He studied Eliza with a frown. "Do they know your real name?"
She shook her head.
"Good." He nodded, indicating Denny's dress. "Do you need help putting it on?"
Her cheeks flushed, and she dropped her gaze. "I—no. I can manage it. Can you, um..."
He stood and turned away from her, facing the window. As he did, he realized that he could see a partial reflection in the raised pane. A gentleman would divert his eyes. He watched. Once upon a time, he'd believed he could be a gentleman. Now, he knew better.
She stood gingerly, as if it hurt to move, which he knew it did. He thought of the shallow cuts that had once covered his chest and abdomen, along with his inner thighs. The wounds were no longer open; instead he was marked by a web of thin, white scars. The skin had long ago knitted, the pain only a brutal memory. But that didn't mean he was healed. Far from it.
He pressed his fingers to his temples, and forced the memories back, focusing instead on the reflection of the woman who had once belonged to him.
She moved slowly, and the motion of raising the dress over her head accentuated her small waist and perfect breasts. She had an athletic frame. Long and lean and lovely. Some men might consider her breasts too small, but they'd be wrong. He'd tasted those breasts, held their weight in his hands. He recalled one time in particular when he'd dragged his teeth over her erect nipple. It was as if he'd lit a firecracker inside her. Her ankles and wrists had been bound to the bed, and she'd arched up, her body practically vibrating with pleasure as she moaned his name and begged him for more. For everything.
He'd slid his hand under her skirt, his fingers teasing their way inside her soaked panties. She'd bucked against him, fucking his hand like a wild thing, and then begged for his cock. He'd denied her, of course. Made her wait until she was so hungry for him she could barely breathe. Then he'd buried himself in her, his fingers squeezing her nipples as he watched passion and euphoria rise on her face as he took her to the limit and she exploded in his arms, her loud cries pushing him over the edge along with her.
That same memory had threatened to burst free earlier, when he'd pulled out the cuff and attached her to the bed. He'd pushed it brutally away, both because he needed to focus on the job and because he had no business remembering. Not when he could no longer have her. There was no point to self-flagellation, after all. It didn't even faze his demons.
Now, though...
Now he realized that he was either a shamefully weak man or a fucking masochist, because even though he knew that he couldn't ever have Eliza in his bed again, he'd still opened the floodgates to his memories, and now his cock was straining against his trousers, on high alert from the enticing, delicious, erotic images flooding his brain.
"Okay," she said as he heard the first wail of sirens approaching the building. "I'm dressed. Not that it makes much difference in this outfit..."
He focused on the carpet, drawing deep breaths before he turned around. It wouldn't do for her to see just how much her presence—and his memories—had affected him. But as soon as he saw her standing there in the sheer black shift, her nipples hard against the thin material and her tiny, flesh-colored thong barely covering her sweet pussy, his cock sprang to attention all over again.
She met his eyes, then crossed her arms over her chest.
Damn. "Sorry, love. The dress suits you."
She rolled her eyes, but at the same time, some of the tension dropped away. "Are we ready?" She took a step toward the door.
"Not that way."
She turned, her brow furrowed. "Teleportation?"
"Funny. The fire escape."
He expected her to protest, and he had all the reasons why they couldn't go out the front lined up and ready to go. Most important, avoiding the authorities.
As for reason number two, that stemmed from the fact that he'd just hacked Lassiter's computer system and now held in his pocket a flash drive with stolen information that he was quite certain Lassiter would kill for. Probably Lassiter had yet to discover the breach. But that wasn't a gamble Quince was willing to make, especially not with Eliza in his care. So any exit that reduced the chance of stumbling over Lassiter, the better.
Eliza didn't argue. She just nodded and stepped toward the window, then hitched the dress up to mid-thigh, giving him an enticing view as she hooked her leg over the sash.
He frowned at her bare feet. "Shoes?"
She glanced down at the impractical heels she'd left on the floor. "I can't climb in them."
True enough; the fire escape was constructed with a metal grating, and the heels would sink right through. Still, they needed to look like a couple out for the evening once they hit street level. He took one more look at her, the dress even more sheer now that it was backlit by the city's ambient light.
"Here," he said, shrugging out of his suit jacket and handing it to her. Then he bent and picked up the shoes. "I'll carry them. We'll need to blend."
She drew in a breath, squared her shoulders, and didn't protest.
Considering the nightmare he'd dragged her into, she was being quite compliant. He had no idea how she'd ended up at this party, but he could assume. Her acting career had stalled. She needed cash. One of her friends moonlighted as an escort and told her about these parties where a girl could earn enough in a night to last her six months. It had been too tempting to pass up, and Eliza had turned into the real-life version of Denny's alias—a struggling actress resorting to selling herself to make ends meet.
And didn't that just break his heart?
As far as Quincy was concerned, a woman could make a living however she wanted. In theory, he had no problems with sex as a commercial transaction. So long as the person getting paid was entering into the arrangement fully of his or her own free will, then the details of what went on in the bedroom—including activities or payments—were nobody else's business.
But Eliza wasn't just anybody. She was his, dammit.
The thought hit him like a sledgehammer, and he shook himself as he mentally backtracked. Because she wasn't his. Not anymore. She hadn't been for a long, long time.
But just because he no longer had a claim on her, didn't mean he no longer understood her or cared about her. He knew her, dammit. Her heart and soul; her fears and doubts.
She'd told him how she'd grown up. The abusive father. The protective big sister. The months living the streets. She'd witnessed the kind of perversions that no little girl should ever have to deal with, and yes, her past had scarred her.
But it hadn't destroyed her.
He knew that; he'd seen it. Hell, he'd helped her discover what she needed to feel whole. For Eliza, sex had always been about the connection. The surrender.
The trust.
The Eliza he knew would have to be truly desperate to sell herself to a stranger.
And yes, he'd taken her places she'd never gone. Pushed her limits. Claimed her submission. And together they'd lost themselves in shared ecstasy. But the road they'd traveled had been paved with trust. With passion. And, yes, with love.
A love that he'd betrayed, goddammit, but that was hardly the point now.
No, the real bottom line was that she had no business being at a party like this, and the thought of her naked and bound in another man's bed made him want to punch something.
It didn't matter if he'd walked away—didn't matter if he could never claim her again—didn't matter that he had no right to judge her or to help her. All he knew was that she didn't belong in a place like this. Didn't deserve to be touched by a man who only wanted to get off. Who saw her only as a tool for the satisfaction of his cock. Who only wanted—
"—now?"
He snapped to attention. "What?"
"I said, are we going now?"
"Sorry." He tapped his ear, feeling only slightly guilty about the suggestion of a lie. "I was listening."
"Did she say if it's clear?"
He made a non-committal noise, then pointed up. "We're going over. Up to the roof, down to the back alley. Everyone will be in front with Red, so we're going the other way."
She didn't argue or complain. Instead, she just slipped out the window in her bare feet, her small body lost inside his jacket.
***
He followed her up the ladder to the roof, staying a few steps below in case she stumbled, a position that gave him an enticing view of her ass peeking out from under the hem of his jacket. He swallowed, told himself he'd be better off looking at the small of her back, and soldiered on.
Once they reached the flat, gravel-topped roof, he took her hand and they hunched down as they crossed, staying mostly in the shadows thrown by the smattering of utility boxes and access sheds that dotted the roof.
When they reached the far side, he peered down, making sure no one was on the ground looking back up at them. Then he helped her over the edge and onto the ladder that led down to the highest platform of the fire escape. Thank goodness Lassiter had kept the building's original features. So many remodels did away with the external fire escapes.
Within five minutes, they'd reached the alley, and he held her steady as she slipped on her shoes. Another five minutes and they'd reached Hawthorne, the street that ran parallel to Hollywood Boulevard.
"Do you have a cell phone?"
She shook her head. "A friend dropped me at the hotel. I thought it was better not to bring anything personal." She met his eyes. "I wanted to be anonymous."
He nodded, assuming that friend was code for Madam. He considered asking her if it was money or something else that had brought her tonight, then told himself it was no longer his business. Instead, he pulled out his own phone, intending to summon an Uber once they'd reached the intersection of Hawthorne and La Brea. "I'll get you home. I'm sorry to have dragged you into this mess. I don't know how Red got wind of what Denny and I were doing, but—"
"Quincy—"
"No, wait. There's more I need to say. I know tonight was a freak occurrence. But even so, this kind of thing isn't safe. Some of the men who come to parties like this ... Eliza, they aren't—"
"Like you?" Her brows rose as she stopped at an intersection. "Are you telling me that the kind of men who come to parties stocked with call girls might actually hurt me?" Her voice rose as if in indignation.
He allowed himself a mental sigh of relief, pleased that she understood. "That's exactly what I'm saying."
She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes practically burning through him. "But you'd never hurt me, would you, Quincy? You'd never dream of ripping my heart out or tearing my soul to shreds."
His gut twisted, both from the truth of her words and the fact that he'd walked right into that. "Eliza, that's not what I—"
"Fuck. You." She started walking, her heels clicking on the pavement.
He caught up with her, then took her elbow and tugged her to a stop. "If you need money, I'll help you. But this kind of party—come on, love, you know it's a bloody awful mistake."
She nodded slowly, and he hoped she was considering her words. He assumed she'd either tell him to go to hell or she'd agree to his offer. But he definitely wasn't expecting her question. "Tell me about the girl."
"The girl? Denny?"
She rolled her eyes. "No. I think I've got that. You work with her. You might be sleeping with her—that part I'm not sure of."
"No, I—"
"I'm talking about the thirteen-year-old. The girl you said needed my help, remember? The reason I had to hold that receiver thingie."
"Do you think I made that up?"
"I think she's missing."
He stopped, shocked by her words.
A moment later, she stopped, too, then turned back to look at him. "So I guess I'm right."
"Walk me through it, Eliza. Every little thing you think you know."
She bit her lower lip, clearly considering her words. "Red wasn't in that room because of whatever you and Denny were doing."
"What are you—"
"He was there because of me."
He took a step back, her words hitting him with the force of a slap. "You? Why on earth do you think that?"
She flashed a wry smile as she held up her wrist, still decorated with a simple red ribbon. "Freaky coincidence, huh? But he's the one who picked the ribbon as the way to identify me. Or, Emma, really. I kind of showed up in her place."
"Emma was supposed to be at the party?"
"Not like that. She was coming in undercover. For a meeting."
He nodded, remembering that Emma had worked as a PI. "She was on a case? And you're telling me that ribbon was a signal?"
"Exactly."
"Then why were you there instead of Emma? And what does any of this have to do with Ariana's disappearance?"
"That's the teenager? I don't know how any of it ties together. All I know is that I snuck in because Emma's gone missing, and the message about the meet and the ribbon was the only clue I had."
She blinked, and for the first time since she'd climbed through the fire escape, he saw her control start to slip. "I don't understand what's going on—really I don't. But that red-haired bastard thought I was Emma. And he asked me where the girl was. That's all he wanted to know."
She met his eyes, hers scared but defiant. "Which means I need your help. Because your missing girl must somehow be connected to my missing sister, and—"
"—that means I'm not sending you home after all. Instead, you're coming with me."