He smirked at me and cupped his hand around my neck, thumb under my chin, angling my head back. Twisting my head, I placed an open mouthed kiss on the pad of his thumb, flicking it with my tongue.
There were so many tells to his arousal—parted lips, labored breath, clouding dark eyes, and the primal edge to his touch. Then again, he could go from zero to sixty in a few seconds.
“My bruises don’t need to be aired out.”
I swirled my tongue around his thumb. “No, but your wound is under your sleeve. It’s best if we just take this off.” I pushed again on his shirt.
“Are you bored? Want me to shove my cock in you for a while?”
“If you’re feeling up to it.”
“I’m always up for it.”
I pulled on my bottom lip with my teeth as I smiled up at him. “Then why are you resisting?”
Normally he would have his hands and mouth all over me by then, body covering mine, hips rocking against me.
“Because it’s going to have to wait.”
“What’s up?”
“Lead. We need to check it out,” he said. I sighed and pulled away, but Six jerked me to him, lips inches apart. “But when we return, we’re picking back up.”
I smiled up at him. “I like that idea.”
Back to the strip we went, this time parking the car in a back parking garage and walking in versus valet. We also weren’t dressed to the nines, just some everyday wear. Something to hide our wounds.
The Luxor had a huge open area with rooms lining the edge of the pyramid. My eyes ate everything up, the slot machines calling my attention.
If only it was a normal situation and I could spend a few hours trying my hand at the various games. Them’s the breaks when you’re tied to a CIA hitman.
We loaded into an elevator with half a dozen tourists, bound for the fourteenth floor. Six was all business and quiet as we made our way to room 14207. I still had no idea what we were doing there or who was inside.
He knocked on the door, and we waited. A few people passed by and I looked over the balcony onto the huge area, taking in the stand that sold the yard of margarita.
Oh, what I wouldn’t have done for a strawberry one.
He knocked again, and once again there was no answer.
We were in Vegas, after all. Did he expect them to stay in there waiting?
His jaw locked, the muscle bulging, accentuating his sharp jawline. Such a public place with so many cameras, and then to be stood up? Not a happy killer.
To avoid being noticed, we left, heading back through the throngs of drunk vacationers to the parking garage.
“What do we do now?” I asked as I tossed my hair up into a ponytail. It was hot out that day, even in the black of night.
Six frowned at me. “We need to touch up your hair.”
It had been two months since he bleached my strawberry-blonde-turned-brunette hair to platinum blonde. With my hair back, my roots showed that much more.
“That’s the next step?”
“No, but pulling your hair back, I see how much it’s grown out,” he said as he reached behind him.
“You probably don’t have to deal with that much, being a guy and all.”
Six’s arm snapped up, gun ready to put a bullet in someone, and I jumped. I didn’t hear or see anything, but apparently his super-duper self did.
He stepped in front of me as a man came around the corner, also holding a gun out.
“It’s been a while,” the man said.
I peeked around Six’s waist to find a man who looked to be in his early forties. He had the lines of age and graying temples of his brown hair. Overall, add in the suit, and he looked very distinguished.
“It has,” Six said in response.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m looking for Four. You?”
The man lowered the gun, and Six followed suit.
“I’m here on a job.”
“Four?”
He shrugged. “There was no name, only a place.”
“A morgue?” I asked from behind Six, curious if my guess was right.
The man craned his neck to see me. “Stray?”
I rolled my eyes. Seriously? Were all of them assholes?
“She’s pretty tame now.”
“She’s right.”
I stepped out from behind him and resumed walking toward the car.
“Lacey.” It wasn’t a question, just a name. Almost like Six was saying stop. Hell, it wasn’t even a warning.
I turned back to them. “My pussy is only one reason I’m still alive, remember?”
Six started walking, and the killer guy followed suit. It was almost midnight, which if it were run like my lab, would be a minimal crew. Then again, it was Las Vegas, a place where the strip was open just about twenty-four-seven.
All I knew was that if there was another Cleaner, then everyone in that building was dead. Going late at night was the only way I was going to save the most people. There was no stopping them from killing the staff, so my objective was for them to kill as few as possible.
Wetwork teams were different from innocent bystanders.
Which led to the fucked-up state of my mind that I was actually helping them kill.
But that wasn’t right either.
There. Was. No. Stopping. Them.