Free Against the Fire by Kat Martin Page A

finished his beer and ordered another, sipped this one a little more slowly. A busty brunette got up and sang. She had a moderately pleasant voice but nothing special. He glanced over at Sam, saw that he was watching someone and followed his gaze to a svelte little blonde sitting at a table not far from the stage.
    “You like the looks of that, do you?” Gabe teased.
    Sam’s mouth curved. “Her name’s Tracy Spencer. She’s in real estate. I’ve thought about asking her out, but I’ve got a hunch I’d be getting into something I can’t handle.”
    “How’s that?”
    “I don’t know…. On the surface, she looks like she’d be fun, but I never see her with the same guy twice. I think she’s got issues. I’d just as soon steer clear.”
    Tracy threw her pretty head back and gave out a robust bark of laughter.
    “Maybe it would be worth it.”
    “Maybe.”
    Gabe returned his attention to the stage as another singer climbed the steps and crossed to the microphone. She was wearing a very short silver dress, the spotlight catching on the sequined bodice, which displayed the tops of a nice pair of breasts. She had a set of legs that wouldn’t quit and a figure that made the men in the crowd sit up a little straighter. But it was her hair that snagged his complete attention.
    Thick, glossy russet curls that seemed to catch fire in the spotlight. The music kicked in, a hot disco number. The woman began to sing and conversation slowed, then completely halted. Every eye in the place swiveled toward the stage.
    Gabe’s attention was as tightly snared as the rest of the crowd and suddenly he felt an eerie sense of recognition.
    No way. It couldn’t be.
    The beat began to swell. The singer moved, began to strut and sway, tossed her head and all that gorgeous red hair. He stared, still unable to believe it.
    Hot love, the background music strummed. Ooooh, hot love.
    The singer smiled and picked up the beat, and Gabe’s whole body clenched in arousal. Her voice was crystalline, throaty and sexy. Mattie Baker’s voice. It was Mattie who strutted and danced, moved her body in sensuous rhythm to the beat.
    The music pounded and so did his blood.
    “If you ain’t hot, love, you can’t have me. I need some hot love, baby, tonight. If you ain’t hot, love, you can’t have me. Gotta have some hot love. Need to have some lovin’ tonight.”
    Gabe couldn’t breathe. This was the Mattie he had imagined, the woman beneath the layers of drab clothing. The woman Mattie had kept hidden until tonight.
    He was hard, his erection hot and throbbing. Fate was a hunter, they said, and maybe it was true since the lady who dominated his thoughts was standing on the stage right in front of him. She spun around, giving him a look at her shapely legs and that round little ass he had man-handled in his dreams.
    He listened to the music and watched her acting out a sexual fantasy that had every male in the room panting, and he finally understood.
    He’d been right about Mattie. There was more to her than she let people see. A sensual nature that begged to be released.
    The music track played on and Mattie kept moving, crossing the stage from one side to the other, holding up the microphone, her hips subtly swaying, the spangles across her breasts jiggling with every drumbeat.
    She reached the final chorus and the song played out. Mattie laughed and bowed to a riot of whistles and applause. The disc jockey gave thanks for a fine performance by Club Rio’s favorite, Lena Sterling, a name as phony as the straitlaced Mattie she pretended to be.
    Gabe wasn’t surprised. With Mattie, business came first and she wouldn’t want her colleagues to know her secret.
    He watched her leave the stage and head toward the stairs leading down to the basement. He assumed the bathrooms were down there. He tossed some greenbacks on the bar, motioned to Sam where he was heading and followed her.
    As he reached the bottom, he paused, catching a glimpse of