by LETO, JULIE
“Do you regret your move?” she asked, then pressed her lips together, feeling her own wave of regret from posing the question in the first place. Damn it, she didn’t want to know anything about who he was now—not beyond the monthly reports T-45 provided on the leadership of the intelligence organizations around the globe. How could she retain her distance if she delved into his personal life?
“Never mind,” she said, holding up her hand before he had a chance to respond. “Forget I asked.”
He slid the chair out for her. “As you wish.”
But she’d done the damage, despite his gracious response. She’d shown her hand, even briefly, implying that her interest in him hadn’t ended when she’d walked out his door. He’d use that knowledge against her. He’d be a fool not to—and Dante Burke was anything but a fool.
Four
Watching her eat became Dante’s immediate and torturous reward. The way she slid the food into her mouth, the way her lips pressed together tightly as she chewed, the way her eyes drifted closed when the flavors exploded lusciously on her tongue nearly drove him insane. At first, she’d tried to shovel the Oysters Bienville into her mouth as if she were wolfing down a fast-food hamburger, but her finely honed appreciation for sensual pleasures quickly won out over her need to rush through the meal. Fascinated, he watched her lick the creamy parmesan and garlic sauce from the corner of her mouth. He silently thanked the chef at Arnaud’s for teaching him the secret to the dish.
Encouraged, he refilled her wine glass halfway, wondering if she had any idea what he had in store for her next—or that his carefully planned seduction was already well under way. She may have spent the entire day searching for the code, but he’d personally examined every inch of the house over the past two weeks and had found nothing.
He had spent a portion of the day coordinating the efforts of the other teams at the other locations and checking in with the commandos inserted into the area where the terrorists were last reported to be operating, but otherwise, he’d had nothing to do all day but figure out how to seduce Macy in the most efficient, and yet, most pleasurable way.
She reached for her wine. “I hope your plan doesn’t depend on getting me drunk. I’ve developed a much stronger constitution against the effects of alcohol after living in France.”
He topped off his own glass, then returned the crisp Chardonnay to the table. “Then either we’ll both be drunk or neither of us will. But I draw the line at drugging you. My obsession with you does have limits.”
She snorted gently with laughter, holding the glass carefully by the stem, swirling the golden liquid just beneath her nose so she could inhale the exquisite aromas from the fine French wine. “So you say. You’re jeopardizing a mission to lure me into bed, Dante.”
“I’m jeopardizing nothing. You conducted your searches today without interference, didn’t you? Completed two rooms with intense precision, by my estimation. And you do have to eat, whether I’m here or not.”
She tore a piece of rustic French bread from the loaf in the center of the table and dipped a corner in the remaining Bienville sauce. “I also have to sleep.”
He sipped his wine and chuckled. “You forget how well I know you, Macy. When you’re on a mission, you rarely sleep more than an hour or two at a time. You caught a catnap between rooms today. I watched you.”
With an intense gaze, he leaned forward, catching the momentary pinkening in the apples of her cheeks. “Are you aware that you snore?”
She slid the glass into place, not the least bit ruffled by his comment. Okay, so he was exaggerating. She didn’t snore… exactly. But she did make tiny little noises while dreaming, the kind that enticed a man to consider all the sweet possibilities of what might be going on in her resting subconscious. He could only hope that she was reliving some liaison of theirs from their past—though he knew she’d never admit something so revealing—or so intimate.
She popped the last of the bread in her mouth, chewed, swallowed and pierced him with an unshaken stare. “What’s next?”
“A salad with tasso ham—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Her gaze skewered him, but not without a hint of humor.
Nine years had changed Macy, something he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge before now. She wasn’t the same bright-eyed, excitable agent she’d been before, beating everyone to the briefing room in the mornings, volunteering for extra assignments, amassing more experience in a few years than most agents did in decades. Now that she was at the top of the food chain, she wasn’t quite so intense or so focused on proving herself that she couldn’t laugh with her colleagues or take the natural ribbing offered by operatives who’d spent more time in the trenches than she had.
No, this Macy took her time, savored her wine and her food and from what he’d read in briefing reports, only raised her hand for assignments that appealed to her expertise. This Macy had the ability to laugh at herself, not take every situation with the utmost seriousness, even when gravity might have been warranted. This Macy provided a whole new challenge—one entirely more suited for the man that nine years without her had forced him to become.
“What do you want to happen next?” he asked.
She lifted her napkin from her lap, tossed it on the table, took one last swig from her wine and stood. Sensing an attack, Dante scooted his chair back. He had a clear agenda for tonight, but figured a moment’s deviation wouldn’t affect the final outcome—not when she seemed so intent on proving some point.
As he expected, she swung a leg over him and landed on his lap. She speared her fingers through his hair and smashed her mouth down on his for a hard, hungry, explosive kiss.
The flavors nearly knocked the sense right out of him. Garlic and spice from the appetizer, woodsy undertones of oak from the wine and the innately sweet and addictive flavor that belonged to Macy and Macy alone. Despite his plans for a slow, drawn-out and carefully orchestrated seduction, he couldn’t help but surrender to her assault, if only for a moment.
He slid his hands around her back. Her muscles, tense and bunched, did not loosen beneath his touch. Even her tongue seemed intent on winning a war rather than participating in a fair exchange of thrust and parry. The realization forced him to tear her off him and curse his moment of pure male weakness.
She kicked her leg over him again and stood up straight, her eyes blazing. She swiped her wrist over her lips before she spoke.
“What’s wrong, Burke? Too hot for you?”
He straightened his shirt and retrieved his fallen napkin from the floor. “Just the opposite. Too cold.”
She stepped back, her balance tentative and her eyes glazed with an emotion that could have either been anger or lust. With Macy, it was sometimes hard to tell.
“You didn’t specify how I was supposed to react to you,” she said. “I just assumed you wanted your sex hot and heavy and fast. That’s how we’ve always been, you and me.”
She slowly reached out and touched his shoulder, and he had to exert all his self-control not to recoil. He’d underestimated her. She could weave the web of mind games just as well as he—except that his motivation would keep him on top. She might try to turn the tables on him, but he wasn’t about to allow her enough room to complete the spin.
He snatched her hand in one quick grab, then turned her wrist and placed a soft kiss on the sensitive skin near her pulse. Then, standing, he led her back around to her chair, seated her again and then cleared the plates away.
“Things have changed, Macy. I’ve changed. Nothing will be as it was before, if I have my way. Which I will, of course.”
He retrieved the second course, complete with a new bottle of wine to complement the lightly dressed salad. He had five courses planned, each more delicious than the last, each paired with a fine wine that he’d pour with elegance and patience and attention to sensual detail. Some he’d cooked himself. Others, he’d ordered from trusted chefs in the French Quarter. Despite her a
ttempt to take over the seduction, she’d failed. He wouldn’t allow her the upper hand.
Without a word, she picked up her fork and sampled the salad and just as he expected, the piquant combination of ingredients knocked her anger away. He uncorked the wine and after placing new glasses in front of them, poured the Pinot Grigio he’d discovered last year in Venice. By the end of the meal, Macy’s senses would be so primed, the idea of jumping him in order to do the deed and be done for the night would be the farthest thing from her mind.
* * *
Macy watched Dante carefully stack the dishes in the sink while she finished off the last of the brandy he’d served to complement the delicious crème brûlée. She’d had many five-star meals in her world-wide explorations and this one definitely landed in the top ten—not so much for the quality of the food, which had been superb, but because never in her life had she expected such attention and personal service from a man like Dante Burke.
She knew what he was up to. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out his modus operandi. But at the moment, sated with her fill of exquisite food and even more delectable wines and spirits, she hardly cared. If that meant surrender, so be it. At this point, she had nothing to lose but another hour’s sleep.
He dried his hands on a dishtowel and gestured toward the parlor. “Anything else you’d like from the kitchen?”
She stood, noting the extra pull around the button and zipper area of her jeans. “Maybe my sweats?”
His grin was pure sin. “No sweats, but I did arrange a change of wardrobe for you.”
Eyebrow quirked, she followed him into the parlor, which glowed with a wide array of candles. She had no idea when he’d lit them—they’d hardly melted—then guessed he’d simply put in a request to one of the half-dozen or so agents she’d seen stationed around the grounds. Though he’d banished all Arm agents from the premises while she worked, the house was his to do with as he wished, including rearranging the furniture to execute a sweet seduction.
He’d cleared the space of all coffee tables and end tables. The marvelous antique mirrors, kaleidoscopic Tiffany lampshades and cut crystal vases caught and reflected the firelight so that the room nearly buzzed with flickers of flame. The aroma of beeswax permeated the room with a honeyed perfume that became heady, thanks to the wine. He strolled to the opposite corner of the room and flicked a switch, piping music into the space. She didn’t recognize the artist, but the sultry sounds of saxophone jazz slipped into her consciousness and washed away the last of her resistance.
“This is quite the atmosphere you’ve created,” she said.
His smile barely curved his generous lips, but made his gray eyes sparkle like polished obsidian, dark and glossy. “You deserve the best.”
She glanced over at a delicate oriental screen in the corner, one she knew hadn’t been in the room when she’d searched earlier. “Nice addition.”
“Glad you like it. If you slip behind, you’ll find the more comfortable clothing I’ve arranged.”
She bit her tongue in making fun of the whole “why don’t you slip into something more comfortable” cliché and decided just to go with the flow. The truth was, Dante had sufficiently enticed her. His seduction had worked. She couldn’t help but wonder if the spark that had once burned them with its intensity still existed between them. But even if the fire remained, she knew the heat couldn’t scorch her again. She’d have to care about their future like she once had—and that simply wasn’t the case.
Behind the screen, she found a lovely pitcher filled with rose-scented water, a porcelain basin, a delicate towel and, draped on a padded, satin hanger, an exquisite gown in breathtaking sapphire blue. With long sleeves and no ornamentation beyond a simple diamond brooch that would likely sit just between her breasts, the dress was nearly demure in style. Nearly, but not quite.
With a grin, Macy whipped her t-shirt over her head and shed her jeans, which she kicked out of the way. She was game. If the man wanted to torture himself with what he could never truly have, who was she to argue? In fact, if torture was what he wanted, she’d happily oblige.
She washed and dressed quickly, loving how the fabric fell in soft waves over her body while the rosewater enhanced the femininity as it absorbed into her skin.
When she emerged from behind the screen, Dante’s eyes widened in unhampered appreciation. He licked his lips and even with his ingrained subtlety of motion, she couldn’t help but feel a buzz of awareness that persisted long after he spoke.
“You’re beautiful.”
“You knew that,” she shot back.
“I don’t recall us taking much time in the past for the aesthetics.”
She squared her shoulders. “I wore sexy nighties for you all the time.”
“Which I removed in three seconds flat.”
Macy fingered the diamond brooch nestled low between her breasts. Surprisingly, the pin held the entire ensemble together. Once he removed the jewelry, the entire robe would fall away. “This won’t take you half as long.”
He crossed the room slowly, his hand extended toward hers, his eyes dark with such a combination of desire and restraint that Macy felt certain the man might soon explode. Instead, he pulled her gently into his arms and began to sway to the lazy, luxurious rhythm of the music.
“I don’t intend to undress you tonight.”
“You said we would make love here. That was the deal.” She dismissed the disappointed sound she thought she’d heard in her voice. She’d pushed herself to the limit. So had he. Clearly, she was nearly on the brink of exhaustion.
He tugged her closer, wrapping her hand in his and giving her little choice but join him in the dance. “We are making love. In ways we never have before.”
Five
“Aren’t there any good games on?”
Dante glanced over his shoulder, not the least surprised that Sean Devlin had bypassed all of Dante’s security and entered the office unannounced, dressed in sweats that looked like they might not have been washed—ever—with a cutoff T-shirt and a Chicago White Sox baseball cap, worn backwards. For all his horrid fashion sense, Devlin had once been the best all-around agent the Arm had ever employed, even if he’d only been in the service of US Intelligence for just over two years. Better than Macy. Better than Dante. Had he stuck around, Sean likely would have surpassed his mentor and taken over as Chief.
Luckily for Dante’s career, Sean hadn’t been programmed with a stick-to-anything strand in his genetic code. But while the two men no longer worked together, they had remained friends. Cheating death together had created a life-long bond.
“The game I’m watching is fascinating,” Dante answered, gesturing his old friend inside.
Situated above Bogdanov’s garage in a room built by the Arm, the surveillance center allowed Dante an unhampered view of Macy as she searched the arboretum. For over three hours, he’d observed how cleverly she’d ignored the plants, knowing their ever-changeable nature would likely provide no clues to the counter-code. She’d used ultrasound and radar technology to explore the soil and when the technical search didn’t satisfy her, she dug in the dirt herself.
She’d counted and looked for patterns in the hand-painted floor tiles and with attention to detail that would have made his eyes cross. She’d examined every weave in the antique wicker furniture, every shadow or beam of light cast by the dim bulbs. Nothing in the room, from the light fixtures to the crevices in the wall went unnoticed or untouched.
When she’d finally stood, dusted off her hands, glared straight into the so-called hidden camera and announced the room was clear, he hadn’t known whether to grin or frown. Now that she’d completed the room, they were one step closer to a second night of sensual delights, but as agents, they were also no nearer to finding the code they’d both been sent to discover.
Sean scooted onto the desk behind Dante and peered over his shoulder. “Is that who I think it is?”
Dante flipped off the screen. �
�Why are you here?”
Though his eyes narrowed, Sean dropped the topic of Macy and her unorthodox presence in the operation. Though he trusted his good friend with the secrets of his personal life, Dante had never been one to kiss and tell. Particularly when he’d hardly even kissed Macy yet.
“Heard you were in New Orleans,” Sean said casually, as if his appearance in the middle of a top-secret operation was completely ordinary. “Wanted to check out the action.”
Dante grunted. Sean had no more interest in intelligence-related action than Dante did in the current National Football League standings, which Sean undoubtedly knew by heart.
“You’re checking up on me,” Dante decided.
“Isn’t that what friends do?”
Sean poked around Dante’s desk, chuckling triumphantly when he found the small humidor tucked beneath a status report from an operation in St. Louis. Never mind that the document was marked CONFIDENTIAL and had the name of a celebrity and several political dignitaries scribbled on the outer flap. Sean didn’t spare the file a second glance when he tossed it aside.
“Friends who have phones can call,” Dante reminded him.
“Not when the other friend is in New Orleans. Have you checked out that club near Tchoupitoulas and Canal? I hear it rocks.”
“I have no time for clubbing.”
“Man, you gotta make time.” Sean selected a premiere Romeo y Julieta cigar, bit off the end, spit out the tip and then shuffled around for a match.
Dante extracted his Colibri lighter from his jacket pocket.
Sean grinned in thanks, igniting a steady flame and then rolled the cigar in the bluest part of the fire. “That’s what’s missing from your life,” he said between puffs. “Time for fun… and a good woman.”
“One in particular or will any do?”
Sean wiggled his eyebrows and rolled off the desk, suddenly interested in the technology around him rather than answering the question Dante had posed. Dante didn’t need Sean to point out that his life had been missing much more than time for relaxation and a good woman. He’d been missing Macy, who probably wouldn’t fall into anyone’s definition of “good” except his own. She was cunning, cool and aloof. If ordered to, she could lie without conscience and kill without regret.