by Cindy Dees
He murmured, “A woman who can dance like you shouldn’t also be some sort of superspy.”
“Why not?” she murmured back. His gaze was mesmerizing, probing hers with an intelligence that made her worry about how much he was seeing of her.
“It’s too much. You’re intimidating.”
“Me? Intimidating?” She laughed shortly. “You’re the intimidating one. All this wealth and success, your perfect looks, brilliant mind, smooth sophistication… I’m just a soldier.”
“You have no idea what other people see when they look at you, do you?” he asked, surprised.
“Same thing I see every morning in the mirror,” she replied a shade defensively.
“I highly doubt that. I see a beautiful, sensual woman who, for some reason, chooses to pretend to herself that she is neither beautiful nor sensual.”
What the heck was she supposed to say in response to something like that? At a loss, she demanded, “And I suppose you don’t see movie-star good looks in your mirror every morning?”
He shrugged. “I take no credit for my looks. They’re merely the luck of the genetic draw.”
She just shook her head. Their worlds were so different that she could hardly imagine his. She suspected he’d be incapable of comprehending hers any better.
Hake startled her by asking, “Now what?”
She replied gently, “Now you tell me everything.”
“No, I think this is the part where you tell me everything. Who are you and who do you work for?”
She sighed. She had to do something to cut the tension between them. Get him to relax and open up to her. It was probably time for some of that pesky boy-girl stuff. If she was lucky, he’d loosen up after nothing more than some pleasant conversation. “I can’t tell you anything about me or my employer. It’s classified.”
“Give me a hint.”
“I’m probably the only belly dancer you’ve ever seen who’s been known to pack a Glock 9 mm pistol while she dances.”
“You can hide a gun under those skimpy costumes?” She nodded and he laughed in disbelief. “If only I’d known. You’d have been even sexier to watch.”
Okay. Time to change the subject. She tried to sound casual when she replied but failed miserably when she croaked, “Tell me something about you I’d never guess.”
“I hate the idea of getting married, but my father’s trying to force me to do it.”
She grinned. “I have no trouble guessing that about you. Tell me something that will surprise me.”
“I hate having my picture taken.”
“Really? Why would you hate pictures? You’re gorg—” She broke off.
“Thank you,” he murmured in reply to her unfinished compliment. “Being judged for one’s looks gets old much faster than you might imagine, however.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she replied.
“Oh, come now,” he retorted. “Surely you know how beautiful you are. And just as surely people judge you based on your looks all the time.”
“I don’t look like this most of the time,” she replied drily.
“How do you usually look?”
“Well, I rarely wear makeup. I’m more likely to have mud or camouflage paint all over my face. And I never wear dresses or sparkly clothes.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing you au naturel.”
Her gaze snapped to his. Did he mean merely without makeup, or was he referring to seeing her undressed altogether?
He moved on smoothly. “Tell me something surprising about you.”
“I used to be a librarian.”
His brows lifted. “I confess, I find that hard to picture.”
“I was a research librarian, in fact.” She omitted the bit about working for the FBI. It had always been her private joke that she was a belly-dancing librarian. She’d never dreamed her longtime hobby would come in handy on a mission. She glanced over at Hake, who was studying her with the kind of focus and intensity that threatened to make a girl feel darned special. She looked away, embarrassed.
“I have twelve sisters,” he said unexpectedly.
“Good Lord!” she exclaimed. “My sympathies to you.”
He laughed. “I knew a whole lot about girls early because of them. But if you ever tell anyone they used to dress me up like a doll and curl my hair and put makeup on me, I’ll deny it to my dying breath.”
“Are there pictures?” She laughed. “I’d pay a lot to see those.”
“You and a whole bunch of tabloids,” he grumbled.
“You don’t like being rich and famous very much, do you?” she asked.
“The rich part is admittedly nice. The fame I can do without. But unfortunately in my case, they came as a package.”
She nodded in understanding. “Anonymity is critical to my work. I hate public attention of any kind.”
“How do you dance in front of crowds, then?”
“I mostly pretend they’re not there. Unless someone like you is in the audi—” She broke off, appalled by what she’d just let slip.
He grinned but the expression faded fast. “You won’t want to hang out with me for long, then, will you?”
The question startled her. Hang out with him? As in to date him? Good grief. Her mind stumbled hard enough over that concept that it took her a moment to move on to the rest of his comment. He was right. She could in no way afford to come under scrutiny. Reporters would dig into every facet of her life and identity. And although the U.S. military had covered those tracks very well, her lack of a past would raise red flags. Or worse, someone might actually find something on her.
She looked up at Hake and caught his grim look. His features smoothed out immediately and he said lightly, “Well, at least we have tonight.”
Alarm exploded inside her. What exactly did he have in mind? She stammered, “Y-you’re right. I don’t have much time to debrief you. We really need to get busy with that.”
“As tempting as it is to make a snappy comment about what you mean by debriefing, I’ll refrain,” he commented drily. Heat climbed her cheeks tellingly, but thankfully he moved on casually. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
He was stalling. But it was his boat and his crew, and there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot she could do to force him to talk if he didn’t want to. She sighed. “Fine. Let’s eat. And then we’ll talk.”
He shot her a stubborn look. So, it was going to be like that, was it? She’d just have to do what the Medusas always did. They used brains and creativity to circumvent any situation where they could not resort to brute force. And sometimes they—reluctantly—resorted to girlie stuff. Like flirting with the target over a simple but tasty midnight dinner.
She felt exceedingly weird smiling at him around mouthfuls of croissant sandwich and casting come-hither glances over the cranberry relish. But he seemed to relax as the meal progressed. No matter that she felt uncomfortably squirmy low in her belly and aching for something she had no intention of putting a name to.
It was Hake’s turn to dawdle over the meal tonight, avoiding the inevitable conversation to follow, and it amused Casey. After dinner, he moved to stand over by a large bank of picture windows. A stunning view of moonlit English countryside slid past outside.
“It looks like a magical dream,” Casey murmured.
“Mmm. An enchanted world,” he agreed. “Like you. Too beautiful and elusive to be real.”
He was the too-good-to-be-real one. It was hard to wrap her brain around a man like him actually existing. But then Hake touched her elbow, his hand warm and alive and entirely real. He murmured, “I promised myself I would kiss you tonight and, given our mutual brush with death earlier, I’m not inclined to delay much longer lest I never get a chance to do it.”
Her stomach and her toes curled into tight knots of anticipation. Her gut warned her in near panic that this was not part of the mission. But if kissing Hake would get him to spill his guts, she probably ought to do it…for the goo
d of the mission, of course.
She replied reluctantly, “Kissing is probably not a great idea if we’re going to have to work together.”
“All the more reason to do it and get it out of the way,” he replied in a silky voice that vibrated through her with sexual intensity. “Then we can both relax and quit wondering what it would be like.”
“Hake—”
He moved swiftly, drawing her up against him, his mouth swooping down to capture hers before either one of them could come up with any more good reasons not to do it.
Her first reaction was relief. Shockingly, she was glad to have the suspended sense of anticipation out of the way. But then…oh, my…a raft of other sensations flooded her. His big, hard body plastered against hers. His warm, wine-flavored lips moving on hers. His hand slipping under her hair, tilting her head to just the right angle.
And then the sheer charisma of the man, all his charm and attractiveness and confidence rolled over her and through her. His thumb toyed with a soft spot just behind her ear as his lips opened her mouth and the kiss grew deeper. More intimate. A hot merlot invasion that was druggingly delicious. His free hand drifted down her back sending electric pulses shooting up and down her spine until she felt hot and boneless all over.
It was a revelation. So much for the theory that she had no desire to be a girly girl. She was loving every minute of being exactly that in his arms. Worse, she realized her hands had crept over his shoulders and around his neck and that she was pulling his head down to hers as eagerly as he was pulling her to him. This was not happening!
But as sure as she was standing there, her entire body strained forward, pressing into him as if she would become a part of him. She tore her mouth away from his and was appalled to realize she was panting. Hard. Okay, so she’d been lusting after him a whole lot more than she’d admitted to herself. But dang, that man could kiss!
Hake stared down at her, his eyes blazing spots of black fire in the shadows of his elegant face. He looked…shaken. And something warm and satisfied and entirely female unfolded deep inside her at the sight.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to do that again,” he murmured.
“But…we can’t…” she mumbled.
“Shouldn’t and can’t are entirely different creatures,” he murmured as his mouth closed on hers once more.
Dammit, their second kiss was every bit as incendiary as their first one. More so. Worse, this time he settled into the thing, prepared to draw it out and savor it to the full extent of enjoyment for both of them. She’d never realized two people could kiss with their entire bodies. But as they pressed into one another, hands roaming and breath ragged, every inch of her burned with desire for this man.
He’d temporarily lost his mind. A man like him would never want a woman like her under normal circumstances. But she had to admit, it was a great fantasy while it lasted. Temptation insinuated itself into her consciousness. When in her life was a man like this ever going to kiss her just so again? This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
And it wasn’t as if she was forcing the guy to come on to her. He was in this purely of his own free will. Of course, he’d also just narrowly missed being blown to bits and was probably half out of his head with shock. She was a bad, bad person for considering taking him up on his offer in his state.
But then he drew her down to the sofa, his hands stripping the shreds of her gown off her shoulders and baring her skin to his mouth. Fireworks exploded inside her head and lower, deep in her abdomen. Oh, yes. She seriously wanted this man.
And then the flawless logic of the hopelessly-in-lust kicked in. They were both adults. If they wanted to have sex, it was nobody’s business but theirs, right? They both knew the score. They would scratch the itch and move on like two civilized people.
Except there was nothing civilized in how she felt right now. And she had a sick feeling that he would be hard to move on from. This was the kind of man she could fall for—was falling for. She wasn’t as worldly as he was. She hadn’t spent most of her adult life jumping in and out of casual affairs flung across the front pages of the tabloids. She’d only had two serious relationships and both of them had ended badly.
But by his own admission, Hake wanted nothing to do with settling down. The fact that his father was pushing him to marry surely made Hake more stubborn on the subject. And why should the guy settle down? Every beautiful, available woman on several continents was throwing herself at him. The man lived in a gourmet candy store. Why should he settle on a plain old chocolate bar like her?
Reluctantly, she pulled away from him. Her entire body felt the loss of his heat and vitality. “I’m sorry, Hake, but this isn’t going to work. I’m a Hershey bar, you see.”
“Excuse me?” he asked, confused.
“Your life is a Belgian chocolate store with a hundred varieties of gourmet truffle.”
His hands slid up her arms, raising goose bumps in their wake and he cupped her face as he drew nearer. “You’ll have to explain that to me later. After we’ve had our fill of each other.”
“I can’t do this, Hake. Really.”
“Because you’re a Hershey bar?”
“Exactly.”
He stared at her in what looked suspiciously like sexual frustration. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m plain. Simple. I don’t do the whole female seductress thing. Exotic, beautiful women of every flavor throw themselves at your feet for the sampling every day. I can’t possibly be as captivating or interesting.”
“But my favorite brand of chocolate is Hershey.”
“You’ve never had a Hershey bar in your entire privileged life,” she accused.
“Hence the novelty and appeal of it, my dear.”
She shook her head. “I don’t do casual relationships.”
He answered lightly, “Then we’re in luck. I don’t do relationships at all.”
That made her pull back sharply. “All the more reason not to do this.”
He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair, standing it up all over his head but still managing to look like a picture straight out of an Italian fashion magazine. “I don’t know what’s happening between us. Hell, I don’t even know your last name. But I know I haven’t been this intrigued by a woman in…as long as I can remember.”
“Chandler.”
“I beg your pardon?” he said shortly. Poor guy sounded almost in pain.
“Chandler. That’s my last name.”
A slow smile unfolded on his face. “See. That wasn’t so hard. Chandler. That’s a sophisticated-sounding name.”
She shrugged, embarrassed by how exposed she suddenly felt. He’d taken away the anonymous soldier persona she’d been hiding behind. “I’m not a sophisticated kind of girl.”
He snorted. “You’re more complex, and more fascinating I might add, than just about anyone I’ve ever met. I find you mesmerizing.”
“And here I thought it was because you like watching me shimmy around half-naked.”
“That, too.” He laughed. “You’re an extraordinary dancer, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
They looked at each other for several long, charged seconds.
“Don’t do it,” she warned.
“How are you planning to stop me?” he asked as he closed the distance between them.
“Well, I could hurt you in about a hundred different ways or just kill you,” she murmured.
“But you won’t,” he murmured back, his hands coming up to cup her face where he’d left off before.
“What makes you so sure?” she muttered.
“Because you like how I make you feel. You want me as much as I want you.”
“I do n—”
He pressed light fingers to her lips. “Don’t lie to me. I hate it when women lie.”
“I hate it when anyone lies,” she retorted.
He smiled. “Touché.”
They stared at one anot
her, stalemated yet again.
“Help me out here, Hake. I’m going to have to report to my superiors in the morning, and I’ve got to have more than you kiss like a god.”
He grinned broadly. “A god, huh?”
“Work with me,” she all but begged. “Give me something on that man who talked to you in the restaurant. Or better, give me what you’ve got on the people who approached you and your father.”
He stared at her for a long time. She didn’t for a minute underestimate how intelligent or calculating a man he was. His personal financial success was ample testament to both.
“Fine,” he sighed. “But on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Come to bed with me.”
Chapter 8
H ake waited tensely for Casey-Cassandra-Scorpion’s answer. He was stunned to admit it, but his desire to make love with this woman only grew the more he got to know her. Who’d have guessed a confident, take-charge soldier lurked under all that organza and beading? An utterly fascinating combination of tough and tender.
“No deal,” she said promptly.
“Then I tell you nothing,” he retorted just as quickly.
“You don’t seem to understand your position, Hake. I could arrest you for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism.”
She was hiding behind her soldier persona. He knew women far too well to be snowed by her act, however. He could all but taste the desire dripping off her. “Casey, Casey,” he sighed. “Do you know yourself so little?”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded nervously.
He moved slowly, giving her every opportunity to prove him wrong and pull away. But as he’d expected, she did not. A combination of innocence and deadly experience swam in her wary gaze, drawing him to her more powerfully than an aphrodisiac.