see her waltz right out of his life just after he’d discovered she’d survived the ordeal in North Korea.
How the hell had she escaped that torture?
As they approached his front door, Rikki hung back. “You didn’t leave your place unlocked again, did you? We’re not going to find Alice waiting in your bed, are we? Or worse?”
“I can dispense with Alice easily enough, but if that man who had you at gunpoint has any friends, we want to make sure he hasn’t ID’d me and dispatched one of his cohorts to wait for us.”
Rikki’s brown eyes widened as if the thought had never occurred to her. If it hadn’t, her spy skills needed some refreshment.
Where had she been since escaping from North Korea?
He tucked her behind him. “Wait here while I give it a quick check.”
Her hand grabbed his side, and she lifted her abductor’s gun from his waistband. “Now I’m armed, too. We’ll take ’em on together.”
“I forgot who I was dealing with.” He unlocked his door and pushed it open slowly with his foot. When it stood wide, he entered his apartment with his weapon sweeping the room.
Rikki closed and locked the door behind them and crept in beside him, peeling off to check out the back rooms. She called out, “All clear.”
Quinn peered over the counter into the kitchen. “All clear here.”
Rikki joined him and blew out a breath. “How would that guy have ID’d you? He barely got a look at you before you took him down.”
“If he knows who you are, he might make the connection from New Orleans to me and me to you.”
“There aren’t many people who knew what we did in Dubai.” Her lashes fluttered, and she got busy putting away the spare gun. “I mean, that we...hooked up. I don’t think some random person from intelligence is going to make that link between me and you.”
“Intelligence? Is that who that was? You said it yourself earlier. The CIA thinks you’re dead.”
She raised her shoulders to her ears. “I don’t know who he was, and more important, he didn’t know who I was.”
“Are you telling me that was some kind of random abduction?” Quinn shook his head. “No common street thug is going to get over on you, Rikki, especially when you have a gun and cuffs on you.”
“I didn’t say he was a common criminal. The guy had mad skills himself and I’m not downplaying your heroic rescue, but he’d let his guard down by the time he got me outside the Gator Lounge. He wasn’t expecting anyone to come riding to my defense.”
“You think he was from the Company?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t get that far in our acquaintance, but he did not know who I was. He asked me.”
“Maybe I am still drunk.” Quinn massaged his temple with two fingers. “If he didn’t know who you were and he was some kind of spy, why was he abducting you and why were you meeting him?”
Rikki hopped on a stool, straddling it, knees wide. “First, you. How did you know I was going to the Gator Lounge when I left here?”
“I didn’t know you were going straight there when you took off, but I saw the text message come through.” He clicked his tongue. “Careless, Rikki. I was looking straight down at your phone, but then maybe you wanted me to see that message.”
She shot up on the stool, her back ramrod straight. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Now you. Who were you meeting at the Gator and why?” He held up one finger. “And don’t even try lying to me.”
She slumped, her shoulders rounding, her hands on her knees. “I don’t know exactly who I was meeting. We had a series of clues for each other, a back-and-forth, starting with his Dodgers cap.”
“That guy was wearing a Dodgers cap. What happened?”
“I spotted him at the bar, everything on track. I ordered a beer, using the agreed-upon language, but he didn’t reciprocate. He went off script. My contact didn’t know who I was and wasn’t supposed to ask, but this guy...” She waved one hand in the air.
“You figured he wasn’t your guy or maybe your guy had been replaced? What did you do?”
“I admitted nothing to him and was getting ready to abandon the mission. I must’ve telegraphed that because the next thing I knew, he had his gun poking me in the side.”
Quinn crossed his arms, curling his fingers into his biceps. “Did he ask you any more questions at that point?”
“Nope. Started marching me away to God-knows-where.” She captured the unfamiliar brown hair in one hand and curled it around her fist.
Quinn’s gaze locked onto the dark, silky strands. Even without her wavy red hair and bright blue eyes, he’d recognized Rikki in a flash. Why wouldn’t he? She’d been in his dreams nightly.
He tugged on a lock of his own hair, which he’d grown out since his previous deployment. “Is that a wig? It’s so...different.”
Her mouth formed an O and released a little puff of air. “I thought we were talking about my abductor.”
“We are, we will, just wondering about the transformation.” The warmth from his chest began creeping up his neck.
Even discussing a violent incident and a mystery, Quinn couldn’t tamp down his attraction to Rikki. He could take her right now, across that kitchen counter, bent over that stool, and not give another thought to her mysterious meeting or the man he’d beaten down in the alley.
What did any of it matter with this woman back in his life, sitting right in front of him, inches away?
She tossed her head, and the dark hair flowed over one shoulder. “It’s not a wig. I had my hair straightened when I had it colored. It’ll last for several weeks—as long as I need.”
Quinn ran both hands over his face as if waking from a long, drugged sleep. “As long as you need to do what, Rikki? What are you doing in New Orleans? What was that meeting all about?”
“The man I was supposed to meet had something for me, something that might help me clear my name. I need that. I need something before I can go to the CIA and reveal that I’m still alive—and no traitor.” She blinked and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.
The Rikki he knew, the woman who’d dumped him in Dubai, never cried. But that woman had been a trusted CIA operative at the top of her game and still on the rise.
When she’d succumbed to him, knowing her superiors would frown on her conduct, knowing she could be reprimanded, she’d spun out of control. Their desire for each other had been so great they’d both thrown caution to the wind. They’d made love in glass elevators high above the glittering city, coupled in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf in a place that frowned upon spouses holding hands in public.
And during all of it, the kick-ass CIA operative who could disarm a man without breaking a sweat and interrogate a suspected terrorist for twenty-four hours straight had relinquished control to him in every way. She’d waited for his commands, done his bidding, which was really her own. She could pretend to herself that he’d mastered her mind and body, but in reality he’d been the captive. She’d enthralled him. Still did.
Quinn launched forward and crouched beside her. His thumb swept her bottom lashes where a single teardrop trembled, although she’d willed it not to fall.
“You deserve that life back, and I’m going to help you reclaim it. What did your contact have for you?”
“A-a flash drive containing some information. I don’t think he even knew what the info meant, but he was going to pass it along to me.”
“On whose authority? Who’s your contact at the agency? Who sent him?”
Rikki swept her tongue along her bottom lip. “Maybe it was all a setup. Maybe the goal of the plan all along included my capture. The flash drive a ruse to lure me out.”
“Who sent him? Not some anonymous source? You didn’t trust some anonymous CIA drone, did you?”
“It was Ariel.” She hunched forward, her nose almost touching his. “You know Ariel, don’t you?”
“The head of the Vlad task force. Several of my SEAL team members have been on assignments controlled by Ariel—and they trust her, or him.”
“Her. Ariel is definitely female.”
“How do you know that? I think one of my team members actually spoke to her, but we’re not even sure it was the real Ariel.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “You know her?”
“Ariel was my mentor at the CIA when I started. You know, one female spy to another in a department dominated by men.”
Quinn sat back on his heels. “You mean, you know the real Ariel? The actual woman behind the clever pseudonym? From what I understand, the Vlad task force is controlled by Prospero, Jack Coburn’s black ops organization. Ariel, Prospero—from the Shakespeare play.”
“Yeah, I remember my Shakespeare and yeah, Ariel is with Prospero now, recruited from the CIA several years ago.”
“Her real name?”
Rikki ran her fingertip along the seam of her lips. “Ariel.”
Quinn jumped to his feet and paced in front of the window. “You don’t owe her anything if she set you up.”
“I can’t be sure she did. She’s the one who discovered I was in the labor camp and not dead. She’s the one who helped me escape, get back to...get out.”
“Maybe she did all that so she could dial in the CIA and have them recapture you. Maybe she didn’t want you hobnobbing with the North Koreans, possibly passing them intel.”
“I don’t believe that, not...Ariel. If that’s what she wanted, my contact at the bar would’ve followed through with our assignment without alarming me, and then she could’ve sent the FBI to pick me up and arrest me.” Rikki slid from the stool and edged around the counter into the kitchen. “That’s not how this went down.”
“Maybe the contact himself went rogue. Maybe he recognized you.”
She made a half turn from the fridge, a bottle of water in her hand. She raised it. “In this getup? Just because you had me figured out immediately doesn’t mean some CIA agent is going to recognize me from a photo in a briefing on spies within the Agency. Dark hair, dark eyes...” She patted her hip. “A few extra pounds. This is a damned good disguise.”
When she touched her body, Quinn’s gaze followed her hand. Rikki had always been long and lean. He tracked up the curve of her hip to the loose blouse draped over her form, brushing the ample swell of her breasts.
He swallowed hard. He’d always enjoyed Rikki’s slim, athletic build—especially given their marathon lovemaking sessions in...unusual places and circumstances. But for the first time this crazy evening, he noticed the new softness of her body—the way her jeans hugged her derriere and thighs, the seductive sway of her hips when she walked, the way her blouse pulled tight across her breasts when she spread her arms or gestured. His erection pulsed again.
Then he blinked. Rikki hadn’t just escaped from a North Korean labor camp. She’d been recuperating somewhere.
Quinn cleared his throat. “God, it’s late. You’re bunking here tonight, and I don’t want to hear any arguments.”
She snapped her mouth closed and chugged some water from the bottle. “Okay, but just so we’re clear you’re sleeping in the bed and I’m taking the couch.”
Quinn’s erection ached for relief, and he tugged on the hem of his cargo shorts. “Yeah, of course, but I have a sofa bed in my office and you can have that.” He opened his mouth in a pretend yawn. “We can try to figure out what happened to your contact tomorrow. If you still trust her, get in touch with Ariel.”
Rikki sloshed some water in her mouth before swallowing. “Do you happen to have an extra toothbrush?”
“I’m on leave, and you’re in luck because I just went to my dentist two weeks ago. I think he’s under some misconception that the navy supplies me with one toothbrush every two years, because he loaded me up. They’re in the second drawer on the right. This place has two bathrooms, so you’re welcome to the other one.”
“I’ll take the water with me to bed.” She swept her small purse from the counter. “This is good. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and regroup in the morning. I’m sure Ariel will have an explanation for me.”
“If you think you can trust her.”
“I do.” She turned at the entrance to the hallway. “Thanks for your assistance tonight, Quinn. Maybe I did want you to see that text after all.”
“You can always ask me, Rikki. You can ask me for anything.”
A smile trembled on her lips, and then she disappeared down the hallway.
Cocking his head to the side, Quinn listened as she got a toothbrush from his bathroom and then shut herself in the other one.
He sprinted down the hall and ducked into the second bedroom. He pulled out the sofa bed, darted to his bedroom, snagged a pillow from his bed and tossed it onto the sofa bed. Despite his best efforts at a quick assembly, Rikki hovered at the door of the office as he dragged a blanket across the bed.