Jill Shalvis - Smart And Sexy

“What are we doing?” she hissed, stiff in his arms.

“Dancing.” He slid a hand down her spine. “Do it with me.” He rocked his hips into hers, moving with the music while she just stared up at him.

“You know how to dance?” she asked, clearly shocked.

“Yeah.” He shifted with her in tune to the beat, which was louder and more manic than he was used to, but then again, he didn’t spend a lot of time listening to Mexican carnival music. In either case, he had to figure it out because he was doing the dancing for the both of them.

Unbelievably, the music got louder. Bailey had to go up on tiptoe and put her mouth to his ear to speak. Since it plastered her body to his, he didn’t mind in the least.

“Do you know how to do absolutely everything?” she asked.

No, he didn’t know how to do everything. He didn’t, for example, know how to tell her he loved her.

And he did.

So much he ached.

He also didn’t know how to make her love him.

And he wanted that, he wanted that with everything he was, because when he was with her he felt alive. He felt happy. Hell, even running for their very lives, he felt those things, and he wanted to tell her. Instead, he just pulled her in closer and kept an eye on the street, sure that he could at least do as he’d promised and keep her safe.

No, that was a lie. He was pulling her closer because he couldn’t help himself. He moved with her across the floor, feeling the press and heat of the other bodies, the humid salty air, absorbing the music and the slight weight of her head against his shoulder, her body snuggling into his.

It would have been a moment to treasure for always, if it hadn’t been for the bad guys, or the ear-splitting music, or the fact that they were still in Cabo…

Damn, they had to get out of here.

“What if they see the cab and pull over?” she asked. “They can find us here.” Her fingers dug into his poncho. “We can’t bring trouble to these people, Noah. It’s a wedding.”

“I know. We won’t.” Over her shoulder, he kept checking his cell phone for reception. He needed to know exactly how far they were from the airport, and how fast they could get there.

At least if he didn’t check in with Maddie soon, Shayne would come find them. His only comfort at the moment.

Around them, guests were as loud as the music, and half of them looked plastered, with the other half well on their way. Now they were doing some sort of dance that involved hugging their partner real close and shaking everything they had.

“Let’s sneak into the back,” he said. “Maybe there’s a working phone.”

“And if there’s not?”

“I’ll liberate someone’s car and drive us.”

“Liberate? As in steal?”

“You have a better idea?”

“No.” She let out a soft laugh in his ear. “You really are a superhero.”

He was incredibly aware of her fingers, gliding up the back of his neck, sliding into his hair. Of her body, curvy and warm, pressed to his. “Not a hero. Just a man.”

Pulling back, she smiled into his face. His heart caught, and he fell even harder, if that was possible. “A man,” he said. “Who loves you.”

At that, her eyes widened, her mouth curved into a perfect little “Oh” of surprise.

“I do. I love you, Bailey.”

Her eyes went soft with what he sincerely hoped was wonder and hope, and not terror. “Noah-”

But then her mouth snapped closed, her body went stiff, and she didn’t finish her sentence.

Frowning, he went to pull her tighter to him, but she resisted.

That’s when he realized the problem. Someone had moved up behind her. Several someones.

And several more behind Noah.

He turned his head and looked out at the street. The cab was still there.

And just behind it? A black SUV.

Whipping his head back to Bailey, he could only look into her eyes as the asshole holding a gun to her back pulled her from his very grasp.

Yeah. Some superhero he’d turned out to be.

“So, you lost contact with Noah?” Brody asked Maddie in a voice that had, over the past year, sent three previous assistants running for the hills.

Brody didn’t scare her. Not one little bit. Sure, by turns he frustrated her, angered her, worried her, and turned her on more than any other man ever had, but he never scared her. “Working on it,” she said. She was working on a thousand things at once actually, checking the GPS, dialing her cell, radioing Shayne…It was her particular forte, multi-tasking, and she could do it at work, at home, in bed…

Oh, yes, she was extremely good, even with the big, bad, sexy Brody hunched over her, scowling fiercely.

He’d never say it out loud, but she knew he’d been worried sick about Noah, with good reason. Noah had been to hell and stayed there a good long time. So long, in fact, that none of them had been sure he’d find his way back.

But he had.

Maddie had taken one look at his face after he’d been with Bailey, and she’d known. Bailey had brought him back.

She’d love the woman for that alone.

“Where is he?” Brody asked tightly.

“Still working on it.” She didn’t let her own concern show. One of her little chicks was in trouble, and she’d fix it.

She knew it amused Shayne, Brody, and Noah to no end that she thought of them as “hers,” especially given that she was younger than all of them, but the three men had saved her life.

She intended to return the favor, however needed. Dramatic, she knew, but fact was fact. She owed them her life, and she always repaid her debts.

Now Noah was in trouble. She knew it with every ounce of her being, and not just because he’d fallen off the face of the earth, but because he hadn’t checked in when he’d arrived at the airport after taking the cab she’d arranged for him on the fly, and also because that cab hadn’t yet arrived at the airport.

And worst of all, because he wasn’t answering his cell phone.

“When did you last have him?”

She turned and faced Brody, who stood watching her with that eagle eye he had. It still unnerved her that he, and only he, could tell when she was upset, disturbed, or hot.

He constantly made her all three.

But that was another problem, a private problem. “At the Cabo resort. He was taking Bailey to the cab I got them.”

“Okay. Okay, he’s a big boy. He’ll be all right.”

She knew he was saying this to ease his own mind as well as hers.

“Where’s Shayne?” Without waiting for her, he leaned over her shoulder and grabbed the phone, punching in Shayne’s cell number.

Maddie didn’t move, and because she didn’t, Brody’s broad chest brushed her arm and shoulder. Nobody invaded her personal space, nobody, and yet all she could think was, if she shifted even a fraction of an inch, his arm would brush against her breast.

Twenty-six years old, and the thought made her knees wobble.

Stupid. But she could smell him, some absolutely heart-stopping scent of soap and all man that damn it, made her nostrils quiver. “Excuse me,” she said in the haughtiest voice she could muster. “Personal space bubble being invaded.”

His eyes cut to hers, and he very carefully, very carefully, didn’t move a thing except for the brow that arched in question. “Space bubble?”

She would have scooted back, but that would have given him the edge. “Move.”

Eyeing her with some amusement, he straightened away from her. “Shayne,” he said into the phone, eyes still on Maddie’s. “Where are you?” He listened while Maddie tried not to squirm. Damn it, she couldn’t keep her mental distance when he was this close.

“Yeah, but Noah isn’t picking up.” He listened again. “Good. Do it.”

“Do what?”

Brody put the phone back into its base. “He’s going to find the cab.”

“Great. Go away, I’ll call you when I hear something.”

He slid his hands in his pockets and stood there, brooding and gorgeous. “Huh.”

“Huh what?”

“Interesting, how eager you are for me to leave.”

“I’m busy.”

“Busy?” he asked. “Or unnerved?”

“Unnerved? By you? Ha.”

He smiled, but he did not, as she’d half hoped, stay and argue the point. Instead he did as she’d asked and left, moving toward his office.

“You’re watching my ass as I walk away,” he said without looking at her.

She jerked her gaze off the ass in question, blew out a breath and whirled her chair around. “Am not.”

His laughter rung in her ears long after he’d shut his office door.

Damn it. Damn him.

Bailey felt the gun against her spine and went utterly still in a world that was in total motion around her: the wedding partiers, the wild, loud music, the hot, humid air.

Utterly. Still.

And looked straight into Noah’s eyes. They’d been dancing, she’d been pressed as close to him as she could get, and she’d absorbed his lovely, oh-so-amazing words to her-he loved her. She loved him, too. It sang through her like her breath, her blood, but now she might never get to tell him.

“Vamanos,” said a rough voice in her ear as a hand closed tightly over her arm.

After that, everything seemed to happen in freeze-frame motion, all in tune to the loud, over-the-top Mexican carnival music.

First, they yanked her clear of Noah.

Noah tried to close that distance, but then he froze, too, and Bailey saw why.

There was a man behind him as well, undoubtedly making his presence known with yet another gun in the back.

A real gun, nothing as silly and stupid as a Bic pen.

Oh, God.

This was it. Her number was up. They wanted her to take them to the money.

This was her last moment with Noah, her last chance to tell him what it had meant to have him in her life, however briefly. How much his support and belief and unimaginably sharp, quick wit had done for her. How she couldn’t imagine being without him.

How she loved him.

She had to tell him that much, she had to.

His eyes had filled with blazing fury and disbelief, and torturous misery that she was going to be taken now, like this, right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Her vision blurred with the tears she refused to shed. “I love you,” she mouthed, hoping he’d understand, needing him to understand.

He did. His eyes flamed, went shiny with the knowledge, and he reached out for her in spite of the gun, in spite of everything, but the men on either side of her simply turned and took her with them.

They made it to the gate, and no one stopped them. Hell, no one but Noah probably even noticed, just as no one had noticed them joining the wild wedding party in the first place.

Then she was shoved into the black SUV and sandwiched by two stern-looking, armed-to-the-teeth men.

Twisting in her seat as they took off, she looked out the rear window in time to see Noah come running out of the church yard. He barreled over the gate and then skidded to a stop in the middle of the street, staring after her with a look of deadly intent on his face.

But then they screeched around a corner and he was gone from view.

Good, she told herself. He was out of danger.

“Now,” said the man in the front seat, and her blood froze because she knew that voice. When he turned to face her, she gasped. It was the face of a man who’d smiled at her at any number of banal cocktail parties, the face of the man who’d worked closely with Alan, and yet had been able to attack her in her own home.

With a hard swallow, she looked into Stephen’s cold, dark eyes.

“Now, you tell us where the money is, Mrs. Sinclair.”

“Where’s Kenny?” She hated that her voice shook. “I want to talk to Kenny.” He might be involved, but there was no way he could look into her eyes and hurt her. She knew this.

Was banking on it.

“Kenny?” Stephen smiled, and a chill ran down Bailey’s spine. “You want to bargain with Kenny?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you spoke to your brother?”

“Why?”

“You really don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“That Kenny didn’t do as I asked, which was a bad decision on his part.”

Oh, God. “Where is he?” she whispered.

“Soon to be dead, actually.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t bring me you, for one. But it turned out he had a better-paying gig all along-the feds.”

Kenny worked for the good guys? Relief, and an almost giddy sense of love, welled up and choked her so that she had to press her hand to her mouth to keep a sob in. Kenny had been trying to warn her at the airport. No wonder he’d looked so terrified when she’d run from him. He’d known what was going to happen if they caught her.

“Now,” Stephen said. “Your turn. Where’s the money?”