by Julie Miller
Grace grimaced, sliding deep into thought. Her wildest dreams had never included a man, period. She’d resigned herself to a lifetime of loveless duty. That’s why she’d been forced to find a man to teach her about sex. To teach her to like sex. To teach her that she wouldn’t die or explode or be sentenced to hell for liking sex.
To teach her that a man would like having sex with her. With her!
But like that fable of old, Grace feared that this magic she’d discovered with Logan would fade with the rising of the sun. The intimacy they’d shared would disappear beyond the other side of that door.
While her thoughts were taking a downward spiral, she traced matching circles across the plane of his chest, tightening the circumference of each circle until she closed in on a flat, male nipple.
“You’d better watch that.”
She tipped her face up to the sound of that deep, drowsy voice. Sleepy gray eyes blinked open and she smiled. The magic hadn’t faded yet.
“Good morning.” She pressed her lips to the aroused nipple she’d been teasing, licking and nipping and suckling the way she’d learned he liked last night.
“Mmm.” His appreciation vibrated through his chest. His hands came up and settled on her shoulders as she began the same gentle assault on the other nipple. “Good morning to you, too.”
When she felt his interest begin to butt itself against her thigh, she stretched up beside him and planted her lips against his throat. Her tongue rasped against the prickle of his beard, drawn to the warm beat of his pulse beneath the salty tang of his skin.
“Last night wasn’t a dream, was it?” she asked, stretching farther to nip at his chin, dragging the tips of her breasts across the curling, coarse hair on his chest. She repeated the motion, and the pert, rosy peaks strained to attention. A thousand little pinpricks of sensation awoke throughout her languid body, from her tender nipples down to the aching juncture between her thighs.
Logan slid his hands down to her waist, his calloused palms waking each bundle of nerves they touched. He angled his mouth to hers. “If it was, I’m not ready to wake up yet.”
Grace lifted her mouth to his, as eager to possess as she was to be possessed. The stubble of beard abraded her lips, but he soothed her tender skin with the warm lap of his tongue. She feasted and supped and gave and surrendered.
A warm serenity lit deep in her belly and close to her heart. Logan’s lazy, thorough kiss blew life across the embers of her desire, stoking the fire more slowly this time, unlike the spontaneous combustion of their earlier joinings.
She was beginning to understand the choices on Logan’s list. The thrill of surprise. The secret power of erogenous knowledge. The pleasure that came with confidence.
But she would add one more item to his list, she thought as her head fell back to give him access to that erotic spot at the base of her neck. With each tortured breath, her body brushed against his, arousing his need, arousing her own.
Love.
Grace needed love to make her seduction complete.
She needed to give Logan her love before she could truly appreciate the wonder of last night’s gift.
She wasn’t ready to admit it, and she doubted Logan was ready to hear it. He might never want anything more from her than her body.
But he would have it, whether he knew it or not. This dangerous, powerful, gentle man would have her love. In the only way she knew how to give it.
“Thank you for last night,” she whispered, sliding her palms to the center of his chest.
“My pleasure,” he answered, nibbling at the point of her shoulder.
“But that was last night.” She gave him a shove, rolling him onto his back. Throwing the covers back, she rose up and straddled him. “And this is this morning.”
Logan’s eyes darkened with anticipated pleasure. His hands rested lightly on her knees. “What did you have in mind?”
She felt wicked and powerful and full of love. “You worked so hard last night, I wanted you to relax this morning.”
He wiggled his hips, sliding the jut of his arousal along the seam of her buttocks. “It’s a little late for that.”
“We’ll see.” She leaned forward and flicked her thumbs across his nipples.
Logan smiled. “Nice.”
With her eyes pinned to his, she brought her hands up to her breasts and cupped them in her palms. Then she flicked her thumbs over the rosy tips, playing with her nipples just as she had played with his.
Something almost like a growl rumbled deep in his throat and Grace smiled. “That is really nice.”
She reached down and flattened her hands over his nipples, then she rubbed them up and down—long, slow strokes down to his waist and up to his shoulders and down again. She reveled in the tickle of crisp hair on her sensitive palms, the warmth of smooth skin at her fingertips.
She covered her own breasts and gave herself the same sensuous massage. Up over her breasts, down to the crease of her thighs. She created a delicious friction as she stretched and preened and rubbed herself. Logan’s observant gaze missed nothing, darting to capture every detail. The beading of her nipples, the flush of color on her breasts, the whisper of heated breath blown between her lips. His warmth became her warmth. His pleasure became hers.
Taking care to avoid his rigid shaft, she moved down to sit on his thighs. Then she reached for him.
She stroked him gently, lubricating her fingers with the drop of moisture at the tip. Each stroke taking her further, closer, until her fingers nestled in the thatch of dark hair surrounding him. She reached beneath, found that ultrasensitive ridge of skin. She cupped his testicles, then traced her fingernails lightly across their length.
“Gracie.” His chest rose and fell in a deep, erratic sigh. He clutched handfuls of the sheet in tight, shaking fists.
She gave him a moment to recover. Only a moment. And then she touched herself.
She rose up on her knees above him, stroked herself just as she had stroked him. She opened her mouth to catch her breath as she rubbed her fingers against her sensitive nub. Then she dipped her fingers inside, feeling her own feverish core blossom with heat. Slick moisture coated her fingers. She braced one hand against his thigh and let her eyes drift shut, feeling her body begin to pulse, feeling herself drip onto her hand.
But this was for Logan. So she tore her mind from the precipice of rapture and pulled her fingers free. She touched his penis, coated the engorged shaft with the liquid proof of her desire.
“Gracie. Sweetheart.” He clutched at her thighs. His hips twisted beneath her.
Muscles clenched between her legs. Her buttocks pressed together. Her toes stretched. Her breasts tingled with her taut need for release. She dipped her fingers inside herself and squeezed the nub.
As the orgasm took her, Logan grabbed her hand and thrust her wet fingers into his mouth. He suckled them, holding her captive with just his mouth while he freed his hands to open a condom and sheathe himself. Before she could reach to help, he shifted his body and pulled her down over his hot, throbbing shaft.
She loved the stretching, filling, consuming sensation of taking Logan inside her. His hands anchored her thighs beside his hips and he began to move, thrusting himself impossibly deeper. He moved his thumbs to her aching nub and began pushing, rubbing, pressing her together from the inside and out.
It was too much. Too much. She was coming again!
“Logan—”
“Touch yourself, baby.” His hoarse command echoed her own trembling need. He guided her hands back to where they were joined together. “Come for me.”
He grabbed her breasts and squeezed them roughly, pinching the tips while he bucked beneath her.
Riding her lover like the thoroughbred he was, Grace arched her back. She cried out as the exquisite torment seized her for a second time. Logan hammered into her with one final, mighty thrust.
After he had pulsed inside her, she collapsed onto his chest. He gathered her into hi
s arms and kissed her roughly, quickly, as short on breath and energy as she.
She tasted herself on his mouth. Tasted the wonder of sexual rapture, the sated flavor of love fulfilled.
Then she nestled beneath his chin, riding the rise and fall of his chest as he regained his equilibrium. He pulled the covers up to her waist and held her loosely in his arms, stroking his fingertips up and down her spine.
“How about that?” He smiled at the crown of her hair. “We finally made love in the bed.”
Grace giggled, too exhausted to laugh. “There’s a first time for everything.”
Logan’s loving hands were relaxing her muscles and putting her to sleep. “I think there’s been a lot of firsts for you in this suite.”
She snuggled closer. She hoped the discoveries she’d made wouldn’t also be her last.
SOMETIME LATER, after dozing on and off atop Logan’s chest, Grace was roused by a shrill chirp. She cuddled against his warmth and tried to stay asleep, but the chirp sounded again.
The sudden stiffness in Logan’s chest was what finally woke her. At the fourth chirp, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and lifted her head. “What…?”
Logan’s gunmetal gaze had locked onto her eyes. A hint of sadness darkened them that Grace didn’t immediately comprehend. She reached up and laid her hand along the rugged angle of his cheek, intending to soothe him.
A fifth chirp intruded.
And then she understood. The outside world. Reality had found its way into their blissful fantasy world. Her training was over.
“You want me to get it?” asked Logan. Though he held her in his arms with the same tender care as before, his tone sounded flat and impersonal.
Hearing his withdrawal made it a bit easier for her to push herself away from him. She shook her head. “It’s my phone.”
A crushing inevitability flooded through her, making her movements awkward and unsure as she crawled to the far side of the king-size bed. She reached for her glasses first, then picked up her phone from the bedside table.
“Hello?”
“Grace? Sam Carmody.” She didn’t need the name to identify the clipped authority of her commander’s voice.
She pulled up the sheet to cover herself primly as she sat on the edge of the bed and planted her feet on the floor. “Yes, sir.”
Logan swung his feet off the opposite side. With the fatigued slump of his shoulders and the width of the bed between them, he seemed miles away. Though he didn’t look her way, she got the impression he was waiting to listen to her half of the phone conversation.
“The call went out,” Carmody informed her. “Mitchell just contacted the Sheers & Fine Accounting office.” Grace knew the FBI had been monitoring all the local accounting firms who hired out freelance employees. Her cover as one of those freelancers had already been set in place. “You have an interview scheduled over cocktails tonight at six at Chez Dumond.”
“Six o’clock?”
“Do you have your program ready to go?”
“Yes.” Her undivided attention finally kicked in when he mentioned numbers. She opened the drawer in the bedside table and fished out one of the hotel’s ink pens, but a scrap of paper was not to be found. “I’ve copied it onto a disk. All I have to do is locate Mitchell’s master computer terminal and download the program onto his system. I can copy anything that looks incriminating at the same time.”
Grace twisted around on the bed. There must be a notepad in the nightstand on the other side.
“And if his system is password protected, you’ll still be able to get in?”
She nodded, then realized he wouldn’t be able to hear her answer. “With all my research, I’ve got a pretty good idea how his mind works. And I’ve been able to crack other protected systems.”
“Good.” She knew Commander Carmody wouldn’t have given her this assignment if he had any real doubts about her computer skills. It was her survival skills that he’d found lacking. After a few intense days—and nights—with Logan, she hoped she was prepared in every area. “We’ve tailored your résumé to meet Mitchell’s specific requirements. Remember, tonight, six o’clock, Chez Dumond.”
She started to write the information on the sheet beside her. But suddenly her steno pad materialized in front of her. Delivered by one splendidly naked messenger. Logan had retrieved it from her overnight bag and held it out to her, unopened. She looked up into his eyes, wondering if he remembered the secrets she’d written inside. Of course. Logan knew all her secrets now.
All but one.
Grace took the pad, opened it to an empty page and jotted down the time and location of her meeting.
“And, Lockhart?” Her boss’s crisp demand for attention kept her from exploring the cause of her suddenly somber mood.
“Yes, sir?”
Carmody paused for dramatic emphasis. “Get the job.”
After she hung up, she stared down at the information in her hand. Her first field mission started tonight at six. For a moment she couldn’t remember why she’d been so determined to get this assignment in the first place.
Oh, right. Respect.
She was Grace Lockhart, FBI agent. Her own woman. A mind to be reckoned with. Mimsey Lockhart’s avenging angel. Not her shadow or twin.
Logan glanced down at the information she had written. “I’m gonna hit the shower. We’ve got a lot to do before you go in tonight. You go ahead and pack what you need to take with you. I’ll help carry it all out when we’re ready.”
Grace nodded as he turned and walked away.
She made no effort to follow. Despite his nudity, Logan’s demeanor had been all business. All superagent. She wasn’t sure a lover would be welcomed.
A night of seduction probably wasn’t the best way to earn a man’s respect. She suspected that proving herself on the case would be the only way Logan would ever think of her as anything more than a one-night stand. At least she was certain of two important things. He knew he’d taken her to bed. And he’d enjoyed his time with her.
But she had a terrible feeling that one night was all they’d ever have together.
If Harris Mitchell didn’t tear their lives apart, the reality of their different lives in the outside world probably would.
12
FOR HER INTERVIEW with Harris Mitchell, Grace had selected a dark rose suit with a short skirt and zip jacket, which she’d unzipped to the shadow of her cleavage.
Logan’s words had been appreciative—professional, yet with an understated invitation to sex. But his eyes had reflected stone-cold granite while his impersonal hands had secured a computer-chip-size microphone and wire beneath her mauve silk camisole. Though he’d be posing as her assistant later, for this initial meeting he’d remain out of sight in a surveillance van where he, Commander Carmody, and a team of agents and technical support would be eavesdropping on her every move.
It was to be all about business between them from now on, she supposed, and her heart mourned the loss of that special connection that had bound them together as lovers the night before.
He’d given her a pep talk of sorts, “Remember, Job One is to gain Mitchell’s trust. Once you’ve secured that, we’ll need the schematic of his computer network. That’ll help us pinpoint our search of his estate for the master terminal. Then the reprogramming will be up to you. Be smart. Be sexy. Keep your head in the game.”
Grace had only nodded, feeling too overwhelmed by the enormity of the task she was facing to allow herself the luxury of deducing the cause for Logan’s mood swing into cool, calm and calculating.
They rode together in silence in the elevator from her room at the Willingham Hotel down to the parking garage. With all the detached wariness of a personal bodyguard, he stepped through the doors ahead of her and surveyed the garage before taking her by the elbow and escorting her to her red Mustang.
“Keep the top up,” he advised her, scouting the cars parked around her while she unlocked the door. “You’ll be d
riving at night.”
When she opened the door, Grace assumed there’d be no goodbyes. But for one brief instant, the Logan from last night reappeared. He slammed the door shut and turned her into his arms, backing her against the shiny red frame of the car and covering her mouth in a raw, passionate, earth-shaking kiss.
Just as quickly as it had happened, he released her. He stroked the back of his knuckles beneath her chin, apologizing for his harsh possession while she clung to the front of his leather jacket and tried to make the brief connection last.
His dark, hooded eyes probed her face, as if memorizing each curve and line for the last time. “Give ’em hell. And watch your back.”
And then his eyes blinked to granite gray and the moment was gone. He pried her fists from his jacket and opened the car door for her.
After she started the engine, he moved to the entrance and watched over her departure. She could still see him standing there in the rearview mirror when she turned the corner a block away.
“MISS LOCKHART.”
Harris Mitchell rose from his table and took Grace’s proffered hand. He sandwiched her hand between both of his own when she would have pulled away. She noted his fingers were long and smooth, a testament to time spent at the spa in lieu of regular physical labor. They were hands that lacked character. Grace immediately decided she liked the calloused imperfections of Logan’s hands better. Those were hands that had seen the worst the world had to offer. Those were hands she trusted.
“Thank you for seeing me.” She lifted her gaze directly to his and earned a bright white smile.
“My pleasure.” With Grace’s hand still clutched in his, he turned to his two dinner companions, the Amazonian African-American and the statuesque blonde. “These are my associates, Tanya and Ilsa.”
The bodyguards. “Nice to meet you.” Grace smiled, but received no response in return.
“Ladies, if you’ll excuse us.” Harris dismissed them. He pulled out one of their vacated chairs and invited Grace to sit beside him.