Smoothing the stockings over her legs, she turned to the dress that hung on the hook by the bathroom door. The dress was her own challenge, the challenge being in actually putting it on and walking out of her apartment.
She didn’t give herself time to think. The brown silk beaded baby doll dress ended well above her knees in a fall of sheer shadowy color. The bronze underslip showed through clearly and ended a few inches higher along her leg. The empire waist was banded by darker brown silk while the thin slip straps were the pale bronze of the underslip.
She smoothed the material over her hips before forcing herself away from the mirror and slipping on the chocolate brown stiletto heels that matched the dress.
She couldn’t look at herself in the mirror again. If she did, she might chicken out of this and hide beneath the blankets as she did night after night.
Her hands shook as she opened the bathroom door and stepped into the bedroom. Picking up the little bronze beaded evening bag, she dropped her house keys inside along with some cash, a credit card, ID, and lipstick. The brown wrap she threw over her shoulders would protect her from the chill of the air against her shoulders but little else. It was thin enough that it was no more than dark smoke against her naked shoulders and arms.
She was ready. But for what?
To be a woman for a change, rather than a thing? A memory? To be something more than the automaton she had become over the years? Stilted, doing nothing but getting through the day and facing the night alone. She was so very tired of always being alone, of never knowing what she could have been or what she was missing out on as a woman. But would tonight do anything to free her, or would it only give strength to the demons that chased her through the night?
The feel of her hair brushing her shoulders as she shook her head at her own question spurred her to move to the door. A cab was waiting for her downstairs, her friends were waiting for her at the club, and if she was lucky, tonight she would find out what pleasure was, rather than pain.
If she was lucky. If she wasn’t lucky, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t known the pain before. At least tonight, it would be her choice.
Still, her hands shook and her stomach rioted as she stepped off the elevator and walked into the main lobby of her apartment building.
; The open, airy atmosphere of the lobby was given an almost intimate, welcoming touch by the low padded couches and chairs in various conversational arrangements. Huge potted plants provided an air of privacy for the groupings and aimed to set an air of intimacy and ease for those who used the lobby.
The security guard’s eyes widened as he saw her, and the doorman stepped forward with a wide smile.
“Miss Clay, your cab is waiting on you,” the doorman, Clive Stamper, announced as he opened the wide glass door for her. “And may I say you look especially lovely tonight.”
Her smile trembled. “Thank you, Clive.” Her voice was firm, low, as she moved past him and waited for him to open the passenger door of the cab.
Risa slid onto the leather seat, her fingers clenched around her purse as she gave the driver the name of the club.
Clive closed the door and stepped back and the cab moved forward.
It wasn’t too late to turn back, she told herself. She could have the driver stop now. She could run back to her room as she had done last month, the last time she had tried this. She could put her baggy clothes back on and she would be safe.
Safe and so very miserable.
She was tired of being miserable. And there was always the chance that for the first time in six years, she could find a place inside her that wasn’t tormented by the past. She just had to make that place, she told herself. That was all. She could do this. After all, she had survived hell, hadn’t she? If she had survived hell, then she could survive one night in a lover’s arms.
“WILD CARD AND Maverick pulling out.” Noah Blake spoke into the mouthpiece as he pulled out behind the cab in the dove gray Lexus that had been provided to follow Risa Clay on her way to the nightclub where some of the former members of SEAL team Durango were waiting with their wives for the arrival of Miss Clay and Noah’s passenger, Micah Sloane.
“Heat Seeker and Hell Raiser coming up behind you.” John Vincent, the Aussie of the Elite Ops teams, and Nik Steele, the former Russian special forces soldier, were in the blue gas-guzzling Dodge that pulled up in Noah’s rearview mirror.
“Live Wire has the club; Black Jack is inside.” Jordan Malone, the team commander, spoke through the receiver.
“Black Jack has the table in view. Everything looks good to go.”
Noah glanced over at his passenger, Micah Sloane, and almost grimaced at the emotionless, cold façade the former Israeli Mossad agent carried.
Micah was an enigma, even now, more than four years after the formation of the Elite Ops unit. He was a man who kept to himself, didn’t share secrets, and never gave shit away.
He could get pissed, but it was a cold, icy fury. He could slice through flesh with words alone and leave others quivering in fear. He was the type of man that Noah would hesitate to make an enemy of, and there weren’t many men in the world that Noah would really give a damn if they were friend or enemy. But Micah wasn’t the type of man that Noah felt comfortable leaving the broken little Risa Clay with. He was too hard, too cold. Risa needed a man who knew how to be gentle, who knew how to be warm.
“You know, that cold, blank look could put a woman off,” Noah told him quietly as he maneuvered through Atlanta’s early evening traffic.
“I’ll worry about my look; you worry about the traffic.” There was no accent to Micah’s voice, no Middle Eastern hint or so much as a tonal shift that would reveal he wasn’t fully American.
His American father with his pale Nordic looks and height had added to the lightening of Micah’s skin, as well as contributing to his tall, lean frame. Micah was over six feet, his black hair cut close and lying over his head to his neck in an almost haphazard manner. Black eyes in a face that appeared to be just darkly tanned and topped with thick slashing brows gleamed with menace. His lips were just a little too full, just a little too sensual. “Wide, mobile lips,” Noah’s wife, Sabella, had stated once. Noah hadn’t been happy that she had noticed.