by Nancy Warren
“Yeah. I knew that.” He swirled wine in his glass, thinking. “And Percivald told you all this?”
“Yes.”
Why would the pantywaist tell her that? It was the sort of thing an innocent businessman would say. Or a very devious one. Jake scowled. “What else did he tell you?”
“Lots of things. Neville gave me a tour personally.” Jake heard the tiny note of pride in her voice.
“Congratulations. Did he try anything?”
Her color heightened. “Not exactly.”
His gut tightened. She wasn’t in Percivald’s league. If she got involved with that pervert, she could end up hurt, or psychologically damaged. “What do you mean, not exactly?”
“He…well, he flirted with me, I guess.”
Jake let his tightened belly muscles relax. If a little flirting over the coffee machine had her this flustered, an all-out pass would have her racing home faster than her stiletto heels could carry her.
Of course. The obvious strategy to getting her out of Oceanic hit him like a bullet.
“How do you feel about…you know…with Neville Percivald to get more information?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “You don’t mean…”
“I mean, have sex with the guy and pump him for information.”
In an instant her face went from flushed to whiter than his marble rolling pin. “I don’t think so.” She fiddled with the stem of her wineglass. “He’s really not my type.”
Yes. Jake’s strategy was working. He pushed harder, knowing in his gut he had to get her out of Oceanic, wishing he’d never been fool enough to involve an innocent woman in his personal vendetta. Unfortunately, his common sense had returned a little late. If he couldn’t persuade her to back away from Oceanic, he’d have to trick her into doing it. Deliberately, he hardened his voice. “This isn’t a game, you know. It’s a serious investigation. You’re either in or you’re out. And if you’re in, I do mean all the way.”
He waited for her to throw the wine in his face and storm out. With luck he’d get a chance to explain his behavior when this thing was all over, maybe even pursue this tantalizing attraction between them. But for right now, he’d risk her good opinion to get her safely out of Oceanic.
Instead of throwing the wine or a tantrum, she rose with a polite smile. “I should have brought that welcome-to-the-neighborhood Bundt cake, then we’d have had dessert.”
“Look, Cyn—”
“It’s dark now, Agent Wheeler. May I go home?”
The sky was dark, all right, but not nearly as dark as his mood as he skulked with her down the back alley.
Before she slipped into her house, she gripped his arm. “I am not a quitter,” she whispered.
Somehow, he’d have to find a way to make her become one. If Neville Percivald couldn’t stop her, Jake would have to find a way to do it himself.
A WEEK LATER, he was still trying to figure out a way to get Cynthia Baxter to un-volunteer. He’d stubbornly refused to contact her all week, and despite the fact that he’d kept his cell phone turned on and near him all week, day and night, he hadn’t heard a peep from her.
He hated stubborn women.
He’d have been worried sick if he hadn’t joined the rest of the neighborhood curtain-twitching squad and taken to monitoring her movements in the most low-tech way of all. He peered out his window at her when she left for work in the morning, and he’d become so finely tuned to the sound of her car motor that he was back at his post each evening when she returned, driving past his house with her nose pointed straight ahead and her chin in the air in a little up yours posture that kept his blood perpetually on low simmer.
He had to do something. She was getting in the way of his work. He had to schedule all his appointments, do all his digging, after she’d left for work in the morning, then be home again in time to watch for her safe arrival.
It was all her fault for pretending to be someone she wasn’t. He never would have asked her to be his informal spy if he hadn’t believed she was tough, street smart and kinkier than the Marquis de Sade.
He felt like a chump. And the worst part was she had him thinking about her at night, too—remembering how she’d looked naked, her naturally slender body gently rounded in all the right places. Then there was the way she’d felt in his arms. Like she belonged there.
Thinking about her made him irritable and edgy as he hovered by the window like a damned den mother, checking his watch and straining his ears for her engine. It was six-thirty. She was always home by six.
He checked the battery on his cell phone, started to pace. His blood pressure rose as he pictured Cynthia in danger. Being forced onto a fishing boat…
“No!” he said aloud, shoving the ugly vision away.
He heard a car turn onto Rodonda Drive, but his ears told him immediately it wasn’t Cyn’s. He twitched his curtain and saw a yellow taxi pull up outside Mrs. Lawrence’s place. He grabbed his keys and wallet, pulled on a jacket and sprinted for his front door.
His elderly neighbor was just starting up her front path.
“Nice evening,” he said by way of greeting.
She smiled at him. “Yes.” Good, she had her hearing aid turned on.
He sauntered to the fence. “I’ve been helping Cynthia with some painting.”
“Yes, I know,” Mrs. Lawrence said, not even blushing at being such a nosy neighbor.
“I said I’d help her tonight, but she’s not home yet.”
“Oh, well. It’s Tuesday, isn’t it?”
“Ye-es.”
She smiled, like she’d just won at bingo. “Deep water aerobics. She’ll be home by half past seven.”
Relief washed through him, while the nagging fear turned to annoyance. That woman had wasted enough of his time and mental energy. He was going to make certain she quit Oceanic once and for all. Tonight.
He didn’t let any of his emotions show on his face, just said, “Well, she gave me a key to her house.” He waved his own key at the elderly woman. “Might as well get started.”
Mrs. Lawrence beamed. “She certainly is a lucky girl.”
Guilt smote him. An old lady would need his help a lot more than a young one. “If there’s anything you want done around the house, Mrs. Lawrence, give me a shout.”
“Why, thank you, dear. I’ll remember that. Good night.”
“‘Night.”
He sauntered to Cyn’s door in full view of the neighborhood, knowing he’d just been stamped with the Rodonda Drive Seal of Approval. If he’d learned nothing else this week, he’d confirmed that nobody sinister was watching Cynthia’s house—just him and the rest of the neighbors.
Five minutes later, he was inside. With a good forty-five minutes until she returned home, he marshaled his arguments and settled down to wait.
He snapped on a lamp, and had to admit he kind of liked the color of the walls, Grape Kool-Aid or Chateauneuf du Pape, or whatever the hell color she called it. The room was an intriguing mixture of old and new. Some of the stuff he remembered from before—fancy antique-store knickknacks and so on—but she’d added some new, ultramodern looking cushions, an abstract picture on the wall and some kind of chunk of rock on the mantel. Maybe it was supposed to be a sculpture. He shrugged. Looked like a hunk of rock to him.
Also new were a few additions to the library. An “inside the FBI” exposé, and a book about money laundering. Great. All he needed was her thinking she was an expert because she’d read a book about the bureau by some guy he’d never heard of, and an academic study on money laundering.
With a groan of frustration, he flopped to the couch and picked up a magazine from the stack on the floor. Her accounting association magazine. He made it through three pages and his eyes started to drift shut.
He flicked through the pile looking for Gourmet or Bon Appétit. Found Accounting Boring Monthly, Time, Newsweek, Raunch…
Raunch?
He flopped back on the couch, taking the magazine w
ith him. First thing he noted was this magazine was a lot more thumbed through than her accounting periodical. The second thing he noticed was that the saucy dominatrix on the front cover had breasts like twin Hindenburgs. You could hang on to her ankles and float to Australia.
Raunch’s annual fantasy issue pretty much ran the gamut, he noted, from the traditional to the, well, out there. He’d never found space aliens attractive, himself, but then, he was definitely more of a down-to-earth kind of guy.
Boudoir Beginners? He snorted. Who wrote this stuff?
Somebody, no doubt Cyn, had highlighted a few of the fantasies in yellow marker. Pretty much all of them were in the beginner section.
He paused to read one highlighted passage, then rolled his eyes. What was it with women and sheiks? No way he’d stick a damn towel on his head and dress up his bedroom like a silk tent. Jeez.
He flipped the page to the next fantasy. Not only was this one highlighted, it was starred—triple starred, actually. “Helpless Virgin Ravaged by a Dark Dangerous Stranger.” His mind flipped to the way he’d found her. So that’s what that was all about! She’d been enacting a magazine fantasy. The joke was on her, though. She must have just about had a heart attack when a gun-wielding stranger crashed her private party. She’d got her fantasy, all right—well, he hadn’t ravished her, of course, but to Cyn he must have looked mighty dangerous. She’d appeared terrified, not a bit turned on by the whole situation. Which just showed why fantasies should remain fantasies.
Wait a minute. He snapped his fingers. That was the answer, staring him right in the face. He knew just what Cyn would do if a dangerous stranger tried to ravish her. She’d run a mile, that’s what she’d do.
He read the setup more carefully, a slow smile forming.
WITH A SIGH Cynthia stepped into the hallway in her stocking feet and froze, dropping the canvas bag with her swimsuit and towel on the floor. There was a light on in the living room. One she certainly hadn’t left on this morning. Another furtive step forward revealed a lean and dangerous man sprawled on her new floral tapestry couch—one who also hadn’t been there this morning.
“What are you doing here, Jake?”
“Waiting for you.” Those doll-blue eyes with the fringe of impossibly dark, curly lashes set in a face of stone gave her the usual shiver of apprehension, and the same unwanted tug of attraction.
“My security system is supposed to be foolproof.” The way her pulse went all jumpy when he was around annoyed her as much as his casual entry past her defenses.
“But I’m no fool,” he said, both arrogance and amusement dancing in his eyes. He replaced the accounting magazine he’d been reading on the stack on her mahogany coffee table.
With a start of pure horror she recalled that Raunch Magazine was somewhere in that pile. Too embarrassed to put it in recycling, in case any of her neighbors peeked, she’d planned to burn the thing, but with her new duties as the most boring spy in the world, she hadn’t had time.
The pile of magazines looked undisturbed, and she figured Jake would have chosen Raunch over Accounting Today if he’d come across it.
“What do you want?”
“A status report.”
“It’s a short report,” she said, choosing a wing chair opposite him and giving her ridiculously short red leather skirt a yank. “No progress. The only accounting discrepancy I can find is eight cents that won’t balance. And another load of chopsticks arrives in the morning. Who knew Chinese food was so popular?”
He crossed his arms and lounged back, a gesture that made his biceps bulge and her heart skitter. He was so impossibly male, with an aura of danger that drew her even as it repelled her. His chest was broad and taut with muscle, his belly flat under the navy polo shirt. Her eyes slipped lower, and with a start she jerked her gaze to the colorful arrangement of tulips centered on the coffee table.
“Heard anything interesting around the water cooler?”
“Since we spoke last week? Let’s see…” She’d better not tell him she’d searched Neville’s computer files as well as Lester Dart’s and Doug Ormond’s one afternoon when they’d all gone to a meeting. Jake would have a fit if she told him. Besides, she hadn’t found anything suspicious, certainly not a second set of books.
“Well?”
“Marilyn’s getting married to her personal trainer in September. She’s the front office receptionist. We’re throwing her a shower in two weeks. Eddie from the loading dock’s seeing Suze, Neville’s secretary, on the side. It’s supposed to be a secret, but everybody knows—except Suze’s husband, I hope. And as for Delores—”
His hands jerked up in surrender. “Okay, okay. It was just a thought.”
“That the staff would chitchat about a drug money laundering operation at the water cooler.” Cynthia let the sarcasm drip from her tongue. “I can see why they put you in charge of the operation.”
Her insult didn’t appear to annoy him nearly as much as she’d hoped, but he did sit up straighter, with a gleam in his eye that made her wish she’d kept her mouth shut. “You’d be amazed what people let slip when they get relaxed.” His blue, blue eyes shot her a glance of pure innocence she’d learned to distrust.
“Really.”
“Seduced anybody yet, Cyn?”
“Seduced anybody…” Her voice sounded high and funny. The thought of seducing any of her co-workers made her feel ill. In fact the only man who caused erotic scenarios in her head was sitting right across from her. “Well, no. I…”
Jake’s gaze slid slowly down her red leather suit, making her feel like it was shrink-wrapped to her flesh. “You’re advertising—” his voice taunted her “—but are you selling?”
A flush heated her cheeks. It had been fun pretending, but there was no way she could continue this charade. She wasn’t the sexy siren Mata Hari he believed her. She was boring accountant Cynthia Baxter. “Of course I’m not selling,” she snapped.
“Why not?” Lazy flames seemed to curl the edges of his words.
“Because I’m not—I mean, I’m…” But she couldn’t find the words to tell him she was a complete dud in bed, and that even the most risqué fantasy in Raunch Magazine couldn’t save her last relationship. She could not look into those dangerous, hot blue eyes and humiliate herself. “I, uh, don’t usually do the seducing,” she finally managed to say, trying desperately to look worldly and slightly bored.
Jake’s mouth quirked up at that, softening his tough-guy face and etching wonderful little crinkles around his baby doll eyes. “Then I guess you’d better start practicing.”
“Practice what?”
“Seducing men. You can start with me.”
“You want me to seduce you?” She was so far out of her league, they weren’t even in the same stadium.
He was openly grinning now, and what that grin did to her heartbeat could be dangerous to her health. “Let’s call it on-the-job training.”
“But I already put in eight hours on the job,” she complained, grabbing at straws while she tried to compose herself.
“You’ll get paid the overtime rate. Time-and-a-half.”
She rose jerkily. Enough was enough. She’d been stupid to volunteer to go undercover. She knew nothing about drugs, or espionage, or money laundering. And she absolutely, definitely knew nothing about seducing men. She’d just show him the door and tell him she was quitting. No more Oceanic. No more FBI. No more Jake Wheeler throwing her pulse into disarray.
“Well?” he taunted.
She gazed at him, opened her mouth to throw him out, and closed it without a word.
Suddenly she knew. It was now or never. Fate had offered her a chance at exploring all that stuff she’d only read about and fantasized about. The man in front of her was every sheik, every pirate, every bad boy of her dreams, and she could have him. All she had to do was step across the room and seduce him.
Walking toward him was the most courageous action she’d ever taken.
He lo
unged back on the couch and watched her through gleaming eyes as she approached.
Gingerly she sat beside him and glanced nervously at his mouth. Should she kiss him first or would he expect a woman of her experience to begin undressing him right away?
Seconds ticked by.
“If you’re worried about a sexual harassment charge, I’m telling you right up front, I’m a willing partner here. If you want me to write that down and sign it, I will.”
“No, I… That won’t be necessary. I believe you.”
“Then go ahead and kiss me.”
Thankfully he’d given her her first cue. She took a deep breath and leaned forward, assailed by the all-male scent of him, warm and musky, with a hint of the mints he’d filched from her crystal candy dish. Bracing herself against his chest, she felt hard muscles and the steady thud of a heartbeat under her palms.
She licked dry lips and gazed into his face for a moment. His eyes were fiercely focused on her mouth. The very air crackled between them and suddenly she didn’t care if she did everything wrong, she had to kiss him.
She pressed her lips against his, and almost moaned at the heat that arced through her body at that slight touch. She let her tongue trail slowly along his bottom lip, and felt him shudder. Had she done that? Her own power intoxicated her and made her bold enough to do it again. And again. Finally, she worked up the courage to slip her tongue between his lips, and something inside her exploded as she dipped into that hot, wet mouth. It was as though all the rules of her life ceased to matter. She crushed them with her lips, flouted them with her greedy tongue.
Like a starving woman at a banquet table, she wanted to taste and devour everything before her. Her lips left his and began kissing his jaw, his neck, where a steady pulse thrummed—pretty fast for a guy in such good shape.
Her fingers tugged at his navy polo shirt, clawing at it until she’d released it from his jeans and could run her fingers over his warm, taut flesh. As her hands ascended, the smoothness gave way to rough hair. Mmm. She needed to see it, and that gave her the courage to yank his shirt over his head.
He let her coo and touch and kiss his chest for a few minutes, then complained, “Seems to me you’re having all the fun here. How ‘bout we both bare our chests?”