by J. M. Madden
“I beg to differ.”
Her comment pulled his attention to her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She simply grinned. He hated that icy smile. She was too damn good at it. The gesture cooled in his veins and irritated the shit out of him.
“Enough of this.” Lee rose and made his way to leave. “The terms are non-negotiable. Lawson, good luck. Nash, try not to piss her off. Mike, try not to kill him. Report in after your shift. I’ll be waiting at the address I gave you.” He closed the door behind him.
No way would they work together. They’d end up killing each other. They didn’t exactly part amicably. He didn’t know what the hell he thought by asking TREX to find her. Now he just wanted her to go away so he could get his pulse back under control.
“Are you going to do anything?” He motioned at the paper in front of the director.
Lawson widened his eyes. “I thought that’s what we just did.”
“Are you shitting me? You just sat there. You’re supposed to be my director. Direct, goddamn it.”
“I thought…”
He lifted his gaze to the ceiling and muttered the resemblance of a prayer. This was a terrible idea. Worse that terrible. There were no words to describe the clusterfuck they were about to get in the middle of.
“Looks like we have a long road ahead of us, Agent Ashford.” Mike stared at him with prickly defiance, narrowing her gaze, daring him to object.
Agent Ashford? Since when did she call him Agent Anything? What happened to Nash? Everyone called him Nash, even her. It pissed him off and tightened every muscle in his body as he fought to restrain the fact he even gave a shit what she called him.
“Are you seriously going along with this?”
“Yes.”
“Wow,” he laughed bitterly. “TREX will stop at nothing to get that intel. Forcing me to work with my ex isn’t going to do anything but piss me off.” Even as he said it, saw the way she physically flinched from his words, he regretted opening his mouth. He didn’t mean it, but he’d be damned before he apologized for it.
She lifted her chin, those damn beautiful eyes sparkling in challenge. “Now, that’s just too damn bad. You, Nash, need me.”
“Why do I need you?”
“The public hates you. Remember?”
That was like taking another bullet. “So?”
“They won’t when I’m done with you.”
He glared at her, fury burning his eyes. Of course. Leave it to her to turn this into something about her. His jaw hurt from clenching it so tight. Anger tightened his senses, mixing with the lust he couldn’t shake whenever she was within close proximity. She consumed him until he thought of nothing else but raw and primitive sex. With her. All the time.
He had to put a stop to this madness before it went too far. He had to protect her. From herself. From him. “I don’t need you or anyone else.”
“I say you do,” she retorted.
“I say go to hell.” Nash squared his jaw and clenched his fists, his glare never leaving hers.
“I have a feeling I’m about to.”
Lawson’s heavy sigh broke the tension. Mike regarded the young director, but Nash kept his attention fixed on the deranged woman who’d just made one hell of a mistake agreeing to be his partner, all to gain intel he’d never give up. If she thought she had a chance at cleaning up his image, he’d simply have to prove to her the error in her judgment. He liked his Dirty Harry image and didn’t want anyone screwing it up, even if that someone had dazzling eyes and a body built for sin.
“This is wicked,” Lawson stated, his voice barely above a whisper. “When you two said you knew each other, you meant you seriously knew each other. I had no idea. TREX really knows what they’re doing.”
“How’s that?” Nash finally pulled his gaze away from Mike and rested it on Lawson. The kid’s cheeks were flushed with excitement, no doubt from the sexual energy crackling between Mike and Nash. It was their version of foreplay. If the director weren’t there in the room with them, they would have already had their clothes off.
“The last time we tried to clean up an agent’s image, it backfired. The press jumped all over us, and we lost serious credibility.”
Nash remembered that. “Arthur Casey.”
“One hell of an agent who earned a bad rep for publicly humiliating a congressman after following him to a rave and busting him for having sex with an underage girl,” Mike added.
Nash ignored the jolt to his system at the admiration in her voice. “How’d you know that?”
“Required reading. Agent Lee wasn’t kidding when he said we were up all night briefing for this assignment. That congressman played the press perfectly and soon had everyone believing he’d been set up by the SBI and that Agent Casey had been harassing him.”
It still pissed him off to think about. The PR debacle hit the agency so hard that, by the time the asshole and his army of lawyers got through with the SBI, the agency was forced to make a public apology. Casey lost his job. Nothing the agency did, including hire him his own PR specialist, saved him. He’d been crucified, all for doing his job.
“Now you see why we have to change the public’s perception of you,” Lawson said, bringing the conversation full circle.
“This isn’t the same thing,” Nash pointed out. He’d busted an entire ring of drug smugglers, the biggest ring in Washington State’s history. Not one of the scumbags he arrested came close to the clout of a congressman. It gave them enough leads to keep the SBI’s narc unit busy for the next year tracking them all down.
Lawson spoke up. “This is totally better. Think about it. Casey didn’t even know his PR specialist, so there was no chemistry between them. The press was all over that. With you two…” He paused and nodded at Nash. “Serious chemistry, dude.”
Nash glanced at Mike, and his pulse kicked up. He couldn’t deny Lawson’s observation, and neither could she. They did have a certain chemistry, something blazing and even volatile. Their relationship had nearly destroyed him. The heat they’d generated consumed them both. If she hadn’t ended it when she did by leaving, they would have ended up killing each other. Or worse.
They would have ended up married.
Now here they were, about to jump back in with both feet. Sort of. Years of pent-up sexual frustration charged the air between them. Her eyes darkened, the desire clear on her face. She licked her lips. The simple gesture had him ready to give in to anything.
And he still couldn’t stop himself from wondering if she had on any panties.
“Why dredge up that case with the congressman? It’s ancient history. I don’t think he got reelected. I say good riddance.”
“Funny you should mention that case.” Lawson always waited until the worst possible moment to drop a bomb.
“Don’t tell me.” Nash looked first at Lawson, then Mike. They exchanged knowing looks. He ignored the skip in his chest at the way they always connected without a word. “I thought it was a heroin ring.”
“It’s a very distinctive blend,” Mike pointed out. “The purity on this stuff is off the charts. Intel says it’s a strand of the one the congressman used.”
“Who’s intel? TREX’s?”
“Ours,” she corrected, the determination in her voice vivid and undeniable. “We’re partners now. That means there’s no mine or yours in this. It’s our case and our intel.”
He didn’t believe it for a minute. Michaela Starr wasn’t exactly the type to chat it up. She said what needed to be said and left it at that. It made everything she said that much more powerful. It also made their conversations short. Too short. Nash wasn’t a man of many words, but even he craved someone to talk to from time to time. Getting her to talk was like torturing a perp for information. Hard, drawn out, and only worked half the time. The other half was wasted effort.
“There’s nothing solid,” Lawson pointed out and grabbed a file off his desk before returning to the table. “Word is the drug
the congressman used has hit the streets again and is seriously more potent than before. It’s the same strand of H. The heroin ring you busted only took out one of the ingredients. This strand has heroin for stamina and LSD thrown in to really trip out the user. There’s also another component our labs haven’t identified. You know Davis over in SVU? He found this same string five years ago working a case in the underground club scene.”
Nash grabbed the file from Lawson and read the first sheet. It only confirmed what he’d told them. “What’s the street name?”
“Lust. It’s odorless, tasteless, and dissolves instantly in any liquid. This stuff is way worse than anything we’ve ever seen. We’ve got some of the other guys in narcotics checking with their CIs. Mac thinks he may have a lead and is working with TREX on it.”
“Mac is TREX?” Nash couldn’t believe it. All this time, he’d worked on the same team with members of a covert agency.
“So is Davis.”
“Jesus,” he growled. “Are there any SBI agents not on TREX’s payroll?”
“I’m not.”
That didn’t make him feel any better.
Nash handed the file back to Lawson. He’d barely scraped the surface of something bigger and much worse than the drug ring he nailed. The ringleader was still out there, and he wanted to be the one to take him down. TREX wanted the same, though Nash still didn’t understand why they were so hellbent on moving in on his case.
They want his intel? Stand in line. So did the state’s district attorney. Getting on Joy Carmichael’s bad side scared him a hell of a lot more than any of TREX’s threats. A short, round Hispanic woman with chin length dark hair and even darker eyes, she was the epitome of a bull in a china shop, as the agents collectively described her. Every last one of them respected the hell out of the DA and jumped whenever she barked.
Mike had a similar, take-no-prisoners attitude. He’d experienced her philosophy first hand. She didn’t kick them when they were down. She brought them down herself and kept them there. It was one of the way too many things that drew him to her.
Watching her go up against the DA would be quite the show. Carmichael didn’t back down from a fight. Mike went looking for one. It would be a cat fight to the death, one Nash would pay good money to see.
“Are we done?” Mike asked as she moved to stand. “Sitting here isn’t going to find us the drug lord behind Lust.”
Nash grinned at her confidence.
“You’re here to change his image.” Lawson swung in his chair to face her, putting the back to Nash. “Not step on our case.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“No, damn it. You don’t get to come in here and tell me how you’re going to do this. I’m the director. It’s my say, not TREX’s. The SBI didn’t agree to this just to lose our jurisdiction on the case.”
She arched her eyebrow. Now that was an interesting look, if not a bit unnerving. A cross between a dare and something he couldn’t quite define, he didn’t know whether she was about to kick his ass or tell him off. Either way didn’t look good for the director. “I’m here to do a job, not get into a jurisdictional pissing match with a new director out to prove something.”
Pushing out of the chair, he approached, clearly thinking his height would somehow intimidate her. Idiot. “Stay out of my case.”
“Stay out of my way.”
Reluctantly, Nash rose and readied himself to save Lawson when she jumped him for challenging her. “Mike, calm down.”
When she redirected that look to him, he slowed to a stop, careful to stay out of lunging distance. Without another word, she opened the door and walked out, her ass swaying like a pendulum. Every male stopped whatever he was doing to watch her walk by.
“This is going to be a disaster, isn’t it?” Lawson said when Nash stopped next to him. They both stared at her until she turned the corner.
“What was your first clue?” He took his time going after her, hoping by the time he caught up, she wouldn’t be ready to kill him, as Lee feared.
FOUR
“You do realize that order has the exact opposite reaction on me, right?” Mike drew in several breaths to control her temper. He always had that reaction with her. She had the ability to stay calm in any situation—exception any situation involving him.
Nash caught up to her and held open the front door, a charming grin on his face she knew better than to trust. “It got you out of there, didn’t it?”
“I’m not going to respond to that.” She stormed past him and outside, pausing once she reached the sidewalk. Any time outside the privacy of the director’s office, they had to be on their best behavior. TREX planned to have some favorable images leaked to the media. She didn’t know when or where they’d take them, only that they could be anywhere.
They stood outside the Seattle field office, soaking in the heat of the beautiful August morning. Not a cloud in the sky, Mike noted as she traced the scenery around her. The large glass building shadowed them from the sun. That suited her just fine, although it did nothing to protect her from the heat being generated between them.
“You look like hell, Norman.” Mike drawled his name slowly, knowing how much he hated to be called by his real name. She held her breath as he swung his impressive frame around and looked at her. When he growled in irritation, a cool chill washed down her spine and centered deep in her core. Her nipples responded by tingling and peaking against the lace of her bra. Thank God she thought ahead and wore a blazer, knowing full and well she’d need everything she had to arm herself against the sexual draw of this particular agent.
He narrowed those perfect, haunt-you-in-the-middle-of-the-night, puppy brown eyes. They were like dark chocolate, just as mouthwatering and dangerous to a woman’s self-control. The memory of those eyes had her senses humming. They were even more mesmerizing than she remembered.
He still wore his wavy blond hair brushing his shoulders, always in desperate need of a comb. It accented his strong, statuesque features. He hadn’t shaved in several days. The dark dusting of whiskers covering his square jaw gave him a rugged look. Her heartrate jumped at the sight.
“And you look incredible, Michaela.”
Just the sound of his deep voice strummed across her body. Little goosebumps peppered her skin and tickled her scalp. “Thank you, I think.”
The corner of his lips pulled with a hint of laughter. His dark eyes danced in silent mirth and made her entire body hum. “You think?”
“I’m not sure whether you meant it as a compliment. It sounded less than sincere.” What a bald-faced lie. That was the one thing she could always count on with Nash. He offered nothing but complete and impartial dedication in everything he did, including her.
“What makes you think I’m not sincere?” He offered her a look of brooding sexuality that left her speechless as his gaze burned into her.
She knew better than to take the bait. Nash had a way about him, a way that made everyone else around him nervous as if they’d done something terribly wrong, and he was about to find it out. It took a hell of a lot of willpower back in the director’s office, but she didn’t fidget once, not even when he kept attacking her senses with heated looks.
Digging her nails into her palms, she focused on the mission and not the fact he stood so close his masculine scent lifted into her nose. She drew it in with a sharp intake of breath, missing that smell more than she’d realized. Hell, she didn’t even know it was possible to miss something like a smell.
“We should talk about where to start,” she stated, quick to change the subject. She hadn’t been alone with him for more than five minutes and already spotted five different areas of absolute seclusion they could disappear into. If she didn’t pull her mind out of the sexual gutter long enough to do her job, they were both in serious trouble.
“How about we start with why you left?”
She faced him and thrust out her chin. “Are we really going to do this here?”
Clenching her teeth, she forced a smile. “We can talk about this in private.”
“What’s wrong with now?”
“You have to act as if all eyes are on you all the time. If we got into all the reasons I left right out in the open, it would be on the front page of tomorrow’s paper. You have one reporter in particular with some sort of personal vendetta against you.”
“Denaly.”
“What’s the deal with him? Why does he hate you so much?”
The cold smile that flashed across his lips didn’t surprise her. Whatever hatred the reporter had for Nash was definitely reciprocated. “I may have borrowed his girlfriend.”
“How do you borrow a girlfriend?” Jealousy spiked at the news of him moving on, which made no sense. They’d both had relationships after splitting up.
“What? It’s not like I became a monk after we broke up.”
“That still doesn’t answer the question. What do you mean, borrow?”
“By the very definition, it means to take something belonging to someone else with the intention of returning it.”
Shock robbed her of words. For about a second. “When did you become such a tool?”
“Summer of ’69, baby.” He wiggled his eyebrows. When she rolled her eyes, he laughed. “You asked.”
“I’m sorry I did.”
“You hungry? There’s this great food truck at the market. They have everything.”
Was he kidding? “It’s ten in the morning.”
“Including breakfast,” he added. “It’s where one of my CIs hangs out. He won’t talk unless I feed him. I assume TREX didn’t spring for a car?”
“Partners ride together.”
“I’ll take that as a no. Follow me.” She did and smiled when she spotted it. After all these years, he still had it. “Remember this old thing?”