The Risqué Target (7 page)

His body became rigid as he recognized the touch of the blade. He didn't move. but glared down at her through the slits of his eyes. And then, he had the audacity to smile.

Perturbed by the smug flick of his brows, Nala slid the knife to his carotid artery, but he remained composed. “And who do you think I am?”

A slight pressure, and he'd smirk no more. She leaned in, her mouth barely touching his lips. “You're Tantum Maddox.”

His expression didn’t change, but she did catch a quick flinch in the corner of his right eye. If the man had a nerve to hit, she had hit it. And at that moment a hard object thrust into her gut. A loaded gun.

“Well, now that you know who
I
am,” he said, scanning her face, “why don’t you inform me, just who the fuck are
you
?”

Ding.

The elevator doors opened on a man in a long, dark trench coat. He, too, had a gun and it was pointed directly at them. After a quick survey of the situation, he let out a malicious snicker. “Oh, good. Kill each other and do my job for me.” When neither of them moved, his hefty shoulders gave an aloof shrug. “Okay. Have it your way.” He sighed. “Drop your weapons.”

Nala slid her gaze to Tantum. She didn’t want to let go the knife, even when she heard his gun hit the floor.

“Come on, sweetheart. Why don’t you do what the nice man is asking? We can finish this later.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I promise.”

She let the knife drop. “Good choice,” the man said, rubbing it in that she had no other choice. Slitting Tantum's throat would mean going with the man alone. This way, if they couldn’t overcome their captor together, she’d still get the pleasure of watching him die.

Another man entered the elevator. Dressed in jeans and t-shirt, he was obviously a hired hand. Edging behind Tantum, he grunted, “Move,” pressing a gun into his back. “You too,” he told Nala. “Out to the parking lot. No, not by the front desk. The back way.”

Taking them to a secluded corner of the lot, trenchcoat told jeans to blindfold them. As a scarf slipped over her eyes, Nala felt Tantum's hand grasp hers. As she was steered forward, unable to see, all she knew was that despite her effort to free her hand, Tantum still held it. Even as they were pushed into a car, he held firm. The ride lasted eight minutes and twelve seconds by her count. The blindfold was too heavy for her to guess at the direction by changes in the light.

What
did
he want, gripping her hand that way? To communicate an escape plan? She wondered whether making sure he died would be worth dying herself. Whoever these people were, she did not hate them as she did Tantum Maddox.

The car stopped. After a bit of shoving, a flight of stairs, and a loud
bang
that thankfully came from a door slamming, not a gun, Nala’s hand was set free.

“You can take the blindfold off. They're gone.”

She ripped the scarf from her face and took in the room around her. A ratty old chair, a TV, boarded-up windows, outdated wallpaper, and a calm Tantum.

He sat on a small twin bed, kicked up his feet and casually rested his head back against the wall. That freaking annoyingly smug smile of his returned. “So, are these guys friends of yours?”

She gave him a deadly fuck-you look. “
My
friends? You're the cold-blooded killer.” Her words came short and pungent, like the switchblade she should have used on him.
Why the hell didn’t I slit that artery while I had the chance?

“Cold? My blood runs warm, babe.” His smile widened. “As you can attest to, sweetheart.”

“Fuck off.” Ignoring him, she started to check the windows and the door.

“Ah… you are a wild kitty cat, aren’t you, Becky?”

She snapped her head around.
Becky? Wild kitty cat? Gidget called me that earlier, when I was at the party.
“Seems you were listening in on me.”

With mocking wonderment he replied, “Imagine my surprise when I discovered what you really had between your legs.”

“Imagine my dismay when I didn’t get to use it on you,” she fired back.

He gave a gruff chortle. “Yeah, but why do you want me dead?”

“Because I know who you are.”

“Yeah, but so what? What did I ever do to you?”

She considered. She was trained to kick some ass, even barefoot, but so was Tantum Maddox. Two, maybe three experts might bring him down, but he knew his martial arts as well as she did. Maybe better.

Instead she paced the room. It was cold.

Reading her decision, he closed his eyes. “I told you I'd find out who you are, and I still mean to.”

If she could’ve shot actual fire from her eyes, she’d have burned him to ashes.
Is this my personal hell. Stuck in a sleazy motel room with him, of all people.
She'd
touched
him.
He'd
touched her. Waves of anguish swept over her.
I almost had sex with him.

She sneaked a peek his way. His eyes were shut. She knew evil could come in many shapes, but she wondered why Tantum Maddox had to be so freaking deadly handsome. A fine mess she'd gotten herself in. Caged with Satan himself in the form of a premium package, not to mention the marvelous package she'd discovered between his legs.

What were the odds that the man I grabbed at the airport would be Tantum Maddox?
But there was a question that needed a more immediate answer:
Why would someone kidnap us both and toss us in this hellhole?
The man had said he was sent to kill them.
So, why hadn’t he?

Since she had no answer to that, she was tempted to get what answers she could from the only one who could provide them.
Why did Tantum Maddox kill Gabe?
Here was her chance, finally, to interrogate him. But there was nothing in the room she could use as a weapon. Yet she had to know if this man had really killed her partner. She paused.
Why the hell am I questioning myself?
Before he died, Gabe himself had told her.

She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, Tantum standing up from the bed and starting to unbutton his shirt. She blinked as he undid the third, fourth…. “What do you think you're doing?”

He flicked his hair from his face as he finished the last one. “It’s cold in here.” He opened his shirt and peeled it from his body. Impressive muscles flowing everywhere. His broad chest and shoulders, his completely male frame, his tight abdomen made for a hotness that wasn’t at all hindered by the jagged scar that ran down his side toward his groin. It was still fresh, in the late healing stage.

She tried to pull her eyes away, but damn it, his pants were low enough to offer a teasing peek of a well-defined pelvic region, maybe her favorite part of the entire male anatomy.
Detour,
she scolded her eyes.
Just look away.

“I can handle it,” she said, meaning the cold, not his to-die-for body.

He crumpled the shirt in his large hands and threw it at her. “Maybe you can, but I don’t think I can.”

“Then keep the shirt.” His sandalwood scent swished into her nose as by reflex she caught it. Hot, hot, very hot. She dropped it.

“Not what I'm talking about.” She followed his gaze to the peaks of her nipples through her dress. She snatched the shirt from the floor and put it on. He was all over her, and to make it even more unbearable, the shirt was still warm. But he had been right. Covered up, her strength refueled.

He resumed his at-ease position on the bed. She tried not to look at him, but her eyes kept returning to the scar. A knife wound, or a bullet graze? Between it and the tattoo on his neck, he screamed bad boy.
No shit. So bad your partner’s dead,
she reminded herself.

“It was me you were looking for at the party, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“Yep.” Short and sweet was all he was getting from her.

“I can't get those wicked things you're gonna do to me out of my mind, airport girl.”

Torturing him sounded like a good idea, but she was still weaponless. “Screw you.” She didn’t bother to look at him, already knowing what she'd see. That snide little grin.

He made the maddening clicking sound again from the corner of his mouth.

Does he think he’s calling a dog or something?

“But why were you so innocent at the airport? Why flirt with me at the party and let me touch you in your hotel room?”

He paused, and she was tempted to glance at him, but she didn't. “Wait! Your attitude changed. That sweet, purring little wild kitten I had in my hands turned into a bobcat when you chased me down in the elevator. Could it be…?”

Unable to stop herself, she shot him a quick glance. Head shifted to the side, he was stroking his chin, a perceptive gleam sparkling in his ocean-blue eyes. He’d figured it out.
Son-of-a-bitch, he’s good!

“You didn’t know what I looked like, did you? You learned something between the time I left your room and got into the elevator. Before that, you didn’t know. You wanted me as much as I wanted—” His snide little smile widened.

Not one muscle moved on her face. She wouldn't allow him the satisfaction.

“Never sleep with the enemy,” he laughed. “And you were so close, weren’t you, sweetheart?”

Pay no heed. Don’t let him rile you
.

She had to get out of here.

She went to the door and tried her ear against it twice before settling against it. No noise was coming from the other side.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Tell me. What I've done to earn your venom? The suspense is killing me.”

“Killing you? Good,” she snarled beneath her breath, giving her other ear a try at the door, twice. Still nothing.

“At least tell me who you are, sweetheart.”

She spun, darting her eyes at him. “A bitch with a grudge.” Somehow her tone struck her not as lethal, but petulant. An angry little girl dressed in her daddy's shirt.

A loud
thud
came from the door, but even as Nala dropped, she was shoved to the floor with Tantum sprawled over her. The gunshot still rang in her ears. Her heart pounded against his chest. He pushed up on his elbows, watching the door until it was quiet again.

He looked down at her. “You okay?”

“Get off. What’s going on out there?”

In one fluid movement he sprang to his feet. She took his offered hand and he pulled her up. The swaggering and smiles were gone. All stealth, Tantum moved forward as steps sounded beyond the door. As it swung open, he pushed her behind him and grasped her by the hips, keeping her in place.

Is he
protecting
me? The hand-holding earlier, was it to be sure he didn’t lose me while we were blindfolded? And that gunshot, he sheltered me from it.
She was a threat to him, and he knew it, yet he was protecting her! It made no sense. Tantum Maddox was a cold-blooded killer. He wanted her, to use her for sex, but a man like him didn’t sacrifice himself for an enemy.

She looked over his shoulder as a man walked into the room. He wasn't one of the two who had captured them. He wore a black suit, had an alert walk and blank eyes. He had to be an agent, but from what agency? He held no weapon. He stopped a few feet away. “I come as no threat, but I do need the woman,” he informed Tantum.

“Not going to happen.” Tantum's tone left no room for argument. His grip became harder, painfully bruising her hips, as if he would never let her go.

The man's face resolute expression didn’t waver. “It wasn't a request.”

Tantum let go of her, and the resilient muscles on his back spanned out like a cobra hood, spreading another scar. He was in attack mode.

It happened so fast she didn’t see it, and neither did the man he kicked in the face. The man hit the ground but didn’t bother to roll away or defend himself. His lack of concern probably stemmed from the three others that came storming in.

Tantum clocked one with the back of his fist, ducked another’s blow and came up at once, cracking the man the jaw. But another came at him. Checking her impulse to get involved, Nala reminded herself that this was Gabe’s killer. These others were no immediate threat to her. Not until they had whatever they wanted. She stood back and watched.

Perhaps she'd underestimated Tantum. It might take
more
than three expert fighters to take him down. One of the men managed to sling a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists, but even that didn’t stop him. He continued to fight, head-butting and kicking, until the suit pulled out a gun and pointed it at her. “That's enough.”