She smoothed her palm over the broad curve of his shoulder and continued upward, tunneling her fingers into his hair-and she kissed him, one long moment after another, luxuriating in the sensuality of having him naked and close, and in the comfort she felt-even the way he smelled made her feel safe.

She snuggled in closer to him and kissed his chest and breathed him in, and after a moment, she confessed.

“I’ve got a deal with Levi.”

“Yeah, I heard him mention that on his way out. You’re meeting him in the morning. Right?”

“Right.”

“Going after the Memphis Sphinx?”

“The one and only,” she admitted.

“But there’s a catch.”

She nodded, and he waited, smoothing his hand down over the curve of her hip and slowly back up again.

“He wants me to go upriver with Gervais to meet a man with some kind of force field or something. He says this guy was at Beranger’s earlier, and that he has the Sphinx.”

“Force field?”

“Yes.” That was a major tactical consideration, and she wasn’t surprised he’d latched on to it.

“Sounds a little sketchy,” he said.

“For a girl with nothing but a nine millimeter.”

He stretched out on his back, keeping his arm around her, and looked up at the ceiling. After a while, he seemed to come to a decision.

“If you like, I could go with you, watch your back. Take on the force field, that sort of thing.”

“Ya think?”

A brief grin flashed across his face. “Well, we’ve already got that fifty-fifty deal in place. If you trusted me, I could just go up there by myself, pick up the statue, bring it back here-piece of cake.”

A sweet offer, but it was a no-go. “Even if I had the name of the place, I wouldn’t let you go up there alone.”

“Levi didn’t tell you where you were going?”

She shook her head.

Another grin curved his mouth-the wolfish one.

“I can change that,” he said. “Come on, let’s get some food in you.”

He reached over the side of the bed and grabbed his shirt, and then, to her surprise, he turned to her and said, “Lift your arms, babe.”

She did, and he slipped the shirt over her head. Then he found her undies.

By the time he got her seated at the table, Dax was about half dressed himself and was feeling better than he had in months-six months to be exact.

This woman-she worked on him, and bedding her wasn’t even half of what he wanted.

Okay, it was half, maybe even more than half. It wasn’t negotiable. He knew that much. Taking her to bed had just shot to the number two slot on his hit parade, right after keeping her out of trouble-and he had a plan. It started with Levi Asher, and ended somewhere upriver, and when it was over, he’d tell her all about it.

After the fact.

She was checking her phone, probably for messages, which he really needed to do, too-check her phone for messages.

“Um, what did you say this was again?” she asked when she was finished, zipping her phone back into her fanny pack and giving the paper plate of roasted meats and white rice, with its straggly bit of overcooked green something-or-another vegetable a very dubious look.

He kissed her on top of her head.

“It’s fine, Suzi. I’ve been eating at that particular restaurant all week and doing great.”

“You sure?” She glanced up at him, and even with her hair all wildly sticking out and her makeup smudged beneath her eyes, her beauty struck him hard.

He lifted his hand to her face and smoothed his thumb across her cheek. Geezus, she was soft and so incredibly lovely, and he hoped to hell he never ran into Nathan Weymouth. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself with the details of the accident that had killed their child, but he was damn sure he didn’t trust himself with the man who had done it.

“You’re safe,” he said and gave her another kiss. “Go ahead and eat. I’ll be right back.”

He headed into the bathroom for a minute, and when he came back out, she was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Creed had the right room, a luxury suite at El Caribe, and the right mountain of booze-soaked flab, Levi Asher, but not the right answer, not yet, so he tried again.

“Mr. Asher, Levi,” he said calmly. “Have you seen Suzanna Toussi since you arrived in Ciudad del Este?”

The man was face-down on the bathroom floor in his underwear, silk boxers and a wifebeater, pretending to be passed out or asleep, but not doing a very good job of either. He was breathing hard and fast, and folks in drunken stupors were usually, well, too damn drunk to have the brains to be afraid, and people who were asleep didn’t open their eyes every few seconds, look around real quick, and then squeeze them shut again real tight.

It was ridiculous.

Old Levi was wide-awake and very afraid, and in about thirty seconds, he was going to wish he’d done a better job of playing possum.

“Levi, here’s the truth,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the suite’s huge jetted tub. “Every time you open your eyes, I know you’re looking to see if there’s a way out”-he paused for a second and thumbed open his folding knife-”and there isn’t, not unless you can get through me, and you can’t.”

Levi’s eyes popped open again at the sound of the knife blade locking into place. It was just a small snick, but the knife wasn’t small. The knife was big, the blade sharp and serrated down the back side, and the sight of it was enough to cause the mountain to quake. Creed had seen a lot of things in his life, but he’d never seen that much wrinkly, old chubbiness tremble on cue.

Given a choice, he would have taken a pass.

“So I’m going to ask you one more time, and you will give me an answer.”

Geezus. The guy had been on his hands and knees, crawling out of the bathroom, when Creed had let himself in the suite. Asher had actually made eye contact with him before he’d collapsed back down and taken, without a doubt, the stupidest defensive posture Creed had ever seen-the old curl-up-and-die defense.

Anyone could have killed him.

And in this town, someone would, but it wasn’t going to be Creed.

“Mr. Asher, have you seen Suzanna Toussi since you arrived in Ciudad del Este?”

His nod was hesitant but unmistakable.

“Where?”

“H-here.” He gasped the word out, his voice trembling as badly as the rest of him.

“In the hotel?”

The old guy nodded again.

“When?”

To Creed’s amazement, Levi opened one eye and checked his watch.

“An-n hour ago,” he said. “Maybe an hour ten.”

Close, Creed thought with relief. He wasn’t that far behind her.

“Where is she now?”

“I p-picked her up at the Posada Plaza.”

That was good information, but it didn’t tell him what he needed to know.

“But where is she now? Why isn’t she still with you? Where did she go?” Personally, Creed could think of about a hundred and eight reasons why Suzi wasn’t with this old geezer in his hotel room, but he had a feeling it was the hundred and ninth one he needed to hear.

“There w-was a man…well, two…I guess,” Levi said.

Bull. There was no “guessing.”

“Tell me about them. What do they have to do with Suzi?”

“She left with the first one.”

And that was disturbing information.

“Do you know his name?” Always a good place to start.

“D-danny Kane. He came and got her out of the casino. He’s a reporter. Maybe they went back to the Posada. I don’t know.”

“So what did the second guy want? Tell me about him.”

Levi’s eyes closed again, and he pressed his lips shut for a moment, shaking his head. “The same as you, to know where she was. He was big. Bad. V-very bad. That man. Frightening.”

And that information went into the column marked Very Disturbing. Creed didn’t like big bad scary guys going after his friends.