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  she could wear steel-toed work boots and he’d get hot, because the truth was, it was Bailey herself that did him in. She could just stand there and breathe and he’d react, but his point was that he wished she’d been wearing running shoes.

  Hell, he wished she wasn’t here at all, but instead safe on the Learjet heading to Aspen. That was what he wanted—her far away from all this shit.

  They got through the kitchen just as someone tried to get in the double doors. From the other side, a radio squawked. Then a voice softly said, “Get your ass up here, we’ve got ’em.”

  Not yet, you don’t, Noah thought grimly, relieved about one thing. If the two men from downstairs were being called up, that meant there was no one watching the perimeters of the building.

  That would work in their favor.

  “Den,” Bailey whispered, sounding as if she was hyperventilating.

  In the den he spotted the reflection from double French doors that probably cost more than he’d made last year. He headed for them, hoping like hell there was some sort of fire escape plan.

  From behind them, the kitchen doors splintered open, and Bailey gasped.

  Don’t fall apart on me now, he thought, and pulled her along. She pushed ahead of him and shoved open the French doors. There were a few inches of snow on the covered deck, only what had been able to blow in sideways, but the sharp slap of icy air sucked the air from his lungs.

  “Hurry,” she said.

  That was his line, but he moved out after her and carefully shut the doors behind them, pushing her out of the line of sight from inside.

  There wasn’t much to see in the pitch-black night. No moon, no stars…just a storm moving in.

  Yeah, that was just icing on his big fat cake tonight. But there was, hallelujah, a fire escape, which consisted of a narrow ladder from each deck to the one below. “Down we go,” he told her.

  She stared at him blankly.

  “Down the fire escape.”

  “Down the fire escape.” She looked over and gulped. “As in down the fire escape?”

  He pulled her toward it. “There’s no way around this one, Princess.” He manhandled her to the edge and physically lifted her leg over.

  As she caught a glimpse of the ground far, far below, she froze. “Ohmigod.”

  “Don’t look down.”

  “My boots—they’re high-heeled. Noah, I’m going to slip and fall.”

  Holy hell. The fuck-me boots. Were they going to catch absolutely no breaks tonight? “Yeah, okay. Move over.”

  “I can’t—”

  Not waiting for her, he swung his own leg over, which left him pretty much straddling the princess ninety feet above the ground. Still not enough to make him forget that she had a soft, sweet body that fit perfectly to his. Ignoring that, he slid down that soft, sweet body, his cheek rubbing up against all sorts of interesting parts that flipped his senses into overdrive, until his feet were several rungs below hers on the ladder.

  This left his face right about tight, amazing ass level. Okay, he hadn’t thought this through. His jaw brushed one denim-clad cheek, and for just a second, he closed his eyes.

  He wanted to nibble. They were ninety feet above the fucking ground and he wanted to eat her right up. Yeah, Shayne and Brody had definitely been correct—going six months without having sex with anyone other than his own fist had been a colossally bad idea.

  He needed to get laid in the worst possible way.

  “I’m scared,” she gasped, and executed a careful turn so that she faced him.

  Perfect. Now her crotch was right in his face. Not exactly a problem, except he was having a little trouble concentrating.

  “You can’t fall now,” he said, feeling like a perv, telling himself to keep breathing, not to go nuts now. “I’m just below you. I’ll catch you.” He helped her turn back around, which of course involved lots of touching. Now his face was once again two inches from her ass, and his mouth was watering. “Start going down with me.”

  Or on me…

  Still breathing as if maybe she’d already climbed this building, she nodded. “Just go down with you,” she repeated.

  Christ, the words sure did conjure up an image. He shifted down a few rungs so that, thankfully, his mouth came level with the backs of her knees. Nothing sexy about the backs of anyone’s knees.

  Nope, not a damn thing.

  But then she did as he’d asked, she followed, so that she shifted right back into the circle of his arms, and once again he was staring at her most perfectly delectable ass. Closing his eyes would be a bad thing, he reminded himself, and stoically, he kept his gaze on her as they crawled down.

  The things he had to do.

  “Are we almost there?” she asked breathlessly.

  He looked. Not even halfway. “Nearly,” he lied. “Keep moving.”

  “I wish he wasn’t dead so I could kill him.”

  “Who? Alan?”

  “And my father.”

  This was a new one, but now wasn’t exactly the time to point out she’d been less than forthcoming with certain vital information.

  From in his back pocket, his cell phone vibrated. He had no doubt it was someone at Sky High Air with more demands that he come home now. And it made perfect sense, except for one thing. For the first time in far too long, he felt…alive.

  That was when the bullet pinged right past his ear.

  Chapter 9

  Shit, someone was really shooting at them. Noah hated that; he hated that it was starting to snow like a mother. He hated that he couldn’t enjoy his view of Mrs. Sinclair’s world-class ass, and he hated today.

  He really, really hated today.

  “Was that—”

  “Yeah,” he said, his heart racing, his breath coming hard and fast. That had been close, waaaay too close for comfort.

  Another shot ricocheted past his nose, and Bailey screamed loud enough to blister his ears. Hell. Wrapping an arm around her hips, he yanked, sliding her down into the protection of his body. Ignoring the fact that she fit against him as if she’d been made for the spot, he took a look over his shoulder. Eight feet to the balcony of the fifth floor. Or was it the fourth?

  Wincing, because this was going to hurt like hell, he held onto his bundle of woman and leapt toward the balcony.

  Bailey screamed again, but Noah was too busy hitting the deck, then having the air sucker punched out of his lungs when she landed square on top of him, to tell her to shut up again.

  Honest to God, she was the noisiest woman he’d ever been shot at with.

  Oh, wait. She was the only woman he’d ever been shot at with. One more whizzing bullet and his heart nearly lurched to a complete stop, starting up again on a staccato beat when Bailey covered her own mouth with her hand to keep in the next scream.

  “Good girl,” he wanted to say. But with a groan, he rolled over in the snow, finding one hand full of soft breast. Christ. Yanking his hand back, he went up to his knees, keeping her tucked in front of him as he quickly crawled toward the balcony door, not an easy feat with the few inches of slippery snow. Pulling her up, he sandwiched her against the wall. “Wait here,” he said in her ear. “Don’t move, don’t breathe, and for God’s sake, don’t scream.”

  “But—”

  He put a hand over her mouth. “Princess, goddamnit, for once, just do it, no discussion.”

  Only when she gave him a jerky nod did he run back to the fire escape ladder, where he slid down one more floor. Once there, he braced himself and kicked in the sliding glass door.

  Glass shattered, and he toed out the rest, making sure to walk through and traipse as much snow inside as possible. With his penlight, he rushed through the opulent, ridiculously large, empty condo and opened the front door into the dark hallway. There. Follow that lead, assholes. Then he whipped back through the condo, back through the broken glass door, where he shimmied up the fire escape to the deck where he’d left Bailey, thinking, Please still be there, please