by Lexi Blake
Though it might not be so bad if he was able to get to know that gorgeous redhead. At least if his father was leaving him with a big problem, he’d also handed him a beautiful distraction.
“Whoa, we’re going through with that? I thought the retreat was Dad’s thing.”
“It was Dad’s thing and now it’s mine.” Like most of his world. That was what happened when a person was the heir to a multi-billion-dollar oil company. When his twin had decided to evade his fate by joining the military, it had all fallen on JT’s shoulders. All of it. The business. His parents. The properties. The employees.
If his father had died…
There was a pause over the line. “I’ll talk to Big Tag. You don’t have to do this. I don’t care what the Agency is saying. There will be another chance. You don’t have to do their job.”
Of course he did. If he didn’t, the spy would set another drop location and they might not know where it was, might lose decades of innovation, and all because he didn’t like to socialize. “Look, Mike, Dad’s fine and we can’t reschedule this retreat. Even if we did there’s no guarantee the drop won’t happen somewhere else.” There was a throaty laugh and he glanced back at the bar. She was grinning from ear to ear as she laughed at something Sandra had said. Likely something very inappropriate. He’d only met the woman once before, but he’d heard tales from his brother of how she sometimes gave the big boss a run for his money in the sarcasm department.
“Then I should go. I can go in as you,” Mike argued.
It wasn’t anything he hadn’t already thought of. He wasn’t a spy. He hadn’t spent years perfecting a poker face. He was known for speaking his mind. The last thing he wanted to do was play games.
Unless he was playing with her. Yeah, he could think of some games to play with her. They would involve rope and long hours of worshipping every inch of her skin.
He sighed and turned away again because he also wasn’t the kind of man who fantasized about a woman he didn’t even know. He was a realist. At least he was trying to be since being a romantic had gotten him nowhere. He would love to throw this all into Michael’s lap since his brother had spent a decade learning the spy game.
But there was a major problem with this particular twin switcheroo. “It’s a leadership retreat. Do you honestly believe you can fool people I’ve worked with for over a decade? We’re going to be talking about work and new tech. These people know Malone Oil as well as our father, and you haven’t been interested in a very long time. You can’t conduct those meetings.”
“You’re also going to be hunting a spy,” Michael countered.
He bit back a groan. He shouldn’t have picked up the phone. All he and his brother seemed to do lately was bicker. “You didn’t have a problem when it was Dad going in.”
“Dad isn’t reckless. Dad won’t try to take down an international spy on his own.”
He didn’t seem to remember who their father was. “I assure you he’s going to have a few things to say to whoever is selling out our corporate secrets.”
“Yeah, but I trusted that Dad wouldn’t go rogue in the middle of the investigation. He knows when to sit back and let the experts do their jobs.”
Naturally his brother was ready, willing, and able to give him grief. “I assure you I’ll let the lady bring down the bad guys.”
“The fact that you call Nina a lady and not an operative is exactly what I’m worried about. You have to think of her as an operative. She doesn’t need you to protect her, and that’s what you tend to do. You’ll like her. You’ll be attracted to her, and that means you’ll go into full-on protect-the-woman mode,” his brother explained.
He couldn’t help it that he was protective of the women in his life. It wasn’t that he didn’t think they were competent. They were. They were incredibly smart and he relied on them. But he knew what a man could do to a woman. “I can mind my manners.”
“I wasn’t criticizing. You know your manners are impeccable, and it’s not wrong that you want to protect people, but it could make the job difficult on you.” A sigh came over the line. “We can talk about this tomorrow. I’ll come right to my condo and we’ll discuss everything.”
Oh, that was precisely why he’d decided to stay at the Adolphus. It hadn’t merely been the fact that he’d been told by Big Tag’s somewhat stern assistant this was where they were putting Nina Blunt up, though he’d thought they could talk about the change in the mission.
Or he could pretend he wasn’t JT Malone. He could pretend he was just a guy and she was just a girl and maybe they would talk for a while. What could that hurt?
Or he could go to bed and deal with all of it in the morning. The weight of the world seemed to press on his shoulders.
“How about we talk in the morning?” He was so fucking tired.
“All right. If you need anything, call me.”
“Will do.” He hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket. He didn’t want to look at it again. It was never anything but bad news lately.
He should go over and tell the gorgeous operative that she wouldn’t be going in with his father. She would have to go in with him. Of course she might change her mind about taking the job if she talked to Mike. His brother—who she had almost certainly worked with and knew his opinion—thought he was a reckless moron.
She would likely think he was Mike at first since they were perfectly identical twins. Oh, if he took his shirt off, she would notice that he had scars Mike didn’t have—deep gouges from working with barbed wire, a burn mark on his calf from not being careful enough on an oil rig. He didn’t have Mike’s gunshot scars. But if one was only studying faces, there was next to nothing that would tell them apart. How well did Nina and Mike know each other? McKay-Taggart was a big company and she worked in London while his brother was here in the States. It was possible they’d never met, but he was almost certain she would turn and see him and come over to talk about the fact that his company was the target of international spies and he better not fuck this up.
Maybe he should have gone straight to Mike’s penthouse condo and raided his brother’s Scotch. The beer wasn’t doing much for him.
He needed something else. He needed to be out of his head for a while, but that wasn’t going to happen.
He glanced up and saw Sandra had gone and Nina was looking right at him.
She quickly averted her eyes, but not before he saw the look in them. Like he was an ice cream cone and she hadn’t had a sweet treat in so long.
Neither had he.
Fuck. She would definitely think he was Mike. Was she interested in his brother? Mike hadn’t told him anything about her except that she was highly competent and selected because absolutely no one on the leadership team had come into contact with her, so her cover would be easy to keep. It was precisely why Sandra was going in as backup. She hadn’t been with the company for long. McKay-Taggart had handled many of Malone Oil’s security issues over the years, but Nina was fairly new to the London team and she’d never worked in the States before.
Had she caught sight of him staring at her? Would she be terribly disappointed to find out he wasn’t his brother at all?
“Hi.” She was standing in front of him, a glass of red wine in one hand and a beer in the other. “You looked like you could use another. Please tell me if I’m intruding. I don’t want to bother you, but I’m a bit on the lonely side and you didn’t seem to be waiting on anyone.”
“I’m not.” She wasn’t talking like she knew him—or rather knew his twin. She was talking like a woman who’d seen someone she was interested in. “Please join me.”
She smiled and he was utterly dazzled. “Thanks. It’s been a long time since I chatted up a bloke. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m terrible at it. I’m Nina.”
He loved that accent. It was familiar since his mother had been born in England. She hadn’t moved to the States until she’d married his dad. That accent oddly sounded like home.
&nbs
p; He didn’t want to say his name now because he liked the idea that he was nothing more than a guy in a bar and she was a woman who wanted to spend a little time with him. But he wasn’t going to lie to her. “Jackson. But my friends call me JT.”
She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, JT.”
There wasn’t a hint of recognition in her eyes.
She had no idea who he was. None. She didn’t know he was the heir to an oil company, had no clue he was considered one of America’s most eligible bachelors, had been asked to star on reality shows where he would date twenty women and probably dump them all because no one should find their soul mate on national television. Which was why he’d turned them all down.
He was JT, a guy in a bar.
He reached for her hand and took it in his. “Nice to meet you, Nina. And I’m lonely, too. I appreciate the company.”
It wouldn’t hurt to pretend. Just for a little while.
Chapter Two
Nina wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she knew one thing. She didn’t want to turn back and go to her own room. She’d spent the last two hours with JT. She didn’t know his last name and didn’t care. He didn’t know hers, either. There was something freeing in being JT and Nina.
Not exchanging last names didn’t mean she didn’t know anything about him. She’d found out he worked for his father’s company and his job took him all over the world. He was an utterly charming mix of down-home boy and sophisticated world traveler. He was a good listener. He had a brother and loved his family.
He was so sexy it hurt.
The lift doors opened and he held a hand out, allowing her to go first. He was also a perfect gentleman. After she’d bought him a beer, he’d bought the next round and then had made her choose between having another round or switching to coffee. She got the idea that if she’d had another drink, he wouldn’t have invited her up to his room.
“Tell me something,” she said as she moved to the elegant hallway. At this time of night, it was perfectly quiet. Her own room was several floors below. When the time had come to decide on whose room to go to, she’d insisted on his.
Yes, he was lovely, but she wanted an escape if she needed it.
“I’ve told you a lot. I can tell you more,” he said in that deep Texas accent of his. He followed her off and the doors closed behind him.
She hoped she didn’t need it. She hoped he was every bit the Cowboy Prince Charming he seemed to be.
“If I’d had drink number four, would we be here?” She was curious. She’d had more than one man try to ply her with drink to get what he wanted. It never worked, but she wanted to understand his reasoning.
He stared at her for a moment as though assessing the situation and then he leaned against the wall. “No. I would have made sure you got back to your room, but I don’t know your threshold. I have zero interest in coaxing you with liquor. I would far rather know you wanted me and not some random guy to forget your troubles with. And I didn’t want to get drunk either. Three’s a good limit for me. I don’t need anything to dull this experience.”
He was forthright. She liked that quite a bit, and he hadn’t had a fourth drink either. He’d been perfectly in control. Another thing she liked. She couldn’t exactly come out and tell him she would very much enjoy it if he dominated her sexually. Or could she? “But I am trying to forget my troubles. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you in particular. If you hadn’t been in the bar this evening, I would have settled for a book.”
His lips curled up in the sexiest smile. “What kind of book?”
“Romance.” Somehow she didn’t think he would be derisive. Some people had contempt for the genre, but they were usually the ones who could use it the most.
He moved in, his hand coming up to brush a stray hair off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. “I like the sound of that. It’s your turn to tell me something. What would the hero of that book you would have read do right now?”
He’d backed her against the wall, but not in a way that felt threatening. He was taller than she was and loomed over her, his broad shoulders blocking most of her line of sight. She was still in her heels and for most men that put her at eye level or taller. Not with this one. It was nice to look up to a man for once. “I think he would invite her back to his room where they wouldn’t shock anyone who happens to walk down the hallway.”
He watched her like he was studying something fascinating, something he wanted desperately to learn. “I happen to know there are only two rooms on this floor, and I saw the couple in the other room go upstairs a few hours ago. They seemed like they were ready for sleep. Not that older couples can’t party the night away, too, but they didn’t seem like the type. So we don’t have to worry about anyone catching us, though I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t be ashamed to get caught touching you.”
He was pushing all her buttons. The good kind. The kind that got her in trouble. “So these are the penthouse suites?”
“Yes. My dad’s company has an agreement with this hotel. We get priority for this suite. We do a lot of business in Dallas, though I don’t live here. I live far enough on the other side of Fort Worth to make it hard to get home, so I stay here, and our suite was open.”
His father’s company must be ridiculously successful, but she wasn’t going to get into that. Money was definitely not the reason she was interested in this hunk of cowboy. She had zero curiosity about his wallet. Now what he had in those jeans of his was another story altogether. “In that case, I suspect the hero would almost certainly kiss the heroine. He might press her against the wall and devour her. He might whisper all the things he’s thinking of doing to her.”
His eyes were on her mouth, as though he was thinking about doing exactly that. “Doing to her? What should I do to you, Nina? Should I take off your clothes? Should I unwrap you like the gift you are, taking my time because this is a present I didn’t expect to get tonight? Should I unbutton that shirt you’re wearing slowly, using every sense I have to catalog how gorgeous you are? Yes, I think that sounds like the way to go. I’ll do it first by touch.”
She was breathless as his fingers moved to unbutton the top two buttons of her blouse, brushing the skin he found there. He eased the sides back until he could see the tops of her breasts, a slight bit of her bra showing. She was damn glad she’d dressed for dinner with Sandra. She’d thought seriously about going the jeans and T-shirt route but at the last minute had wanted to look somewhat professional. A nice blouse meant a lacy bra.
“Soft, but then I knew your skin would feel like silk,” he said, his voice deep.
A shiver of pure desire went through her and at that moment she wouldn’t have cared if they’d been on the busiest floor in the building. He was all that mattered.
“After I’ve touched, I’ll use my eyes to memorize the sight of you.” He was staring down at the tops of her breasts. “You’re beautiful.” He reached out to trace the puckered scar that sat above her breast. “This is recent. Are you all right?”
It had been a couple of months since she’d taken a bullet from a German working against his country’s best interests. Another corporate spy. “I mentioned I work for a security company in London. It was work related, but I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it, JT. Could we not?”
He seemed to want to press her, but he finally lowered his head. “Doesn’t matter how you got it. It’s part of you and still oddly lovely.”
He gently kissed the scarred flesh. It seemed to come alive under his lips.
She brought her hands up to touch his arms, running from his elbows up to those shoulders that went on for days. It had been far too long since she’d had sex. That was why her whole body was a live wire waiting to go off. It wasn’t merely the fact that JT seemed to know exactly how to touch her, the words to say to make her skin soften, the muscles loosening and readying.
“I’ll use my lips,” he continued. “I think that’s what the hero would do. He would use his lips and ton
gue and teeth to explore.”
He was going to drive her crazy. She was ready to get on her knees and submit to the man, if she didn’t think that might freak him out. She would tell him that he should definitely use his teeth on her because she liked a bite of pain. Yes, she wasn’t going there tonight. “He would definitely kiss me. I mean the heroine.”
He lifted his head and brought his lips up to hover over hers. So close that she could feel the heat coming off him. “Would he? Would he put his mouth over hers and devour her like the starving man he is? Would he steal her breath? Would he plunge his tongue in like he’s thinking of something else?”
Like his cock. “Yes. He would do all those things.”
“See, I’m thinking I should read some of those books now. Much more pleasant than the ones I end up reading. No one ever kisses in engineering manuals. It’s a mistake, I think.” He lowered his head and brushed his lips along her mouth. “I’m supposed to know how to make things work, how to ease a machine this way or that so we get the best production out of it. All I want to do right now is find a way to make you melt for me.”
He kissed her again, deeper this time, his tongue sliding along the seams of her lips, and she did exactly what he wanted. She melted, opening her mouth and letting him in. She felt his body move in as though he meant to capture every inch of territory she ceded to him. His tongue slid along hers, drawing her in and plunging deep. Showing her what he wanted to do with his dick.
She felt his hands moving from her neck down to her torso, one palm cupping her breast through her shirt. Her nipples peaked, getting hard and sensitive, and she wished there wasn’t all that fabric between them. He pressed her against the wall and she let her hands roam across his muscled back and down to his ass, which was equally muscled. This man worked. Not merely worked out. He worked. It was there in the calluses on his fingers, which deliciously scraped along her skin. She loved the feel of those work-roughened hands smoothing back her blouse, exposing her to his eyes.