by Amy Jarecki
Taking a pivot step, she threw a backwards round kick at his head. “How’re you getting along?” she asked—odd time to start being cordial.
“Fine, but curious.” He ducked then threw a couple of air punches.
She lunged in with a strike to the face. “About what?”
Blocking, his toe stubbed on the mat and made him stumble. “Why I’m here.” Logan caught his balance just as she went on the attack with crafty chicken kick aimed at his kidney.
“Don’t you like it?” she asked.
He dropped and rolled away from the kick, impressed that she’d made the air hiss. “Haven’t decided.”
She pounced, going for a punch to the face. “I’d rather be out there hunting bad guys, too.”
A quarter inch from his eye, he stopped her fist, then used her momentum to flip her on her back while he sprang over her, landing on his knees and pinning her wrists to the mat. “Do you always talk this much when you’re sparring?”
“Not usually.”
He grinned. “First set to me?”
Her eyes flashed with a wicked glint. “No chance.”
With Logan’s next blink, she arched up and flung her arms in a circle, making him fall forward. If he hadn’t been fast, she would have slipped away and sprung to her feet, but he caught her leg. Giving it a twist, she fell to her hip. This time he showed no mercy, issuing a straight-fingered slice at the carotid. “First set to me, then.” He wasn’t about to accept her rebuff this time.
“Bloody hell.” She didn’t like it. “I nearly had you.”
“You did.”
“Not many can take me.”
“I believe it. You’re fast and strong.”
“Thanks.” She sprang to her feet. “You know what my goal is?”
“Aside from your lifelong commitment to ridding the world of terrorists?”
“Yeah.”
He circled with his fists ready, nodding for her to continue.
She snapped a front kick so quick, Logan barely had time to block it. “To take you.”
His stomach leapt. Though he knew what she meant, his body interpreted her words in a totally different light. Taking Olivia had crossed his mind more than once—in fact, every time their gazes met.
No one needed to remind him that he’d been attracted to plenty of women like the duchess before, and he’d learned the first time to keep his distance. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. Snarling, she attacked with a series of showy kicks that ended with Logan straddling her and pinning her to the mat again. She squirmed beneath him, her breasts heaving with her every breath. He clenched his jaw, trying to ignore the instant spike of heat in his groin. When she arched, using the same move to break his hold as before, he countered by pulling her into a cradle grip. She was toast. The problem? Her ass rested flush against his erection.
She grinned. “Not wearing a cup?”
“Didn’t think I’d need one when I set out for a run.” He squeezed her a bit tighter. “Second round to me.”
“Undecided.”
He chuckled, catching a spark in her eyes. “Hmm. You didn’t answer my question a while back.”
“Which one was that?” her voice strained while she struggled in his unbreakable grip.
“What made you decide to become a spy?”
“Dammit.” Her lips disappeared into a thin line as if she wanted to keep everything bottled up inside, but then she said, “A terrorist bombing in Pakistan.”
“Pakistan?” Logan gulped. Was she opening up? Finally? “Was someone you knew killed?”
“Yes.” She wiggled her shoulders, testing for any weakness in his hold.
There wasn’t any.
Logan took his time studying her profile and, as he did, her expression grew more impassive. Before he could stop himself, his tongue moistened his lips. The possibility of stealing a kiss made his heartbeat speed, but he knew better. This woman was off limits. Romance with anyone at ICE was off limits. Christ, now he knew why they all got two months off a year. It would be their only chance to hook up and release the sexual tension that built with each passing day. He forced himself to glance away.
“Do you ever let anyone in?” he whispered in her ear.
“Never.” Her butt rocked against his cock.
“Sounds like a challenge.”
“One you’d lose.”
“Second round to me?”
She nodded. Logan released his hold and watched her saunter into the women’s locker room without a backward glance.
Groaning, he dropped to his back and stared at the ceiling.
Sounds like a challenge?
God, I’m an idiot.
Chapter Six
Thank God Olivia’s self-control was totally back in check. She’d handled Rodgers touching her in the sparring gym without an iota of panic. So they kept it up—went three rounds on the mat every night, which made her even more sexually frustrated. And now a month had passed since Rodgers joined the team. Olivia was about to lose her mind. How she had thought getting up close and sweaty with Mr. Sexy was a good idea, was beyond her. It didn’t matter that she’d wanted proof that she was ready to roll. She hated that he was better—a fact she’d never confess to a soul. Just as she would think she was getting the upper hand, he’d lay her on her ass. There she’d be, staring into the most delicious pair of teal-blue eyes she’d ever seen in her life. Blast his eyes and blast his he-man strength. Olivia always tried to learn from people more skilled, always tried to challenge herself, to push harder, but when it came to Commander Rodgers, she needed to cut ties and walk away.
It didn’t help matters that she’d caught his interested glances as well. As much as she wanted to believe he was an unfeeling sailor, she didn’t buy her own ruse. No, she never missed a single nuance—the way his tongue slipped over his full bottom lip, the way she’d catch him watching. She had to laugh at the way he’d quickly shift his gaze as if he didn’t want her to know he’d been checking her out. She chuckled. The man was too adorable. The worst part? The way his stubble grew in by four o’clock every afternoon, making him look tastier than a Bakewell tart.
She’d eat a hundred tarts if she could push the SEAL from her mind.
But no. Logan’s presence was everywhere, day in and day out. In the sit room for the briefings in the morning. In Command when a mission was going down. He was an ace. Sharp and deadly, he’d be a good asset in the field—just not with her.
He’s too distracting.
Damn, he was there at meals and at movie times. And it didn’t take a soothsayer to tell her Mr. Sexy was every bit as attracted to her as she was to him. They both needed an assignment away from ICE to cool their jets. Maybe Olivia could finagle a quick jaunt to the Caribbean for a holiday. She hadn’t had a decent toss in the hay in… Dear God, more than two years.
Olivia was pretty discrete about her flings, but who could go for years on end without seeing a little action? No wonder tensions were flaring, especially hers.
And the next time Dr. R asked her to describe episodes triggering horrific moments of vivid recall, she would strangle him. She never should have hinted at her goddamned demons—though he had access to her MI6 record. They had tried to fix her, too. But that didn’t stop them from using her to get inside and deliver critical intel. What went on in her mind was nobody’s business. Anyone who had been to hell and back had night terrors. And she’d been visited by Satan more times than she could count. Olivia didn’t need a shrink to tell her why her mind was so messed up. Her latest stunt, living with a rotting terrorist and enduring him slobbering all over her was enough to send anyone to the looney bin. She needed to prove to herself that she could actually enjoy having sex again. And how the hell was she supposed to do that isolated in a Cold War bunker in Iceland?
Fortunately, ICE didn’t have any regs against imbibing in a stonking piss-up. They practically encouraged it, stocking a bar in the employee lounge where everyone congregated after wor
k when there was nothing else to do but sip gin and tonics and talk about the day’s training so no one had to talk about themselves.
And tonight, she sat on a stool while Stephan made her another gin and tonic. Stephan was a German recruit, buff with blond hair—nowhere near as sexy as Rodgers.
“What has the CO thrown your way these days?” he asked.
She squeezed her lime over her cocktail. “More of the same.” Operatives never talked about their missions unless they were in the sit room. Stephan needed to learn to keep his mouth shut.
The glass doors swung open and in walked Logan. “You mixing the drinks tonight, dude?”
Stephan gave a cheeky wink. “Caught me just before I went off shift.”
“Great.” Logan glanced at Olivia and snorted. “Give me one of those Icelandic Stouts.”
“Beer?” she asked. “Don’t you ever drink anything with more kick?”
“Not when I’m at sea.”
Stephan levered the cap off a bottle. “Why did you say at sea?”
Logan shrugged, reaching for the beer. “Being stuck underground is just like being on a ship running maneuvers in the Pacific for months on end.”
Resting her elbows on the bar, Olivia arched her eyebrows. “From what I saw of the USS Washington, ICE is a lot posher than a Navy ship.”
Logan took a long pull, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Doesn’t matter. The isolation is still the same. Days consist of rigorous training, eating and more training. There’s a bit of light R & R like the bar here. But as time wears on, so do the sailors. And after a couple of months, they’re itching to step ashore so bad, they’d sell their eye teeth.”
“Sounds about right.” Olivia sipped her drink.
“So, have you got any idea when we’ll be deploying?” Stephan rephrased his question to Logan.
“Not sure.” The commander pulled up a stool, looking like he planned to stay for a few rounds. “Garth told me Anders Lindgren is paying a visit next week.”
“He told you?” Olivia balked. “What am I? Not trustworthy enough?”
Logan cringed. “Sorry. In the men’s locker room—he’ll probably inform the team in the morning.”
“Right.” She shot him a look.
Stephan stepped out from behind the bar holding a cold one. “I’m done for the night. See you pair tomorrow.”
Logan raised his bottle. “Good night, dude.”
“It’s early yet.” Olivia waved the German back. “You sure you don’t want to hang out for another round?”
“Nein—else I won’t make it through Rodgers’ ball-buster workout.” Stephan flicked his wrist and headed for the doors.
Hoping there was someone else in the bar, Olivia glanced over her shoulder. Nope. They were alone. She fixated on the back wall and took a long sip of her gin and tonic.
Beside her, Logan tapped his fingers against his beer before he drank it down. His hair had grown a bit. Black and mussed and too damned sexy. She never should have told him to grow it.
“Want another?” she asked, her voice sounding huskier than usual.
“I’ll get it.”
She hopped to her feet. “I think you need something stronger than beer. How about I make you one of my favorites?”
He arched a single eyebrow. “What would that be?”
“Hot sex between the sheets.” She’d asked for the drink in countless bars in London and never once had her cheeks burned. Why now?
“Don’t Brits say bed linens?” Thank God Rodgers didn’t seem to notice.
“Not always, and sheets sounds naughtier.” There. She wasn’t about to let him make her feel self-conscious.
Her little jibe must have done the trick, because Logan’s face blushed while his mouth opened and closed. Shifting his gaze away, he swiped a hand over his lips. “I’ll bet it’s full of sugar.”
“You afraid of a little sweetness?”
“Not really.” He frowned as if trying to think up an excuse not to try the concoction. “What’s in it?”
She filled a mug with hot water and grabbed a brandy snifter. “A shot of vodka, Kahlua, Baileys, Grand Marnier, layered in a snifter and heated over a cup of boiling water.”
“Sounds like froo froo.”
“It’s to die for.” She poured in the Kahlua, then used a spoon to layer the Baileys.
“I’ll bet.” He leaned on the bar and watched her work. “You’ve made that often?”
“Mm hmm.”
“It’s amazing you don’t weigh five hundred pounds.”
She chuckled and, after floating the shot of vodka, she tossed the spoon into the sink. “I would if I didn’t work out all the time.” Slowly, she turned the snifter over the cup of hot water careful not to shake it too much. “So, where’re you from, cowboy?” she asked like they’d just met. Though she tried to keep from getting to know her teammates too well, a little small talk couldn’t hurt. And she was curious.
“I grew up on a ranch in Montana.”
“Truly?” She handed him the snifter. “So you are a real-life cowboy?”
He picked up a swizzle stick and stirred it, destroying the layers she’d so painstakingly made. “In the flesh.”
She bit the corner of her mouth and watched his bicep flex through the sleeve of his off-duty t-shirt as he took a sip.
“Mm. That’s too good to be alcohol.”
Olivia waggled her eyebrows. Now that she knew she could make him blush, she might toy with him a bit. “That’s why it’s called hot sex between the sheets. After a couple of those, the sex is hot no matter who you’re with.”
He gave her a look lacking a damned blush, one of those looks that could make any woman melt like butter in the sun. Then he burst out with a laugh. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
She made an X on her chest. “Honest.”
Nodding, he took another drink then slid the snifter across the bar. “You going to help me with this?”
Olivia raised her gin and tonic. “This is number four.”
“Come on,” he urged. “You obviously have a sweet tooth.”
Her mouth watered when she looked down and inhaled, catching the tempting aroma. “Maybe just a sip.” The sugariness spread across her tongue like silk. “Mm. It’s sinful.”
“That’s why I stick with beer.”
Taste buds bursting, she couldn’t stop herself from another sample. Damn the gin and tonic. “So, what’s Montana like?”
“Lots of mountains, warm in summer, cold in winter. Tons to do.”
“Such as?”
“Fishing, hiking, bronc riding.”
“Horses?”
“Quarter horses.” He swilled their drink. Obviously, he suffered from a sweet tooth as well.
“Do you train them?” she asked.
“When I’m home. I run a couple hundred head of cattle and a few brood mares. I like to break the yearlings, but keeping them fed, trained and groomed is pricey.”
“Who takes care of the place when you’re gone?” She pulled the cork on the Kahlua to make another hot sex between the sheets.
“My best friend—he was wounded in Iraq. He’s got a bum leg, but that doesn’t prevent him from doing much.”
“You trust him, then?”
“With my life.”
Olivia placed the new drink in front of him. It would be nice to have a friend like that. “You got any family?”
“Nope.”
“Parents gone?”
“Yep.”
“Mine, too.”
Licking his lips, he gently swirled the snifter. “Ooo, you do have a past.”
“Everyone has a past. I just don’t like talking about mine, is all. Don’t like thinking about it, either.” Her skin grew hot. She didn’t talk about her past ever, not even when she was well on the road to complete inebriation. “So, since you have such a great place, why are you here?”
He drank, tipping his head back, clearly savoring the
taste before his Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow. “Up until a month ago, I was content to be a Navy career man. I guess it’s in my blood. As soon as some jihadi asshole decides to start terrorizing innocent people, I can’t help but charge in with guns blazing.”
She smiled, her head swimming a bit, making her lean on the bar. “My tactics might be a tad subtler, but I’m not really happy unless I’m chasing a scumbag.”
“Ah, so that’s how to get through to you, set you loose on a mob of heartless guerrillas.”
“Exactly.” She leaned a bit further over the bar, reaching out and brushing her fingers along his jawline. “That’s amazing.”
His eyebrows slanted over those mesmerizing eyes—way too intense. “My beard or the fact I really ought to shave twice a day?”
“Both.” She wasn’t about to admit how the prickles against the pads of her fingers shot straight down past her midsection. Damn, she needed a one night stand, and not with the sexy man grinning at her from the other side of the bar. It was late, she was drunk, and making googly eyes at her co-worker. “I need to call it a night while I can still walk back to my suite.”
Logan drained the dregs of the snifter. “Me, too. I think you should change the name of this cocktail to ‘sleeping potion number two’.”
“Why two?”
“Because after two of those, you’re toast. Might as well give up and head for your bunk, ’cause you’d be useless for anything else.” His gaze dipped with his next blink as if he’d checked out her boobs and tried to look discrete about it. Or else he was checking out her boobs and trying to talk himself out of hot sex with or without the sheets.
Damn.
Olivia couldn’t stay there another moment, thinking about the hot sex she definitely would not be enjoying with her fellow spy. “Goodnight.” She started for the door.
“Wait up.” Logan pushed away from the bar and followed. “I’ll see you home, my lady.”
“I’m fully capable of walking myself to my own door in this highly secure, clandestine facility.”
“I know.” He opened the door for her and gestured with a bow. “But your suite is only four down from mine.”