Intimate Knowledge

by Julie Miller

  Logan himself seemed to be working on his own recovery. He shoved his fingers through his spiky hair, wiped his hand over his mouth and jaw. Once. Twice. Again. “Grace. Sweetheart. I’m not sure how that got out of hand, but— We can’t—”

  His hands settled lightly on her hips as Grace turned and pressed the button that would bring the paper target down the rail toward the booth. When it was close enough, she released the button and smiled with almost giddy relief.

  “I hit the target. Bull’s-eye.”

  “What?”

  She looked at the hole in the middle of the paper heart and wondered if the symbolism of achieving her goal would be lost on Logan. She’d lied. Not in words, perhaps, but with her body. She’d led him to think there was something between them. That she saw something personal in this teacher-student relationship.

  Of course there wasn’t.

  Logan Pierce was a man who could set off her temper and her body with equal finesse. But there was no emotional attachment involved. She wasn’t developing feelings for the man.

  Grace cringed inwardly. With her body still thrumming with the aftershocks of that “training” session, she was turning into a bigger liar than she could have ever imagined herself to be.

  But she had wanted to show him she could play a part. Just like Mimsey.

  She’d shown him, all right.

  Though victory seemed shallow, she fixed a self-satisfied smile on her face and turned to Logan. She placed her hands on top of his where they rested with comfortable possession on her hips.

  “Surprise. My mother’s not the only actress in the family,” she gloated with perfect suavity, forcing her brain to take charge of her traitorous body.

  Logan snatched his hands away and retreated a step. The stunned look of betrayal on his face shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did. But she ignored her immediate inclination to apologize and thumped him once in the chest with her forefinger.

  “Pretty convincing, wasn’t I? Put that in your rule book and smoke it. I am not resigning from this case. If you want to get rid of me, you’ll have to find another way.”

  She waltzed out of the booth with her head held high, her body still throbbing as it carried her away on a very shaky tide of victory.

  LOGAN COULDN’T DECIDE whether to strangle Grace or to kiss her into submission. He opted for the former since the latter choice would surely get him into trouble again.

  He unlocked the driver’s side door of the red 1966 Mustang convertible he’d leased for the job and opened it for her to climb in behind the wheel. Once she had her short skirt adjusted around her thighs, he handed her the keys. “You ever pull a stunt like that again and I’ll tan your hide.”

  Her cheeks flooded with color. “You mean you’d spank me?”

  Now there was a picture. One that threatened to tie him in knots all over again.

  Logan swore at his body’s instantaneous reaction to her innocent question. Or maybe it wasn’t so innocent. In that phone-sex voice of hers, even a stunned question sounded like a come-on.

  “Get out your notebook, Gracie. You still have a lot left to learn about men.” Logan slammed the door and forced his brain back to rational reality. He took his time circling the car before settling onto the passenger seat.

  His reputedly virginal partner had pulled a fast one and he’d fallen for her teasing game like a lust-starved rookie. She was headed into one hell of an assignment and she wanted to play games!

  The really scary part was that he’d played right along with her. He was the veteran on this team, the one who was supposed to have the common sense. The one who knew that staying focused on the case could be a matter of life and death.

  He’d lost focus with Roy. Gotten cocky. Thought he’d seen it all and knew it all. He hadn’t sensed the waiting danger until it was too late to save his partner.

  He refused to repeat the same mistake with Grace.

  He looked over and watched her twist in the driver’s seat as she backed the Mustang out of the parking space. The white silk of her blouse stretched and gaped at her cleavage, giving him a clear glimpse of the lacy bra she wore underneath. Logan swallowed hard as she inched a bit further, pushing a mound of pure womanly flesh up over the edge of the bra as if it was trying to escape. As if it was reaching out to him.

  Lace and silk and a few straps of elastic weren’t nearly enough to contain and support those beauties.

  They needed a man’s hand. A man’s mouth. His—

  Logan swore and turned away from the provocative display. He had to get this unexpected lust for her out of his system so he could do the damn job.

  He caught a glimpse of his own dilated pupils in the side-view mirror, a visible hint of his body’s response to hers.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, disgusted by his body’s reaction. He could control this!

  Blotting out that pitiful look in his eyes, Logan jammed on his reflective sunglasses and concentrated on what he considered justifiable anger.

  Twenty-four hours ago Grace had been a shy, shapeless cubicle nerd. Just because he’d discovered the incredible body beneath her clothes and the fire in her eyes and the stubborn spirit that forced him into hyper-alert mode whenever she was around didn’t mean she’d truly become that femme fatale she aspired to be. “You’re playing out of your league, Grace.”

  Her knuckles turned white around the gearshift, foretelling her protest. “I did what you told me to do, didn’t I? I made you think what I was doing was real. I pretended like I was a B-movie seductress and you fell for it. I stayed in control—”

  “You lost it just like I did.”

  “I did not.”

  “You’re blushing now, just talking about it.”

  Her hand flew to her cheek to gauge the heat rising there. He watched the darting focus of her eyes as she fumbled for an excuse. “My cheeks are flushed because I’m angry at you.”

  “And losing your temper is going to help you convince Harris Mitchell you’re on the up and up with him?”

  That stunned her into silence.

  Logan softened his tone. A little. He understood that she was still myopic, insecure, Grace Lockhart, a little lady who needed to prove something. But that sexy, determined Agent Grace with the damn gun and the dynamite body showed some potential for working undercover. Too much damn potential for her own good. A couple of years of on-the-job training and then, yeah, she’d be ready to take on the likes of organized crime bosses.

  But in five days?

  Make that four, and counting.

  If only miracles still happened.

  And ever since Roy Silverton’s death, miracles had been in short supply for Logan.

  Grace was like a comic-book hero with newly discovered superpowers. She could save mankind from the scummy likes of Harris Mitchell if she learned how to harness her talents. But those same talents—her drive, her brains, her sensual instincts—could just as easily destroy her if she wasn’t trained correctly.

  Logan finally, fully, accepted that the mentor role had fallen to him.

  Leaning back into the white bucket seat he reached across the console and brushed a fingertip across her flushed, hot cheek. He wasn’t surprised when she jerked away from his touch.

  Typical reaction for an amateur. Logan shook his head at the enormity of his task. “You’ve got a few lessons left to learn, sweetheart, before you’re ready to play with the big boys.”

  “Are you going to be the one to teach me?”

  “As long as you can remember rule number seven.”

  “What’s that?” Like the straight-A student she’d probably been in school, she was already reaching into her bag for her notebook.

  “You have to keep your head in the game. Always.”

  She pulled her empty hand out of the bag and rested it on the steering wheel. The expression in her eyes was a mixture of accusation and confusion. “What does that have to do with being sexy?”

  “It has to d
o with staying alive. You can’t for one minute forget what your purpose is when you’re with Mitchell.”

  “I know my job.”

  “And I know mine. Dead women aren’t sexy.” He let that one sink in—for her, and for him—allowing an image of attending Grace’s funeral to slip into his mind to keep his libido firmly in check. “Now, if we’re going to do this job, we’re going to do it right.”

  He leaned across the center console, arcing his arm around her to reach the seat belt. He was close enough to smell the damp heat gathering between her breasts. He forced her back in the seat as far as she could possibly go without him actually touching her, using a bit of subtle intimidation to remind her who was in charge on this assignment.

  “And if you pull any more of that B-movie actress crap like you did on the firing range, I’ll tell Carmody you failed the training. That you’re mentally unfit for duty.”

  With a snap, he buckled her in and leaned back in his seat.

  The word fail seemed to have a galvanizing effect on Grace. She sat up straighter, thrusting out those glorious breasts like fully loaded torpedoes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “If I have to dress up in drag and seduce Harris Mitchell myself, I will. If I’m not convinced you can take care of yourself on this assignment, you won’t go.”

  Didn’t the damn idiot know when to back off from a challenge?

  “Then train me as hard as you can.” She stomped on the accelerator and drove the Mustang out of the parking lot. “Harris Mitchell is mine.”

  6

  “WHAT’S THAT WIRE sticking out of your bra?”

  Grace dropped her chin and looked straight down her cleavage. “What wire?”

  “No!” Logan shoved his chair back from the conference table and stalked to the far end of the room and back before perching on the corner of the table and getting in her face for not thinking. “You have to come up with a cover line. If Mitchell or one of his henchwomen spots something like that, you have to tell them your underwire broke on your bra.”

  “Wouldn’t they search me? They’ll figure out that’s a lie.”

  “That’s the whole point! You have to come up with something so they don’t even suspect you’re lying. You can’t let them get to the search part.”

  Logan had barred Grace inside this empty room at FBI headquarters, and together they’d pored over Mitchell’s file, familiarizing themselves with all the pervert’s quirks. Whether getting through a security screen or a one-on-one meeting with the man, Logan wanted her prepared for any contingency. She had to think on her feet. She might even have to think flat on her back, if Mitchell’s reputation for the ladies played out.

  But every time Grace showed a bit of promise, she made this kind of gaffe and backtracked through any progress they’d made. Logan swiped his palm across his jaw and noted the stubble of beard growing there. He needed a shave. He needed a stiff drink. Aw hell, he needed a vacation from this whole stupid idea. Grace Lockhart was bureaucrat material, not a field agent. How the hell did Carmody expect her to survive this assignment?

  Grace set her steno pad, in which she’d logged every bluff line they’d brainstormed together, on the table and shoved it away. “Logan, we’ve been at this for seven hours. I’m tired and I’m hungry.”

  “Mitchell won’t care how tired or hungry you are when he puts a bullet through your head. I said I was going to train you hard. Now are you up to it or not?”

  Her shoulders lifted from their weary posture and she reached for the steno pad. She clicked her mechanical pencil twice and flipped to a clean page. “All right. Let’s try another scenario.”

  If she had glared at him, he would have drilled her for another hour. If she had cried and tried to beg her way out of it, he would have taken her straight to Carmody and let her weeping prove she was unfit for this job.

  But her big green eyes did him in. Wide and intelligent, they revealed a quiet determination that even his boorish commands couldn’t diminish. She lifted her hand to adjust her glasses that weren’t there and poked herself in the nose. He watched her smooth her fingertips across her brow, as if that had been her intention all along.

  She was covering for her mistake.

  It was a mistake she should never have made in the first place. But she was trying. Damn, but this woman didn’t know when to quit trying.

  “You’re right,” he relented, feeling something very like compassion stirring near his heart. He was smart enough to think of a compromise that would suit both the jaded agent in him, who didn’t want her anywhere near this case, as well as the soft-hearted man who wanted her to succeed.

  “I am?”

  “You’ll think better on a full stomach. Let’s go eat.” He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugged into it. “I need to make a stop at my locker first. We’re not done for the day.”

  ONE HELICOPTER and cab ride later, Logan and Grace were on to the next phase of her training. In the heart of Manhattan’s posh business district, he would teach her a thing or two about old-monied living.

  The tie around his neck had been a concession to the role he was playing. The Willingham Hotel restaurant had been a swanky place for lunch yesterday. But it was a country club buffet compared to Chez Dumond at dinner.

  Logan adjusted the lapels of his charcoal flannel suit and touched his cuff links with the superior nonchalance of a man who wore Dolce & Gabbana every day of his life.

  Grace’s gray suit fit in just by the fact that she filled it out to magnificent proportions. All it took to dress it up was to undo the top button of her blouse, revealing a satiny expanse of skin, and add a pair of diamond drop earrings. The glistening prisms danced along her neck, reflecting the rosy hue of her skin and the strawberry highlights in her golden hair.

  Simple. Classy. Gorgeous.

  A perfect blend of brains and body. And though both traits were obvious, she wasn’t flaunting either one.

  As Logan studied her across the table, he couldn’t help but notice the picture of understated elegance she made. And to know the secret of raw sensuality that simmered just beneath the surface of her conservative exterior made her an intriguing mix of lady and hussy that any healthy man would find hard to resist.

  Just the way he liked his women.

  Now if he could only get her to act the part she resembled so well. He gave his head an imperceptible shake as he scooped the sprig of mint from his soup. “Stop playing with your earrings.”

  “Why do you keep baubles like these in your locker?” she asked, referring to the jewelry box he’d given her on the helicopter.

  “I’m not a Boy Scout, you know. In my experience, it pays to be prepared for anything.”

  “Like a pretty thank-you gift for your latest conquest?”

  He ignored the damning reference to his checkered past and lifted his wineglass, saluting her as if he were sharing an intimate toast with a lover. “Like having the real thing on hand when I infiltrate a gang of jewel thieves.”

  She leaned over her plate. Accusation lit her eyes and guilt-by-association hushed her voice to a terse whisper. “These belong to the Bureau?”

  He matched her position at the table, leaving little more than the centerpiece candle separating them. “Mitchell might give you a gift like that.”

  “For what purpose? I’ll be his accountant.”

  “How do you think he inspires such loyalty from the women who work for him? They’re paid well.” He reached across the table and caressed one of the diamond fobs. “And sometimes they’re given bonuses for a job well done.”

  Grace jerked away from his touch and sat back straight in her chair.

  Logan retreated more slowly. “Enjoy them for tonight. They’ll have to go back.” He picked up his spoon. “Now eat your soup and convince me you’re at home in a place like this.”

  “It’s cold.”

  “It’s chilled melon soup. It’s supposed to be cold.”

  “I would have sett
led for a burger and fries to fill me up so we could get back to work. Not three different glasses for wines and doll-size servings of food I can’t even pronounce.”

  Logan restrained the urge to shake his spoon at her. “What is it with you and fast food? You’re not infiltrating a warehouse with a chop shop and a bunch of mechanics. You’re going into Mitchell’s multimillion-dollar estate and corporate headquarters. That’s the champagne-and-chilled-soup crowd. If you don’t fit in, he won’t hire you.”

  Despite the defiant pout of her lips, she glided her spoon from the center to the back of the bowl and sipped the melon puree with well-mannered perfection. The spinach soufflé and veal medallions passed by in a similar sham of quiet etiquette.

  He would have preferred their conversation include more than an evaluation of Chez Dumond’s food and service, but at least she wasn’t screwing up. She used the forks in proper order, spoke to the waiter with just the right hint of arrogance, and even stopped fidgeting with her earrings long enough to survey the restaurant with the bored indifference of a regular wealthy patron.

  They had just taken their first bites of crème brûlée when the real Grace reemerged.

  She snatched his wrist across the table, nearly knocking his spoon from his hand. “Oh, my God, Logan. Look.”

  He didn’t need eyes in the back of his head to know he was in trouble. The adolescent animation in Grace’s expression was warning enough.

  He discreetly turned to glance over his shoulder at the restaurant’s grand entrance. His chest expanded in a steadying sigh.

  Harris Mitchell.

  The man fit his profile to a T.

  Six foot one. Trimly muscled, thanks to regular work-outs. Chestnut hair cut and combed just so to mask the receding points of his hairline. Ice-blue eyes that revealed his Scandinavian heritage and emotional detachment from his conscience.

  Mitchell was flanked by twin female bodyguards who served as both adornments and protectors. One woman looked like a Viking princess, the other a Nubian goddess. Though both wore revealing formal wear, there was no mistaking the bulge of handguns in their evening purses or the garters strapped to their thighs that undoubtedly anchored knives or smaller hardware beneath their short gowns.