“Sure.”
It felt heavy as she hung it on the hook and she wondered if maybe he had some tools of the trade in his jacket pockets, dildos or what not. If he did, he could leave them there. She wouldn’t need anything extra with this guy. With his coat off, and in a black shirt to go with his black jeans and boots, he looked even cuter than he had with his tough leather on.
He’d look cuter still naked.
“Do you think I could get a cup of coffee or something?” he asked. “I’m still shivering from my walk.”
“Oh, absolutely,” she said, even though she wasn’t sure coffee was going in the right direction here. “Don’t mind me. I have sex on the mind.”
There was that smile again. Even wider now. “Uh, thanks for sharing.”
Maybe not all his clients were as upfront as she was.
She fixed him a cup of coffee from the pot she always kept on the warmer and poured herself another glass of wine, downing it as he sipped his brew, one hip against the counter.
She checked her watch. “Not that I’m trying to rush things, but could we go upstairs now?”
He glanced down her body. As far as she knew, it wasn’t required that the client look particularly good in this kind of arrangement, but his focus was making her wish she’d taken a little more care with her dress. She’d gone out to the lab to do a couple tests to take her mind off her nerves and next thing she knew he was there and she didn’t have time to change. Anyway, if she had to dress up, how was this any different from a real date? In other words, a lot of trouble. Who was working for whom here?
“You want to go upstairs?” he asked.
“Well, that’s where the bedroom is.”
Fuck.
Jonathon tried to ignore the implications of whatever had gotten mixed up here.
Just the facts, ma’am.
But the cheery little kitchen, the hot coffee and the even hotter woman dropping innuendo after innuendo made it hard to stick to the agenda.
He tried again, though. “I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding, Dr. Barrett.” He set his coffee cup down on the tidy counter. “As I said, I was sent here to get you. Sent by the Agency. They haven’t minded you working on your own out in the middle of—out here, I mean, like this. In fact, they found it very convenient in terms of keeping your work hidden. But you’ve surfaced on the radar screen of some questionable characters, so they sent me to bring you in.”
She smiled. “I’m serious. You don’t need to go to all this trouble of pretending to be some hot…whatever. I don’t know how much your agency told you about me, or if you even need to know—or care, for that matter—but I’m a scientist. That’s what all the equipment out there in the barn was for,” she explained in a patient voice, as though he was a complete idiot.
About to give it to her one more time, he hesitated as she bit her lush lower lip, a habit he found wildly exciting in a woman. What the hell was the rush, anyway? He doubted she was really on the top of anybody’s list to abscond with, no matter what the Agency in its overzealousness supposed. So why not have a little fun and see where she was going here?
“I know you’re a scientist,” he responded, leaving it vague.
“Good. So you know I don’t need some bullshit fantasy thing behind all this.”
He shrugged. “Don’t all women need a little fantasy?”
“Not when they’re in the test phase of an important project. I’m a pretty straightforward case. No secret agents or harems or whatever.”
She stared at him so earnestly he was having trouble not laughing. “It’s taking a little out of my repertoire, but it’s your call.”
“And for God’s sake,” she added, “don’t start stripping. I have some bad associations with stripping. Long story.”
He wondered if that precluded her stripping for him.
“So, how do you want to start this?” she asked.
“Start?”
“You know.”
She went for what by his count was her third glass of wine. Much more and he probably was going to end up carrying her to the helicopter. Of course, it might be worth it just to play this out.
“The sex,” she added bluntly.
He felt his cock grow heavy, even though he knew that must be what she was building up to for some reason. “How do I start sex?” he repeated.
Better to show than to tell. Without thinking, he slipped his hand underneath her silky hair, along the nape of her neck, her skin smooth and soft. “Well”—he leaned into her—“I like to kiss a lot first.”
Her lips parted and he was almost close enough to taste them.
“How about you?” He breathed the question into her mouth.
“Me, too,” she whispered.
He slid his fingers into her hair and she went up on her tippy-toes and pulled him to her.
When they kissed this time, he wasn’t caught by surprise so he put a little more of his usual effort into it, slipping his other hand around her back, fisting the sweater up slowly and making his way to the warm flesh underneath. God, she felt good. Hotter than the coffee.
But she pulled away from the kiss, putting her hands on his chest to back him off, and he stepped away.
“We should go upstairs.” And with that, she turned away and headed toward the stairs in the other room, not looking back to see if he’d follow.
It took him only about a minute to make up his mind.
He followed. Maybe he could think of it as intelligence gathering.
The living room was as cozy as the kitchen, with a fireplace and hooked rugs over hardwood floors and big, cushy sofas in bright colors. This Dr. Barrett had a nice home. He was kind of sorry he had to whisk her away from it. She probably wouldn’t go along with him without a fight, either. Oddly, people found it hard to just pick up and leave their homes, even if there was good reason to do so. Personally, he’d never had much of an issue with it.
Of course, maybe that was because he’d never really had a home—until recently, that is—but whatever.
Her bedroom was at the top of the stairs and he could see her moving around in it as he came up. She had turned down the covers of the bed and stood nearby, the condoms she’d assured him she had sitting in plain view on the night table.
He should stop playing along. He really should. But he was having fun in an otherwise routine assignment. So, all he said was, “I take it you were expecting me?”
“Yes. It couldn’t be a surprise. I wouldn’t have known to let you in.”
He nodded, not moving any closer.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re more tentative than I thought you’d be.”
Something he’d never been accused of.
“I’m deciding what to do,” he admitted.
A look of shock came on her face. “God, it’s not your first time, is it? I mean, Mattie said they had trouble finding someone in this area.”
She came to him and wound her arms around his neck and his hands just naturally went to her slim hips.
“It is, isn’t it?” she whispered.
He laughed. “Not exactly, but you be the judge.”
A little further couldn’t hurt…
He ran his hands along her sides and the curve of her waist, studiously keeping them from going any lower. But she pressed the length of her body into his and yanked the hair at the nape of his neck to bring him down to her kiss, moaning into his mouth when he complied. So he gave in and moved his hands down to her high firm ass, fondling and pulling her into his hard-on. She was such a sexy little thing—especially for a professor babe or whatever she was—that he couldn’t resist.
She backed toward the bed and fell onto it and he went with her, more thoughtlessly than he would have ever imagined, climbing on top of her, wedging one knee between her thighs.
The little sounds she made as he tasted her, rubbing his thigh in between hers, were driving him crazy. He drew away to kiss down the sweet curve of her neck, keep
ing his hands in her hair, on her face, along her throat.
“So, if it’s not your first time, do you do this a lot?” she asked in a breathless tone.
“Kiss?” he murmured.
“No, I mean, is this your full-time job? Making love?”
“More like an enthusiastic hobby.”
“Do you have to find the woman attractive?”
That stopped him and he paused, laughing against the warm skin of her cheek. “Yes.”
“Oh. Well what happens if you don’t?”
“Nothing.”
“Do they get a refund of their money then?”
He shook his head. Okay. This was getting too weird, even for him. Game over. But her hand inched down to trace the outline of his throbbing cock and he sucked in an excited breath.
She pressed her palm hard against him. “I guess this means I passed the test.”
Ah, that would be a yes. And he wished he could just unzip his jeans and give her the prize, but instead he dropped a light kiss on her sweet mouth. “I should stop.”
She went for the zipper herself and he watched, enthralled as she started to tug it down. At the last minute, he rolled away from her and off the bed.
Talk about false pretenses.
He took a deep breath and, with great care, zipped his pants again. “Come back down to the kitchen,” he said gruffly over his shoulder before he bounded down the stairs.
By the time she joined him in the kitchen, a bewildered expression on her face, he had put his jacket on.
“What is this? I admit I’m a newbie, but if I did something or said something, then, ah, I’m sorry about it. It’s not like anybody read me the rules or anything.”
God, he was losing it. First Shangri-La. Now this. He had let a simple job—albeit one with some kind of bizarre misunderstanding going on—play out into an awkward scene. For what? So he could pretend for a minute that this was his little house and she was his hot woman who gave him a cup of coffee then took him upstairs to fuck his brains out. His life was a lot more complicated…and simple.
He had a job to do and he did it.
“Whatever you think is going on here, Dr. Barrett, is none of my business. But what is going on here is that I was sent here by the Agency we both work for to get you.” He used the patient-enough-for-an-idiot voice on her this time. “I admit, I got a little distracted, and I shouldn’t have, but that’s the fact of it.”
Her face went a hot shade of red. “You’re really not—”
“No,” he said, feeling like kind of a shit. “I’m from the Agency.”
She looked at him blankly and asked the last question he expected. “What agency?”
Her telephone rang and she picked it up before he could stop her. “Veronica Barrett speaking… What?”
He tensed, prepared to yank the phone from her if he had to.
Her eyes met his and she said into the phone, “No, that’s fine. I understand. Just refund my friend’s money. No need to reschedule.”
She hung up. “That was the, ah, person I was expecting. Canceling. So who the hell are you? What agency?”
“The one that’s funding your research.”
“Then there must be some mistake. I have a grant directly from the university. At least I think I do. I never really bother with where the money is coming from, as long as it comes.” She looked around. “I have the paperwork somewhere.”
“Never mind that now. The point is your project was mentioned in one of the international communications we intercepted.”
“So?”
“So things that are of interest to this particular party often end up disappearing without a trace.” At least that was what the Agency was worried about. Again, he thought it was overkill when it came to an academic like Dr. Barrett.
She shook her head as if to clear it and if she went for that wine bottle again he was going to stop her. Enough fucking around. They had to get on the road.
But she didn’t. She stayed perfectly still.
“If you’re not— What were you doing kissing me?”
“Hey, you kissed me, lady,” he shot back.
“Get out.” The soft, steely tone was like nothing he had heard out of her sweet mouth so far.
“Afraid not, Doc. Not without you. Now, I want you to gather up your computer and whatever else you need so I can get you out of here to a safer location.”
She retrieved her wineglass before he could stop her and took a sip of what was left in it. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” When she set the glass down this time, it was with a lot more vigor.
Even if she had known what the hell she was doing with her research and the Agency—which clearly she didn’t—it probably wouldn’t have been easy to convince her to come with him.
Well, he was prepared to bring her along by force if necessary, no handcuffs required. Despite her height, five foot eight or nine, he guessed, she was slender and shouldn’t weigh too much. He’d have no problem carrying her over his shoulder if she forced him to it. He could use a little rope, though. He looked around.
“You sure this isn’t some kind of demented joke?” she persisted. “Is Mattie in on this?”
He wondered for a second if there was something he could do—other than just hauling her out of here, of course—to convince her of his sincerity.
The door to the outside burst open, accompanied by a rapid round of gunfire at the wall behind them, above their heads.
Yep. That’ll do it.
He threw Dr. Barrett to the floor and shoved her underneath the kitchen table, rolling over on top of her to provide cover as he reached for his gun. He kept one hand on her shoulder, holding her down, and the Glock in his other hand. Shit. Could he have been more wrong about the level of danger here? He reminded himself to be pissed about his moronic nonchalance another time.
She let out a little gasp that sounded louder to him than the bullets overhead. But then the shooting stopped and the kitchen went eerily silent. The only sound as they huddled under the table was that of their own breathing, visible in faint puffs of cold air from the open door.
Good. Okay. Whoever was out there hadn’t meant to kill her. They were firing too high for that, anyway. But they wanted to make an entrance. Scare her straight, maybe, or scare whatever potential white knight she had with her from trying to protect her. They must have seen two sets of footprints in the snow. They would know he—or at least somebody—was here with Barrett.
Jonathon had a clear view to the open kitchen doorway, the bottom of it, anyway. It was possible the shooters could come into the house from another entrance—whatever other entrances there were since he’d been so fucking shoddy as to not even case the place when he’d arrived—but he was betting the doorway they’d shot through was their game. So he stared at it, gun aimed, waiting for what would come through the door.
When something did, all he could see at his angle were boots. But at least it was only one set so far. He didn’t waste any time. All it took was two targeted shots from his Glock—one in the knee and one directed up at the head—and the intruder fell, his gun skittering away.
The thud brought the guy down to their level on the floor, blood spurting from his forehead and pooling on the linoleum before it began to meander their way. He hoped he could let Dr. Barrett up before the slow-moving red puddle reached them.
She took a shaky breath and he whispered, “Don’t move.”
In response, she jammed her elbow into his rib cage and the surprise of it—not to mention the pain—made him catch a pretty shaky breath himself. As far as pain went, though, it was equivalent to a pinprick on the Agency’s scale. So he ignored it, waiting to see if another pair of boots rushed in or made a sound outside. Crouching on the floor for a minute or two was the safest strategy until he could decide on something better. He doubted the dead guy had come alone.
The doctor’s elbow moved a fraction of a second again and he spread his legs on either side of her and squeez
ed tightly in time with slipping his arm around her waist. “Do not move one millimeter or you’re dead,” he whispered. “Got it?”
He didn’t mean from him, but if the ambiguity kept her still, so be it.
A floorboard out on the porch squeaked and he heard it through the open door. The dead guy was not alone. Great. No big surprise, but still it was annoying. At least they didn’t have a vehicle anywhere nearby. He would have heard that.
How the hell had they made it here so soon, anyway? The mention of Dr. Barrett in the wiretaps had only been this morning.
He put his mouth to Barrett’s ear, nudging a tuft of blonde hair away with his nose. “You’re going to stay perfectly still and not get up until I come back for you. Do you understand?”
At no answering nod, he added, “I’m the good guy here and those are the bad guys. If you want to live through this, you’ll do what I say.”
The nod was brief, but discernible. Good enough.
He listened for an indication of a third man—a creak coming from the other direction on the porch or a footstep outside.
When he didn’t hear anything after a minute or so, he resigned himself to making the first move. Never ideal, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He couldn’t lie on top of the good doctor all day.
Another time maybe…
He switched off the thought and considered his options. He could try to crawl over to the side of the door and get a better idea of what he was facing. Or he could roll up as quickly as he could, charge toward the door and start shooting.
He looked down at the woman he was supposed to be protecting. A strand of her hair fell away as she turned her head to the side and slanted a glance back at him. Her blue eyes were huge. Shit, she was scared out of her wits.
He shook it off. It only meant she wasn’t an idiot. Who wouldn’t be scared out of their wits? Him, maybe, but agents were all insane. It was how they got to be agents. And with him, it was even an inherited trait.
He raised his Glock. He was in the mood for charging.
Chapter Two
#xa0;
Veronica Barrett swore to God she wouldn’t close her eyes. She would not. Though she was so scared she felt almost numb with it and so cold she was numb with it and so confused she would give her doctorates back just to know what was going on right now, she would not close her eyes. Of course she sure as hell wasn’t going to raise them, either. Those shots outside could very well mean her blood was about to join the dark-red pool making its way toward her from the dead man on her kitchen floor. Even if the shots outside meant police sirens would be along shortly, and this would all be a Lifetime movie before she knew it, there was no need to hurry the end along here, especially since she didn’t know what it would be.
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