by Rachel Lee
Gray eyes settled thoughtfully on her face. “You don’t like wine, do you? Be honest, Jess.”
“Not really,” she admitted. “But if you like it—”
His crooked smile reappeared, one corner of his mouth tugging upward, the other tugging down. “I’m driving, remember? I won’t drink anything, anyway.”
They were rounding the corner at the end of an aisle, headed toward the cheese counter, when Jessica nearly tripped over her own feet. “Arlen!” she whispered and quickly darted down another aisle, dragging him with her.
He was quick, mentally and physically. His work required it, of course, but he’d been blessed with more than average abilities in those departments. Most people would have immediately started demanding to know what was going on. He simply followed swiftly, allowing Jessica to take her evasive action without hindrance. Questions could wait.
Halfway down the aisle, she stopped. Pulling him with her over to the very edge of the aisle, she faced him.
“It was him,” she said breathlessly. Her heart was hammering fit to burst, and she felt as if all the air had vanished. This was it, the moment she hadn’t really believed in.
“Him? Leong?”
She nodded.
“No doubt?”
She shook her head. “It’s him. I’m sure of it.”
She was still clinging to his hand with a drowning man’s grip, so Arlen wrapped his other arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. To hell with what people thought.
“Will you be all right, Jess?”
She nodded. “In a minute. Just a minute.” She had expected to feel nervous if this moment came, but she hadn’t expected to feel so frightened. Resting her cheek against Arlen’s chest, listening to the creaking sound of his leather jacket as he moved his arm to rub her back soothingly, she felt the fear subside to a tolerable level.
“Nothing’s going to happen, honey,” he was saying. “This is a public place. What can he possibly do? Besides, he’s just a student.”
Besides, Jessica thought, you’re here. That thought gave her more courage than anything. “I’m okay.” She would have been happy to let him hold her like this forever, but it just wasn’t possible. Taking a deep breath, she stepped back and met Arlen’s eyes. “Let’s go see if he says anything.”
He touched a finger to her cheek. “Are you sure about this? You don’t have to.”
“I said I’d do it and I will.” She squared her shoulders visibly.
He smiled faintly. “Gutsy lady. I’ll hang back so I don’t keep him from speaking to you. I’ll only be a half-dozen steps away, Jess.”
“What’s he going to do to me?” she said, managing a nonchalant shrug. “Public place, right? Plenty of people around, right? My own personal G-man nearby, right?”
Arlen chuckled. “Right.”
He stationed himself at the head of the aisle, pretending a fascination for seven or eight different kinds of rice. From there he watched Jessica walk over to the cheese counter.
Greg Leong, instantly recognizable from a photo Arlen had managed to get his hands on, stood only a few steps farther away, at a table of baked goods. It was apparent to Arlen, who’d spent more time on stakeouts than he wanted to recall, that Leong was on a kind of stakeout himself. He looked bored and not at all interested in baked goods. He was no more going to buy an angel food cake than Arlen was going to buy rice. In fact, Leong was so obviously waiting for something or someone that Arlen dismissed any possibility that the man was an agent himself. Leong’s actions were clearly those of an amateur.
Jessica was a lot more believable, possibly because she really was buying cheese. She was mulling over two brands of Edam when Greg turned away from the cakes and spied her. At once his face brightened and he wasted no time but approached her immediately.
“That rice you’re holding doesn’t taste as good as this brand, young man,” said a gray-haired lady on Arlen’s right.
He glanced at her, sensing that the quickest way to deal with her was to agree. “You’re absolutely right,” he said quickly and exchanged the package of rice he was holding for one of the brand the lady was pointing out to him. “Thanks.”
Now he had to move or look suspicious. What was it about supermarkets? he wondered. Dressed as he was, no woman in the world would have ventured to speak to him except here in a supermarket. In the past four years he’d learned that it didn’t matter how disreputable he might look. Let him linger over the produce counter or hesitate over the cleaning supplies, and some woman would immediately advise him.
Giving the helpful lady a smile, he moved around the end of the aisle and feigned an interest in angel food. Leong was saying something to Jessica, and she was smiling, nodding pleasantly.
Arlen picked up a cake and sauntered over to them. Now, he decided, was as good a time as any to establish his and Jessica’s supposed relationship. That way, he could be with her whenever it seemed necessary without being out of place.
“Hi, Jessie,” he said as he reached her side. She jumped visibly, startled by his approach. She hadn’t expected him to take part in this. Covering, Arlen quickly slipped his arm around her. “Is something wrong? Is this guy bothering you?”
“Bothering me?” she repeated blankly.
Clearly, Arlen thought, joining these two had not been one of his brighter ideas. Hell, he should have guessed he would rattle Jessie. But she surprised him then, looking first at him and then back at Leong. He could almost see her brain slip back into gear.
“No, he’s not bothering me,” she said swiftly. “Greg is one of Professor Kostermeyer’s students. You remember Kostermeyer, Arlen?”
“Yeah, sure,” he agreed, and started to smile. The smile evidently reassured Leong, who had started to back away. The younger man returned the smile. Arlen offered his hand. “Arlen Coulter.”
“Greg Leong,” said the student in crisply British English.
Arlen looked down at Jessica. “You about ready, Jess?”
“In just a minute.” Darn, the palms of her hands were damp, her mouth was as dry as cotton balls and at the moment she didn’t know who was making her more nervous, Arlen or Leong. “Greg and I were talking about getting together for lunch next week.”
“Oh?” Arlen looked at Leong.
Leong nodded quickly. “Yes. I wished to ask Ms. Kilmer for some more details on the paper she published last year regarding external heap sorts. A brilliant algorithm, but there are a few details I wish to clarify, if she will be so kind.”
All of which was out of Arlen’s bailiwick. “She’s the person to ask, all right,” he said easily. “I’ll get that cheese, Jessie.” Giving Leong a nod, he turned and moved a little farther down the counter.
Looking down at the cheeses, Arlen listened as Jessica and Leong arranged a lunch date. Deciding he couldn’t decide, either, he snatched up a piece of cheese at random and stuffed it into the basket with the rice and the cake he didn’t want. Weird picnic stuff. He looked back just in time to see Leong walking away. Jessica turned to him.
“I did it,” she said, and expelled a long, relieved breath.
“Let’s talk about it later, Jess,” Arlen said. There was always a possibility that Leong hadn’t come here alone. Someone else might have accompanied him solely for the purpose of “making” Jessica—in other words, having Leong point her out to him. That was often the case when an approach was made this way. Even though the contact was completed now, that person might still be watching.
Jessica was willing to follow his direction unquestioningly for the moment. After all, he was an experienced agent and she was a software engineer.
Instead she asked, “Why in the world did you get a bag of rice?”
Arlen shrugged. “There was this lady—never mind. You’ll never believe it.”
“And a cake. Do you like angel food?”
“I can’t stand it.”
“Then why…?” Looking up at him, she let her words trail off. There was a
very definite sparkle of humor in his gray eyes. “Never mind,” she said.
“It’s too damn sweet, to be honest about it,” he said cordially. “I’ll take a devil’s food cake any day. But I picked it up, so I’m buying it, just like I’m buying the rice. Do you want any kind of cheese besides Edam?”
Between them, they chose two more cheeses, and then they had a friendly wrangle over what kind of bread they should buy. Arlen contended that no Texan knew the true meaning of French or Italian bread, and that he wanted no part of either. It would have to be rye bread or nothing. Then he spied the fried chicken, and she watched in silent dismay as he bought some. Her mind was totting up calories so fast that she felt she ought to run before it was too late. Cheese was sinful enough. How had she gotten into this?
“So tell me, Arlen,” she said as they walked back out to the parking lot. “Where do we put this stuff?” She couldn’t imagine how she would hang on to him and two plastic grocery bags at the same time.
“Voilà!” With a key and a flourish, he opened a compartment beneath the seat and amazed her by being able to fit everything into it with ease—except the cake, which he ruthlessly flattened.
“Okay, Jessie,” he said, once again putting her helmet on her head and fastening it. “Let’s go tear up the roads.”
It might have been years since Arlen had roared down an open country road feeling wild and free, but those years rolled back that morning as if they’d never been. For nearly three hours he drove them along a maze of ranch roads and farm-to-market roads that led them deeper and deeper into the hill country.
It was after noon when he slowed the Harley down and pulled over beneath a shady live oak tree beyond which a creek could be seen bubbling along. Past the creek there was a barbed-wire fence, and beyond that were a few dozen placid-looking cows.
Arlen looked more relaxed than Jessica had ever seen him. A big, flat table of limestone rose from the creek bank, carved out by many years of spring floods. He discarded his jacket and stretched out on the rock in a puddle of sunshine.
Pillowing his head on his hands, he closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “Heaven,” he said. And it was. Years and tensions, griefs and angers, all the baggage he’d been carrying for so long seemed to have blown away. It was just simply, absolutely wonderful to be alive on such a perfect day in such a perfect place, doing exactly what he wanted to, no more and no less.
It was heaven, Jessica thought. Free for the first time in their brief acquaintance to feast her eyes on him, she sat cross-legged beside him and did just that.
Powerful biceps stretched the short sleeves of his black T-shirt, and his strong, bronzed forearms bore a fretwork of powerful veins. Where his T-shirt met his jeans, his stomach and abdomen were entirely flat. He was no body builder, but he obviously took care of himself.
Sighing, she rested her chin on a raised knee and tried not to look any lower. Her eyes were in no mood to behave, however. They continued their journey, studying the powerful thighs that were cased in snug denim and brazenly noting the bulge that lay between them. Remembered feelings from yesterday began to tingle through her body.
Arlen’s voice startled her, causing her cheeks to flame and her gaze to dart guiltily to his face. Thank goodness his eyes were still closed.
“You’re meeting Leong on Monday?” he asked lazily.
“Mmm-hmm. We’re having lunch at the Corner Pub.”
“I’ll make sure one of my agents is there, Jessie. If Leong introduces you to someone, we’ll want to get a make on him so we can ID him. Maybe we can track the whole thing down before you get much more deeply involved.”
“That’d be nice.” She suppressed an urge to reach out and touch him. “You know, you really knocked me for a loop back there when you came up to join us. I wasn’t prepared for that.”
“Yeah.” His voice was deep and lazy. “A miscalculation on my part.” He opened one eye and regarded her with evident amusement. “I’m so used to working with pros, I forget you amateurs are easy to rattle.”
“Why, you—”
Laughing, he reached up and covered her mouth with his hand. “Uh-uh, Jess. You don’t want to say things like that to your personal G-man.” Idly, his fingertips stroked slowly across her lips. He felt her catch her breath, and something inside him caught, too. “You were great, Jessie. Honest to God, you were great. I’m sorry I rattled you, but you handled it like a pro.” He dropped his hand and closed his eyes again, feeling he’d handled about all he could for the moment. Too much more and he would be making love to her right here on this damn rock.
“Why did you come over, anyway?” she asked him.
“Because it occurred to me that it might make sense to establish our relationship.” He shrugged one shoulder without opening his eyes. “It may never be useful, but then again, maybe it will be. It just seemed like an opportunity I shouldn’t pass up.”
But Leong seemed a long way away right now, and the questions that had been bouncing around in her head when they had first left the supermarket were starting to take definite second place to the feelings Arlen was evoking in her just by being here. She turned a little and stretched out on the rock beside him. Her breathing grew noticeably deeper as she closed her eyes.
“You getting hungry, Jessica?” His voice had grown even deeper, lazier, almost drowsy.
“No. You go ahead if you want. Leong was waiting for me, wasn’t he?”
“Mmm-hmm. People are pretty dependable. I’d be willing to bet that you go to the supermarket every Saturday morning.”
Jessica turned her head enough to see Arlen’s profile from the corner of her eye. “Are you saying I’m predictable?”
“Hell, Jess, we all are. Habit is the cornerstone of human existence. When I’m working on an investigation, the first thing I do is learn my subject’s habits. That fills in about ninety percent of his time, and I’ll always know where to look for him.”
Something icy prickled along Jessica’s spine. “You’re saying someone has been watching me. Learning my habits.”
“Looks that way,” he drawled.
All the lazy restfulness she’d begun to feel vanished. Someone had been watching her, watching her closely enough to learn her habits. “Arlen?” Her voice sounded thin. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Nobody would, Jessie.” After a reluctant moment, he turned his head in her direction and opened one eye. Finding her stretched out beside him, her breasts in enticing silhouette, was exactly what he’d hoped to avoid. Deep in his center, a slow, steady throbbing began.
He tried to be reassuring. “I’m sure they didn’t watch you all that closely. They were primarily interested in finding out when you went regularly to some public place where Leong could pretend to bump into you. I’m sure they didn’t look any closer than that. They really didn’t need to.”
“Except for my finances. You said they’d probably looked into those, too.” She kept her eyes closed, refusing to look at him for fear she would throw herself into his arms. None of this was fair, she found herself thinking. Here he was, right beside her, and she couldn’t take advantage of his strength. She didn’t have the right to turn to him for comfort, and she didn’t have the courage to turn to him for anything else.
“Probably. Look, here’s the likeliest scenario. Somebody at MTI is already working with them. He passed some kind of information to them that got them interested in your project. They did a financial check on the members of your team and found, lo and behold, that you’d just dumped the major part of your savings into an old Victorian house that probably needs megabucks’ worth of repairs. They figured there was a possibility you might be interested in quick, easy money. Making things even easier, they found that you’d already met one of the students they keep tabs on, so they had an easy introduction. Hell, maybe they even arranged for Leong to be introduced to you by Kostermeyer. It wouldn’t be difficult.”
Jessica nodded, not at all sure how much of this she
really believed. It was all so far removed from reality—her reality.
“So,” Arlen continued, “they sent somebody to park across the street from your house on weekends and figure out your routine well enough that they could arrange for Leong to bump into you casually in a public place.” He closed his eyes again and tried to ignore a certain demanding throb.
“You’ve done things like that, haven’t you?” she asked.
“Sure,” he drawled drowsily. “Any teenage girl with a crush can tell you how easy it is to meet someone if you really want to.”
“I never had a crush.”
“I know, Jessie,” he said softly. “You’re as fresh as spring daisies.”
She didn’t quite know how to take that remark. Opening her eyes a little more, she turned her head for a better look at him. His eyes were wide open and silvery as he looked straight at her. “Arlen?”
The uncertainty in her voice was his undoing. He was a sucker for this woman’s vulnerability, for her absolute need to be wanted and needed. How could he refuse, when he could make her feel good, make her feel desirable and attractive? How could he deny her anything it was in his power to give her so easily? How could he decline to give what he so badly wanted to give?
He rolled onto his side and propped his head on his hand. “Do you want to sleep or eat? Or do you want that kiss I promised you?”
Her breath caught in her throat, and her lips parted in unconscious invitation. In her neck, a pulse began to beat visibly.
“Jessie?” But he didn’t wait for her answer; he didn’t need to. He cupped her cheek with his hand and rubbed his thumb gently along her lower lip. “Lady,” he said quietly, “you are so damn sexy.” And that was the understatement of the year.
The cynical, sensible, FBI-trained portion of his brain told him that he would regret this. It warned him that he was letting his hormones rule him, that just as soon as he was satisfied he was going to feel like a seducer of virgins, like the world’s greatest sleaze. And then that cynical, sensible portion of himself shut down, washed away in a rising tidal wave of long-unsatisfied hungers. Damn it, Coulter, be honest about it. You want this woman like you’ve never wanted anything before.