The blonde turned a lot of heads when she stalked through Bacchanalia's front door wearing a let's-get-this-over-with expression and a pair of high-heeled, f*ck-me pumps.

She elicited even more attention when she seated herself on a stool at the far end of the marble-topped bar, exposing a sleek length of nylon-clad thigh. She scanned her surroundings through narrowed eyes. If she was conscious of the covetous looks she was drawing, she gave no sign of it.

She crossed her long, lithe legs, right over left. The movement sent the hem of her scarlet dress edging upward another inch or so. It also definitively settled the issue of whether she was wearing stockings or pantyhose.

As for the question of whether she'd acquired her fair hair at birth or from a peroxide bottle...

No matter, Leo Mallory conceded after a moment's reflection. Even if she *were* dyed by her own hand--what an old boozing buddy used to call a "suicide" blonde--she was still a bona fide beauty.

She was also a hooker, Bacchanalia's senior bartender decided after a few more moments' of consideration. Available...but expensive. Probably *very* expensive. The kind of expensive that would make a prospective john choke on his tongue if he were crass enough to inquire about the exact price tag. But, to paraphrase a cliche: If a guy had to ask a woman "how much," he couldn't afford her.

As a long time subscriber to the notion that only sinless folks who lived in cement-walled homes should chuck rocks at other people, Leo wasn't inclined to make moral judgements about the blonde's apparent choice of profession. He'd known a fair number of working girls in his time. If truth be told, he'd never found them all that different from the non-pro members of their gender.

Everybody hustled, one way or another. Some people were just more...upfront...about it.

The blonde dipped her head slightly as Leo approached the end of the bar. Her lips were moving. She appeared to be talking to herself.'

"...here..." he heard her mutter. "...not."

"Hiya, Sunshine," he said.

The blonde straightened abruptly, giving him a sharp look. Her eyes were one of the most beautiful shades of blue the veteran bartender had ever seen. He also observed that they were crystalline clear: the pupils, perfectly normal. So she wasn't carrying on a one-person conversation because she was stoned. A little crazy? Could be. There was more than a hint of emotional turmoil--anxiety, anger--in her sky-colored gaze. Then again...

Maybe she just liked to think things through out loud. A lot of people did.

"Hi," she returned tersely, lifting her right hand and rubbing behind her right ear. She wore no rings. Her nails were short and unpolished, but buffed to a glossy sheen.

"First time?"

She studied him for several moments. Then she relaxed her rigid posture, just a tad. Leo had the feeling that he'd just passed some kind of test. No, she wasn't ready to trust him with her life or her purse. But she wasn't going to blow him off like lint, either.

"First time...being here, you mean?"

"Uh-huh." Her accent intrigued him. Not American. Not British. Aussie, most likely. But with an overlay. Elocution lessons, perhaps. Or a lot of travel.

"Yeah." She glanced around again. She wasn't scouting for potential patrons, Leo realized. She was searching for someone specific and she wasn't happy about it. "Nice place."

"It's not bad," the bartender allowed. Then he decided to take a chance. "But you'd rather be almost anyplace else, right?"

Her eyes snapped back to his. Again, he was on the receiving end of several moments' worth of disconcertingly direct assessment. Again, he seemed to make the grade.

"I'm supposed to be meeting somebody," she finally admitted.

"Lemme guess. This 'somebody' is a guy."

The blonde appeared to zone out again. Bizarre as it sounded, Leo had the feeling she was...listening...to something. He grimaced inwardly. Maybe she *was* a couple cupcakes short of a tea party. Nuts. Hearing voices inside that gorgeous head of hers.

Then--*bang*--she was back and on the beam.

"That's right." There was an edge to the affirmation. "A guy."

"Is he an idiot, or just over-confident?"

She blinked. "W-what?"

"Any guy who keeps a class act like you waiting alone in a joint like this has got to have sh*t for brains or an ego bigger than Texas." Leo shrugged. "Maybe both."

The blonde's lips twisted. "Actually, he's a world class slimeball. But the people I work for want to keep him happy. So...here I am."

Leo experienced an unsettling pang of emotion as he contemplated the implications of this last remark. A woman renting herself out as an independent contractor was one thing. A woman being owned and ordered to please... *That* stuck in his craw.

The blonde's admission that she was being pimped surprised him. It wasn't that he had any illusions about the nasty ways the world often spun around. He didn't. He simply wouldn't have figured her for the type who'd submit to choke-collar control.

Then again, maybe she hadn't been given a choice.

"Why don't you let me do something to keep *you* happy while you wait for Mr. Wrong," he suggested after a brief silence, taking pains to sound casual.

No answer. The tuned-in-to-another-frequency expression was back.

"Sunshine?" Leo prompted. Man, maybe she *was* using. Nothing hard. But she might have popped a few pills to enable herself to do what her, uh, 'employers' evidently expected her to do. He knew from experience that while there were situations where it was vital to stay sharp, there were others where numbness was the best--perhaps the *only*--way to survive.

The blonde refocused. "Sorry," she apologized, her creamy-skinned cheeks turning pink. "I should keep my mind on a leash. It tends to wander. You were saying?"

"I wondered what I could get you."

"To...drink?"

"This *is* a bar."

"Mmm." She tilted her head, seeming to contemplate her options. After a few seconds she said, "I tell you what--uh--"

"Leo," he supplied, pleased she wanted to know.

"Leo."

"And you're--?"

There was a fractional hesitation. Then, "Nikita."

"Interesting name." And legitimate or not, Leo thought it suited her. "So. Nikita." He gestured at the bottles behind him. "What's your pleasure?"

The beautiful blonde made another survey of the room, then met his inquiring gaze with an up-from-under-her-lashes look.

"Surprise me."

***************

It took Leo longer than he would have liked to get back to 'Nikita.' He had to tend to about a half-dozen other customers first. Most of them wanted information along with their alcohol. Conscious of a peculiar sense of protectiveness, the veteran barkeep finessed most of their inquiries by feigning ignorance. In one case, however...

"Leo."

The source of this gravel-voiced summons was a regular. A silver-haired entrepreneur with a blue-blooded pedigree, a gilt-edged portfolio, and stone-cold eyes. Bryce Temple had a reputation as a collector--and corrupter--of beautiful young women. Leo thought of him as a turd in a tailor-made suit. Class on the surface, nothing but crap underneath. Although there was no way he could keep the bastard out of Bacchanalia on a permanent basis, he made it a point to let somebody else serve him.

"Yes, sir?" he responded flatly, adding a twist of lemon peel to a Stoli on the rocks.

The entrepreneur slid a pair of brand new one-hundred dollar bills across the bar with the tip of his perfectly manicured right index finger.

"The blonde in red," he said. "Whatever she's having, put it on my account."

"Not necessary, Mr. Temple." Leo pushed the cash back, staring the other man straight in the eye. He never looked away when he was lying. "She's a friend of the house."

Translation: Hands off, *sshole. She belongs to somebody you don't want to mess with.

Temple was visibly taken aback. He was not accustomed to being told he couldn't have something he wanted.

"Really?"

"Yes, sir. *Really."*

"I...see."

Leo turned away and served the vodka. Then he took an obscene-sounding order for what he privately considered a travesty of a cocktail and concocted it with expert precision. After presenting it, he responded to several requests for refills and fielded a question about the bar's selection of single malts. All the while, he was considering how to meet Nikita's little challenge.

He dismissed the usual roster of 'ladies' drinks' out of hand. No sugary liqueurs. No fruit salad garnishes. And no--absolutely *no*--pastel paper parasols.

He came close to mixing her a martini. The classic formulation, of course. Gin. A whisper of dry vermouth. An olive. While he was perfectly capable of shaking or stirring up the trendiest variations on the martini theme, most of them offended his purist's instincts.

A martini made with...tequila?

Or served with a pickled baby eggplant?

Maybe Western civilization *was* going to hell in a hand basket.

In the end, he pour her a flute of champagne. Cristal. Perfectly chilled, pulled from a private stash.

Corny? Probably. But it seemed...right.

As he headed back to the far end of the bar, Leo was irritated to see that a now-and-then customer named Greene--an Armani-clad jerk who thought that boasting about dealing a bit of "blow" qualified him as a player--was making a move on Nikita. He watched her rebuff the guy with a head shake and a polite smile. The jerk persisted. He received a second rejection, this one unsmiling. Ego fully engorged, the jerk tried again. Really pushing it. This time, the leggy blonde subjected him to a scrotum-shriveling stare and asked, "Exactly which part of 'no' do you need explained?"

That's when Leo intervened. **************

It wasn't that he doubted Nikita's ability to handle the situation. He simply didn't think that she should have to. Leo lived by a code. If a woman got hassled while he was tending bar, it was his responsibility to make things right for her. It didn't matter whether she was pure as new-fallen snow or peddled her *ss in the middle of Main Street at high noon. When a female was on his turf, on his time, she was under his protection.

Even if she didn't particularly want to be. And there was no denying that he'd had a couple of babes tell him to get his butt out of their business over the years.

That his philosophy wouldn't go down well in a lot of drinking establishments went without saying. But it just so happened that Bacchanalia's owner was a gentleman of the old school. He was a firm believer in "family" values. He was also a fanatic about repaying debts. And given that Leo had once extricated this individual's beloved grand-daughter from an extremely ugly situation..

Put it this way: Bacchanalia's most senior employee had a job for life and he could do it any damned way he pleased. He didn't even have to show up for work to qualify for a paycheck.

But he always did. Show up, that is. Leo Mallory was not a man who'd take something for doing nothing.

"Three strikes and you're out, Mr. Greene," he declared, setting down the flute of champagne and leaning across the bar. He kept his voice low. Leo didn't do 'loud.' It was his opinion that shouting to make a point--except at the myopic numbskulls who umpired major league baseball games--was like partying on New Year's Eve. Strictly for amateurs. "The lady isn't interested."

*"Lady?"* the jerk echoed contemptuously. "Get your eyes checked, old man. If this c*nt's a lady--"

Leo choked off the remainder of this inexcusably rude comment by the simple expedient of reaching out, grabbing the jerk's raw silk necktie just beneath the knot and yanking. Hard.

"No 'if' about it," he corrected evenly. "And since there isn't, you'll apologize for the word you just used."

The younger man gagged, but glared defiantly. Leo tightened the tie. The young man's face began to flush. Leo glanced around. The other customers were pointedly ignoring what was going on. Except for the blonde. *She* was watching the proceedings with almost clinical interest. For an off-kilter moment, Leo got the feeling that she was critiquing his technique!

"Most people can go a couple minutes without oxygen to the brain before they sustain permanent damage," he found himself commenting to her. "But with Mr. Greene here...I figure he's got maybe, oh, twenty seconds before he starts dropping IQ points he can't afford to lose."

"St...op..." the jerk croaked, clutching at his throat.

"No, sir." Leo nudged the knot of the tie upward. He liked the feel of the fabric. Hated the color, though. Except for the Pope, he didn't think men should wear purple. "'Stop' is *not* the 's' word I want to hear."

The jerk's complexion was developing magenta splotches. His watery brown eyes were beginning to bulge. Neither development enhanced his looks.

"Sah..ha...ree..." he finally managed.

"Say again?"

"Sah...ree."

Leo opened his hand. The jerk collapsed onto the bar, gasping for breath. Leo waited a couple of seconds, then fisted his fingers through Greene's over-moussed hair and tugged.

The jerk's head came up. "Ahm...sah..."

"Not to me," the older man interrupted, ticked off. God, this guy was a slow learner! "To the lady."

The jerk swallowed convulsively, the color in his face fluctuating. Finally, he looked blearily at Nikita and muttered an apology. She accepted it with a delicately arched eyebrow and a gracious nod.

"See how much more pleasant things are when you mind your manners, Mr. Greene?" Leo asked rhetorically. He glanced at the burly man who'd come up behind the jerk. "Phil, Mr. Greene's decided he wants to go home to his wife. Will you walk him outside and put him in a taxi?"

"Sure thing, Leo," Phil said happily, glomming on to the jerk with a ham-sized hand. The set of the sleeve of Greene's expensive sports jacket would never be the same. "Come with me, buddy."

**************

"Thanks, Leo," Nikita said after her erstwhile suitor had been escorted away. Then she smiled. The smile was a slow, sweet curving of her lushly feminine lips and it left Leo--a man who hadn't imbibed a drop of liquor in more than twenty years--feeling slightly drunk.

"No problem...Nikita." He sucked in a steadying breath, telling himself that he was behaving like a fool. An *old* fool. He probably had close to four decades on her, for crying out loud!

Then Leo remembered the champagne. He retrieved the flute and placed it in front of her with a small flourish.

She didn't drink it right away. Instead, she fingered the glass's fragile stem and remarked, "That was quite a tip you turned down a few minutes ago."

"Tip?" he repeated blankly, having no idea what she meant.

She inclined her head toward the other end of the bar. It took him a moment to realize that she was indicating Bryce Temple. A moment more to figure out the connection between the silver-haired son of a b*tch and her offhand comment.

Jesus, he thought, genuinely startled that Nikita had registered his brief interaction with the businessman. While he'd never for an instant thought her a dumb blonde, he hadn't pegged her to be quite as quick on the uptake as her observation suggested she was.

"Oh, that." He shrugged dismissively, not really wanting to discuss the matter. "Mr. Temple was suffering from a--uh--misconception about my job description."

"How so?"

"I pour drinks. I don't p--" Leo broke off, silently cursing his wayward tongue.

"--pander to perverts?"

The bartender slumped a bit, sighing heavily. He hated the sudden bitterness he heard in Nikita's voice. He hated the emptiness of her expression.

"No, I don't," he acknowledged after a jagged pause. "Look. Sunshine. I'm...sorry."

And he was. Sorry for whatever the hell it was that she'd been trapped into this evening. Sorrier still that he'd reminded her of it.

The depth of his regret surprised him.

Although Leo Mallory knew himself to be a sentimental slob about a few select things, he wasn't a soft touch. He had a knack for seeming to connect with people, but he never let them get close.

And yet, with this blonde...

She'd slipped in under his defenses. He didn't know how. He didn't know why. But she'd gotten to him. Big time.

Maybe the "slimeball" wouldn't show, he thought with a flash of anger. Maybe she wouldn't have to--

"Don't be sorry, Leo," Nikita advised. She touched his forearm gently to draw his attention, then gave him a long, steady look. Her sky-hued eyes held a hint of steel. "There's no need to apologize for deciding what you are and what you aren't and sticking to it. You should be *proud* of it."

There was another pause. Not quite as difficult to endure as the previous one, but not exactly pleasant, either. Finally, Leo cleared his throat.

"You--uh--gonna try it?" he asked, nodding at the champagne.

Nikita offered him a crooked little smile. The smile held absolution for his lack of tact and an acknowledgement of the odd intimacy that had sprung up between them.

"Sure thing," she affirmed, echoing Phil-the-Bouncer's words of a short time before.

He watched as she lifted the flute and took a sip of the pale gold liquid it contained.

"Mmm..." she said approvingly, lowering the glass. Her upper lip was wet. A quick, curling lick removed most of the moisture. "Delicious."

"But no big surprise, huh." Maybe he should have gone with a martini. At the very least, he could have put the champagne into a cocktail. Hell, he could have invented--

"Surprise?" she repeated.

"Yeah. When I asked you what you wanted to drink, you told me to surprise you."

"Oh." She circled the top of the bubble-thin flute with her finger. The not-quite-there look returned. Then she frowned, the skin of her forehead pleating.

A moment later, she angled her face away from the bar and started muttering to herself again.

"...sure?" Leo heard her ask sharply. Then, "--yeah, but--"

"Nikita?" he questioned, the nape of his neck prickling. "Are you okay?"

She turned back to him, her fair hair shimmering. He didn't know what to make of her expression. He thought he saw relief in it. But there was resentment, too.

What the *hell* was going on with her?

"Yeah," she replied, picking up the champagne glass again. "I'm fine."

"Are you...sure?"

She took a less-than-elegant gulp of the Cristal. After setting down the flute, she inhaled deeply and squared her shoulders.

"I'm *very* sure," she stated. "And as for the issue of whether or not you surprised me with the champagne..."

The unfinished sentence dangled like a fish hook baited with a big juicy worm. After a oment or two of hesitation, Leo swallowed it whole. If he was being suckered by a nutcase...so be it. He'd deal. He always did.

"Yeah?" he prompted.

"Doesn't matter." She fluffed her hair. "You did something *better* than surprise me."

He waited a beat, then fed her the straight line. "Which was?"

She glanced around the bar--for what? the fifth time?--then vamped him with a look. A moment later, she delivered the coup de grace.

"You gave me *exactly* what I wanted...without making me beg for it."

Leo grinned. He couldn't help himself. The lady might be crazy, but she definitely knew how to play the male-female banter game Which made her unusual in this day and age. Flirtation--verbal foreplay with no real expectation of consummation--was a dying art. A combination of "let's f*ck" directness and politically correct prissiness had pretty much done it in.

"Sunshine..." he drawled, shaking his head in mock reproval. "You are one *bad* blonde."

"So I've been told."

"Is it natural, or do you have to work at it?"

His query seemed to knock her off balance for an instant, but she quickly snapped back into sassy form. "Being blond or being bad?"

"Either." He chuckled. "Or both."

"Well, Leo," she replied, using her lashes to excellent advantage. "I'm afraid that's for me to know--"

**************

"--and for nearly every man who sees you to want to find out."

The interpolation was offered in a soft French accent and a matter-of-fact inflection. Its source was a chestnut-haired man Leo had never seen.

Tall.

Athletically built.

Early to mid-thirties.

Dressed in black.

The stranger was very cool.

Very controlled.

And, to judge by the expression in his silvery-green eyes, very...*very*...connected to the blonde who'd given her name as Nikita.

Leo arrived at two conclusions almost simultaneously.

The first, that this was *not* the "slimeball."

The second, that if said slimeball showed up tried to keep his "date" with the blue-eyed beauty in the blood-red dress, the soft-spoken Frenchman would tell him to f*ck off.

Well, no, the bartender back-pedalled, reconsidering. Maybe not. There was something about the man in black that suggested he wasn't inclined toward using expletives.

Leo had known a shooter once. A dapper dresser with an unfailingly polite demeanor. Jules "The Mark" Marcetti, out of New York City. Marcetti had been a master mechanic. The grapevine had it that he used to say "Excuse me, please" before putting a bullet into his victims' brains.

Whoever this new guy was, he reminded Bacchanalia's bartender of The Mark.

"Michael!" Nikita exclaimed, turning around. Color blossomed in her cheeks. Her voice was huskier than it had been the last time she'd spoken.

Leo couldn't quite get a fix on her tone. That she was surprised by this man's sudden materialization was obvious. But there was something more. Uncertainty. Concern. A kind of hope-against-hope excitement.

One thing was for sure, the grizzled bartender decided, his gaze shifting back and forth. The connection he'd detected went both ways. He could practically *see* the electricity arcing between the two. But he could also sense that whatever they had going, it wasn't simple.

Or easy.

"There's been a change of plans," the mysterious Michael announced quietly, positioning himself to Nikita's left. The move was jungle-cat graceful. It was also unmistakably territorial.

Leo flashed on an image of what it might be like to come up against this young man in, oh, say, a knife fight over something he felt was his. The visual was...chilling.

If Nikita felt crowded or objected to being laid claim to, she didn't show it. But she *did* angle her body slightly to the right, slanting a quick glance in the mirror behind the bar as she did so. It suddenly struck Leo that between them, the couple had very efficiently established clear lines of sight to every door and window in the place.

They were watching each other's backs, he realized with a jolt. And he had the weirdest feeling that neither of them was conscious of doing so.

He'd seen this type of instinctively protective interaction a few times in the past. Between soldiers who'd been bonded in combat. And between cops who'd--

*Holy Mary, Mother of God,* Leo Mallory thought suddenly, his mouth dropping open. He snapped it shut. Was it possible that Sunshine and this funereally-clad stud were...*cops?* Had he been played for some kind of chump?

Anything was possible he conceded uncomfortably, his eyes flicked from 'Nikita' to 'Michael' and back again. There was no disputing that Bacchanalia catered to the kind of clients that law enforcement might find, uh, *interesting.*

Educational, even.

And yet...

If they *were* undercover cops, they definitely weren't run-of-the-mill locals. Leo could pick out most of the members of the hometown team by sight...or smell. So they had to be imports. And not just because of their accents, either.

Feds, maybe? he speculated. Yeah. Could be. Could *very* well be. Only not from some straight-arrow agency like the F.B.I. Something more...subterranean. The kind of operation where those in charge would have no moral qualms about ordering a woman under their command to play whore in the interests of keeping an "asset" happy.

"A change of plans?" Nikita repeated with an edge, returning her gaze to the man she'd addressed as Michael.

Her colleague--companion?--finished canvassing the bar. Leo would have bet cash money that he could have diagrammed the layout of the place down to the last electrical outlet. He probably could have spewed out detailed descriptions of everyone present, too.

Changeable silver-green eyes met challenging aquamarine ones.

"Your date's been cancelled."

"Cancelled?" Nikita blinked. The color in her cheeks deepened, then drained away. "As in--?"

"Called off."

"Oh." A frown. "By...you?"

Michael glanced away. "It was Bauer's decision."

Not a necessarily a lie, Leo judged. But not necessarily the whole truth, either.

"I see," Nikita responded. Her tone suggested to Leo that she'd interpreted the previous reply pretty much the way he had. "What about--"

Hazel eyes arrowed back to blue ones.

"Taken care of," Michael declared.

Leave it alone, he plainly meant.

But Nikita didn't.

*************

"What did you have to do, Michael?" she asked softly, holding his gaze. She clearly was determined to get an answer.

And the man she was addressing, just as clearly, was determined not to give her one. At least, not one that wasn't oblique to the point of being essentially non-responsive.

"Nothing important," he replied.

There was a pause. Green-gray eyes remained locked into sky-colored ones in a wordless battle of wills.

What to make of 'Michael's' expression, Leo honestly didn't know--although he was damned grateful that he wasn't bumping up against it in a high stakes poker game. He'd seen blank before, sure. But this--God. This was *impenetrable.*

He didn't really want to speculate about what combination of life experiences had driven the younger man to armor himself with such devastating thoroughness.

As for the look on Nikita's face...well, interpreting *it* was no easy task, either. The bartender detected tenderness. And understanding. But there was unhappiness, too. Plus a desperately weary kind of fatalism.

"Michael," she finally said. Her pronunciation of the name was gentle. As though she were afraid the two syllables might detonate on her tongue if she evoked them with too much urgency. "We both know there's going to come a time when I'll have to--"

Her companion--co-worker? *lover?*--silenced her by feathering the tip of one finger against her half-parted lips. Light though the touch obviously was, Leo saw Nikita quiver in reaction to it.

"Probably, yes," Michael agreed evenly, lowering his hand back to his side. The bartender had the feeling that he'd ended his physical contact with the blonde because he feared the consequences of mantaining it for more than a few moments. "But not tonight, Nikita. And *not* with Perry Bauer."

Another break in the conversation. More eyeball interaction. Leo looked back and forth, conscious of an escalating sense of frustration. Strangely enough, most of his ire was directed at Michael. While the veteran bartender appreciated economy of words--and approved of people who refrained from displaying their supposed "sensitivity" by oozing emotion over everybody else--he thought that the younger man was taking the laconic, self-contained routine to dangerous extremes. How long could someone clamp down and hold in before he or she...imploded?

*Tell her now,* he found himself urging silently, wishing that he could beam the order into Michael's handsome skull. *You saved her from something ugly, right? Something she couldn't get out of on her own. And you didn't do it simply because she's a colleague and you hold her in high regard. So spill the real reason, dammit. Say...the...words!*

Nothing.

"Is there anything else?" Nikita finally asked, her manner as brittle as blown glass. Although her voice was steady, her eyes were suspiciously bright.

There was a part of Leo Mallory that wanted to call Michael to account for his behavior in the same way he'd sorted out that Armani-*sshole, Greene. Several things restrained him from doing so. The first was the fact that Michael wasn't wearing a tie. The second was that every survival instinct the bartender had told him that Michael would break his hand--and probably several other vital body parts--if he tried to lay a finger on him.

"No," came the monosyllabic response to Nikita's inquiry.

The blonde gave a humorless little laugh. Her gaze intersected with Leo's for a moment. She grimaced. *Why the hell do I even bother?* her expression asked. A moment later she shifted her position, snagged the champagne flute, and slugged down the rest of the sparkling liquid it contained.

"Thanks for breaking the news about the change of plans personally, Michael," she said tightly, signalling Leo she wanted a refill ASAP. "But it really wasn't necessary. You could have let Birkoff whisper it in my ear."

"You're right," Michael acknowledged, seeming to accept her verbal slap as no worse than he deserved. "You're also clear until tomorrow morning. I apologize for any...inconvenience."

He turned, obviously intending to depart. He'd taken two steps when Nikita suddenly stiffened her spine. Her chin came up. Her eyes flashed sapphire. The transformation from seeming victim to full-fledged Valkyrie was astonishing.

*Atta, girl, Sunshine,* Leo applauded her. At the same time, he wondered whether he should get ready to duck.

"Not...good...enough," she stated.

*************

The words stopped Michael dead in his tracks. He stood motionless, his hands held slightly away from his body. Perhaps he was waiting for a shiv in the spine or a blow to the base of the skull. After one, two, three heartbeats, he pivoted around.

He said nothing. Big surprise He face was impossible to read. Major duh. Yet impervious to deciphering though his expression was, Leo knew in his gut that there was a lot going on behind it.

A *whole* lot.

"Not good enough," Nikita repeated, spitting out the words like watermelon seeds. She glared. "As a matter of fact, not even *close."*

"I...don't understand."

Bacchanalia's senior bartender didn't understand, either. Wasn't entirely sure he wanted to, if truth be told.

"I'm dressed up like a slut for a slimeball who's not going to show because of something *you* took it upon yourself to do, Michael," came the pointed elaboration. "A 'sorry for your trouble, Nikita,' *isn't* going to cut it!"

The gauntlet was down. Something Leo couldn't put a name to streaked through the younger man's hazel eyes. Admiration for Nikita's spirit, maybe. And a weird sort of gratitude. It was almost as though...as though...

He hadn't wanted to walk away from her, the bartender realized, stunned. Only he hadn't been able to...*justify*...sticking around. But with her jerking his chain and hauling him up short--

"It isn't?"

"Nope." A head shake underscored the negative response. Pale gold hair rippled around bare, satin-skinned shoulders. Delicate features took on a decidedly mulish cast.

"You required--what? An act of restitution?"

Leo swallowed, abruptly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. It had to be the French accent, he told himself after an awkward couple of seconds. How else to explain why the legalistic phrase 'act of restitution' came out sounding like a code phrase for 'I want to f*ck your brains out'?

"That depends."

"On--?"

"The *act,* obviously."

A pause. Then, very carefully:

"What about a drink?"

Nikita shrugged and smoothed the skirt of her sleek-fitting crimson dress with her left palm. The movement of her hand down her body was the essence of feminine provocation.

"I've already had one, thank you very much," she retorted sweetly.

"Not with me."

Another pause. Leo had the distinct impression that somebody had just racked up some major points. But he wasn't sure who'd done the scoring or whether it was a good thing. His chest tightened. The air around him seemed to thin. It was as though the couple he was watching was burning up all the oxygen in the room.

"I...ah...take it that I'm not the only one who's clear until tomorrow morning?" Nikita eventually asked.

The two weren't even touching, but they were generating enough heat to liquify steel. Leo was beginning to feel like a voyeur. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He wondered fleetingly how many of the bar's customers were watching what was going on and what they were making of it.

"That's right," Michael confirmed.

Nikita allowed a few seconds to tick by, then gave a small nod. The color in her cheeks was high.

"Leo?" she said huskily, her gaze still on her--her--*whatever* the hell he was.

Bacchanalia's chief bartender expelled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He didn't know what kind of game this pair of dangerously attractive possibly-cops were playing, but he was not about to allow himself to be hauled into the middle of it as a referee.

"Yeah?" he answered cautiously.

Nikita turned her head and looked at him. She was smiling. Her drowningly blue eyes sparkled like the surface of a sunlit tropical sea.

"Got milk?" she wanted to know.

**************

Yeah, Leo Mallory had milk. But what he ended up pouring for Michael was two fingers of Armagnac from a bottle that belonged to Bacchanalia's owner.

The younger man cradled the snifter in one elegantly-made hand, letting the amber liquid absorb a little of the warmth from his skin.

"Thank you," he said courteously.

"My pleasure," Leo replied. He spent a few seconds speculating on what set of circumstances might cause Michael to forget his manners. He came up with several interesting scenarios. All of them centered around a blue-eyed blonde.

The bartender hung around for another minute or so, giving Nikita the champagne refill she'd requests. She chatted at him with teasing flirtatiousness, seeming to enjoy his company very much. Michael said very little, but gave no indication he was dissatisfied with the potentially three's-a-crowd situation. Although he sampled the brandy with obvious approval, Leo noted that he didn't drink deeply. He wasn't surprised. He'd pegged the younger man as self-disciplined to the point of asceticism. No doubt he'd nurse the single snifter all night without even emptying it.

A 'Yo, Mallory, got a good one for ya!' from one of the bar's most faithful patrons served as Leo's cue to back away from the couple. No sooner had he discovered what the "good one" was than his attention was claimed by another customer. Then another. And another.

Things got busy. Very busy. But every now and again, Leo took a brief break from the bustle and glanced toward the other end of the bar. It did not escape his notice that he was far from the only one who was assessing the intense interaction between the blonde and her black-garbed comrade.

At first glace, they didn't seem to have much to say to each other. Yet Leo knew there was a whole lot of communicating going on. To precisely what end this communication was being directed...

Good guestion. Leo couldn't answer it. He doubted whether either of the parties involved could answer it, either. And if they could...well, he'd lay dollars to dill pickles that neither of them would share the information with the other.

It would have been easy to sum up what conversation there was as she said/he listened. But easy didn't mean accurate. There were times when Michael talked and Nikita absorbed his words with rapt attention.

They didn't touch much. But what contact occurred bespoke a physical affinity that went way beyond sex. The sight of Nikita stroking a finger along the edge of Michael's chiseled jaw jacked up Leo's pulse and respiration rates at least a half-dozen points. And the sight of Michael brushing a lock of Nikita's fair hair back over her naked shoulders...

God.

Both gestures exuded intimacy. To peel it down to the nittiest of the gritty, Leo figured that there were couples who did the wild thing every night of the week without ever getting so close.

"Leo."

Another summons from Bryce Temple. Leo smothered a sigh. He'd figured he'd get one as soon as he moved back into the businessman's sphere of influence. He'd put it off as long as he could.

"Yes, sir?" he replied, adding a spritz of carbonated soda water to the briskly shaken ingredients of a Derby Fizz.

He glanced back toward Nikita and Michael as he spoke. He was startled to see that Michael was...well, not *smiling* exactly, but looking genuinely amused. He watched, wonderingly, as Michael said something. Nikita's eyes widened, as though she couldn't believe she'd heard what she thought she'd just heard. Michael, suddenly deadpan, added a single word. Nikita's eyes went round. Then, astonishingly, she started to laugh.

"The man with the blonde," Temple growled. "Is *he* a friend of the house, too?"

Leo looked at blue-blooded crud. In his mind's-eye, he could still see Nikita surrending to merriment.

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Temple," he answered unequivocally. "He's a very *good* friend. One of the best." *************

Nikita departed for the ladies' room not too long after that, her hips swaying with rhythmic grace beneath her bright red dress. Leo watched Michael track her progress. For a moment--just a moment--the chestnut-haired man's handsome face was anything but closed.

*Jesus Christ,* the bartender thought, shaken to the core. Had Michael stripped off all his clothes, he wouldn't have been more naked before the world.

The younger man's expression was back under control by the time Leo worked his way down to him. He slipped his right hand inside his jacket as the bartender approached. While Leo didn't think it was outside the realm of possiblity that he was going for a gun, reaching for a billfold seemed more likely.

"Keep your money, Michael," he said.

Michael went still, giving him a questioning look.

"There's no tab," Leo explained simply. "Friends of the house drink for free."

"Friends...of the house?"

"Yeah. You and Nikita."

A pause. The bartender could feel the other man processing the implications. Calculating the angles. Even...assessing the risks.

"No strings," he added quietly. "No expectations of a quid pro quo. Hell. This may be the first--and last--time you two ever come in here."

Something...wounded...moved through the depths of Michael's gray-green eyes. Something, Leo was pretty sure, let loose by the word "last."

"Thank you," Michael said after a moment, removing his hand from his jacket.

Leo put his elbows on the bar. Leaned in, just a bit. It was a guy-to-guy move, not an effort to exert any pressure. Which was just as well. Michael didn't strike him as someone who responded well to attempts at intimidation.

"She's really something," the bartender observed offhandedly.

"Ni...kita?"

It was reveal, the way he uttered her name. Each syllable, separate and distinct. As though they were too important--too precious--to be spoken quickly or carelessly.

"Yeah. Nikita."

"Yes. She is."

Leo gave Michael a few seconds to expand upon this reply without really expecting he'd take advantage of the opportunity. Eventually the bartender asked:

"You been together long?"

No answer.

Leo chuckled. "Lemme guess," he began, aware that he was on the verge of trying to pry open what could prove to be a singularly nasty can of worms. "You could tell me, but if you did, you'd have to kill me."

The man called Michael blinked. Once. His entire expression blanked out. It was as though he'd turned into a...*machine.*

"Hey, hey!" Leo exclaimed, suddenly afraid. But not just for himself. For Michael, too. And for Nikita as well. "I was just kidding." He gestured, palms up, hands spread, trying to underscore that he meant no harm. "I'm--what can I say? A guy gets old, the brakes between his brain and his big mouth give out. Forget what I said. Forget what I asked."

Michael blinked again Although his face remained impassive, Leo could sense him struggling with himself. Finally, the younger man's posture eased. The *humanity* returned to his eyes.

"M-Michael?" Leo asked tentatively.

"Nikita and I have been...colleagues...for several years," he said flatly, averting his gaze. A small muscle on the side of his jaw jumped as though was clenching his teeth.

"'Colleagues.'" Leo took care not to put any double-meaning spin on the noun.

"Yes."

"So...you watch out for her, right?"

Michael looked back at him, his eyes darkening with something akin to grief. "Less so than I once did."

"Well...maybe that's because you don't feel you have to so much."

Michael stayed silent. But the further tightening of his compellingly attractive features was as eloquent as any spoken denial.

"I mean, I don't know anything about the, uh, chain of command you and your--ah--'colleague' have going," Leo continued, feeling as though he was tiptoeing through a minefield but determined to forge ahead. "But if I had to guess, I'd say you've got seniority on your side. Maybe Nikita came to you as a, uh, rookie. Back--um--whenever it was. And now...well, it *could* be you recognize she's not green anymore. You know? That she's got a grip on what you two do."

More silence.

"And maybe if she has, maybe you *also* recognize that you don't have to, um, cover her butt every single second." Leo scratched his chin, remembering the unthinkingly coordinated maneuvering he'd observed earlier in the evening.

"Who knows?" he asked rhetorically. "Could be you've come to the conclusion that you can depend on *her* to cover *yours* every now and again."

**************

Even if Michael intended to respond to Leo's theory--something which Leo sincerely doubted he did--he never got the chance. Nikita's return saw to that.

"So, guys," she said brightly. "Did you discuss me the whole time I was gone?"

A quick glance at Michael told the bartender that he should be the one to field this teasing inquiry. The younger man looked temporarily...disconnected.

"Actually, Sunshine," Leo replied, winking. "We mostly shot the breeze about sports."

Nikita's eyebrows soared halfway to her hairline.

*"Sports?"* she repeated dubiously.

Okay. Okay. Maybe it would have been more believable for him to claim that they'd been debating the Third World implications of the post-Cold War paradigm but since he'd mentioned sports, he had to stick with his story.

"Yeah." Leo went into his stare-'em-in-the-eye-and-lie mode. "Baseball. The national pasttime. Your friend Michael turns out to be a diehard Cubs' fan."

"Michael told you..." Nikita's voice trailed off. She swallowed several times. Then, rather weakly, "The...*Cubs?"*

"Uh-huh." Leo looked to Michael for support. Got none. "He, uh, seems to think they can win this year."

"I don't--"

"Chicago could do it," Michael interrupted. His French-accented voice was suffused with the fervent conviction of an utter believer. "They've got a hot new arm in the bullpen. If they rethink the batting order and get more aggressive in the infield, they've got a shot."

"Holy...sh*t," Leo muttered.

Nikita's mouth dropped open. After a second or two, Michael nudged it shut by applying a knuckle beneath her chin and pushing up.

"The...Cubs..." Nikita repeated. She looked stunned. As though she'd been clouted up-side the skull with a two-by-four.

"Uh-huh," Leo concurred, recovering some of his equilibrium. "And after we agreed to disagree about the how big a son of a bitch Ty Cobb *really* was, Michael took a minute or so to tell me *all* your secrets."

Uh-oh. Mistake. *Big* mistake.

*Mallory, you goddamned old fool,* Leo berated himself. *Why the HELL couldn't you have left well enough alone?*

Nikita flushed.

"How interesting," she said tightly. "Considering Michael doesn't *know* 'all' my secrets." She inhaled on an audibly shaky breath. "But then again, I don't know all of *his,* either. I mean, Michael has secrets that are so secret--"

"Sunshine--"

"You know more than you realize, Nikita," Michael cut in.

She turned to him. She was trembling.

"And if I discover what that 'more' is and decide it isn't enough?" she demanded. "What then, Michael? Or is that another 'secret?'"

"Then...I'll tell you whatever else I can."

"Provided I ask precisely the right questions in precisely the right way."

Michael shook his head. "Not necessarily," he said gently. Reaching out, he stroked the curve of her right cheek with one knuckle. "I might actually learn to volunteer information on occasion."

His touch--and the tenderness in his voice--clearly weakened her. But she fought against their effects and regained her resolve.

"'On occasion?'" she quoted. "Meaning what? My birthday? Christmas? Thanksgiving? Or do I have to wait until the damned Cubs win the damned World Series?"

Michael regarded her silently for several seconds. Then, very slowly, as though he were advancing toward the edge of a precipice he said, "Today's the anniversary of the publication of Victor Hugo's first novel. I've always considered *that* something of an occasion."

Leo Mallory found he'd clenched his hands into fists. He forced himself to relax his fingers. But even as he did he was thinking: *Don't f*ck with her about this, Michael. However good a reason you think you have for doing so...do not f*ck with her about this.*

"T-today?" The word held an aching blend of fear and hope.

"Yes." Michael's gaze never strayed from Nikita's face.

The blonde raised an unsteady hand to her hair and twiddled with a lock of it. "I, uh, don't think I've read Victor Hugo's first novel," she confessed. "Maybe...maybe we could go back to my apartment and you could summarize the, um, highlights?"

"If you'd like."

"Which isn't to say I won't ever get around to going through the book myself," she added hastily. "I mean, I've always found that reading is a good way to--" she swallowed, her cheeks going pink "--r-relax."

"D'accord," Michael said.

There was a long pause. During the course of it, Leo watched two people wordlessly negotiate and seal an emotional bargain that he could only pray the both of them would find the courage to fulfill.

His gaze moved from Michael to Nikita and back again. One of the younger man's 'secrets' was obvious. He loved his 'colleague' and it terrified him.

*You'd do just about anything for her, wouldn't you?* Leo thought. *Including die. The thing is...that wouldn't be 'love' to her. Love for her is your being willing to keep youself alive.*

"Leo?"

The bartender started. God. Now *he* was the one zoning out!

"Yeah, Sunshine?"

Nikita beckoned him across the bar with her finger. Going up on her toes, she kissed him lightly on the cheek. He got a heady whiff of her perfume. She might have dressed like a 'slut,' but she smelled like fresh cut wild flowers.

"Thanks for everything," she murmured.

"My pleasure," Leo responded, smiling. Then he looked at Michael. He felt his face grow serious.

"You're welcome back anytime," he declared, meaning every word. "Friends of the house always are."

*************

For Leo Mallory, the memory of Nikita and Michael walking out of Bacchanalia together almost obliterated the memory of Nikita storming into the place...alone.

Almost. But not quite. He was a man, after all. And there was something about a knockout blonde strutting her stuff in a come-and-get-it-boys red dress and high-heeled pumps...

Still. If the entrance image burned itself into his brain via his gonads, the exit one embedded itself--whammo--deep within his heart.

Michael had been about a half-step behind when he and Nikita reached the door. Maybe he was covering her back. Maybe he was simply admiring the view. But as Phil-the-Bouncer started to pull the door open, Michael had moved a few inches to Nikita's left and placed his right palm very gently against the base of her spine.

She'd checked her stride. Glanced to her left. After a catch-in-the-throat moment of hesitation, she'd lifted her right hand and brushed her fingertips over Michael's lips.

Leo had felt the click of connection clear across the room as blue eyes met hazel ones. His body had jolted at the touch to the mouth. In a blinding flash of insight, he'd known *exactly* what Nikita and Michael would look like when they kissed.

They'd been gone by the time his vision had cleared.

He'd finished out his shift in fine style. Didn't spill a drop. Dispensed wisdom worthy of Solomon. Delivered the punchlines of jokes that were not just gut-busting funny, but almost original.

He'd just popped the cap on his usual end-of-work bottle of fizzy water when one of Bacchanalia's junior bartenders--a smart kid named Ken who might one day overcome the handicap of having seen the movie COCKTAIL at an impressionable age--accosted him.

"Hey, Leo?"

"Yeah, Ken." He poured the bubbling water into a tall glass filled with ice cubes. *Five* ice cubes. No more. No less. Fresh from the freeze cubes. None of the sitting-around-half-the-night ones, no sirree.

He figured he knew precisely Ken's next words would be.

"Uh, the blonde and the guy in black--"

*Bingo.* Right down to the 'uh.'

Leo added a wedge of lime, lifted the glass and took a deep drink.

Ahhhh. Refreshing.

Not as good as knocking back a Johnny Walker or Jim Beam, but hey...

"Yeah?" he asked. "What about 'em?"

"I, uh, heard you say something about them being friends of the house."

Leo turned his head. Gave Ken a long appraising look. "You have a problem with that?"

"No!" Ken quickly assured him. "Of course not! I mean...I just never saw them before."

"And your point is?"

"Well--" A gesture, not particularly eloquent. "I just wondered, you know? What's their story?"

Leo grinned ruefully and raised his glass toward Bacchanalia's front door.

*What's their story...*

"That's for nobody like us to know," he answered. "And for the two of them--if they live long enough and get real lucky--to find out."

THE END

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