Vague regret at having never been in lovethe real thing, with all-consuming need, soaring heights of ecstasy, a melding of minds and souls, and, of course, really great sexpassed over her. She was too young to die. And she sincerely wished it didnt have to be like this.
But maybe it was fated. Shed been conceived in violence, after all. Maybe that meant she had to leave this life the same way. Was this some cosmic evening out of the scales? Had she never been meant to be born? Was that why the universe saw fit to take her out like this? Or was it some wrong shed committed in her own life coming back to haunt
Something big and fast flew at her from the side. More shadow than man. But big. Fully as big as her attacker. A second attacker? Oh, Lord. Were they going to gang-rape her?
Her first attacker grunted as the newcomer barreled into him and Lissa, knocking all of them into a pile on the ground. She rolled clear of the melee of flailing limbs as the two men struggled to untangle themselves.
She scrambled to her hands and knees, sucking air into her oxygen-starved lungs gratefully. Must get up. Run away while they still tried to gain their feet. She must fly like the wind
But no wind could outrun the wave of psychic power that rolled over her as she panted on the sidewalk. It was as if a great floodgate had swung open and a massive flood of energy clobbered her. The scale of it was staggering. It made the rest of her life look as though shed been sipping at a trickle of psychic power from a leaky faucet. But this. This was unbelievable. Time had no boundaries; her vision had no limits. Knowledge of all things was right there, hers for the taking.
Something hot and wet and smelling of iron splattered her face, jolting her out of the vision and banging the floodgates of time and power shut. In front of her nose, a fist connected with her attackers jaw again. Hard. With a smack of flesh on flesh that spoke of violent intent. Wait. What? The new man had just slugged his partner in crime? Maybe not his partner in crime?
Very belatedly she realized the two men were fighting. The second man was rescuing her! Well, then. That changes things. She pushed to her feet, balled up her fists, waited for an opening...and dived into the fray.
* * *
Max mentally groaned as the woman hed just rescued leaped into the fracas in a misguided attempt to help him. He could kill this punk here and now if he wanted to, but he was trying hard to keep the guy alive so the police could have a chat with him. The attack on the woman had been too practiced, too perfect, for some amateur lowlife looking to score drug money. This guy was a professional stalker of women.
The woman, however, had different ideas. She seemed hell-bent on killing the bastard and was punching and kicking with all her strength. Although, on second thought, she was probably too tiny to do the guy any serious damage. And it was undoubtedly therapeutic for her to kick the hell out of the punk for scaring her like that.
The stalker finally rolled into a fetal ball with his arms over his head to protect himself from the womans fury, which was prodigious now that she wasnt on the verge of dying.
Max rolled away and pressed to his feet, panting. He jerked his leather bomber jacket back into place and dusted off his jeans, which were torn at one knee. Dammit, he liked these jeans.
Okay, lady, he said drily. Thats enough, or else the cops will charge you with assault when they get here instead of that jackass.
The woman looked up at him, confused. As if she was just now registering what her feet and fists were doing. Oh. Oh! Right. She stumbled back and commenced shaking so hard he could see it from where he stood.
The attacker made a move to jump to his feet and take off, but Max put a hand on the back of the guys neck and shoved him down to the ground with casual strength. You stay right there, or Ill break your neck. The punk lurched one more time, and Max increased the pressure. For real, man. Ill kill you. Right here. Right now. No compunction.
The punk subsided.
For good measure, Max went down to one knee, kneeling on the spot between the guys shoulder blades and no doubt pressing the stalkers cheek painfully into the gravel-strewn sidewalk. He glanced up at the woman. Maam, if youd be so kind as to call nine-one-one. Tell them to send the nearest cruiser. Then tell them to call Detective Bastien LeBlanc and pass the message that Max could use a hand.
Is that your name? the woman asked in a shaky voice close to tears. Max?
Please make the call, maam.
What is it?
What is what? You mean my name? he echoed blankly. That was a good question. Hed been living under that other name, not his own, for so long, he almost didnt remember his real name anymore. Not that he had any great fondness for either his real name or his real life. All of it had turned out to be a lie of epic proportions. And he was so caught in this new lie, so deeply ensnared in its tangles, he couldnt breathe, let alone move.
Max, he mumbled. Call me Max.
Max what?
Damn, she was persistent. Smith, he muttered under his breath.
In what little light there was in this crappy corner of town, he made out a faint frown puckering her brow. The sort of frown that said a person didnt believe what she was hearing and was trying to understand why the speaker would lie to her. An urge to tell her the truth, to tell her his real name, bubbled up from somewhere deep in his gut.
But thankfully a sirens wail sounded just then, and the woman looked away, relief painted in every sweet line of her face. She was a little thing. She looked like Mary Poppins in that old-fashioned wool coat and those funny curved-heel granny shoes. Her hair was curly, and about half of it remained in a bun at the back of her neck. The rest fell around her face in a wild, sexy riot of curls that fit her face massively better than the old lady attire did.
A police car careened around the corner, and in the glare of the headlights he saw the womans curls were dark, dark red. Almost maroon. And she was young, midtwenties maybe. Which he supposed wasnt that young. It was just the age of his younger sister, who would forever and always be his baby sister, even when she turned old and gray.
Like his sister, the woman trembling in front of him was beautiful in an old-fashioned way. Her skin was porcelain, her lips rosy and full, her eyes huge and dark. Her beauty was soft.
Under any other circumstances but these, he would have registered this woman as ridiculously attractive, walked away from her and then obsessed about her for weeks afterward, kicking himself for not talking to her or at least getting her name and phone number.
It wasnt that hed never successfully put the moves on a hot female. But hed been undercover for so long that he was starting to worry about forgetting how to come on to women at all.
He could not see her figure under that ridiculous coat, but even swathed in heavy wool, she was slight in stature. She hadnt fought like an athlete. And then thered been that horrifying moment when shed started to go into shock. Shed gone limp in her captors arms like prey in the jaws of death.
He hadnt intended to leave his surveillance post. Hed been prepared to let her get robbed, maybe even roughed up a little. But when that bastard had started to drag her awayand, worse, shed appeared to go catatoniched had no choice but to leave his hidey-hole and act.
He hadnt intended to leave his surveillance post. Hed been prepared to let her get robbed, maybe even roughed up a little. But when that bastard had started to drag her awayand, worse, shed appeared to go catatoniched had no choice but to leave his hidey-hole and act.
She might be the target of his op, but that op did not include watching the damned subject die. He needed her contacts. Her connection to the top leadership of the group hed spent all these months infiltrating.
It was a huge breach of security protocol to blow his cover like this, to come into direct contact with the person he was supposed to be watching. But what choice did he have? He couldnt stand by and let that jerk drag her off and do his worst to her. Swearing to himself, he pasted on the bland expression of a casual passerby who was just grateful to have been in the right place at the right time to lend a hand to a lady in distress.
The cops collected the assailant, who was now looking quite a bit worse for wear. He watched carefully to make sure they didnt mess up Mirandizing and cuffing the perp.
As a police officer stuffed the assailant in the back of a squad car, Max straightened and turned to check on the woman. He lurched as something light plastered itself against his chest. It was her. Oh, God, sobbing.
I got to you as fast as I could, he muttered unwillingly. Im sorry it wasnt sooner.
Reluctantly his arms came up around her, and, swear to God, she snuggled against him. The strangest feeling washed over him as this tiny female burrowed closer against his chest as if he were a combination furnace and Second Coming. It made him feel protective. Possessive. Needed. What the hell was that all about?
Lord knew, other people had needed him his whole life. His father after the divorce devastated him. His mother after the car accident paralyzed her. His baby sister after their mother died and left him alone to raise her. But never had any of that made him feel like this. Like he could climb a mountain or conquer an army single-handedly.
The womans shaking lessened as he held her, and eventually a policeman peeled her off his chest to take a brief statement from her about what had happened. She gave her name, Lissa Clearmont, but, of course, he already knew it.
He already knew lots of things about her. Like what time she opened the bedroom blinds in the morning to greet the sun. That she practiced yoga almost every day. That she didnt like being in the store alone after dark. Which electric company and telephone company the shop used. What brand of laundry soap the owner preferred. After all, he was very good at his job.
He was intrigued when she begged off coming down to the police station immediately to make a report, saying that she had something pressing to do before she talked to them again. What was more important than putting away the bastard whod tried to assault her and possibly kill her? Thered been something about the way the assailant had attacked Lissa that smacked of a psychopath and not a regular, garden-variety mugger.
Another police car pulled up, this one unmarked except for a magnetic siren stuck to the drivers side roof. Bastien LeBlanc, a friend of his sister and her fiancé, piled out of the car. He looked as if hed been pulled out of an undercover mission, too. Or maybe hed been at a strip club down in the French Quarter using all those bad-boy good looks to get lucky. He stopped to speak briefly with the arresting officers and then made his way over to Max.
Hey, bro. What up? the New Orleans cop and former navy SEAL asked him.
That guy he pointed at the perp in the cop car mugged that woman he pointed at Lissa a few minutes ago.
Lemme guess. You dived in and saved the day. Dudes looking a little rough around the edges. Street names Julio G. Hes a notorious gangster. Weve been working on taking him down for a couple of years. Problem is, his flunkies keep taking the fall for him and he keeps slipping out of our net. But not tonight, methinks. Make sure the NOPD doesnt get blamed for busting him up like that, eh? We wouldnt want him to get off on yet another technicality.
Max grimaced. The girl did most of the visible damage after I took the bastard down. I thought it might be good for her to work out a little of her fear on him before we called you guys.
Bastien grinned. Im beginning to see why my future brother-in-law called you an ice-cold motherfu
Yeah, yeah, Max interrupted. Listen. I need a favor.
Name it. The district attorneys going to be thrilled that we finally got Julio G. dead to rights. We think hes top dog in one of the more violent gangs in the area. Not only did you take him down, but you gift wrapped him for the police. No way is he passing off these charges on to one of his boys. We owe you one.
I need my name kept out of the police report. In fact, I need all mention of my being involved with this incident sanitized out of the official record.
You dont want any credit at all for catching this slimeball?
Nope. None. I was never here.
Bastien grinned again. I dunno. The way that pretty little ladys lookin at you, I might rethink that never been here thing. Shes one sweet piece of
And thatll be enough out of you, Max interrupted.
Bastien frowned. The womans testimony ought to be enough to put Julio away. But if its not looking good at trial, Im gonna have to give your name to the DA and let him call you to testify. We cant let this guy slip out of our grasp. Hes seriously bad news.
Max nodded reluctantly. Understood. This was the paradox of being undercover and going after bad guys. It became a trade-off of blowing ones cover versus putting away the scumbags one encountered along the way. At what point was it worth blowing two years worth of undercover work to put away one guy?
Do me a favor in return, bro, Bastien said.
Whats that? he asked cautiously.
See to it Ms. Clearmont gets home safely. Shes refusing to come down to the station until tomorrow to make her statement, and Id hate for one of that bottom-feeders buddies to find her overnight and take it upon himself to silence her before she can press charges. Given the gang he affiliates with, hes got some downright unfriendly associates.
You protect her. Thats your job.
Bastien shrugged. Shes refusing any police protection. Insists on you being the one to take her home.
Max rolled his eyes. It wasnt as if he could say no to that. Dammit. Fine. Ill follow her to her place.
Youll do more than that if Im keeping your name off the report. You hold her hand and tuck her into bed. Shes had one hell of a scare, and the way she tells it, shes got no family or friends in town to take care of her.
Why me? he protested. Im on an op and she stumbled into the middle of it... He left out the part where she was the op.
Bastien threw him a withering look that said hed thought better of Max than to abandon a lady in need. Max huffed. All right already. Ill walk her home and make sure shes safe overnight.
Youll stay with her?
Max frowned. If shell let me. And if not, Ill spend the night outside her place and keep an eye on her. Shell be safe.
Promise?
Yes, Bastien. Ive got her back.
The cop stared at him intently for a moment and then nodded, accepting his word. All right. I got me a date to get back to, then. Cant keep the ladies of New Orleans waiting for all this hotness.