Intimate Knowledge

by Julie Miller

  Show a little skin.

  Lacy lingerie.

  Strip.

  “Strip?”

  “Logan, please.” She grabbed for the steno pad but he snagged her by the wrist and held her at arm’s length. “Don’t read any more.”

  Which was just what he intended to do.

  He found the list of ten rules he’d given her, all with little notes in the margin beside them. He found a list of the five senses, all checked off. He found her critique of tonight’s seduction.

  Remember condoms.

  Loved the kiss!

  Black underwear +++!

  Don’t hide body. Don’t cover body. Don’t stress about body.

  Body okay.

  Then, a little angry face drawn beside the words Mimsey flaunts it—why can’t you?

  Logan’s irritation softened into something sad. Something more protective, more curiously afraid. A hundred different questions of concern floated through his head. The agent in him wanted answers. The man in him wasn’t sure he’d like what he’d hear.

  Third orgasm! It can be done. Joel Vitek be damned. “Who’s Joel Vitek?” he asked, skimming her notes about preparation time and future shopping trips. He looked up and saw Grace hugging herself in that self-conscious way that minimized the glorious shape of her body. “Grace?”

  “Give me the damn thing, Logan.”

  He reached up and removed her glasses, verifying the sparkle he’d seen behind her lenses. “Shit.” He wiped away the tear that had spilled onto her cheek with the pad of his thumb. An uncomfortable lump of guilt turned over inside his stomach. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to…”

  To what? Be a jerk? Make you cry?

  Obviously her notes were more than just scribbles about her work. It was a journal of sorts. A diary. With a reverence that came too late, he closed it.

  “Baby, I’m sorry.”

  She snatched the steno pad and her glasses and dashed across the room to her bag. The steno pad quickly disappeared.

  “Joel was my first…my only…lover before you.”

  She pulled out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes beneath her glasses. He needed to tread lightly here. Undo the damage he’d inadvertently caused.

  Logan stood, but held his ground, thinking better of crossing the room and putting his hands around her quaking shoulders. “And he didn’t appreciate your talents?”

  “Talents?” She laughed, but it was a self-deprecating sound that held no humor. “He didn’t even know it was me.”

  “How could he not know who he was going to bed with?”

  “He thought I was my mother. He wanted to be with Mimsey Lockhart.” She turned to face him, one hand clutching her robe together at her neck, the other crossed at her waist. “At least you used the right name.”

  Some jerk had used her. Some selfish bastard had taken advantage of her innocent trust and hurt her. No wonder she’d denied the sexual side of herself for so long. “Gracie—”

  “Look, it’s no surprise that I’m self-conscious about my body. I’ve been this way since junior high.”

  There was more? “Gracie—”

  “I mean, I didn’t just develop ahead of my peers, I developed big ahead of my peers.”

  He tried to follow the path of her confession. “Kids can be hard on each other. But we’re adults.” He took a step closer, but she backed away and over to the desk when he would have touched her. He spread his arms wide, standing there naked and completely exposed. Surely she had to trust his honesty when he made himself this vulnerable to her. “I love the size and shape of your body.”

  Maybe she didn’t hear him. “Can you imagine what it was like as a teenager to have grown men hitting on me like I was Mimsey’s twin sister instead of her daughter?”

  “What?” Fierce emotions, territorial and unexpected, churned through Logan’s blood. His supplicant hands tightened into fists. “How old were you?”

  “Not old enough. When Mimsey found out, she gave them the boot.”

  “Good for her, but she should have called the cops.”

  Grace’s tears had subsided to a flush of anger across her cheeks. She paced back and forth in front of the desk. “You see why I’m not any good at this? I have to learn these skills from you and write them down because I wasn’t blessed with Mimsey’s acting abilities. The Bureau has given me the opportunity of a lifetime, and my success or failure all comes down to the one thing I know nothing about.” She stopped at the corner of the desk closest to him, and lifted her fiery emerald gaze to his. “So did I pass the seduction test or not? Will I be able to fool Harris Mitchell?”

  “Enough!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Do you hear yourself? Do you think tonight was just about a test?”

  She released the death grip on her robe and shoved at his chest. “I made you play chess, for gosh sakes. How pathetic was that?”

  He crushed the soft, fuzzy material in his hands, trying to reach out to the softer woman underneath. “Do you think I was just doing my job coming here?”

  “Yes. Isn’t that why—”

  Logan hauled her up by the collar and kissed her. He claimed her mouth and silenced her protests and tried to say with his body the message she refused to believe from words alone. He lapped up the salt of tears that had dried on her skin, tried to ease her pain with his lips and his tongue. Her fists opened and she flattened her palms against his shoulders as the need to strike out began to fade. Her mouth opened, as well, and Logan seized the advantage and swirled his tongue inside. With just his mouth, he tried to show her what the Joel Viteks of this world were missing out on.

  “I wanted you. You,” he whispered against her mouth. “Grace Lockhart. Every sexy, desirable, lovable inch of you. I still do.” He kissed her again and slipped his hands inside the gaping front of her robe. He found smooth, hot skin and luscious curves, and not a stitch of clothing to get in his way. As always, his own body responded to the alluring call of hers. He slid his hands down to her bottom and pulled her closer. And though she was no longer pushing him away, he willed her to put her arms around him and eliminate the distance between them entirely. But he didn’t push. Not yet.

  He nudged aside her fuzzy collar and licked and nipped and kissed the bundle of nerves at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. He knew he had the right spot when her fingertips clenched and dug into his shoulders. “Did you seduce me tonight only because of this case assignment? Wasn’t it really just the excuse we needed to get naked together?”

  “I—” She caught her breath as he flicked his thumbs across her exposed nipples.

  Okay, so he wasn’t eloquent. But he was honest. “I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I didn’t think there was already something between us.”

  That thing between them was already growing. He blazed a trail to her sternum with his lips and began working his way down toward heaven. For now he was just kissing and touching, but already he wanted more. How could she believe she wasn’t a wild, sexy woman?

  Just as his lips reached the swell of her breasts, she grasped his head and pulled him away. When she tilted his face up to hers he could see she was thinking. He could see the wheels of consideration spinning in her eyes. “So you’d do it with me again? Just because?”

  “Just because I want you,” he corrected her. “Now, Gracie.” He took her hand and guided it down to his straining shaft. Her big green eyes widened with surprise, but he kept her hand there, rubbing himself inside her grip. “This is what you do to me.”

  Logan rested his forehead against hers and struggled for an even breath as she repeated the same rubbing action on her own.

  “I do this to you?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  She was wavering. She wanted to believe. But she didn’t. Not yet. She removed her hand and pulled off her glasses, tucking them into her pocket. Then she reached up to frame his jaw between her fingertips. She stood so close he could see each tiny fleck of blue that haunted her eme
rald eyes. She was searching, he could tell, searching for some verification of the truth.

  Logan had never considered patience to be one of his virtues, but with Grace, tonight, he would wait however long it took for her to believe she was an impossibly sexy woman. Moving his hands to the more neutral location of her waist, he tried to intellectualize his arguments the way she would to make her point.

  “Did you like it when those other men—and I use the term only in reference to their gender, not because bastards who go after underaged girls have earned the title—did you like it when they touched you?”

  His little flare of temper earned him an indulgent smile before she answered. “No. Not really.”

  “What about this Joel guy?”

  The smile disappeared. “I thought he liked me. It was okay until…” Her voice trailed away. He could only imagine what it must feel like to be loved as a substitute for someone else. Joel the Jerk better never show his face around Logan, or he’d learn what was like to be the substitute for a punching bag.

  But Logan kept his vindictive feelings to himself. “Just okay?”

  She nodded.

  His chest expanded in a steadying breath as he braced himself for the unexpected importance of her next answer. “Do you like it when I touch you?”

  She stroked her thumb across his bottom lip as if she was petting him. Calming him because he might not like her answer. “Yes. But I’m not supposed to—”

  He pressed his finger over her mouth, shushing her denial.

  “Do you like it?”

  She pulled her thumb away, but her gaze stayed true. “Yes.”

  Logan smiled, never questioning the relief that lightened the gloom and anger he’d been carrying since this conversation started. “I like it, too. The way you touch me. The way I touch you.”

  “But we’re partners—”

  “We’re lovers now. In every good sense of the word.” He wet his finger on the tip of her tongue and traced the decadent curve of her bottom lip. He felt her shudder, felt her eager response shudder through him. “I wasn’t thinking about the case tonight, and whether you were sexy enough for Harris Mitchell. All I was thinking about was us. And how you’re just the right kind of sexy for me.”

  “Logan?” She kissed his lucky finger. She made him an even luckier man when she took his hand and placed it against her left breast. She breathed in deeply, pushing herself into his palm. Logan closed his eyes and squeezed, savoring the delight. With her other hand she reached down and took him, caressing him in her hand just as he’d shown her earlier. “Can we do it again? Just to see that the first time wasn’t a fluke?”

  “A fluke? Haven’t I proved my point yet?” Logan played with her breasts the same way she was playing with him. She was one tough cookie to convince, but worth every effort.

  “Please?”

  “You don’t have to beg.” He seized her mouth in a wet, openmouthed kiss, plunging his tongue deep inside. He gently pried her hand from his straining shaft and twined her arms up around his neck. “Hold on, sweetheart,” he coaxed her. He pulled her tight, closing his arms around her beneath the robe, flattening the luscious pinpoints of her breasts against his aching chest. “I want to be inside you right now, baby. Is that okay with you?”

  “Yes.” He slid his fingers down her spine, traced the seam of her buttocks, reached beneath her thighs and lifted her, split her. Guided the tip of his shaft toward her heat. “Wait. A condom.”

  Logan nearly collapsed as she struggled out of his grasp. This woman drove him nuts! A good kind of nuts, though. After a raw, lingering kiss, he grabbed the condom box and ripped it open. He pulled out one foil packet and let the box and its contents fall to the floor.

  Where was the confounding slit to rip the damn package open? Grace’s laugh pulled him from his savage need to defeat the foil wrapper. “Here. Let me.”

  After a cautious rip, the acrid smell of latex stung his nose. She wanted to put it on him. He gripped the back of the nearest chair and tried to focus on anything but the fumbling caress of her fingers as she smoothed the rubber over the tip and began unrolling and stroking her way down his shaft. But she was new at this and his patience was failing. He palmed the back of her head and bent to give her a fierce kiss. Then he put his hands over hers and speeded up the process. “I can’t wait, baby.”

  He picked her up, wrapped her legs around his hips, and plunged right into her slick, hot folds. With his hands beneath her thighs, her fingers clawing to grip at his shoulders and then losing themselves in his hair, he backed her up against the wall and pinned her there, ramming himself home.

  She screamed out his name as they plunged over the edge together in one endless, driving plunge.

  Once the fevered heat had passed, Grace collapsed against him. Logan nuzzled her exposed neck and idly wondered if this driving desire for Grace Lockhart would ever really leave him.

  Setting her down only long enough to lose the robe and find the condoms, he carried her into the shower where they washed each other with soap and warm water and he loved her all over again.

  He’d proved his point. Grace was one sexy, irresistible woman. And he was damn lucky to have her.

  Even if it was only for one night.

  BY THE TIME dawn crept in through the window’s sheer curtains, Logan had proved his point time and again. Grace knew all about what it meant to get laid now. They’d set up the chess board again and he’d taken her there, on the sofa and on the floor beside the bed when their passion for each other ran faster than their time to get between the sheets. He’d licked sweet cream dip from her breasts and drank sparkling juice from her navel.

  He was exhausted, content, and falling in love with the vulnerable sleeping beauty he held in his arms.

  The burgeoning idea didn’t bother him nearly as much as he’d expected it would. He didn’t have to worry about lengthy commitments or if he was the best man for her or whether or not he could change his bachelor living habits. Because he knew their time together would be short. Dangerous. Decadent. But short.

  And then he’d move on to his next case. He’d go out into the field on his next assignment and risk his life, and Grace would go back to her safe cubicle.

  He didn’t worry about developing feelings for her because he knew he wouldn’t be around for the long term. It was a trend in the Pierce family. People you loved went away. So you loved them for a little while. Then you got over it and moved on.

  His mother had been taken from him, his father had abandoned him, and women had come in and out of his life with no strings attached.

  When this case was done, Grace would move on, too. He’d enjoy her for now, for as long as she was willing, and then he’d let her go.

  11

  AN ANNOYING BEAM of bright sunlight hit Grace in the eye, stirring her from her contented slumber.

  Though this September weather had blessed them with an Indian summer, she knew the toasty warmth that surrounded her had nothing to do with the temperature outside. She smiled and eased back against Logan’s large frame. They’d fallen asleep beneath the covers, spooned together, his leg thrown over both of hers, his hand resting possessively on her breast.

  She’d bared her body to him time and time again. But more than that, she’d bared her soul. She’d shared all her doubts and damning self-image. And Logan wanted to be with her, anyway.

  She felt beautiful in his arms and in his eyes. Sexy.

  Maybe she’d been wrong to hold on to all those self-conscious hang-ups about boobs and brains and heartless men.

  Logan seemed to think she could have it all. Brains and beauty. Respect and sex. Lots of sex. Lots of lusty, fun, tender sex.

  How could she thank him for that? How could she take all that she had learned out of this room and apply it to the rest of her life?

  Pushing aside the weight of his arm and leg, Grace rolled over to face him. Her body still ached in a few places at even that simplest of exertion, but she fel
t alive in those same spots. Needed and wanted and blissfully alive for the first time in her life.

  And she had Logan Pierce—renegade loner, ace superagent, legendary lover—to thank for that.

  Grace smiled and reached up to brush a stray spike of that teak-brown hair off his forehead. Asleep like this, he didn’t look so tough. She traced her fingertip down the straight, sharp angle of his nose, skipped over those imminently wonderful lips, and touched the point of his chin. A shadow of beard had sprouted during the night, and the soft stubble of it teased her finger. Relaxed in sleep, the deep lines on his face—evidence of life and sunlight and laughter—softened and made him look younger. More vulnerable.

  Grace frowned as her secret observations took an inward course. What made Logan Pierce vulnerable? What fears and insecurities did he have that needed to be protected? That needed to be treated with the same loving care he’d shown her throughout the night?

  Maybe Logan didn’t have vulnerabilities. He certainly seemed strong and fit and knowledgeable about things in this world she was only just beginning to discover for herself.

  Of course, there was Roy Silverton. His partner’s death had turned Logan into the reputed lone wolf of Quantico’s finest. Did guilt over a death he couldn’t have prevented still plague him? Did it make him question every decision he made? Did it color every task he undertook?

  Grace could understand if that was the case. She’d grown up in her mother’s shadow. And though she’d never doubted Mimsey’s love, she’d often doubted her mother’s wisdom when it came to taking care of her child or herself. Her childhood and her skewed relationship with Mimsey colored Grace’s life. But Logan was teaching her that it didn’t have to.

  Could she teach him that his anguish over Roy’s death could be a part of the past, as well?

  Like a ferocious beast, gentled by loving and tamed with sleep, Logan lay beside her, breathing softly on his pillow. His broad chest and long body bespoke his strength and even a battle scar or two. He was generous with his kisses and potent with his lovemaking. Not ever in her wildest dreams had she pictured herself sleeping beside a man like him.