He tossed the phone, on speaker, onto the car seat beside him and peeled out, leaving expensive Italian racing rubber on the pavement. It was a fifteen-minute drive normally, but he made it in a shade under eight. The cops were still not there, the bastards.
The Saints had won their play-off game, and the partying on Bourbon Street had to be worse than usual, but still. Lissa lived in this town. She deserved a fast response from the NOPD to a break-in. Especially after the violent attack on her the day before. He’d no sooner had the thought than a pair of squad cars careened around the corner, sirens and lights screaming.
The cops advanced on the store, guns drawn, and he wasted no time moving up behind them.
“I’m a friend of the owner. She’s locked in the upstairs bathroom. While you gentlemen clear the main floor and the basement, I’m going for her.”
“Sir, we need to clear the entire building before you enter the premises—”
“Just don’t shoot me,” he tossed over his shoulder, his own pistol drawn from its shoulder holster and at the ready before him in a trained shooter’s grip. “I’ve got the left quadrant and stairs.” And with that he spun through the smashed front door.
The cops must have recognized a trained operative, for they let him precede them and ceded the left third of the store to his search.
“Clear!” he called after racing up and down the first few rows of smashed curio cabinets and overturned display cases. “I’m going upstairs.”
“Roger that,” one of the cops called back. “Holler if you need backup.”
“You’ll know if you hear gunshots,” he bit out. If whoever had trashed the store had laid a hand on Lissa, there would be no fight. There would be lead flying and dead bastards bleeding out on her floor.
He moved quickly and silently up the stairs and spun into her living room, low and lethal. No movement. He pointed his weapon at each dark corner of the room, searching quickly for man-size shadows or any hint of movement. He’d told her to take Mr. Jackson with her into the bathroom if she could find the cat without having to go looking for him. He’d also suggested that she use the cat as a weapon, to throw it at anyone who tried to break through the bathroom door.
The living room was clear. He spun into the guest room and her bedroom, pausing to check under the bed and behind the armoire before moving to her bathroom door.
“Lissa, it’s Max. The police are here, and the intruders have left. It’s safe to come—” The door flew open and a soft, slight body flew into his arms, knocking him back a step with the force of her rush.
“I knew you’d come for me. I knew you’d save me. You were there in my head, both of your faces smiling down at me and telling me everything would be fine...”
What the hell was she talking about? Both of his faces?
“We clear up here?” someone called from over by the staircase.
“All clear,” Max called back to the cop. “I’ve got the owner of the store with me, and she’s fine. She’ll be down in a second to make a statement.”
But for now he was just going to hold her and let their mutual panic subside a little. He was startled to realize his heartbeat was galloping madly and adrenaline screamed through his veins. He hadn’t gotten this rattled since he was a kid, before his father starting training him seriously in how to be an undercover field operative. Spies didn’t have strong emotions. Or if they did, they certainly didn’t let those emotions get the best of them.
Damned if Max’s knees didn’t feel a little wobbly, though. Was he really that smitten with this woman he barely knew? He lifted his chin off the top of her head to stare down at her, and she leaned back enough to stare up at him. There it was again. That rope of electric attraction hovering right at the edge of his vision, drawing them together.
“Kiss me, Max.”
“I don’t take advantage of women under duress—”
“Kiss me, dammit, or bend down here so I can kiss you.”
“You’re bossy for a little thing—”
She looped her hands around the back of his neck and tugged his head down to hers while she stood on tiptoe. And then she kissed him.
He’d had some fine kisses in his day, but this was something else altogether. A movie of their future life together unfolded in his head almost too quickly to process. An entire symphony sound track played in the background, and his soul left his body, joined hers, twined with it. Then both leaped back into his body in the space of time it took to blink once.
Laughter. Love. Loss. Generations before and generations to come all crowded into his brain and then fled again, consumed by the fiery passion that exploded between him and Lissa the moment their lips touched.
She groaned and pressed herself closer to him as his arms tightened around her delicate frame. Although she didn’t feel delicate right now. She felt like an untamed tiger in his embrace. And he felt like the one being consumed as she inhaled his soul into herself, stripping him bare and leaving him wide-open to her.
She staggered back from him with a gasp. “I... I’m so sorry... I know better than to cut loose like that.”
“What are you apologizing for? Laying the hottest kiss on me I’ve ever experienced?” He blinked down at her, stunned. “That was incredible.”
“You’re not scared?” she asked in a small voice.
“Should I be?”
“Well, most people would be a little freaked out by the...intensity...of that.”
“Passion is nothing to be afraid of. I mean, I could see some guys being afraid of it. But it takes a lot to scare me...” He trailed off, not entirely certain what they were talking about.
“You have a point.” She sounded bemused. A little distracted even, as if she was pondering something else altogether.
“What’s going on in that complicated head of yours?” he asked lightly, even though the question was dead serious.
“That’s the second time the floodgates have opened around you.” She didn’t explain her comment.
“Should I know what you’re talking about?” he asked.
“No, of course not. I’m just rambling on about nothing.”
“What floodgates?” he persisted.
A police officer’s voice interjected from by the stairwell. “Ma’am, if you could come downstairs, we need you to make a statement.”
Thank God. Saved by the cops.
“Yes, Officer, I know the drill. I was attacked last night on the street.”
“Someone got it in for you, ma’am?”
Max froze at the question. He’d been too panicked on his way over there to make the obvious connection between the two attacks. He looked down at her, still nestled in his arms. “Who wants to hurt you? Do you have enemies?”
“Not here. I just got to New Orleans.”
Did that mean she had enemies elsewhere? Mad enough to follow her and take their revenge on her in the Big Easy? “We need to talk,” he murmured.
She nodded once, reluctantly.
The vandals had been kind enough to leave a calling card in the form of gang symbols spray painted on the walls and windows of the shop. This was retaliation for Julio G.’s capture. Max’s jaw went hard as he stared at the damage. Julio G. wasn’t the only guy in town who could call in muscle to make a point.
He asked the police tersely, “Do you know where this gang has its headquarters?”