by Lexi Ryan
“Um, couldn’t we go to dinner first? I don’t know, get to know each other?”
She smiled, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Cute,” she said. She passed a file across the desk. “I’d need your person too, of course, in addition to your little swimmers.”
He leaned back to flip through the file. “That’s...good to know,” he said. Now it all made perfect sense. “What is this?”
“It’s a list of all the fertility clinics within a fifty-mile radius of D.C.”
He narrowed his eyes, and she handed him another file.
“This is the list of Specials who have registered with the SIA in the last ten years,” she said, referring to Tanner’s employer.
Tanner was a field agent for the Specials Intelligence Agency, a secret group of government operatives with special powers. They worked to keep secret the existence of all Specials—humans with superhuman powers. Among “other duties as assigned” was keeping the government and non-Special humans everywhere safe from threats from radical Specials.
Tanner closed the file. “How did you get these? This is classified information.”
Josie waved a hand. “I had a hunch, pulled some strings, called in some favors.” She shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“It matters if you have classified intel.”
She steepled her fingers and studied him for a long moment.
He was no fool. He knew he was being scolded.
“You—and my SIA connection—know I can be trusted,” she said finally. “Or at least I thought you knew that, but you’re free to leave.”
He raised a brow and looked at his watch, more to make a point than to check the time. “Seems to me you need my help,” he said, doing his best to sound bored when the fact was he wanted to know what the hell she was up to. What did D.C. fertility clinics have to do with recently registered Specials?
She sighed. “I’d like your help, but I can manage without you.”
He shrugged. “I’ll need more information. What are you looking for?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, turning to her keyboard and pulling up a spreadsheet. “I’ve run some numbers and found the Specials per capita have gone up significantly in the last ten years.”
Tanner flipped through the pages and nodded. “That’s to be expected as more and more Specials comply and register with the agency.”
Josie nodded and started typing at her keyboard, reminding him that as well as being a beauty, Josie was a brain. “Yes, but with that variable taken into account in addition to the increased awareness and compliance, there’s a dramatic increase far beyond my projected numbers—specifically in terms of births in the D.C. area.”
Tanner frowned. “You think fertility clinics are behind the rise?”
Josie rubbed her neck. “I don’t know yet. I just...” She stared at the file in his hands.
“You have a feeling,” he supplied.
“Yeah.” Her voice sounded distant. “I just want to check it out.”
“What exactly will you be looking for?”
“We will be looking for anything…suspicious. It’s not like we’ll be going in there blind. We have our abilities to help us see what we can about the doctors and nurses. Anyone who works at any of those clinics who is a Special or knows about us is a potential lead.”
“But these Specials who have registered in the last ten years would have been born, what? Sixteen? Twenty? Even thirty years ago.” There was a hell of a delay between when someone was born and when they became a Special. Sometimes even more before they realized their power. All in all, it made Josie’s hunch difficult to track and it would be nearly impossible to know whether or not it was happening today.
“What’s done is done. If they’re not tampering with fate now, we won’t worry about it.” She forced a smile and something in her eyes told him she was lying. What was she looking for?
“And I’m guessing this is where I come in?” Tanner squirmed. Hell, he was considering this.
She smiled. “We’ll be the happy infertile couple.”
Yeah, because that was his fantasy. Was the universe mocking him now? His shit-ass excuse for a childhood hadn’t been punishment enough for his past life transgressions? “What’s the plan?”
The tensing of her jaw was at odds with her nonchalant shrug. “Best-case scenario, we feel out the doctors. If we happen to run into one who is a Special, we’ll find a way to mention we’d like our baby to…be like us. Then we see what happens. Worst case...worst case, we find nothing.”
She was looking for something else, but she wasn’t saying what.
He pretended he didn’t notice and raised a brow. “That’s a pretty hefty assumption. What have you seen?” In addition to being a bombshell beauty with the body of Angelina Jolie and the brains of Einstein, Josie Bovard was a precog. By simply touching another person, she could see pieces of that person’s future, which was precisely why the SIA wanted her on their payroll. Too bad she’d turned them down flat when she was told she wouldn’t be doing field work.
Josie and her Stilettos, Inc. comrades preferred to do their own ass kicking—not just gather intel.
“Nothing helpful,” she muttered, taking a sip of her tea. “Not that I would tell you if I had.”
He sighed and finally asked the question that had plagued him since she’d sent him the e-mail asking for his help. “Why me?” he asked. “Why not take Chrissie in? She can go around feeling up employees and figure out what’s been happening.” Chrissie Elliott’s power was the opposite of Josie’s. When she touched people, she saw pieces of their past through their memories.
Josie’s face grew somber and long seconds ticked by as she stared at nothing in particular. “The other girls don’t know about this project yet.” She smiled, but tension played across her forehead. “I’ll tell them after Paige’s wedding, but they have enough on their plates right now.”
Resisting the urge to call bullshit, he asked, “Busy? Even Chrissie?”
“Yeah, bridesmaid stuff.” She chewed on her lip and studied him for a beat before smiling. “And anyway, Chrissie can’t disappear.”
Tanner nodded. “So you’re using me for my sperm and my ability.”
Her smile turned to a smirk. “Among other things,” she said. Her voice was low, husky, and had his balls tightening.
Shit. She might as well pull out the leash. She had him right where she wanted him and she knew it.
“And what’s in it for me?” Might as well pretend she hadn’t had him whipped since the first moment he’d set eyes on her. His friend Fernandez said women were turned off by men who would do anything for them. Of course, Fernandez was an idiot when it came to women, so Tanner wasn’t sure his advice was really worth following. “Why should I help you with this case? You know you aren’t planning on telling me the whole story.”
Josie narrowed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “What, a non-Special child’s right to life isn’t enough for you?”
Great. He wasn’t whipped. He was just an asshole. Even better. “You know what happens if we find evidence that some fertility clinic is manipulating DNA.”
She nodded. “If there’s anything there, it becomes a federal case, and we turn our files over to the SIA. I know, I know,” she muttered.
She knew, but it never seemed to stop her or her Stiletto Girl partners in crime from carrying on as they pleased anyway. He sighed, resigned. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
She treated him to one of those signature Josie smiles that made him feel like a fucking god among men. “I’d hoped you would!”
Hell, she’d had him at sperm.
* * * *
The re-release of FLIRTING WITH FATE will be available in December 2012.
Books and Short Stories by Lexi Ryan
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Text Appeal
Stiletto Girls Novels
Stilettos, Inc.
Flirting with Fate (coming December 2012)
Decadence
Creek Stories
Just One Night
Just the Way You Are (coming September 2012)
Sex Goddess Series
Accidental Sex Goddess (coming January 2012)
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen