Hero Under Cover

by Suzanne Brockmann

  But maybe not as much.

  Pete followed Annie up the stairs and checked the windows in the bedroom while she went into the bathroom and got ready for bed.

  Maybe if she didn’t hate him quite so much, he’d still have a chance….

  To what?

  To have a future with her?

  Ruthlessly, he crushed that thought, pushing it away, out of sight.

  Pete refocused his attention on the sound of water running in the bathroom. Annie was brushing her teeth. She’d be out any minute now.

  He locked the door to the bedroom and sat down heavily on his bedroll.

  Tomorrow would be easier, he thought. All he had to do was get through tonight. He closed his eyes, hoping, praying to whatever gods were listening, that Annie wouldn’t try to talk about that kiss.

  He’d been waiting for her to say something all through dinner. He’d never even tasted the pizza, he’d been wound so tight. He’d half expected her to reach out for him, to touch him, to try to finish what they’d begun.

  Expected? Or hoped?

  No, he couldn’t hope for it. As much as he wanted to kiss her again, he couldn’t even allow that much to happen.

  Because if she touched him, she’d know. And how the hell was he going to explain why he wouldn’t make love to her when he wanted her so badly, it was making him shake?

  The bathroom door opened and Annie came out.

  She was wearing her oversize plaid flannel pajamas, and she was brushing her hair.

  Pete couldn’t watch. He lay back against his pillow and closed his eyes.

  It didn’t help.

  Annie set the brush on her bedside table, the same way she did every night, and turned off the light. She pulled the covers up over her and curled onto her side.

  “Good night, Taylor,” she whispered, but Pete didn’t answer.

  For once she could hear his breathing. It was slow and steady, as if he already were asleep.

  She sighed, flipping onto her back, trying to get comfortable. She stared up at the dark ceiling, willing herself to relax.

  Picture yourself on a tropical beach, she told herself, closing her eyes. Remembering the way Pete had talked her through it just a few nights ago, Annie pictured herself wading out into the warm Pacific Ocean. She imagined the clear water washing all her problems away. She imagined herself coming out of the water, taking off her silly plaid pajamas as she walked up to a beach blanket that had been spread out upon the sand. She imagined Peter Taylor lying on it, as naked as she was. He smiled up at her, reaching for her hand and pulling her down next to him, covering her mouth with his own—

  Annie’s eyes opened. What the heck was she doing? This was supposed to be a relaxation technique, not self-torture. How could she possibly rub salt into her own wounds by fantasizing about a man whom she knew wasn’t interested in her?

  But…

  Annie squinted up through the darkness at the ceiling. Wait a minute.

  She didn’t really know he wasn’t interested in her. She was only assuming it. He never actually said that he only wanted to be friends. He never actually said that he didn’t want their relationship to progress any further.

  Shoot, she was supposed to be some kind of brilliant scientist, and here she was assuming a whole hell of a lot of unproven facts….

  “Taylor, you awake?”

  The sound of Annie’s voice came slicing through the darkness. Pete almost jumped. Almost. Instead he continued to breathe slowly and deeply, pretending to be asleep.

  Coward, he silently accused himself.

  “Taylor?” she said again. Then, “Pete?”

  The sound of her voice saying his first name nearly did him in. But somehow he didn’t move, and he didn’t answer.

  Come on, Annie, he thought. Roll on over and go to sleep.

  The sheets rustled, but she wasn’t pulling them up. She was pushing them back. He heard the sound of her bare feet on the hardwood floor. Oh, damn, she was out of bed. She was walking toward him—

  “Pete, wake up,” she said, her voice next to him in the darkness.

  He opened his eyes to see her crouched down beside him. He could just barely make out her features in the dim light from the windows.

  “Go back to bed,” he said. But he didn’t sound very convincing, even to his own ears.

  Annie sat down, cross-legged, next to him. It was obvious that she wasn’t planning on going anywhere. At least not real soon. “We have to talk,” she said.

  Pete pushed himself up so that he was sitting, his bare back against the coolness of the wall, putting several more inches between them. Man, she was still sitting much too close. He could smell her gentle fragrance, see the pulse beating at the delicate juncture of her neck and collarbone. His gaze was drawn to the deep-V neckline of her pajama top. He made himself look away.

  “Annie, go back to bed,” he said, louder this time. His eyes met hers and locked. “Please,” he added, but it was little more than a whisper.

  He turned his head away, but not before Annie saw it. It was only a flash, only a glimmer in his dark eyes, but it was there. The same deep hunger she’d seen that morning before he’d kissed her….

  “Pete, why did you kiss me?” she asked, her voice husky.

  “I shouldn’t have,” he said. “I was out of line.” He braced himself to look up at her, steeling himself to remain expressionless. “I’m sorry.”

  “But I’m not,” she said. She frowned very slightly. “You didn’t answer my question. See, I just can’t seem to figure out why you’d go and kiss me, and then act like I’ve got the plague. What’s the problem? Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Involved?”

  He was involved more than he wanted to be, and it was getting worse every second. “No. Annie, please—”

  “So why did you kiss me, Taylor?”

  “Let’s just drop this—”

  “I don’t want to drop this,” she said fiercely. He was saying one thing with his words, but his eyes were telling her something entirely different. “If there’s a problem, tell me what it is. If there’s not a problem—” She waited until he looked up at her. “Kiss me again.”

  Pete drew in a long, shaky breath. “You don’t know me—who I really am,” he said, caught in the depths of her eyes.

  “I know enough,” she said. Her hair was shining in the pale light from the windows, her eyes colorless and mysterious. She reached up to touch the side of his face, but he caught her wrist.

  “You wouldn’t like me,” he rasped.

  “Isn’t that for me to decide?” Annie asked.

  It would have been so easy to kiss her. She was leaning toward him, inviting him….

  “I can’t get involved with you,” he said harshly, releasing her wrist as if it burned him. “It’s not possible. It’s not smart—”

  He saw the flash of hurt in her eyes, and it did him in. “Annie, believe me, I have no choice,” he said, his voice gentler. “It’s damn near killing me, but I care too much about you to start a relationship that I know won’t go anywhere.” He reached out, turning her chin so that she looked up at him. “You’ll see, it’s better if we just stay friends.”

  This time Annie moved toward him first, thinking that if he still told her he only wanted to be friends after she kissed him, then she’d believe him. So she kissed him.

  He groaned, his voice a note of despair, as his lips and then his tongue met hers in a long, deep kiss that sent fire racing through his body.

  His arms went around her, pulling her toward him, closer, closer, until she was on his lap, pressed against him, and still that wasn’t close enough.

  He kissed her, again and again, almost frantically now as his need for her increased with each pounding beat of his heart. She received him feverishly, her hands sweeping down his back, over his chest and arms, as if she couldn’t get enough of touching him.

  And still he kissed her.

  So much for his
words. So much for his good intentions.

  She was straddling him now, and his hands explored the strong muscles of her thighs. Moving upward, he found the soft flannel edge of her pajama shirt and swept one hand underneath it. Annie shuddered with pleasure as his roughly callused hand caressed her back. His fingers moved down, slipping under the elastic waistband of her pajama pants, stroking the soft, smooth skin of her buttocks.

  Slowly, so slowly, he tightened his grip on her, pulling her hips forward until she was positioned directly on top of him. It was exactly what he knew he shouldn’t do, but he couldn’t seem to stop. It was an invitation, a silent question. Did she want more?

  She gave him her answer by pressing herself down against the hardness in his jeans, by moving against him.

  Yes, she wanted him.

  And despite his resolve, despite knowing that he shouldn’t, he was going to take her. He knew now that all along he’d been fooling himself. He had no choice—that much had been true. He was aching for her, dying for her. He reached for her, and she was there, her sweet mouth against his.

  You’re weak, a small voice in his head accused. But he had to protest. The odds weren’t exactly in his favor. It was two against one—his body and her body against his resolve to stay away from her. He didn’t stand a chance.

  But it wasn’t right. She didn’t know the truth about him.

  He kissed her, determined to ignore the tiny disapproving voice that chastised him. Don’t think, he told himself. Don’t think….

  Annie pulled her pajama top over her head, and Pete stopped thinking.

  In one movement, he flipped them both over, so that he was on top of her. Her blue eyes sparkled as she smiled up at him, and he kissed her again. He started at her mouth and moved down her long, slender neck. He traveled slowly across her collarbone and kissed his way down to her breasts, taking first one and then the other firm nipple into his mouth, caressing it with his tongue until she cried out.

  He lifted his head then, gazing down at her. The sparkle in her eyes had been replaced by liquid fire. Man, he’d fantasized about her looking at him like that. He’d fantasized about having sex with her. What he hadn’t fantasized was that sex with Annie would be the best he’d ever had in his life. But it was. He’d never felt like this before. Never. And he still had his pants on….

  She smiled at him again and lifted her mouth to be kissed. He met her lips slowly, a gentle, lingering kiss that grew into an earth-shattering touching of souls.

  Suddenly Pete knew what was different. Shaken, he pulled back. He rolled off her and scrambled to his feet.

  Annie sat up. “Pete?”

  He’d done something really stupid. Outrageously stupid. He ran his fingers through his hair. When had it happened? How could he have let it happen?

  “Pete?” Annie said again. She got to her feet and took a tentative step toward him. “Are you all right?”

  He’d gone and fallen in love with her.

  That’s what was so different. Sex with Annie wasn’t simply sex, it was making love. Oh, man, he loved her….

  She took another step toward him, concern on her beautiful face.

  He had to get out of here. He had to think. He had to figure out what the hell he was going to do.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to Annie. “I’m—”

  He spun on his heels, nearly leaping for the door to the hallway, leaving Annie alone in her bedroom for the first time in a week.

  PETE LEANED HIS HEAD BACK against the wall and stared at the closed door that led to Annie’s bedroom. This was crazy. This was ridiculous. He had never even believed in love before. He thought it didn’t exist. But all the symptoms were undeniably there. He was in love with Annie, no doubt about it. It felt so much like what was described in all those silly songs he’d scoffed at for so many years, it was almost laughable. Except he didn’t feel very much like laughing right now.

  For the first time since he was a kid, he knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted Annie. He wanted her to fall in love with him. He wanted a chance at a future together. He wanted…forever.

  Forever. Now there was a good joke. What were the chances that she’d want to spend forever with him after she found out he was a government agent sent to gather evidence against her?

  Pete ran his fingers through his hair for the hundredth time and looked at his watch. Three-fifteen. Man, was this night never going to end?

  He swore under his breath, knowing that he was in too deep. He was emotionally involved. He should be on the phone with Whitley Scott right now, making arrangements to be taken off this case.

  But if he were removed from the case, who knew who they’d assign to take his place? What if the replacement agent wasn’t able to protect her? There was no way he was going to trust her life to someone else. No way.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. Damn, he ached all over.

  He put his head in his hands, remembering the look on Annie’s face as he bolted for the door. Talk about coitus interruptus, he thought with a strangled groan. She must think he was nuts, the way he jumped up like that, right in the middle of such serious foreplay.

  He groaned again. She must not be very happy with him right now. He doubted if Miss Manners had a book on sexual etiquette, but he was willing to bet if she did, she would frown heavily upon a gentleman heating a lady up and then leaving her out in the cold.

  But if Pete had made love to Annie, if they’d gone all the way, he’d have blown his chance at a future with her. When she found out he was CIA, she would assume he’d been assigned to seduce the art robbery information out of her. Which he had. Which was why he couldn’t…This was way too complicated.

  ANNIE WOKE UP TO THE CLOCK RADIO, and lay in bed for at least half an hour, listening to the country station and wishing that Pete was lying next to her.

  But Pete didn’t want her.

  A tear slipped out and slid down her cheek, and she wiped it quickly away.

  Why hadn’t she listened to him? It was the same question that had kept her tossing and turning all night long, and the only answer she could come up with was that she was a fool. He had told her in no uncertain terms that he only wanted to be friends. But no, she had to go and throw herself at him. She had to go and try to show him how wrong he was. But she was the one who had been wrong.

  It wasn’t fair, but love never was. There was never a guarantee that two people would feel the same way about each other. In fact, it seemed like happy, mutual love was the exception rather than the rule. Why else would there be so many songs about unrequited love? Four out of seven of the country songs she’d heard that morning had that age old “you-don’t-love-me-as-much-as-I-love-you” theme.

  Another tear escaped, and Annie brushed it away. What was it Cara always said? Look on the bright side.

  She stared up at the ceiling, trying to find the bright side as another song started. Look on the bright side, she thought. At least this had happened before she let herself fall in love with him.

  But deep down inside, she knew that was a lie.

  THAT NIGHT, PETE LAY ON HIS bedroll in the dark, waiting for Annie to ask him if he was awake.

  The day had seemed endless, with Annie avoiding him when she could and being distantly polite when she couldn’t.

  He’d apologized, and she’d shrugged it off, telling him to forget it, it was her fault.

  Pete frowned. She’d seemed so flip, so casual. Was it possible she didn’t care? Was it possible that all she’d wanted was a quick roll in the hay?

  No. He’d seen the hurt in her eyes, hurt that she couldn’t hide. He closed his eyes, flooded by a wave of shame and remorse. His only comfort was knowing that he would be feeling equal amounts of shame and remorse if he had made love to her. Not to mention an additional dose of guilt.

  Come on, Annie, he thought, lying there on the floor of her room. Talk to me.

  But she didn’t say a word.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CARA L
OOKED AT ANNIE SPECULATIVELY. “Why?”

  “Does it really matter why?” Annie asked.

  “You’re asking me to spend all my waking hours over the next three days virtually locked in the lab,” Cara said, crossing her arms. “Is it so strange for me to want to know why?”

  With a sigh, Annie got up and closed the office door. “If we work overtime, we can get a sample of Marshall’s death mask ready to go to the carbon-dating lab by the end of the week. Then it’ll only be another week, maybe two before we get the results. Then both the death mask and the people making those threats will be out of my hair.”

  “Pete Taylor will be out of your hair, too,” Cara commented.

  “Yes,” Annie agreed. “Taylor, too.”

  Cara leaned back in her desk chair, eyes narrowing. “I thought you were starting to really like this guy.”

  “Yeah,” Annie said, looking away. “I was.”

  “So why do you suddenly want to get rid of him?” Cara asked, lazily reaching out to bob the spring-attached head of her Homer Simpson doll. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Annie said.

  “What, did he put the moves on you?” Cara asked, grinning. “Did he come on too strong, too fast?”

  Annie put her head down on her desk.

  “Give the guy a break,” Cara said. “You should see the way he looks at you. It’s like he’s been struck by lightning—”

  “He’s just embarrassed,” Annie said, looking up at Cara, her own cheeks flushing slightly from the memory. “I…well, I sort of…I tried to seduce him. But he just wants to be friends.”

  “You’re kidding,” Cara said, looking very shocked. “You mean you…? And he didn’t…?”

  Annie buried her face in her hands. “You got it.”

  “But I’ve seen him look at you like he’s totally in love with you,” Cara protested.