Lethal Seduction: A CIA Romantic Suspense (CIA Agents Book 1)

by Roxy Sinclaire

  “I need to …” Her eyes were wild; her words incoherent; she kept searching for an escape. “I can’t. This is not … I just want to be …”

  Her tears were still there. Like kryptonite to Superman, each one of her tears was like a bullet to my barrier. My mother had cried enough to fill a river. The vision of her tear ruined makeup was stained in my mind like wine on white wool. My father had caused my mother to cry so often that I found it strange whenever my mother wore a smile. Yvette shouldn’t be crying. My instinct had served me well over the years, and I could tell from our encounters that Yvette had a good heart.

  “Whatever it is, I can help.” I said, attempting to lift her chin, but she turned away from me.

  I thought that words would dry up the well of water leaking from her eyes. I’m the freaking boss. I make shit happen. When I have your back, mountains move. Her legs seemed to give way though and she collapsed against my chest as more sobs came.

  “You can’t. This isn’t a fairytale.” she babbled.

  I began to wonder if I needed to call someone with more degrees than I had. Someone that carried around tailored white jackets with padlocks.

  I patted her softly.

  It would have been a hell of a lot better if she had fallen apart in my office, or even better, scheduled her meltdown to occur somewhere near my bed. There in front of the office building, a few feet from the street, was not the most opportune location.

  Still holding onto Yvette, I shot a glare at a nosy woman in a noisy track suit with matching fanny pack, an obvious relic from the 90’s. She sneered back, stuck out her tongue, and then she waddled away still gazing at Yvette and me.

  “Let me take you home, Yvette.” I recommended. I would hate to take out an old lady in the street, but some things couldn’t be helped.

  Yvette removed her face from my shoulder. Her puffy eyes looked fearful again.

  “No. I can’t.” She sputtered and she began thrashing in my arms trying to escape. She hadn’t spoken much since I had been outside with her, but the panic that was evident in her words tugged at a place in my heart.

  I let her go.

  Yvette’s wide eyed gaze was like that of a kicked puppy, and I wanted to understand it.

  “I want to help you, sweetie.”

  The wimpy security guard stepped from behind his desk like he was going to make a move on me. One look in his direction and he relocated himself behind the desk. Others on the street turned in our direction. I didn’t like the way that one of her hands gripped around the other one, how her usual easy body was squared with tension.

  “Do you?” she nearly whispered with furrowed brows. “Just help. That’s all?”

  I wanted to throw my hands up with exasperation. I had been telling her that for the last two minutes.

  “I just want you to be alright. I will take you anywhere that you want to go. We just need to leave the front of the building.” I proclaimed as sincerely as possible. “You can take the day, or week, if you want, paid time off to feel better. That is all.” I lifted my hand as though swearing in at a court hearing.

  “Ok.” she agreed in a barely audible voice.

  I called my driver, who I paid to be on standby at all times.

  I took small steps toward her, as I remembered some of the tactics I had seen in movies where they calmly negotiated the release of hostages. The situation felt that serious, like one wrong word or step could send her into a fit of tears. A sensation gnawed in my stomach that the beautiful woman was so obviously upset because of me.

  Smoothly I slipped an arm around her tense shoulders and guided her to the curb.

  She didn’t protest, but she didn’t relax, or smile, or do anything that remotely resembled the woman that I had plastered against the wall.

  The limousine was out front in mere seconds.

  “I’m going to take you to your home, okay?” I added feeling the need to announce every action like she was a toddler.

  She nodded, but her mind seemed somewhere else.

  My driver stepped out, but I motioned him back. Normally, I would stand curbside and wait for his assistance. But right then, in that moment, protocol didn’t matter, I just needed to get Yvette away from the building.

  I opened the door and helped her get in.

  Yvette sat as far as possible from me on the long bench seat in the back of the limo. The distance between us was as chilled as the top of a ski hill. This was not acceptable. Women didn’t run from me: they flocked to me.

  “Where to?” My driver, Bruno, asked in his patented gritty voice. Even though he had a gorilla of a name, Bruno was a small petite man. I imagined that he could have been a ballerina had he been born another gender. Only his gruff voice matched his name.

  “What’s your address?” I questioned Yvette slowly.

  She rattled off a few numbers and a street name in a small voice while haphazardly playing with her nails.

  Bruno eyed me through the mirror for confirmation.

  I mouthed the word “Home.”

  He nodded that he understood and rolled up the partition between us.

  I reach a hand toward Yvette, suddenly feeling like a complete ass for the way that I had treated her earlier. I may have been deemed Mini Hanson, but I didn’t want to be like my father in that regard. I didn’t want to make the girls cry like the nursery rhyme Georgie Porgie.

  She recoiled, nearly curling the length of her body into a ball against the door.

  I didn’t like that one bit. In that moment I became determined to get the skittish woman to open up.

  Chapter 7

  Yvette

  If I hadn’t felt like every dream that I had strived for had burst into flames, then I would have been impressed by Dylan’s plush limousine and driver. The man really knew how to ride in style, but my heart still hurt.

  Once the gravity of what had just taken place hit me, I couldn’t move, let alone drive. I couldn’t stop crying long enough to see my feet or my hands in front of my face. Attempting to drive a car would have been an unmitigated disaster.

  When I looked up from the bench and saw Dylan standing in front of me, I was ready to walk myself right into a padded room. I thought maybe he was a hallucination, but then he took me into his arms, and I knew he was real.

  “You can scoot over a little closer.” Dylan said with an outstretched hand.

  I’m sure that he wanted me to place my hand into his, but he had said some hurtful things to me earlier. While I was tempted by his gesture, I was still unsure.

  “That’s all right.” I replied before scooting as close to the door as I could without falling out onto the street. That would have been horrific, but a perfect ending to the strange day. I shook away the images of me being flattened by traffic and tried to focus on the situation at hand. On the bright side, both of my bosses had thought that I was great. On the downside, they had both assumed that I would be a great lay before I would be a great lawyer.

  After a few minutes in the car, my tears had subsided and only the feeling of defeat hung around me.

  Dylan scooched across the leather, ignoring that I had purposely kept away from him, and placed a hand on my thigh.

  If I could have shot daggers out of my eyes, he would have been full of holes.

  “Whoa. I surrender.” Throwing his hands into the air comically, Dylan chuckled but kept his position right next to me.

  His eyes brightened and a not so deep dimple appeared in his left cheek.

  A smile itched at my lips.

  “Go ahead and smile. You know you want to.” He winked.

  “No I don’t.” I replied in my best sad voice. I sounded like a pouty two-year-old.

  “Hey. Come on over here.” A grin spread across his mouth. “I promise that my shoulder is just as comfortable as the door, maybe even more so.” He moved his arm around my shoulders. I allowed it and even moved closer to him. There was no one else in my life who was going to provide any semblance of comfort
, so I figured that I might as well take advantage of the only available free comfort.

  “I guess I can at least test that theory.” I made myself comfortable between his warm muscled arm and broad chest.

  “And for whatever its worth, I want to apologize to you for what I said earlier. Sometimes I can be harsh.”

  I looked up at him. I needed to see him. I had always felt that true feelings are best understood through the eyes. Someone had once said that they were the windows to the soul.

  Dylan beamed his charming smile down at me as he spoke and ebbed away at my weariness.

  “I think you’re a beautiful woman, and there’s nothing that I would change about you. Well, except you being sad. You have a smile like captured sunshine.”

  A good chuckle gurgled up from my gut. “Oh geesh, that was corny. Sunshine. Really?”

  He almost looked crestfallen at my response. A less confident man would have been hurt.

  “You can’t laugh at my apology.” he chided with a smile.

  “Who said?” I retorted with a smile.

  “Subsection J of the Friendship Ordinances clearly states that the receiving party of the apology must accept such apology without criticism and must not cause undue embarrassment to the negligible party.” He spouted as though those words were actually written somewhere.

  “I call bull.” I jested and felt a little lighter.

  “I’m just glad that you’re smiling. It’s really a beautiful thing.” Dylan added with sincerity before pressing his lips to my forehead.

  “Thank you.”

  I didn’t really know what to say.

  “I’m not used to people giving me compliments. Most of the time, my name might as well have been Casper the friendly ghost.” I winced. “It was like everyone saw right through me, like I didn’t matter.”

  “That’s harsh.” He comforted me, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze.

  “Today I felt like that again. Like no one saw me for who I am. Just my body parts.”

  His face, which looked like the gods, had taken time to skillfully craft, scrunched at my words.

  “Did I make you feel that way?”

  I nodded, unable to look up into the crystal clear blue of his eyes.

  “Damn.” The deep breathiness of his words sounded against my cheek as he pulled me closer and kissed my ear.

  There was a comfortable silence between us, and I stayed pressed against the rigid expanse of his chest.

  When it seemed as though the ride was taking longer than usual, I sat up and searched the crowded downtown streets and then Dylan’s face.

  “Where are we going? This isn’t the way to my loft.”

  He reached out an arm to pull me back to the place against him I had recently vacated.

  “You were so worked up earlier, I felt like it wouldn’t be safe for you to be alone.”

  My neck took on a life of its own and reared back without regard to Dylan’s title or position.

  “You did what?” The words punched out of my throat. “How dare you make those decisions for me.”

  “So, what? Should I have left you a crumpled mess on the bench?” he huffed back.

  “First of all …” my finger poked through the air with certainty, but my words were lost when he inserted his tongue into my mouth.

  I couldn’t decide whether the anger I felt was because of his blatant disregard for my ability to think yet again or because of the balmy heat that pooled between my legs from the intensity of his kiss causing my brain to nearly disintegrate.

  With firm hands he cupped my ass and slid my body closer to his, as he expertly explored the depths of my mouth.

  “I need to know that you are all right.” His words bristled against my lips as he held my face close to his. “I need you to come home with me.”

  His stare caused my breath to catch in my throat. I breathed him in, intoxicated by the spicy strength of his scent.

  “Okay.” I whimpered feeling like unset Jell-O in the curve of his arm.

  He didn’t remove his arm from my waist the rest of the way to his home and I didn’t try to remove myself. I just sat there in the comfort of his arms until the long limousine rounded a corner into an alcove of multi-level brick homes decorated with bright green yards and exotic flora.

  “Fancy.” I commented as the driver pulled into the long curved driveway and stopped.

  Fancy didn’t even begin to describe the incredible and astoundingly elegant home where Dylan resided. I worked hard to keep my face neutral and my gasps to a minimum as my eyes bounced across the vaulted ceiling of the foyer, the tall winding stair case, and the golden embellishments blotted across the pristine white walls. My small heels echoed against the white Florentine marble as Dylan guided me up the stairs and down a hall to a set of white, gold trimmed French doors with looping handles.

  In total awe, I gasped at the expansive bedroom that unfolded behind those doors.

  The sight of his king sized bed both flustered and excited me, and thankfully he led me past it. Being in the presence of Dylan caused small explosions to burst through my body in simultaneous spots with the thought of how deft he was in the use of his fingers.

  The gaping garden hot tub that came into view lit a smile across my face.

  “Nice.” came out in a whisper.

  The large room had full mirrors, a chaise, and a separate stone steamer shower. An open door led to the actual business part of the spa like room.

  Dylan moved over to the tub and pulled his shoulders from his suit jacket. More gracefully than I thought the gruff man could perform, he sat on the edge of the oversized tub, rolled up his sleeves and turned on the water.

  I watched as he moved through the bathroom and lowered his large body to kneel in front of a cabinet under the sink.

  “What are you looking for? What are you doing?” I asked. Would he expect me to bathe with him? I wondered if he had brought me to his home to seduce me.

  He smiled back at me before he pulled out a bottle of liquid bubble bath in one hand and oil in another.

  “This is all for you.” he said, a softness befalling his eyes that I had never seen before. “Relax. I won’t bother you.” he stated as if reading my mind.

  I shifted my weight to my left side. He had been sweet to me, and I was being difficult.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” I said.

  “I meant it when I said that I wanted to make sure that you were all right.” He poured bubble bath and oil into the water before standing. “I’m selfish when it comes to sex. Not about giving pleasure, but about your attention. When I take you, I want it all. I want your thoughts, feelings, and concentration to be on our bodies connecting.”

  I gulped, watching the plain expression on his face. Dylan was not joking. He planned to fuck me and if his finger skills were any indication of his ability, he was going to do it well.

  “Ok.” I muttered as flashes of his taut hard body ramming into me flashed through my mind. Dylan could have it all, and had taken all of my mind and emotions every time that we were together.

  “What will I wear, when I get out?”

  The air was thick with heat as the water rose in the tub and Dylan stood before me and grasped my hands.

  “I have a few left over company sweats for the softball team that you can put on. I’ll leave them on the bed for you, but you won’t need them straight away.”

  “Really?” I asked almost hopeful after his gesture that there might be more. No one had ever done anything like this just for me before.

  “There are clean robes folded in the closet with the towels. Hilda, my masseuse will be set up in the bedroom when you are ready. She’ll also assist with whatever drink you would like.”

  He kissed my cheek gently and I ached for his lips to touch mine again.

  “Thank you.” I smiled.

  The soak, the massage, the wine all soothed my soul in a way that rivalled the most luxurious commercial or boutique spa arou
nd. Hilda was so good that I think I may have orgasmed, twice, due to her expert kneading of my neck, back and thighs. She was damn good, and my body felt so relaxed that I fell straight to sleep afterward.

  I woke from the massage table nearly a new woman, but the sun had lowered in the sky. I wandered in amazement through the halls of Dylan’s home, opening doors until I found him.

  He was sitting quietly in a large wing backed leather chair, his dark green eyes flowing over papers in the manila folder so absorbedly that he didn’t even notice me.

  I moved closer to him and saw the scowl perched on his face as though a smile had never lived there, as though he wasn’t the same man that had provided me with the sweetest ending to a bitter day.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  There wasn’t a tell-tale sign that I had startled him, the man had the face of stone when he wanted, but the way his left eyebrow lifted slightly for a piece of a second let me know that he hadn’t expected to see me.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. Why were you frowning when I walked in?”

  He smirked and tugged me onto his lap.

  “What frown?”

  He grazed his fingers gingerly against the side of my face.

  “I told you, so now you tell me?” I said as assertively as possible through the lull of his touch.

  He looked at me then. I assume he had to consider whether or not to divulge the information.

  “What is it espionage documentation?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and handed over the file.

  “Menory Medical wants to settle for a good amount and I feel like there is something that I am missing.”

  “You miss something?” I questioned under lifted eyebrows.

  I flipped through a folder that listed the names and descriptions of the patients affected.

  “They must have noticed another pattern.” I said. “The first case was put together based on a series of negative commonalities with the Brandon Hunter case.”

  “Right.” Dylan agreed. “Brandon Hunter’s wife, Sherry, initiated the suit after he died from an infection.”

  “I noticed that they all had an infection. Now we have to figure out what other commonality they have beyond the surface stuff of age and symptoms.” I stand feeling the thrill of new ideas pumping through me. “The infection was caused by Menory products, but doesn’t Menory have a pharmaceutical side too.”