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been alone, Hammett would have slowed down and scouted another route. The jump was damn high. But she had a strong competitive streak, and it had been a while since she’d tested her limits.
    Besides, she wanted to prove the cocky son-of-a-bitch wrong.
    So Hammett turned a cartwheel into a back flip, then another, then sprang off the roof with all the force and speed she could muster, twisting in the air—
    —and immediately realizing she was going to come up short.
    She stretched, extending her arms and spine, pointing her toes and keeping her knees together to be more aerodynamic, while the reptile part of her brain screamed “YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!” Her fingers brushed the rusty, iron railing, but she was already starting to fall and couldn’t maintain a grip, and she glanced down and saw there wasn’t anything else to grab and no soft places to land.
    If not death, then several broken bones. She’d heard vague rumors of an operative who’d taken a big fall from a building, irreversibly crippled thanks to a miscalculation. Hammett didn’t want an error in judgment—brought about by the spirit of one-upmanship—to be her undoing, so in the nanoseconds after missing the grab she was already figuring out the best way to land.
    When something caught her wrist, she was as shocked as she’d ever been. And not much shocked her.
    “So what is the going rate for saving a damsel in distress?” Heath asked as he hung from the scaffold by one hand, his other clasped around hers.
    She stared up at him, at a loss for words.
    “The mattresses at the Hotel Solamar in San Diego are quite firm,
mamacita
. They also have excellent room service.”
    Hammett pulled herself up his arm then hung alongside him, staring into that damn amused eye. She’d misjudged the jump, was surprised Heath had caught her, and didn’t know what to say when he had. All signs she was off her game, and should have gotten the hell out of Dodge.
    Instead she gave him a slow, soft kiss. His tongue darted out to meet hers, but she’d already pulled away.
    Heath let out a big, dramatic sigh. “Even if that is the only thanks I get, it was worth it.”
    “I’ll thank you with more feeling later,” Hammett surprised herself by saying. “Help me kill Guterez, and Solamar’s penthouse is on me.”
    Heath scrunched his brow, as if considering it. “The penthouse on you, you on me.” Then he smiled. “I like this idea.”
    Hammett smiled back, taking care to make it look genuine, then she chinned up the fire escape and swung onto the stairs.
    Thirty seconds later she and Heath had climbed back down to street level. The Eldorado was still parked at the curb, its engine running. The limo was at least ten years old, but it looked to be in decent shape, and had so many coats of wax polish it could probably be seen from space. Hammett couldn’t peer through the tinted window glass, but if she had to guess, Guterez was either alone in the backseat, or with female company, having sent all of his thugs to go after her. He was probably armed, and so was the driver.
    “Sneak up on the driver and take him out,” she told him. “I’ll make sure the doors are open, and that he’s not looking at you.”
    “What is the plan,
bonita
?”
    Hammett handed her guns to Heath, then began to strip. When she got down to her bra and panties, Heath gave a soft whistle through his teeth. When she was completely naked, his breath caught.
    “
Perfecto
,” he whispered.
    She looked into Heath’s eyes, but his were on her body. “Do you have any blood left in your head to follow instructions, or did it all rush to your dick?”
    He smiled at her. “I’ve missed you.”
    “Yeah, me too,” she dead-panned. “Forty seconds, then take the driver out. Start counting now.”
    Hammett pulled down her lower eyelids and touched her fingers to her pupils, prompting tears. Then she put on a frightened expression and ran out of the alley, toward the limo.
    Nudity was useful