Intimate Knowledge
Intimate Knowledge
Julie Miller
It was an undercover assignment that required some "under the covers" expertise…Grace Lockhart: Behind-the-scenes FBI agent. Shy, naive…and a sex kitten waiting to happen.Logan Pierce: FBI field agent and the best of the best. Confident, cocky…and incapable of saying no to a beautiful woman.The case:Agent Grace Lockhart has spent months developing a computer program that will put the city's biggest crime lord behind bars. And now that it's ready, all the FBI needs is somebody to smuggle it in to Harrison Mitchell's estate. Only, because Mitchell is notorious for surrounding himself with a harem of beauties, that somebody has to be a woman….Grace Lockhart wants to be that woman, but she's anything but a femme fatale. But not for long. Because she's heard that her new partner, sexy superagent Logan Pierce, is an expert at "hands-on" training….
Grace stood before him, wearing only a slip of silk
“It’s called a bra-slip,” Grace explained. Logan tried to listen, but he couldn’t focus on anything but the movement of her hands. She cupped the sides of her breasts and pushed them forward, nearly spilling out of the filmy undergarment. “The top doesn’t give me much support though,” Grace continued blithely.
Logan stood, fatigue and frustration and a sudden rigid strain in his jeans overriding his patience and good intentions. Grace needed to have that piece of lingerie. She very definitely needed to have it.
But Harris Mitchell, the city’s worst crime lord, didn’t need to see it. And no man who accidentally wandered past the dressing room’s waiting area needed to see it, either.
Logan snatched Grace’s arm and turned her back to the dressing room. “Don’t you have any instinct for survival, Agent Lockhart?” he asked, pushing her into the closet-sized area and pulling the door shut behind him. “You can’t go parading around half-dressed.”
Because he couldn’t take it. Logan clenched his fists to his sides, trying to remember that this woman was his partner, not his bedmate. He was supposed to teach her, not take her.
But God help him, he desperately wanted to do both….
Dear Reader,
They say it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for. And I guess I’ve just proven that to be true. I’ve entertained myself for years, writing stories in my head—paranormal, action adventure, mystery, intrigue and, of course, romance. But I never dreamed that one day I’d be writing for Harlequin’s sexiest series!
I started out writing for Harlequin Intrigue, and it will always be my first love. But when one of the Harlequin editors approached me about the new Blaze line, how could I refuse the chance to explore my naughty side? A planner by nature, I frantically started making a list. What did I consider sexy? How could I mix the thrill of danger, an irresistible hero, a laugh or two, and all of those titillating situations that kept overheating my imagination?
As my list grew, Intimate Knowledge was born. Like me, my heroine, Grace Lockhart, needs to think things through—and then she flies by the seat of her pants. Pairing up with a hero as hot as Logan Pierce, she doesn’t have any other choice.
I’d love to know what you think of Grace’s “education.” You can contact me at P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162.
Enjoy,
Julie Miller
P.S. Don’t forget to check out tryblaze.com!
Intimate Knowledge
Julie Miller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my agent, Pattie Steele-Perkins.
Thank you for sharing your business savvy, your wisdom about planning a writing career around real life, and your enthusiastic support.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
1
“I WANT YOU to teach Miss Lockhart about working undercover. I’m reassigning you to the organized crime division to work as her partner. We intend to take down Harris Mitchell.”
“What?” Logan Pierce glared at the silver-haired FBI chief, Commander Sam Carmody. “Harris Mitchell?”
Thief. Money launderer. Murderer.
Logan had never worked a case against Mitchell, but when the crimes you committed were big enough and bad enough, every agent knew your name.
Stunned disbelief carried his gaze across the room to the stone-faced young woman sitting on the couch writing down in her stenographer’s notebook every word being said. She’d dressed herself to appear older than she was, pulling her hair back into a tight bun, donning an unflattering pair of seriously thick glasses and wearing no makeup.
Grace Lockhart looked all of twenty-three—twenty-five, tops. She needed to work a few kiddie assignments before tackling something as dangerous and unpredictable as a major undercover case.
Logan shook his head and turned back to Carmody. “I work solo—you know that.”
He hadn’t had a partner for two years, two months and eleven days. Roy Silverton had been fresh out of the academy on that first mission, too. Quick to learn, eager to please.
Too young to die.
Logan could watch his own back. He’d learned to do that long before the FBI had recruited him. It had been a matter of survival back in downtown Chicago with no mother and a father steeped in terminal grief.
Larry Pierce had been devastated when his wife had been held hostage and then murdered during a botched robbery at the bank where she’d worked. He’d found his solace in a bottle. But six-year-old Logan had been devastated, too. And without a father’s guidance, he’d raised himself. He hadn’t always made the best choices, but he’d found a way to survive, a way to stay on top of the game.
Eventually he’d straightened out enough to become a cop, and was discovered by the Bureau on a joint undercover investigation. Discovered by Carmody himself, who sent him to college and recommended him for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s training academy here in Quantico, Virginia.
Logan had taken a vow from the moment he’d earned that first badge. He’d sworn to protect innocents like his mother.
Like Roy Silverton.
To be responsible for another life…for another rookie…
He didn’t need that kind of grief.
An age-old pain tightened in Logan’s chest, threatening to squeeze the breath right out of him. He covered the vulnerability with a cocky smile and took a shot at reasoning with his boss. “I’m good at this job.”
“That goes without saying.”
“You recruited me personally because I knew how life on the streets worked.”
“Your skills have proved most invaluable.”
“The Bureau has been my home for thirteen years.”
Carmody sat back in his chair and narrowed his gaze the way a wise old father would. “Get to the point, Logan.”
Logan hooked his leg over the corner of the desk and sat, leaning in toward the commander. “Commander—Sam,” he began, using the gentlest, most rational voice he possessed. “I don’t deserve to be saddled with a newbie. I’ve earned the right to pick and choose my assignments.”
“She has experience.”
“Experience?” Doing what? Typing memos?
Logan glanced over his shoulder. The instant Grace Lockhart realized she was the focus of his attention, her fingers moved to her face and adjusted her glasses. Then she busied herself writing something in her notebook while her cheeks flooded with color.
Interesting, he thought. So quick to blush. He wondered if anything else about her reacted as quickly.
Logan blinked and mentally shook off the speculation. She radiated virginal innocence in a way that piqued his jaded, world-weary curiosity. Nothing more.
He stared at the shapeless bag of femininity and absently wondered if Grace Lockhart had ever been laid. If she even knew what the words meant. If she had any idea what he was thinking right now. She looked so clueless. Full of theory and stratagems learned in a classroom, without a day of real-world experience, much less experience working undercover with real criminals.
Had she ever ventured out of her shell? Let her hair down? Smiled? Why would an obviously mature woman in her twenties get up in the morning and deliberately put on a bulky suit that made her figure look like a sack of potatoes?
Didn’t she know that a man liked to see a woman’s curves? That she could look professional without resorting to the two-sizes-too-big routine? Whether she was skinny or chunky or somewhere in between, there were tricks to dressing that most women knew.
But obviously not Grace Lockhart.
As the color in her cheeks crept down to her neck, she cleared her throat and looked up at him, finally responding to his scrutiny. “Is there something I can help you with, Agent Pierce?”
The tone of her voice pulled him up short, dashed water on his original assessment of her sexual experience.
Her voice was deep, husky. Sultry as sin. With that voice, she could call men on the phone, read something as unerotic as a grocery list, and still make all their fantasies come true.
“How much field experience do you have?” he asked her.
“None. I’ve been working in research. This is my first assignment.”
Logan swore. He got up off the desk, jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stalked to the far end of the room before turning back to her. She was serious!
How could she stand up to a notorious crime lord if she didn’t even know how to dress?
“Oh, this just gets better and better.”
Her fingers flew up to adjust her glasses, a nervous gesture brought on by his rich sarcasm, no doubt.
Maybe he could teach her a thing or two about making herself attractive to a man. That would be the place to start with Grace Lockhart. Yeah. Teach her a few of the basics about her sexuality before she tackled anything like threats and guns and people dying.
Logan swept his gaze from the top of her bun to the soles of her sensible black shoes and was surprised to discover that the idea actually intrigued him. Maybe he had seen too much of the world’s darker side. Why else would he be contemplating the notion of investigating whether she might be hiding any more delightful secrets like her voice beneath her dowdy appearance?
How long had it been since he’d made love to an inexperienced woman? Had he ever?
“Agent Pierce.” Her soft voice trickled down his spine like a lover’s caress, commanding his attention. “Why do you keep staring at me? Is it that my appearance has something to do with whether or not you plan to accept this assignment?”
“Hell no.” He turned his anger on Carmody. “You have no business putting her in the line of fire.”
The commander refused to budge. “She’s been studying Harris Mitchell for almost a year. She came up with the plan herself. I think it’s brilliant.”
“Book smarts and street smarts are two different things. I won’t be her partner.”
He could almost visualize her body, lying battered and bleeding on the docks of New York. He could see the life draining out of her before she ever really had a chance to live it.
Just like Roy. Logan squeezed his eyes shut as imagination turned into memory. He should have saved him. He should have saved the kid.
No, he wasn’t about to partner up with any neophyte agent who wanted to mix it up with the big boys and get herself killed.
He opened his eyes and drilled Carmody with his final offer. “I’ll go after Harris Mitchell myself, if you want me to. But I won’t be her partner.”
Logan strode to the door, putting an end to this ludicrous conversation.
“Pierce, there’s no use making this unpleasant.” Commander Carmody stood. Logan paused, respecting the rank, and the man himself, even if he didn’t agree with his current ideas. “We’re working on a narrow time frame with this case. Mitchell’s about to go bicoastal with his operation. He has contacts in Los Angeles already. I want to stop him in New York before that happens and bring in every connection he has.”
Logan puffed out a frustrated sigh. Carmody had planned this takedown on a grand scale. “Then you want your best agents on the case. Men with experience in the field. It shouldn’t be a training mission.”
“I want you to work with Lockhart because you are my best agent. You know all the ins and outs of undercover work. You can handle that end of the assignment, and Lockhart will handle the technical aspects. Together, I know you can get the job done.”
“I appreciate your confidence in me, Sam. And I know I owe you for saving my butt and bringing me to the Bureau in the first place.” Logan spared one more glance at the mysterious, myopic Miss Lockhart. “But I work alone.”
He pulled his keys out of his pocket and doffed a salute to Carmody. “My report’s on your desk. Get McCallister or Anderson to work with her. I’m gettin’ some shut-eye.” Then he headed through the door.
“Pierce! Get your butt back—”
“Excuse me, sir. Let me have a word with him.”
LOGAN WAS A GOOD TEN paces down the hall before Grace was out the door. “Agent Pierce?”
He didn’t answer.
She’d spotted him immediately. He didn’t look like anybody else milling through the administrative end of the FBI training center. He seemed an anachronism to the tradition of discipline and routine radiating from the walls around her.
Exactly what she needed. Someone different. Someone who could teach her to be a different person.
She pushed her way through men in three-piece suits and women dressed in similar fashion and called his name again. Either he was going deaf or purposely ignoring her. She had a feeling it wasn’t the former.
Logan Pierce was tall, with broad shoulders emphasized by the bulk of his black leather jacket. His lean hips and long legs seemed naturally built for clinging to hardware-heavy motorcycles. He wore his dark brown hair short, like most of the other agents he passed. But the day-old scruff of beard clinging to the jut of his jaw and angular planes of his face altered any air of respectability.
He rounded the corner and headed toward the elevator, pausing to wink at the leggy blonde who passed by. Grace opened her steno pad and jotted down the woman’s reaction to his flirtation. The woman’s eyelids dropped a fraction as she watched Logan pass by. Her bottom lip pouted out into a smile. No, not really a smile. Not exactly a pout, either. More of an upward tilt at the corners, a pressing of the lips—oh, hell.
Grace scratched out the observation. If she couldn’t even explain how it was done, how could she ever hope to do it herself?
But Logan, too, had slowed his pace to study the woman, and Grace seized the advantage by dashing ahead and falling into step beside him. “Is it your usual practice to walk out on a superior officer?” she asked.
His easy stride stuttered a fraction, as if her appearance at his elbow surprised him. He stopped and sucked in a deep breath, stretching the black T-shirt material across his chest and momentarily distracting her from her purpose.
He was such a big man. Even bigger up close like this. So tall. So broad.
So bad.
Oh, God, what had she been thinking? A quick catch of breath filled her nose with the rich scent of leather and spice and man. Foreign smells to her untrained senses. Enticing smells.
“Nope. But I’ve done it before.” He pointed to the steno pad tucked under her arm. “Be sure you write that down, too.”
He turned and marched on down the corridor. Grace swallowed the impulse to run back to Carmody’s office. That would mean accepting defeat. And the thought of failure frightened her more than the idea of harnessing the overwhelming power Logan possessed over women.
Commander Carmody had agreed to her plan only if she went in with a seasoned veteran at her side. And only if she could prove she had what it took to work undercover.
Logan Pierce could help her on both counts.
She tapped the corner of her glasses with her fingertips, pushing them up to the bridge of her nose. She could do this. She had to do this.
Instead of retreating, she doubled her pace.
“You’re living up to your reputation, Agent Pierce. I’ve heard that your arrogance has gotten you into trouble on more than one occasion. But I’ve also heard that you have more citations of merit in your file than any agent in the drug enforcement division.”
Logan halted in his tracks. She took an extra two steps past him before pulling up. There was no mistaking the warning glare in his gray eyes.
“Your research should also show you that I work alone.”
Then Logan went and did the one thing sure to move her past her insecurities about herself, past her trepidation about asking a living legend at the Bureau for his help.
He patted her on the head.
“Now be a good girl and run along.”
He brushed past her and headed for the elevator. Grace stood rooted to the spot, feeling the resentment well up inside her, overtaking her, making her curse the day she’d ever been born the daughter of Mimsey Lockhart.
She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth.
Logan Pierce was just like any other man.
Her chest began to move up and down with heavy breaths as she struggled to control the anger.
Of course, Logan wasn’t exactly like the men her mother had known. And he certainly wasn’t anything like the men—make that man—she’d known.
She’d come a long way from Joel Vitek and his groping hands and drooling lips. A long way from hearing her mother’s name instead of her own as he’d found his completion within her. As he’d lived out his fantasy at her expense.
She’d thought Joel was different. But men were all alike.
Patronizing, self-serving sex machines who talked to a woman’s breasts instead of her eyes, who winked at a woman only if he thought she was pretty…who patted her on the head and set her aside as if she was unimportant.
The hot breaths hissed between her teeth now as resentment began to win the battle inside her.
Grace had come a long way from Hollywood, California, to Quantico, Virginia. But she hadn’t come for the snatches of verdant hills or the history of the area. She hadn’t come for the eligible marines stationed nearby. She hadn’t even come for the chance to get away from the painful memories of her childhood.
She’d come to prove she was more than the sum of her parts. That she had a brain inside her body.
She’d come to prove she was nothing like her mother.
Her breath seeped out in one cleansing breath, leaving her feeling weak. She tapped into the logic and common sense that had gotten her thus far. That logic would give her strength.
No man would take advantage of her the way they’d used her mother. The way they’d wanted to use her.
Lusty old men who had tried to catch her mother’s eye and failed sometimes turned to her. She hadn’t known there were laws then about grown men hitting on fifteen-year-old girls.
But she knew now. Now she was twenty-six and educated. Now she carried a gun and a badge.
The perverts and the users of the world had better watch their backs. Agent Grace Lockhart was out to get them.
And Harris Mitchell was the man who topped her list. She had him in her sights, with every intention of bringing the exploitative thief, murderer and racketeer to justice.
But, first, she had to learn all those feminine secrets she’d worked so long and hard to deny.
She had to get Logan Pierce to help her.
He hadn’t listened to a direct order.
He hadn’t listened to reason.
Time to play her best hand.
Grace hurried after him. She saw a length of well-worn denim stepping onto the elevator. When he turned around, she rushed forward, her desperation replaced by a self-righteous anger. “I don’t care what kind of agent you are, Pierce. I don’t care if you think you failed Roy Silverton. Despite what Commander Carmody said, those aren’t the skills I want from you.”
His cheeks flushed at the mention of his deceased partner’s name, and his fingers curled into a fist at his side. Grace flinched when he raised that fist. But his hand shot over her shoulder to brace the door open. “What skills are you talking about?”
His size and proximity didn’t matter right now, even as he towered over her. The heat in her own cheeks fueled her anger. She tilted her chin and stated her case.
“I’ve devised a plan to bring down Harris Mitchell. From the inside. I can handle the computers once I’m in, but I need your help to get there.”
“What skills, Miss Lockhart?” he repeated, moving a step closer, forcing her to tip her head back farther.
“Agent Lockhart.” She corrected him and continued on without taking a breath. “Harris Mitchell is eccentric. He hires only women for his inner circle. His bodyguards, chauffeur, housekeeper, hit men—hit women, I suppose—”
“What skills do you want from me?” He articulated each word with probing finesse. His warm breath fanned across her lips, shocking her into silence.
Her anger vanished in an instant and she became acutely aware of just how close he stood to her. How his arm stretched beside her cheek, close enough for her to turn her head and bury her nose in the leathery smell of his jacket. How his chest rose and fell in steady rhythm just inches away. How she could feel his heat at the tip of her chin, at the tips of her breasts, even at the tips of her toes.
“I do need you to keep me safe. But…”
What was she doing? What was she thinking?
Her glasses fogged as her skin rapidly chilled with a sense of foreboding. Without thinking, she reached up to adjust them on her face and inadvertently brushed her fingers against his stomach. He sucked in his breath and she snatched her hand away, hugging it close to her chest as if she’d been singed.
“But what?” His low voice vibrated through her.
What did she have to lose? She’d already tossed away most of her pride by chasing him so relentlessly.
She had to have his help. There was only one way to get to Harris Mitchell. Carmody would reassign the case if she couldn’t learn what she needed to. And she knew Logan Pierce, legendary field agent, undercover expert, and love-’em-and-leave-’em ladies’ man was the best choice to teach her.
She lowered her gaze to his scuffed boots and followed a hesitant path up the tantalizing length of his legs and chest before meeting him eye-to-eye.
“I need you to teach me how to seduce a man.”
2
GRACE TWISTED AGAINST the soft steel grip on her elbow as Logan steered her down the hall to the first empty office he could find. He shoved her inside, locked the door behind him, and closed the outside blinds before turning to face her.
“What did you just say to me?”
She stood in the center of the room, clutching her steno pad to her chest while he circled her, eyeing her like a hawk with a delectable bit of prey in his sights.
“I need you to turn me into a femme fatale.”
“A femme fatale?” He plowed his fingers through his hair, standing it up on end in spiky disorder. “Who talks like that anymore?”
Okay. So maybe she had no clue what she was doing. But, damn it all, she’d done her research. Logan Pierce’s way with women was standard gossip around the break room.
If one liked the dangerous, smooth-talking, bad-boy type.
And judging by her uncontrolled reactions to Logan—the shallow breathing, that naughty feeling that had tingled in her fingertips when she’d accidentally touched him, the way she kept turning her head now to keep him in her line of vision—she did like that type. A little. Well, maybe more than a little. Okay, probably too much for her own good.
He reminded her of those handsome backstage bums and one-night stands who had chased after her mother all those years.
The kind of man who promised nothing but heartache.
The kind of man she needed right now.
“As I said earlier, Harris Mitchell will only work with women. Directly, that is.” She fought to keep the businesslike detachment in her voice. “Word on the street is that as he gets ready to expand his enterprise, he’ll be hiring a new personal accountant. I intend to be that woman.”
“Word on the street?” Was that a swearword that hissed between his teeth? “What do you know about ‘word on the street’? How many times have you even been out of your cubicle?”
“If you’ll kindly watch your mouth, Agent Pierce.” Grace’s fingers trembled in their grip on the steno pad. “I’ve done my research—”
“I’ll bet you have.” He stopped circling and closed the distance between them. She felt the heat of him at her shoulder as he leaned in behind her, felt his hot, moist breath like a caress down the side of her neck. “But can you think on your feet? Be creative? Dodge bullets? Forget who you really are and become someone else?”
When she realized that the tempo of her own short breaths matched his, she took a step away and turned. She would not let this man distract her from her purpose.
“Commander Carmody gave me the green light for this project. I intend to go forward, with or without your help.”
As that hawk who had circled her earlier, Logan snatched her glasses from her face, plunging her world into a blur of smeared colors and lights and shadows.
“What are you doing?”
She reached out blindly, groping the air.
“Seeing if you have what it takes to go forward.”
“I can’t see a damn thing right now.”
“If you’ll kindly watch your mouth, Agent Lockhart.” He clicked his tongue behind his teeth in admonishment.
Embarrassed by the instinctive panic in her reaction, she hugged her steno pad to her chest, calming her fluttering heart and giving her shaking fingers something to do. “I am an excellent student, Agent Pierce. If this is some sort of test…” Her nose detected the smell of well-worn leather, and she guessed he’d circled behind her again. Pleased with her detection skills, she actually smiled. “I graduated top of my class. I’m a Phi Beta Kappa. I had personal recommendations from two senators for my appointment—”
“Yeah, yeah. But can you kiss a man and make him forget what he was thinking?”
With a magical snap of invisible fingers, he zapped her confidence and took her into uncharted territory. “I beg your pardon?”
“When it comes down to it, can you turn all that brain power into a seductive smile that Harris Mitchell will find irresistible?”
“I—”
She felt the heat of his lips brushing against her ear. “Can you do this…?” A vise clamped around her waist—Logan’s arm. She snatched at his leather sleeve to free herself, but froze as he pulled her back against him. Shoulders to chest. Hips to belt buckle. Bottom to…Grace squirmed at the vee of pure masculine heat that cupped her buttocks, not yet understanding the lesson he was teaching her. The long, strong fingers of his free hand seized her hip and stilled her struggle. “Without flinching?”
His lips moved to the column of nerves that ran down the side of her neck. “Can you let a man do this to you…?” She tilted her head to the side, straining away from his hot, moist assault on her senses. His tongue joined the foray, supping at an undiscovered indention where her neck met her shoulder. The electric current that had tingled beside her ear now shot out to the tips of her breasts, hardening her nipples, making the tender globes feel heavy above the restricting band of his arm. “And pretend you enjoy it?”
Pretend?
A damp mix of pleasure and pain gathered between her legs. Her hand, which had once tried to push him away, now tugged at his arm, unconsciously begging him to ease the friction gathering in the breasts it cradled.
Grace turned her jaw to his mouth, struggling to speak, fighting through the current of unaccustomed electric heat consuming her. He was making a point, she tried to remind herself, teaching her about working undercover.
“I should—” she stuck out the tip of her tongue and licked the circle of her parched lips, trying to regain control of the conversation—and her traitorous body “—be taking notes.”
He shifted his attention to the movement of her tongue and traced the same circle around her lips with an erotic rasp of his own tongue. The electric current humming through her transformed into an outright jolt. Her thighs clenched together and she lifted her bottom, rubbing herself against his bulging heat.
“Logan?” The sensation was too much. He was too much.
She was drowning. Falling. Building. Rushing.
She was alone.
Logan had released her and stepped far beyond her line of vision. He left her cold and exposed and swaying in the center of the room, counting silently to herself as she retrained her lungs to breathe in, then out, all over again.
As she gathered her senses, she could hear his measured breathing across the room. Was he sneering at her inexperience? Laughing at her combustible reaction to a simple embrace? Shaking his head over just how ill-suited she was for this task? His voice, which had rumbled in such a seductive pitch beside her ear, now clipped with all the command of a military officer. “That’s what you’ll have to do. If Mitchell suspects for one moment that you’re not sincere, you’ll be dead.”
Logan’s first lesson had bordered on virtual heaven. But the reality of his harsh words chased away the haze of sensual awareness and reminded her that he had yet to agree to work with her on the case.
“I’m aware of the danger, Agent Pierce. I’m not so naive as to believe there’s no risk involved in this assignment. That’s why I asked for your help.”
Reaching over her shoulder, he plucked the steno pad from her fingers.
“Hey!” She heard it land on something soft as he tossed it aside. The bombardment of man and lingering sex and unexpected actions made her jump when she felt his hands at her nape. “What are you doing now?”
“Seeing if I can help you.”
Logan’s deft fingers seemed to have had plenty of practice unfastening pins and rubber bands. He loosened her hair from its constrictive wrap and it fell around her shoulders down to the middle of her back. It had grown long and untamable, so she never wore it free. Even at night, she wove it into a braid to sleep.
But there was something…distracting…in the way he sifted the long strands through his fingers. Lifting it to test its weight, easing the pressure on her scalp. Something…soothing…in the way he draped it along her shoulder blades.
She should write this down. This feeling of being tended. This…
“It has a natural wave in it. Lots of potential—if you do something with it. We’ll cut it so the weight doesn’t pull it straight.”
His impersonal tone snapped her out of her foolish observations. It seemed he was doing his job. At last. She should remember her job, as well. “I’m prepared to alter my appearance.”
“I hope so.” He released her hair and stepped away. “The only way you’ll turn any man’s eye with that outfit is if you take it off. Let me have the jacket.”
“Agent Pierce, I hardly think—”
He was already tugging at the shoulders. Grace quickly unhooked the buttons before it ripped and he pulled it off.
“You want me for my expertise. I need to see what I have to work with.”
A whisper of wool gabardine landed in the corner somewhere. “This is a two-hundred-dollar suit, Agent Pierce.”
“You’ll have to cut the ‘agent’ crap. Call a man by his name.”
She felt the tug on the top button of her blouse before she saw his hand there. Grace swatted it away. “What do you think you’re doing—” she swallowed hard and forced herself to say his name “—Logan?”
“That’s better.” His hands returned, resuming their path down to her waist. “All of this has to go so I can assess what you’re asking of me. I’m all for getting Mitchell, but I don’t like impossible missions.”
“Impossible?”
Plain white cotton seemed no barrier for the man, either. He pushed the blouse down her arms and pulled it free of her waistband. It joined the jacket. In a self-conscious habit learned by the age of fourteen, she crossed her arms in front of her, laying her left hand on her right shoulder, her right hand at her waist, forming a shield of armor to mask every plump inch from an unkind word or critical eye.
His fingers moved to the zipper on her skirt.
Impossible, he’d said. That hurt. She had never flaunted her body. Not intentionally at any rate. Not once. She forced her mind away from the taunts and teasing of her adolescent peers. She shut down the memory of grown men leering at her, speaking to other parts of her anatomy instead of making eye contact.
At least Logan was denigrating her for the right reasons, not casting her aside as inconsequential because she’d managed to inherit one inescapable thing from her mother.
Make that two.
She was down to bra, half-slip, panties and hose before he pried her hands from their protective positions and spread her arms wide to either side of her.
Grace knew the exact moment when his gaze lit on her breasts. Though she couldn’t see his expression, she could imagine the surprise, maybe even admiration, and certainly interest that would cross his face.
Attached to a five-foot, five-inch body, a 40DD seemed to have that dumbing-down effect on a man.
Maybe he even noticed the ample hips, rounded to match, giving her body that out-of-date, out-of-place hourglass shape that had served her mother so well in the string of B-movies she’d starred in back in the 1970s.
That same shape that Grace had fought for years.
“I know I’m fat—”
“Fat?”
“—but there’s no way I can lose ten or twenty pounds in a week’s time. You’ll have to work with what’s here. If you’re willing to take the job, that is.”
Logan released her arms and she hugged herself again, praying the room’s rise in temperature was due to a faulty thermostat and not her own blushing skin.
“You’re worried about seducing a man with a body like that?”
“Yes! Why the hell else would I…”
The husky timbre of his voice registered. The low-pitched rumble skittered along her skin, raising goose bumps. His voice alone triggered the same electric switch that had left her body humming from his touch just moments earlier. Damn, she wished she could see his face. Was he calling her an idiot for not knowing how to use her mother’s gifts to full advantage? Or was there a note of promise in his tone that meant he was considering working with her?
“Does this mean you’ll be my partner?”
Above her own pounding heartbeat, his long-winded sigh was the only sound in the room. Grace squinted, trying to read his expression, trying to find out if that was a yes or a no. Though she could see his silhouette, he was just a big, broad blur to her eyesight.
“There are ten things I find sexy in a woman, Miss Lockhart—Grace. The first is when she looks me straight in the eye. You should write that down as rule number one in your little notebook.”
Grace began to hope. “Well, since you’ve conveniently taken my glasses and my notebook from me, there’s no way I can. And I asked you to call me Agent—”
Her words caught in a strangled gulp in her throat as Logan suddenly stepped into focus. That meant he was close enough to… The temperature went up another ten degrees. He was close enough…she could feel his measured breath stirring the tendrils of hair along her forehead. He was close… She was standing in her underwear and he was fully dressed. For decorum’s sake, she should move away.
And yet those steel-gray eyes ensnared her as if she was a helpless bird caught in his trap.
“Eye contact?” Oh, God, that quavering, wispy voice sounded so like her mother’s. “What are the other nine rules?”
He didn’t touch her, yet she could feel him. Their breaths mingled in a strangled heat. And she did her research. Up close like this, she could see the individual whiskers on his cheeks and jaw, dark little pinpricks that made her palms itch with curiosity to touch them.
Rule number one. Look a man in the eye.
She ran her gaze past the flat, flexing plateau of his lips and up beyond the slightly bent angle of his nose to those eyes. This close, she could see the silvery sunburst of color around his pupils, bewitching irises of dove-gray and steel and flint, rimmed by a darker shade of charcoal.
She’d never seen such beautiful eyes.
“Just like that,” he whispered, his words stirring a caress of air against her cheek.
Grace’s lungs expanded, as if just now remembering to breathe. The sudden intake of oxygen seemed to stir some coherent thought inside her brain.
“Does that mean you’re taking the assignment?”
“You’re going after Mitchell no matter what I say, aren’t you?”
Trapped by the unexpected warmth in those beautiful gray eyes, she could only nod.
“You’re clueless enough that somebody needs to watch your back.”
His shoulders shifted in her peripheral vision, and a moment later she felt the weight of silk-lined leather settling around her, enveloping her in Logan’s warmth and scent. She clutched his jacket together at her neck, but wondered if the tender gesture was the equivalent of another dismissive pat on the head.
“Will you be the one watching my back?”
He raked his gaze down along the swell of her breasts, giving her the distinct impression that he might be willing to watch even more. She pressed her lips together to quell the anticipation that raced through her, not trusting her ability to read a man’s thoughts.
“You have the raw materials to get the job done. But a rookie like you needs the best in the business to pull this off. You need me.”
There was less cocky arrogance in his statement than there was a reluctant acceptance of fact.
“So you’ll have me ready to go undercover by the end of the week…partner?”
“I won’t promise miracles. You still have nine rules to learn.” He pushed her glasses back onto her nose, plunging her back into plain-Jane obscurity and reminding her of the enormity of his task. “And don’t call me partner.”
WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT? The stunned question played through Logan’s mind again as he unpacked a second helmet from the back of his Harley-Davidson.
His body still ached from that torrid encounter back in the administration building with Grace. He thought he could scare her off from her foolish notion of going after Harris Mitchell. Knock some sense into that virginal determination of hers. But she’d been so soft to the touch, so responsive to his hands and mouth.
Teach her how to seduce a man?
She’d damn near seduced him.
And she didn’t even know it.
Grace Lockhart was deliberately disguising a national treasure. She was plain as a bucket until she lost her temper. But a little bit of makeup would get her noticed no matter her state of mind. She was blind as a bat, but contacts would help. She had soft hair with a tendency to curl that she controlled in an unflattering bun. A reputable salon would know what to do there.
But beneath that gray, shapeless suit—
Who’d have thought?
She might be the brainy strategist Carmody claimed, but she had inexperience written all over her. Sexual and professional. He had to make her smarter. Teach her survival skills. Teach her to mentally detach herself from a man’s touch when she was working undercover, to look at him with those liquid green orbs and make him think he had just given her the best sexual rush of her life.
A look like that could make a man think the cuddling and fondling and kissing they shared was the real thing.
Logan raked his fingers through his hair and struggled to find a similar detachment. He had five days to mold Grace Lockhart into a savvy, sexy field agent who could bring Harris Mitchell to his knees, and then walk away unscathed. Did he really think he could pull this off? Or was he just too afraid that nobody else understood the consequences of failure?
A sobering image of Roy Silverton’s bullet-ridden body blipped into his mind and reaffirmed his decision to take this assignment. He had to do this right. He hadn’t prepared Roy for every contingency. But he’d make double sure Grace knew how to take care of herself. How to think on her feet.
And what he couldn’t teach her, he’d take care of himself. He’d keep her alive.
To do that, he couldn’t let himself be distracted by the temptation of that goddesslike figure. He had to play this like a pro. Keep his mind focused on the mission. Keep Grace in one piece, not take her to his bed.
The scuff of her flat-heeled oxfords on the asphalt pavement announced her arrival long before she said a word.
“You’re joking, right?”
He watched her look down at the slim fit of her skirt and up at the back seat of his Harley. She thumbed over her shoulder toward the center of the parking lot. “My car’s just over there. We could take it to lunch, instead.”
“Sensible sedan, right?”
She nodded. “Safe. Good mileage—”
“We’ll requisition a new car for you. Something sporty. Red, I think.” Lustful thoughts of long blond hair blowing across the back seat of a red convertible eased the doom and gloom that had consumed him. A nice roomy back seat where…
“I would prefer blue. Or green.”
Logan opened his eyes and shook his head at her earnest expression. She’d rebuttoned her gray-suited armor up to her neck, and fastened her hair back into that tight little bun. She hadn’t even left any curling wisps free to soften her face. Instead, she’d added a functional black shoulder attaché to the outfit. Probably where she carried that ever-present notebook.
She just didn’t get it, did she? Men would salute that body of hers. Harris Mitchell would voluntarily go to prison for that body. He, personally, would sacrifice a well-earned vacation for the opportunity to know that body better—once he got her through this assignment.
He had to teach her to get comfortable with her fantasy-proportioned figure. To use it to her advantage.
Oh, yeah.
“Definitely red.”
Logan reached into his jeans and pulled out his pocketknife. Confused, distrusting perhaps, Grace took a step back when he knelt in front of her. “What are you—?” With a grasp and a twist, he slit the seam of her skirt. “Hey!”
He preferred that flash of fire in her cheeks to her usual pasty-faced demeanor.
“If you want to work undercover, you have to be willing to take risks. Willing to do what you don’t normally do. Willing to do whatever’s necessary to get the job done.” He punctuated his first bit of advice by ripping the seam of her skirt up to the hemline of her jacket.
“Oh, my God. You ruined it.”
Logan stood, smiled, put away his pocketknife, and enjoyed the twists and turns of her body as she struggled first to assess the damage, and then to tuck her slip up beneath the thigh-high slit. “Don’t worry, just make a note of it. The agency will reimburse you. C’mon.”
He put on his helmet, buckled the second one around the flushed fury of her face and climbed onto the Harley. When he had the engine purring smoothly beneath him, he extended his hand for Grace.
“I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”
He’d guessed as much. He steadied her while she tested one foothold and then another, finally climbing aboard as if it were a horse waiting to buck her off. She settled astride the seat, behind him, leaving a good five inches of space between them. “What do I do?”
Logan grinned. “Hold on, sweetheart.”
He could barely feel the pressure of her fingertips at his waist. Definitely not the way a sexy woman held on to her man. Time to teach her another lesson.
“Just hold on.”
He revved the engine and kicked it into gear, pulling the bike up to forty miles per hour before even reaching the security gate. By the time he had her on the highway cruising toward New York City, Grace had become a second skin to him, her face buried in the middle of his back and her arms cinched around his middle. He glanced down at her white-knuckled grasp on his belt buckle.
Oh, yeah.
Between her body and his guilty conscience, the next five days were going to be one hell of a ride.
3
GRACE WATCHED Logan slip twenty dollars to the maître d’. “Is the agency going to pick up the tab for that, too?”
Logan smiled at her sarcasm and urged her along in front of him.
Despite his casual attire and her torn skirt, they were seated in the center of the plush Willingham Hotel restaurant, amid tables filled with businessmen and women dressed more appropriately and impeccably in suits. Keenly conscious of several curious stares, Grace opened her menu and hid her face behind it.
Once their arrival became old news and the patrons returned to their own conversations, she slapped the menu shut and leaned forward. “What the hell are we doing here?”
Logan had unzipped his jacket and sprawled back in his chair. With his long legs hidden beneath the white linen tablecloth, he sipped on a glass of water topped with a twist of lime. “I believe it’s called lunch.”
“I said I was happy to eat at the hot dog vendor’s down on the corner.”
At the snap of her whisper, Logan set down his glass and leaned forward, as annoyingly relaxed in their posh surroundings as she was self-conscious. “Hot dogs are a whole other lesson. You want to seduce a big-time crime lord. So we have to learn the big-time lessons first. Mitchell’s got money out the wazoo. You’re going to have to look like you’re at home in places like this.” His eyes lit with amusement at her expense. “So far you’re not doing very well, Gracie.”
She stiffened at the nickname, hearing the cutesy, belittling appellation like a hundred bad memories slapping her in the face. “Never call me Gracie. I am a twenty-six-year-old professional law enforcement officer. Grace or Agent Lockhart will do just fine.”
He patted the air with his hands, placating her. “Don’t be so eager to defend yourself. Keep your temper. Grace, it is.”
At least he’d allow her that one smidgen of respect. She had a feeling she’d have to swallow plenty of pride before this mission was accomplished. She pulled out her steno pad and opened it to the page where she’d listed ten numbers.
“Is that one of your rules?” She clicked her mechanical pencil and prepared to write. “Play it cool? I can do that.”
He reached across the table and stilled her hand. Sensing her instinct to jerk away from the personal contact, his long, calloused fingers wrapped around hers, pencil and all, trapping her in a vise of velvet and steel. Short of stabbing him with a fork or screaming her head off, she was his prisoner.
She shot him as damning a glance as she could muster through her glasses.
“Control, Grace.” Logan shook his finger at her like the recalcitrant pupil she was. “I’m talking about control. A man likes the challenge of breaking that control. You want to be his match, not easy pickings. He wants to earn his reward.”
Something about the softly articulated movement of his lips distracted her from the need to assert herself. The husky pitch of his voice, whispered for her ears alone, seeped inside her like a promise.
She heard her voice in the same soft whisper. “What’s your reward in all this?”
“Walking away from this assignment with you in one piece.”
“I can handle myself.”
Without blinking, those silvery eyes fixed on hers, capturing her curiosity, demanding her attention. Logan pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Grace jumped in her chair, shocked by the bubbling heat that simmered beneath the firm, warm pressure of his lips against her pulse. The whiskers on his chin abraded an apparently sensitive patch of skin there, sending out thousands of tiny little aftershocks in the kiss’s wake.
What surprised her more though, was the lingering, languid warmth that seemed to turn her arm into molten putty, rendering it useless. Rendering her useless for the time being.
“If you can’t handle this, you can’t handle Mitchell.”
“What? Oh.” Grace pulled her hand away and tucked it beneath her napkin in her lap, subconsciously hiding the betraying appendage until she could gather the good sense to compensate for such a mind-numbing reaction to a simple kiss.
Logan settled back and nodded toward her notebook. “You’d better write that down, too. Rule number three. Know your erogenous zones. But don’t tell a man where all of them are. He likes the thrill of discovering some for himself.”
The discovery part hadn’t been all that bad for her, either. She was honest enough to chart that bit of research in her memory. But, good God, it was just a kiss! The world hadn’t shattered beneath her feet. She’d seen no fireworks. After all, men and women had been kissing for centuries, eons, in fact. No need to make a big deal of it. He hadn’t even touched her mouth, just a silly little nibble on her wrist.
She quickly jotted down seduction rules numbers two and three—stay in control; know erogenous zones—embarrassed to admit that, though the earth hadn’t swallowed her up whole, she had, for a few moments, lost all capacity for rational thought. Logan had a point. If she couldn’t stay focused in Harris Mitchell’s company, she wouldn’t be able to plant the computer virus that would expose all his contacts. And she’d be endangering both her and Logan’s cover.
In an act of self-preservation, she quickly turned to the front of her steno pad and wrote a word at the top of the first page.
Research.
Only, she went back to add, in capital letters. No sense getting confused by the education process. Logan was teaching her what she needed to know about working undercover. She was the student who needed to know about catching Harris Mitchell’s eye, winning his trust, and becoming part of his organization. This was research.
This wasn’t real.
Getting trapped in those silvery eyes, collapsing after a kiss on the wrist or a sweep of Logan’s tongue against her neck—none of that was real.
She caught a glimpse of her torn skirt. What was left of her self-righteous anger deflated in a heartbeat. She was Grace Lockhart, frumpy computer nerd. She’d spent her formative years developing her brain and a defensive suit of armor to compensate for the developing shape of her body and a fear of repeating her mother’s mistakes.
Logan Pierce was a secret-agent hero. A handsome, dangerous man who could have any woman he wanted around the world.
She was a curiosity, perhaps. One of those challenges he said men liked. He might even be intrigued by the outrageous proposal to turn her into a seductress. But no way could she be on his list of desirable women. No way.
She went back to the Research Only note and added five exclamation points and a handful of stars.
GRACE HAD JUST POLISHED off her grilled chicken and mushroom pasta when she heard the voice.
“Gracie!” That high-pitched, whispery voice managed to carry across the entire restaurant. “Gracie, darling!”
Her fork clattered on her plate and she scanned the room for the nearest exit.
“Friend of yours?” Logan set his napkin on the table beside his coffee.
“Not exactly.”
Though she’d already been spotted, she nevertheless tried to shield her face behind her hand.
But the woman would have found her one way or the other. Something about a special bond she claimed they shared.
She felt a hug around her shoulders and a kiss on her cheek. Automatically, Grace wiped the spot with her napkin, knowing there would be a splotch of crimson lipstick.
Odd, she thought, when she looked at her napkin. Pale pink.
“Honey. Aren’t you going to get up and give me a hug?”
The different shade of lipstick had thrown her enough to respond without thinking—the way she had when she was a child.
“Mother.” She stood and hugged the woman she matched physically, inch for inch, although the outside trappings were considerably different.
Mimsey Lockhart leaned back and held Grace’s hands. “I never thought I’d run into you in the city today. What a glorious coincidence.”
“May I get an introduction?” Grace recognized a touch of more-than-polite interest in Logan’s husky voice.
“Mother. This is Agent Logan Pierce. My mother—Mimsey Lockhart.”
“Delighted to meet you.” His dangerous charm turned on to full magnetism was practically blinding. He clasped Mimsey’s hand between his and lifted it to his lips. Grace caught her breath.
He kissed her mother’s hand! Not quite the way he had kissed her wrist, but still… Grace averted her face, ashamed to recognize a stab of jealousy. She quickly derailed the emotion by remembering two things. Logan was a natural charmer. If he didn’t have the ability to please all the ladies, she wouldn’t have requested him for this assignment.
And, second, she knew that beaming smile on her mother’s face could have been achieved with considerably less than a kiss on the hand.
“Won’t you sit down?” Oh, God, had Logan really invited her mother to join them?
Grace shot him a look across the table. “We were just leaving.”
“No, we weren’t.” Logan absorbed her subtle plea for help with a smile of feigned innocence. “We haven’t finished our coffee.”
“Who needs coffee?” she muttered between clenched teeth. “The caffeine’s bad for us.”
Ignoring her not-so-subtle hint, he pulled out a chair and Mimsey perched on the edge. “I can’t stay long, anyway. Grant’s checking into the hotel and then he’s taking me down to his new theater.”
Logan sat, angling his body toward Mimsey, a gesture of interest and acceptance that irked Grace. “Grant?” he asked.
“Grant Stewart.” Mimsey patted her platinum coiffure and turned to Grace. “You remember him from our California days, don’t you, dear?”
What had he been, paramour two? Seven? Twenty?
But Mimsey hadn’t really been expecting an answer, so she turned back to Logan. “Grant’s a producer, mostly Hollywood stuff. But he’s expanding into the New York theater scene now. He’s putting together an off-Broadway play, and is thinking about casting me in the role of the aunt.” She reached for Grace’s hand and squeezed it. The excitement playing over Mimsey’s painted features was contagious. Almost.
“Congratulations,” Grace offered, but couldn’t help remembering all the other promises made to her mother and broken over the years. “I hope it works out for you.”
“Imagine.” Mimsey’s green eyes lit with the sparkle of hope. “A legitimate stage play, after all these years. That’s how I started my career, you know. Long before you were born.”
“That’s where I know you.” Logan snapped his fingers and diverted Mimsey’s attention. “The Ants That Ate Metropolis. The Beast from Beneath the Sea. You’re that Mimsey Lockhart.”
Seriously? He knew her mother’s movies?
Grace watched in horror as her mother’s fan-club personality emerged.
“Is there any other?” Mimsey laughed, her beautiful smile undimmed by fifty years of flamboyant living. She clutched a modest hand to the plunging décolletage of her pink suit. “I’m flattered you remember those old flicks.”
“Are you kidding?” Was Logan’s enthusiasm for real? Or was this all part of the act that made him irresistible to women? “Sci-fi Sundays were a staple in the old neighborhood. I grew up thinking I could save the world, too. Maybe that’s part of why I went into law enforcement.”
“That’s so sweet.”
Grace had to give her mother credit. She’d never become the actress she’d aspired to be, but she was always proud of the work she’d done. Those monster flicks had put food on the table and given her a place to go when one lover after another abandoned her for younger, easier—childless—fare.
“Mimsey?”
A tall, polished man with jet-black hair touched by gray at the temples joined them at the table.
Did Grace detect a subtle change in her mother’s smile? “Grant, darling, you remember my daughter, Gracie.”
“Of course.” He took her hand and offered a slight bow. “It’s been too many years. You’re looking well.”
Not pretty, not sexy. Well.
Ah, yes, Mimsey stirred hormones, turned heads. Grace looked…well. Like a healthy horse or a well-seeded lawn. Maybe Logan’s mission was impossible, after all. Maybe she had no business trying to prove herself as a competent agent by taking on an eccentric crime lord.
It required every bit of strength she had to look him in the eye and dredge up a smile. “Mr. Stewart. It’s good to see you again.”
“I’m taking Mimsey down to the theater to introduce her to the director personally. Then I have a meeting with some financial backers. Perhaps you could join us for dinner later?”
“Uh, no. Thank you.” She had to take her mother in short spurts, and allow herself plenty of time to recover for the next encounter. She excused herself on an easy white lie. “Agent Pierce and I are working together on a special project.”
“’Round the clock,” Logan added. Her gaze shot across the table and clashed with the terminal amusement in his soft gray eyes. Grace’s cheeks blazed with heat. After all these years in her mother’s company, she should have picked up a few tricks on how to handle a man’s teasing. But no, she’d been busy learning calculus and studying the history of modern warfare instead.
“Another time, perhaps. Pierce.” The two men shook hands. “Grace.” He nodded politely and pulled out Mimsey’s chair.
Before Grace could stand, Mimsey had leaned over her and wrapped her in a tight, maternal hug. Grace gave in to the urge to return the hug, missing those days of innocence when she hadn’t worried about her mother being taken advantage of by men interested more in her breast size than her heart or career.
But Mimsey was independent as ever. Her conspiratorial whisper tickled Grace’s ear. “That Logan’s a keeper, honey. Maybe this FBI gig is working out better than we thought.”
“Mother—”
But Mimsey was gone in a whirl of drama before Grace could launch a proper protest.
Lost between dazed and fuming, she didn’t notice that Logan had moved to the chair beside her until his hand covered hers where it fisted in her lap.
“At ease, Agent Lockhart.” Unwittingly her fingers turned and clutched at his supportive hand. “Embarrassed by Mimsey, are we?”
“Worried about her. She doesn’t always make the best choices. I hope Grant’s sincere in wanting to help her.”
He leaned closer, close enough for the scent of the tangy gel he used in his hair to tease her nose. “You don’t have to live in her shadow, you know.”
He was close enough that she could have seen him without her glasses. But, for once, she was very grateful to have that barrier between them. “What are you talking about?”
“You could learn a lesson from your mother.”
Grace frowned. “What lesson?”
“Rule number four. Sex appeal is all about attitude.”
“What does that mean?”
“Decide that you’re sexy. Once you believe it, everyone around you will, too.”
Without a doubt her mother was sexy. The woman knew what she had and she used it to her advantage. Mimsey Lockhart had learned all about being sexy.
But all Grace had ever wanted was for Mimsey to learn how to be her mother.
LOGAN CLOSED the fashion magazine and slumped on the couch of the department store fitting room, wondering how much more of this Pygmalion stuff he could take. The store could at least provide some male reading while he waited. Anything with fishing rods or pitching stats would be appreciated. He needed something to distract his overworked imagination from creating pImages** of Grace behind the closed door at the end of the hallway, stripping naked and trying on the wardrobe of clothes the salesclerk had selected for her.
He’d been intrigued by Grace’s request to turn her into a seductress. But it had taken those big green eyes of hers, staring up at him with trust and innocence, to trigger a protective impulse and make him say yes to working as her partner.
He’d tried scaring her away from this suicide mission with some crass behavior—the kind Mitchell might throw her way. But it had backfired on him. Badly. She’d responded to his forward touches as if they’d been lovers. As if she’d known exactly the way he liked a woman to respond to him.
She’d battled words with him, proving that intellectual moxie she kept bragging about.
He’d met her mother, saw the potential for the beautiful woman Grace could become.
He’d tortured himself all afternoon and into the evening, watching the transformation take place.
After fitting her for contact lenses, they’d taken a trip to a salon where a man named Miguel had cut her hair into a riot of sexy, chin-length curls, and then highlighted the whole beckoning array to bring out bright gold and soft strawberry shades. Miguel’s friend Bruce had made up her face in a palette of soft colors that emphasized the emerald richness of her eyes and the sensuous pout of her lips.
And now—Logan inhaled deeply and silently cursed the partial arousal that had been with him on and off throughout the day—she’d been parading past him in a variety of outfits that reflected every mood from professional to fun to provocative.
“Logan? Do you think I’ll really need something like this?”
Grace’s sinfully seductive voice interrupted his thoughts and wound into his fantasies. When he looked up at this latest in a long line of outfits, he wished he still had that magazine to pull over his lap.
The woman had the survival skills of a turnip.
She stood in front of him, wearing nothing more than some sort of slip thing and a doubtful expression.
“It’s called a bra-slip. The clerk suggested I wear it with that evening gown I tried on earlier. I could save some money, though, and wear one of my own slips with a strapless bra.” Though he heard her explanation, he paid more attention to the movements of her hands. She cupped the sides of her breasts and pushed them forward, nearly spilling the satiny globes over the tiny strips of ivory silk and lace that cradled them. “The top doesn’t give me much support, anyway.”
Logan stood, fatigue and frustration and a sudden rigid strain in his jeans overriding patience and good intentions.
She needed to have that piece of lingerie. She very definitely needed to have it.
But Harris Mitchell didn’t need to see it.
And no man who accidentally wandered past the dressing room’s waiting area needed to see it, either.
Logan snatched Grace’s arms above the elbows and turned her back to her dressing room.
“Don’t you have a lick of common sense?” he asked, pushing her into the closet-size area and pulling the door shut behind him. “You can’t go parading around in something like this.”
“I thought you wanted to approve all the changes I’ve made. I’m sorry. Did I embarrass you?”
Logan sputtered. Was she really that naive? “It’s perfect. It’s sexy. It’s gorgeous.”
She folded her arms across her chest, hiding her bounty in self-conscious shame as she had that morning. “It’s just a piece of underwear—”
“No.” He pressed a finger over her lips, silencing her apology. “Rule number five. Never explain away a man’s compliment.”
“But—”
“Say thank you,” he ordered, trying not to react to the brush of her lips on his sensitive fingertip. “You’ve turned into a real knockout, Agent Lockhart.” Her shoulders lifted and her eyes swelled with protest, but he shushed her again. “What do you say?”
“Fank oo?” He pulled his finger back and let her try again. That same vulnerability that had sucker punched him into taking this assignment in the first place darkened her eyes. “You really think I’m a knockout?”
He let his gaze sweep the three mirrors in the dressing room, catching her in that slip from every delectable angle. He’d seen garments that showed less of a woman—garter belts, bustiers, thongs. But there was something incredibly appealing about the demure silk molding to her curves, stopping at her thighs and creating a shadowy cleft between her legs. Something wonderfully enticing about a swath of lace barely hiding the pink areolae at the tips of her breasts. Something about that creamy expanse of bare skin across her shoulders just a shade darker than the ivory silk straps that held the whole confection up.
“Oh, yeah. So much so that I’m going to treat myself to one of my favorite lessons. I’m going to kiss you.”
He touched her with just his lips, bending down and capturing her startled “Oh” with his mouth. She tasted sweet and potent, just like the creamy coffee she’d had on their dinner break. It was a gentle mating, and he held back the urge to plunder her mouth. Her lips moved shyly, as if testing the whole idea of kissing. A true researcher, Logan observed in heady amusement.
He clenched his hands into fists at his sides, trying to remember that this woman was his job partner, not his bedmate. He was supposed to teach her, not take her. Her hesitant, though willing, response should remind him of that fact.
But he couldn’t resist. A lock of her hair got caught between their mouths and he had to brush it away. Then he tunneled his fingers into the springy softness of her hair and stepped closer, angling her head back to receive the full advantage of his kiss.
“Just a second.” Grace’s hips backed away. His fingers were still tangled in her hair as she reached for something behind her. She came up with that damn notebook, flipped it open to a blank page, and clicked her mechanical pencil. Twice. “I want to know how to do this just right.”
“Grace—”
She tipped her face back to his and puckered her lips. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Damn the woman. Maybe she could frustrate Harris Mitchell into surrendering to the authorities.
Logan tightened his grip at the nape of her neck and pulled her up onto her toes. He kissed her again, harder this time, plunging in and stroking the soft skin inside her mouth with his tongue. He kept his eyes open, demanding she look at him. When he touched his tongue to hers, she did. Green eyes snapped at gray. He circled her tongue…suckled…angled his mouth to do any number of delightful things to hers.
When he came up for air, she ran her tongue along her lips and then pressed them together, tasting and savoring the new sensations they’d created together.
Or so he thought.
“Hold on.” This damn research was hard on a man’s ego. At least she had the decency to be short of breath. Her hand shook as she tried to write.
Logan smiled. Maybe this kiss wasn’t just about research anymore.
He nuzzled the side of her neck, ran his tongue down to that exquisite nerve bundle along her collarbone until he found the spot that made her shiver. “Put down the notebook.”
Grace pushed at his chin, turning his gaze up to meet hers. “I want to learn how to kiss.”
“I want to teach you.”
The steno pad hit the floor with a thunk as Logan lifted her hands around his neck. She arched into him as he skimmed his palms down her sides, cupped her ripe, round bottom and lifted her up to his mouth and his heat. She opened her mouth, giving all that he asked of her and more, and he seized her offering.
He came back to fill his hands with her generous breasts. He pushed them together the way she had earlier and buried his face between them. He tasted the salty tang of sweat deep in her cleavage, inhaled the delicate scent of the rare fragrance she wore.
“Touch me, Grace,” he commanded on a breathless whisper, capturing a beaded peak in his mouth through lace and silk. She groaned in her throat, and as he laved the responsive bud with his tongue, the groan became a purr that vibrated through him, that teased his loins and made him impossibly hard with want. “Touch me.”
“I’ve only done this kind of thing once.” Her fingers flailed against the collar of his jacket, even as her lips scudded across his temple and found the sensitive shell of his ear. “I don’t know how.”
“Any way you want.”
He was drunk with passion by the time she’d pushed his jacket off his shoulders and worked his shirt free of his jeans. She bunched up the material in her hands, tugged it behind the holster that hung from his shoulder, exposing his chest and torso to her curious quest. Her hands scorched him with their searching. A delicate brush of a fingertip here. An outright grab there.
He ground his hips into hers, amazed at how quickly, how thoroughly, this prude-turned-seductress had aroused him. She didn’t need any lessons on how to seduce a man. She was a natural. A prodigy.
“Miss Lockhart?” Three sharp raps on the dressing-room door brought Logan up short. “The store is closing in fifteen minutes. If you like, I could start ringing up your selections.”
The salesclerk’s friendly voice intruded from the outside world. Logan tore his mouth from Grace’s. He breathed silently through pursed lips so as not to reveal his presence, and pressed the palm of his hand against Grace’s mouth, keeping her ragged breathing from giving them away.
He tried to collect his thoughts, but the image looking back at him from three different angles made him wonder just how far he would have gone before he realized he had completely botched this mission. His knee was wedged between Grace’s thighs. He had the ivory slip hiked up to the waistband of her panties. The straps dangled loosely in the crook of her elbows, leaving her breasts bare and beautiful from every conceivable view. Her hands were lost inside his shirt, her mouth red and swollen with his kisses—and the whole scene was reflected in the dressing-room mirrors.
“Is everything all right?” Now the clerk sounded vaguely concerned.
Logan slowly pulled his hand away and mouthed the words, “Say something to get rid of her.”
“What should I say?” she mouthed back.
He tilted his head and glared at her.
Grace shrank away from the hard look. She pulled the slip straps back over her shoulders and covered herself, but finally responded to the message. “I’m fine,” she said in a loud, surprisingly clear voice. “I’ll be out in just a minute. Thank you.”
After the clerk left, Logan shook his head. “That’s the fastest you can think on your feet?”
Her unshielded eyes swelled with something more than embarrassment at being caught in a compromising position. “Is that what this was? A test?”
“No.” He was too honest to tell her otherwise. He swiped his fingers through his hair, literally and figuratively trying to straighten the mess he’d made of their professional relationship. “But there’s a hell of a lot more to working undercover than just looking the part.”
“I know that. I might be naive, but I’m not an idiot.”
He tucked in his clothes and backed himself up to the door. No. He was the only idiot here. She’d crossed her arms in front of her, but stood straight in that proud yet vulnerable stance he’d gotten to know so well today.
“Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on covert weaponry. And we’ll work on some self-defense tactics.”
His aching groin and shredded sense of self-preservation mocked the cool authority in his voice. He’d known this assignment would be trouble from the start, and he’d already blown it big time by losing his objectivity to a case of carnal lust.
“Fine. Would you step out so I can get dressed, please?”
He closed the door and headed back to his lonesome spot on the couch.
“Definitely need to work on self-defense.”
4
AUTUMN IN NEW YORK be damned. The September humidity was wreaking havoc on both her hairdo and her mood.
For the umpteenth time, Grace pushed an annoying curl out of her eyes. Useless. Absolutely useless. Just what was the advantage of this new hairstyle, anyway?
Surrendering to the forces of nature, she let the curls fall where they may and knocked on the door of the town house. She’d come all the way to New Jersey by subway and cab, thinking the trip would be less wearing than sitting in morning traffic for two hours.
Ha!
She pulled out her steno pad and made an entry reminding herself that unless she had proof the public transport’s air-conditioning systems were working, she would rely solely on herself for transportation.
Her watch already registered 9:15 a.m. She was late, to boot. She leaned back and double-checked that she did, indeed, have the right address before knocking again. Then she used those few moments of time to bemoan that she had natural curl in her hair, and that no matter how many products Miguel recommended she use, it was going to kink up into an unruly mess until the humidity dropped below fifty percent.
If only she hadn’t spent so much time on her hair this morning. If only she’d gotten up sooner. If only she’d been able to get a decent night’s sleep.
But no, pImages** of Logan’s steely-gray eyes had haunted her dreams, laughing at her at first, then looking at her in ways she didn’t fully understand. She’d woken up more than once with her mouth open, panting hard, remembering the feel of his mouth on hers. The unique taste of his lips, hard and soft, hot and sweet, all at once.
And once, near three o’clock in the morning, she found herself wrapped around her pillow, rubbing against it, squeezing it tight between her thighs, her body straining for the memory of something it had never found.
She’d gotten up and showered then, but quickly discovered that the warm pinpricks of water reminded her too much of the fiery scrape of Logan’s whiskers across her skin. Sensitizing her, seducing her.
His body seemed to be hard wherever hers was soft. And the shape of him had been completely different from hers. Enticingly male, while she’d felt, oh, so terribly, wonderfully female.
But she hadn’t known what to do. She hadn’t known what he wanted from her. She scarcely knew what she wanted for herself.
Only that she shouldn’t want it.
This distracting, confusing, consuming obsession with Logan had to stop. Or she’d never get any work done.
That meant she’d never capture Harris Mitchell. She’d never earn the respect she deserved. She’d never get a second chance to bring down a user who was so much like those men who had abused her mother’s trusting heart.
As a child, she hadn’t been able to help Mimsey. But she could now. She could help all the innocents who’d been taken advantage of by greedy, self-serving egomaniacs. If she didn’t do this, she’d always be frumpy Grace Lockhart, spinster computer geek, second-rate shadow of her halfway-famous mother.
It was a mighty sad epitaph.
But ten life-changing lessons from Logan could turn her into a knowledgeable woman of the world who understood how to use her body as well as her brain to lure Harris Mitchell into her clutches, and straight to prison.
She hated depending on anyone else though. Any other project, she could take a class or read a book, make herself the expert she needed to be. But not this sexy thing.
She needed a man to learn that.
She needed Logan.
But, oh, Lord, she didn’t want to need him. For her work or her fantasies.
Fantasies?
Rule number five in the ladies’ dressing room last night had nearly undone her.
“Oh, God,” she whispered out loud as her body heated all over again at the very thought of what lessons six through ten on Logan’s list might entail.
Grace breathed in deeply, desperate now to regain some semblance of decorum. The hot, moist air didn’t help cool the frustration broiling within her.
She raised her fist to pound at the door once more. “Damn you, Logan Pierce.”
Her fist never hit the wood. Instead, she got caught in the quick reflexes of Logan’s hand, mere inches from his naked chest. “Good morning to you, too.”
“I might have known you’d oversleep.” There. She sounded justifiably ticked off. Dignified even.
If only she’d quit staring at the broad expanse of skin lightly dusted with coffee-dark hair that curled over well-defined muscles and faded into a narrow vee before veering in a straight line down beneath the unhooked snap of his jeans.
Maybe then she could manage to look a little dignified, too.
Grace tugged her hand away, more angry with herself for her adolescent gawking than for any tardiness on his part. But anger was an easy emotion to latch on to. Far easier than trying to decipher the tightening of unseen muscles low in her belly.
“We’re down to four days of training. I thought we’d agreed to an early start.”
“I’m coming off forty-eight hours without any sleep. I needed to catch up.” He turned away and walked on into the house, expecting her to follow. “If your highness can spare me another fifteen minutes, I’ll hit the shower and grab some breakfast.”
As he walked away from her, she noticed he had a shape remarkably similar to that of a lean, muscular T-bone steak. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, narrow hips.
Men and women were so utterly different, she observed.
And Logan was different from any man she’d known.
Maybe only because he was giving her a chance to do research with him, to study those differences in details. Straight lines and rounded curves…
“Coming?”
Fine-tuning her powers of observation, she also noted that his deep voice lacked any trace of the indulgent patience and charm he’d had in such abundant supply yesterday.
Grace shut the door and hurried after him. “Is everything all right?”
She backpedaled to avoid plowing into him when he suddenly stopped and spun around.
“First, no conversation before coffee in the morning.”
He turned and headed up a half flight of stairs, leaving Grace standing at the bottom. “What’s the second thing?” she called after him.
He disappeared around the corner and a door slammed shut.
“Logan?”
The sound of running water provided her only answer.
So where was the irresistible lady-killer who had kissed her senseless and haunted her dreams? Where was the legendary agent who brought down smuggling rings almost single-handedly?
Who was this sexy, rumpled grumpy-butt who refused to even talk to her?
Four days and counting. Maybe infiltrating Harris Mitchell’s ladies-only workforce was an impossible mission, after all.
Left alone without any direction, Grace gave herself a tour of the main floor of the town house. As far as housekeeping went, Logan was the one who could use some training. And the place was sparsely furnished to the point of being ascetic. A leather couch and maple entertainment center with a TV and VCR were the only furniture in the main room. He didn’t even have a lamp to read by.
She dropped her attaché onto the couch beside a pile of laundry and, needing something to do to pass the time, began to fold. The towels were easy. Then came the jeans.
It felt almost naughty to straighten and fold the soft denim. Smoothing the wrinkles out of the considerable length of leg. Pressing her hand over the rear pockets and running her fingers along the same material that cupped his buttocks. Zipping up the front where…
Grace cleared her throat and snatched her hands away, feeling as embarrassed as if she’d been caught snooping through his things. She set the last pair on top of the pile and moved on to the safer territory of the kitchen.
“Yeesh.” Apparently secret-agent school didn’t include any classes on health codes. Stacks of takeout trash, from flat pizza boxes to folding Chinese food cartons, littered the countertops.
She went to the first box and pried a fork from the graying contents. Hadn’t Logan said he’d been away on an assignment? Surely he hadn’t left these things sitting here all that time. And wouldn’t a man who had as many conquests as he reportedly did have at least one woman willing to clean up after him?
Scrounging a garbage bag from under the sink, Grace made quick work of all the trash. She had coffee brewing in a freshly scrubbed pot, and utensils running in the dishwasher by the time Logan walked into the kitchen.
She rinsed her hands in the sink and was drying them with a towel before either of them spoke.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Just cleaning up a bit. I didn’t know how long you’d be. I waited until your shower was done before turning on the dishwasher.” She noted his clean-shaven jaw, exposing an angular stretch of tanned, smooth skin. Idly she wondered how it would feel against her cheek compared to yesterday’s more dangerous look.
“This is all a little too domestic for me.” He already had his black leather holster strapped across his shoulders. He tucked in his New York Yankees T-shirt and scanned the kitchen. “Is that real coffee there?”
Grace nodded. “I found some in the cabinet. It’s past its expiration date, but I don’t think—”
Any explanation proved superfluous. Logan pulled a mug from the cupboard and poured himself a cup, even before it finished brewing. The dripping coffee popped and sizzled as it hit the hot plate and spattered onto the counter.
She picked up the dishcloth and moved toward the mess. “I just cleaned that—”
“Not a word.” He carried the mug to his lips and savored the first sip.
“I was just helping out. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Are you here to catch a crook or to play house?”
Grace absorbed his rudeness by transforming it into sarcasm. “Sor-ry. I thought you might appreciate some civilized behavior since you seem to be in such short supply yourself.” She slapped the dishcloth in the sink and left the room. In a way, she was glad he’d been so curt with her. It made it a hell of a lot easier to knock him off that obsessive fantasy pedestal she’d elevated him to last night.
Some sexy man-god. He could be as rude and ungrateful as any of her mother’s lovers had been.
She picked up her attaché and slung the strap over her shoulder. Grumpy, she could handle. She’d even forgive him for not appreciating her help.
But to question her commitment to this case?
Grace was fuming by the time she reached the door. She flung it open, eager to welcome the heat and humidity outside. It would be a damn sight cooler than the resentment building up inside her right now.
A vise clamped around her wrist. Logan pulled her back inside and slammed the door shut. She whipped around, fist raised, her heel aimed at the instep of his foot. He shuffled his feet and avoided her punch, pinning her to the door in a deft move that made her feel like an amateur.
His big hands pressed her shoulders into the wood behind her as he threw her off balance by wedging one leg between both of hers—a mockery of the embrace they’d shared last night.
Trapped in this position, with her breasts thrusting out toward his chest, and that ultrasensitive feminine spot at the juncture of her thighs balanced like a fulcrum atop his knee, she felt exposed and vulnerable. The layers of blouse and suit she wore didn’t help. His heated gaze swept across her breasts like the caress of his hands, and that feminine spot tingled in response.
But his moody silence demanded she ignore both her self-conscious fears and her body’s unexpected reaction to their brief struggle. She looked up into those deep gray eyes, darkened now to the color of fierce summer storm clouds. “Let’s start this conversation again. Only this time, you tell me why you’re so upset.”
“Upset?” He laughed. But it was an unpleasant sound that rasped deep in his throat. “‘Teach me how to seduce a man.’ Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?”
The crisp line of his mouth moved with damning precision. But his soft, dark voice caused her more confusion than fear.
She kept her own voice hushed and even when she answered. “I’m going after Harris Mitchell. You tried to change my mind yesterday and it didn’t work. It won’t work today, either.”
“We’ll see.”
He eyed her a moment longer, held her prisoner in the same arms that had held her so tenderly the night before. And then he released her. Her heels hit the floor. She adjusted her clothes against her sensitized skin before following his determined stride at a more cautious pace.
On the way to the kitchen, Logan pulled a large envelope from the entertainment console and plunked it down on the table. “This was delivered earlier this morning.”
She recognized the courier’s logo, and the return address of Commander Carmody’s office. So she hadn’t been the first to awaken him. “What is it?” she asked.
“What the hell are you thinking, going after this guy? He’s a freak.”
Grace reached for her glasses in an unconscious habit. But her nervous fingers brushed against an unadorned cheek. “Excuse me?”
“Harris Mitchell.” He thumbed through the dossier on Mitchell’s background. Pages and pages of allegations. Eye-witness testimony that had been tossed out of court because the eye witnesses kept disappearing or recanting their stories. It had taken her weeks to pull all that information together. He’d read through it in a single morning?
She dropped her attaché into a chair and stood straight, defending her hard work. “If you’ve read his file, then you can see why he has to be stopped. He runs a multimillion-dollar money-laundering business. He’s strengthening the positions of several different mob factions and bypassing the entire Internal Revenue system. You understand why we have to do this, don’t you?”
“Understand?” He jabbed the stack of papers, then he pointed that same finger at her. “Look, Gracie, I thought we were playing a game here. Teaching you a few tricks so you could go after a standard-issue hoodlum. But Mitchell’s serious business.”
“I know that. Don’t call me Gracie—”
“The man’s nickname is Mr. Clean. And it’s not because he showers twice a day. His loose ends wind up in the city dump, which is where you’ll be if he even suspects you’re an undercover agent. And I haven’t even started on all the kinky stuff in his file.”
Grace planted her hands on her hips and swelled with indignant fury. She wasn’t an idiot. She had no delusions about Harris Mitchell being an easy case. “So he’s a dangerous man. The FBI doesn’t put pool hustlers on their Most Wanted list. I’ll be careful.”
“You’ll be dead. You’re a rookie. A walking disaster waiting to happen. This guy is slick and smart and expecting trouble. Carmody must be out of his mind to send you after him.”
“Disaster?” Defensive anger swelled inside her, pushing its way past the self-doubts, past the need to prove herself to a world that refused to take her seriously. “I earned this assignment. I came up with the plan. It’s my computer program that’s going to find his second set of books and flush out all his contacts. It’s my strategy. I’ve done my homework.”
“On paper.” He plowed his fingers through his short-cropped hair and paced the kitchen, shaking his head as if the idea of her succeeding was incomprehensible. “Sure, your numbers look good. You can download his files and corrupt his system so all his little minions come out of the woodwork to find him. Well guess what, sweetheart? He doesn’t want that to happen.” He stopped abruptly and faced off over the table, leaning toward her in a way that made her curl her toes inside her pumps to keep from retreating.
“If he finds out you’re a Fed, you’re dead.”
Grace resisted the self-preserving need to look away from the accusatory gleam in those piercing silver eyes. “Then it’s up to you to make sure I don’t screw up.”
“You’re not going.”
“I’m not Roy Silverton. And sticking me behind a desk won’t bring him back.”
Logan froze as if she had slapped him. His cheeks flushed with color. It was a cruel reminder, she knew, but she had enough obstacles of her own to overcome without having to compete with the memory of a dead man.
She gentled her voice to reason with Logan. “It didn’t matter that Roy was on his first field assignment. You couldn’t have foreseen what was waiting for him on that dock. I’m sorry. But a seasoned agent would have been slain, too.”
“And that’s supposed to reassure me?” Logan stood straight and tall again, dismissing her argument. And her compassion. “I’ll take this up with Carmody. If anyone’s going after Mitchell, it’s going to be me.”
Logan strode from the kitchen. He pulled on his leather jacket, expecting her to obey his pronouncement like a good little girl.
Grace did one better. She grabbed her bag and circled the room, blocking his path before he reached the door. The man couldn’t argue with cold, hard logic.
“Afraid you can’t do that, Agent Pierce. You lack the necessary credentials for the job.”
“Credentials? Like what?”
She looked down at her chest, which he had studied so thoroughly only minutes ago, then back up at him. “Forty, twenty-eight, thirty-eight.”
“Take your forty, twenty-eight, thirty-eight and get in the damn car.”
NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME in his life, Logan wished he’d spent more time practicing his diplomacy skills. Sam Carmody held up his hand like some magic talisman and demanded the room be still. Then he lined himself up at a forty-five-degree angle to his putter and knocked the tiny golf ball across the plush carpet into a green mechanical cup.
Logan bit down on his protest, grinding his teeth on the silence until his jaw ached. A red light blinked on the cup, signaling victory. When the ball spit back out, Logan was released from the spell.
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Julie Miller
It was an undercover assignment that required some "under the covers" expertise…Grace Lockhart: Behind-the-scenes FBI agent. Shy, naive…and a sex kitten waiting to happen.Logan Pierce: FBI field agent and the best of the best. Confident, cocky…and incapable of saying no to a beautiful woman.The case:Agent Grace Lockhart has spent months developing a computer program that will put the city's biggest crime lord behind bars. And now that it's ready, all the FBI needs is somebody to smuggle it in to Harrison Mitchell's estate. Only, because Mitchell is notorious for surrounding himself with a harem of beauties, that somebody has to be a woman….Grace Lockhart wants to be that woman, but she's anything but a femme fatale. But not for long. Because she's heard that her new partner, sexy superagent Logan Pierce, is an expert at "hands-on" training….
Grace stood before him, wearing only a slip of silk
“It’s called a bra-slip,” Grace explained. Logan tried to listen, but he couldn’t focus on anything but the movement of her hands. She cupped the sides of her breasts and pushed them forward, nearly spilling out of the filmy undergarment. “The top doesn’t give me much support though,” Grace continued blithely.
Logan stood, fatigue and frustration and a sudden rigid strain in his jeans overriding his patience and good intentions. Grace needed to have that piece of lingerie. She very definitely needed to have it.
But Harris Mitchell, the city’s worst crime lord, didn’t need to see it. And no man who accidentally wandered past the dressing room’s waiting area needed to see it, either.
Logan snatched Grace’s arm and turned her back to the dressing room. “Don’t you have any instinct for survival, Agent Lockhart?” he asked, pushing her into the closet-sized area and pulling the door shut behind him. “You can’t go parading around half-dressed.”
Because he couldn’t take it. Logan clenched his fists to his sides, trying to remember that this woman was his partner, not his bedmate. He was supposed to teach her, not take her.
But God help him, he desperately wanted to do both….
Dear Reader,
They say it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for. And I guess I’ve just proven that to be true. I’ve entertained myself for years, writing stories in my head—paranormal, action adventure, mystery, intrigue and, of course, romance. But I never dreamed that one day I’d be writing for Harlequin’s sexiest series!
I started out writing for Harlequin Intrigue, and it will always be my first love. But when one of the Harlequin editors approached me about the new Blaze line, how could I refuse the chance to explore my naughty side? A planner by nature, I frantically started making a list. What did I consider sexy? How could I mix the thrill of danger, an irresistible hero, a laugh or two, and all of those titillating situations that kept overheating my imagination?
As my list grew, Intimate Knowledge was born. Like me, my heroine, Grace Lockhart, needs to think things through—and then she flies by the seat of her pants. Pairing up with a hero as hot as Logan Pierce, she doesn’t have any other choice.
I’d love to know what you think of Grace’s “education.” You can contact me at P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162.
Enjoy,
Julie Miller
P.S. Don’t forget to check out tryblaze.com!
Intimate Knowledge
Julie Miller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my agent, Pattie Steele-Perkins.
Thank you for sharing your business savvy, your wisdom about planning a writing career around real life, and your enthusiastic support.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
1
“I WANT YOU to teach Miss Lockhart about working undercover. I’m reassigning you to the organized crime division to work as her partner. We intend to take down Harris Mitchell.”
“What?” Logan Pierce glared at the silver-haired FBI chief, Commander Sam Carmody. “Harris Mitchell?”
Thief. Money launderer. Murderer.
Logan had never worked a case against Mitchell, but when the crimes you committed were big enough and bad enough, every agent knew your name.
Stunned disbelief carried his gaze across the room to the stone-faced young woman sitting on the couch writing down in her stenographer’s notebook every word being said. She’d dressed herself to appear older than she was, pulling her hair back into a tight bun, donning an unflattering pair of seriously thick glasses and wearing no makeup.
Grace Lockhart looked all of twenty-three—twenty-five, tops. She needed to work a few kiddie assignments before tackling something as dangerous and unpredictable as a major undercover case.
Logan shook his head and turned back to Carmody. “I work solo—you know that.”
He hadn’t had a partner for two years, two months and eleven days. Roy Silverton had been fresh out of the academy on that first mission, too. Quick to learn, eager to please.
Too young to die.
Logan could watch his own back. He’d learned to do that long before the FBI had recruited him. It had been a matter of survival back in downtown Chicago with no mother and a father steeped in terminal grief.
Larry Pierce had been devastated when his wife had been held hostage and then murdered during a botched robbery at the bank where she’d worked. He’d found his solace in a bottle. But six-year-old Logan had been devastated, too. And without a father’s guidance, he’d raised himself. He hadn’t always made the best choices, but he’d found a way to survive, a way to stay on top of the game.
Eventually he’d straightened out enough to become a cop, and was discovered by the Bureau on a joint undercover investigation. Discovered by Carmody himself, who sent him to college and recommended him for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s training academy here in Quantico, Virginia.
Logan had taken a vow from the moment he’d earned that first badge. He’d sworn to protect innocents like his mother.
Like Roy Silverton.
To be responsible for another life…for another rookie…
He didn’t need that kind of grief.
An age-old pain tightened in Logan’s chest, threatening to squeeze the breath right out of him. He covered the vulnerability with a cocky smile and took a shot at reasoning with his boss. “I’m good at this job.”
“That goes without saying.”
“You recruited me personally because I knew how life on the streets worked.”
“Your skills have proved most invaluable.”
“The Bureau has been my home for thirteen years.”
Carmody sat back in his chair and narrowed his gaze the way a wise old father would. “Get to the point, Logan.”
Logan hooked his leg over the corner of the desk and sat, leaning in toward the commander. “Commander—Sam,” he began, using the gentlest, most rational voice he possessed. “I don’t deserve to be saddled with a newbie. I’ve earned the right to pick and choose my assignments.”
“She has experience.”
“Experience?” Doing what? Typing memos?
Logan glanced over his shoulder. The instant Grace Lockhart realized she was the focus of his attention, her fingers moved to her face and adjusted her glasses. Then she busied herself writing something in her notebook while her cheeks flooded with color.
Interesting, he thought. So quick to blush. He wondered if anything else about her reacted as quickly.
Logan blinked and mentally shook off the speculation. She radiated virginal innocence in a way that piqued his jaded, world-weary curiosity. Nothing more.
He stared at the shapeless bag of femininity and absently wondered if Grace Lockhart had ever been laid. If she even knew what the words meant. If she had any idea what he was thinking right now. She looked so clueless. Full of theory and stratagems learned in a classroom, without a day of real-world experience, much less experience working undercover with real criminals.
Had she ever ventured out of her shell? Let her hair down? Smiled? Why would an obviously mature woman in her twenties get up in the morning and deliberately put on a bulky suit that made her figure look like a sack of potatoes?
Didn’t she know that a man liked to see a woman’s curves? That she could look professional without resorting to the two-sizes-too-big routine? Whether she was skinny or chunky or somewhere in between, there were tricks to dressing that most women knew.
But obviously not Grace Lockhart.
As the color in her cheeks crept down to her neck, she cleared her throat and looked up at him, finally responding to his scrutiny. “Is there something I can help you with, Agent Pierce?”
The tone of her voice pulled him up short, dashed water on his original assessment of her sexual experience.
Her voice was deep, husky. Sultry as sin. With that voice, she could call men on the phone, read something as unerotic as a grocery list, and still make all their fantasies come true.
“How much field experience do you have?” he asked her.
“None. I’ve been working in research. This is my first assignment.”
Logan swore. He got up off the desk, jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stalked to the far end of the room before turning back to her. She was serious!
How could she stand up to a notorious crime lord if she didn’t even know how to dress?
“Oh, this just gets better and better.”
Her fingers flew up to adjust her glasses, a nervous gesture brought on by his rich sarcasm, no doubt.
Maybe he could teach her a thing or two about making herself attractive to a man. That would be the place to start with Grace Lockhart. Yeah. Teach her a few of the basics about her sexuality before she tackled anything like threats and guns and people dying.
Logan swept his gaze from the top of her bun to the soles of her sensible black shoes and was surprised to discover that the idea actually intrigued him. Maybe he had seen too much of the world’s darker side. Why else would he be contemplating the notion of investigating whether she might be hiding any more delightful secrets like her voice beneath her dowdy appearance?
How long had it been since he’d made love to an inexperienced woman? Had he ever?
“Agent Pierce.” Her soft voice trickled down his spine like a lover’s caress, commanding his attention. “Why do you keep staring at me? Is it that my appearance has something to do with whether or not you plan to accept this assignment?”
“Hell no.” He turned his anger on Carmody. “You have no business putting her in the line of fire.”
The commander refused to budge. “She’s been studying Harris Mitchell for almost a year. She came up with the plan herself. I think it’s brilliant.”
“Book smarts and street smarts are two different things. I won’t be her partner.”
He could almost visualize her body, lying battered and bleeding on the docks of New York. He could see the life draining out of her before she ever really had a chance to live it.
Just like Roy. Logan squeezed his eyes shut as imagination turned into memory. He should have saved him. He should have saved the kid.
No, he wasn’t about to partner up with any neophyte agent who wanted to mix it up with the big boys and get herself killed.
He opened his eyes and drilled Carmody with his final offer. “I’ll go after Harris Mitchell myself, if you want me to. But I won’t be her partner.”
Logan strode to the door, putting an end to this ludicrous conversation.
“Pierce, there’s no use making this unpleasant.” Commander Carmody stood. Logan paused, respecting the rank, and the man himself, even if he didn’t agree with his current ideas. “We’re working on a narrow time frame with this case. Mitchell’s about to go bicoastal with his operation. He has contacts in Los Angeles already. I want to stop him in New York before that happens and bring in every connection he has.”
Logan puffed out a frustrated sigh. Carmody had planned this takedown on a grand scale. “Then you want your best agents on the case. Men with experience in the field. It shouldn’t be a training mission.”
“I want you to work with Lockhart because you are my best agent. You know all the ins and outs of undercover work. You can handle that end of the assignment, and Lockhart will handle the technical aspects. Together, I know you can get the job done.”
“I appreciate your confidence in me, Sam. And I know I owe you for saving my butt and bringing me to the Bureau in the first place.” Logan spared one more glance at the mysterious, myopic Miss Lockhart. “But I work alone.”
He pulled his keys out of his pocket and doffed a salute to Carmody. “My report’s on your desk. Get McCallister or Anderson to work with her. I’m gettin’ some shut-eye.” Then he headed through the door.
“Pierce! Get your butt back—”
“Excuse me, sir. Let me have a word with him.”
LOGAN WAS A GOOD TEN paces down the hall before Grace was out the door. “Agent Pierce?”
He didn’t answer.
She’d spotted him immediately. He didn’t look like anybody else milling through the administrative end of the FBI training center. He seemed an anachronism to the tradition of discipline and routine radiating from the walls around her.
Exactly what she needed. Someone different. Someone who could teach her to be a different person.
She pushed her way through men in three-piece suits and women dressed in similar fashion and called his name again. Either he was going deaf or purposely ignoring her. She had a feeling it wasn’t the former.
Logan Pierce was tall, with broad shoulders emphasized by the bulk of his black leather jacket. His lean hips and long legs seemed naturally built for clinging to hardware-heavy motorcycles. He wore his dark brown hair short, like most of the other agents he passed. But the day-old scruff of beard clinging to the jut of his jaw and angular planes of his face altered any air of respectability.
He rounded the corner and headed toward the elevator, pausing to wink at the leggy blonde who passed by. Grace opened her steno pad and jotted down the woman’s reaction to his flirtation. The woman’s eyelids dropped a fraction as she watched Logan pass by. Her bottom lip pouted out into a smile. No, not really a smile. Not exactly a pout, either. More of an upward tilt at the corners, a pressing of the lips—oh, hell.
Grace scratched out the observation. If she couldn’t even explain how it was done, how could she ever hope to do it herself?
But Logan, too, had slowed his pace to study the woman, and Grace seized the advantage by dashing ahead and falling into step beside him. “Is it your usual practice to walk out on a superior officer?” she asked.
His easy stride stuttered a fraction, as if her appearance at his elbow surprised him. He stopped and sucked in a deep breath, stretching the black T-shirt material across his chest and momentarily distracting her from her purpose.
He was such a big man. Even bigger up close like this. So tall. So broad.
So bad.
Oh, God, what had she been thinking? A quick catch of breath filled her nose with the rich scent of leather and spice and man. Foreign smells to her untrained senses. Enticing smells.
“Nope. But I’ve done it before.” He pointed to the steno pad tucked under her arm. “Be sure you write that down, too.”
He turned and marched on down the corridor. Grace swallowed the impulse to run back to Carmody’s office. That would mean accepting defeat. And the thought of failure frightened her more than the idea of harnessing the overwhelming power Logan possessed over women.
Commander Carmody had agreed to her plan only if she went in with a seasoned veteran at her side. And only if she could prove she had what it took to work undercover.
Logan Pierce could help her on both counts.
She tapped the corner of her glasses with her fingertips, pushing them up to the bridge of her nose. She could do this. She had to do this.
Instead of retreating, she doubled her pace.
“You’re living up to your reputation, Agent Pierce. I’ve heard that your arrogance has gotten you into trouble on more than one occasion. But I’ve also heard that you have more citations of merit in your file than any agent in the drug enforcement division.”
Logan halted in his tracks. She took an extra two steps past him before pulling up. There was no mistaking the warning glare in his gray eyes.
“Your research should also show you that I work alone.”
Then Logan went and did the one thing sure to move her past her insecurities about herself, past her trepidation about asking a living legend at the Bureau for his help.
He patted her on the head.
“Now be a good girl and run along.”
He brushed past her and headed for the elevator. Grace stood rooted to the spot, feeling the resentment well up inside her, overtaking her, making her curse the day she’d ever been born the daughter of Mimsey Lockhart.
She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth.
Logan Pierce was just like any other man.
Her chest began to move up and down with heavy breaths as she struggled to control the anger.
Of course, Logan wasn’t exactly like the men her mother had known. And he certainly wasn’t anything like the men—make that man—she’d known.
She’d come a long way from Joel Vitek and his groping hands and drooling lips. A long way from hearing her mother’s name instead of her own as he’d found his completion within her. As he’d lived out his fantasy at her expense.
She’d thought Joel was different. But men were all alike.
Patronizing, self-serving sex machines who talked to a woman’s breasts instead of her eyes, who winked at a woman only if he thought she was pretty…who patted her on the head and set her aside as if she was unimportant.
The hot breaths hissed between her teeth now as resentment began to win the battle inside her.
Grace had come a long way from Hollywood, California, to Quantico, Virginia. But she hadn’t come for the snatches of verdant hills or the history of the area. She hadn’t come for the eligible marines stationed nearby. She hadn’t even come for the chance to get away from the painful memories of her childhood.
She’d come to prove she was more than the sum of her parts. That she had a brain inside her body.
She’d come to prove she was nothing like her mother.
Her breath seeped out in one cleansing breath, leaving her feeling weak. She tapped into the logic and common sense that had gotten her thus far. That logic would give her strength.
No man would take advantage of her the way they’d used her mother. The way they’d wanted to use her.
Lusty old men who had tried to catch her mother’s eye and failed sometimes turned to her. She hadn’t known there were laws then about grown men hitting on fifteen-year-old girls.
But she knew now. Now she was twenty-six and educated. Now she carried a gun and a badge.
The perverts and the users of the world had better watch their backs. Agent Grace Lockhart was out to get them.
And Harris Mitchell was the man who topped her list. She had him in her sights, with every intention of bringing the exploitative thief, murderer and racketeer to justice.
But, first, she had to learn all those feminine secrets she’d worked so long and hard to deny.
She had to get Logan Pierce to help her.
He hadn’t listened to a direct order.
He hadn’t listened to reason.
Time to play her best hand.
Grace hurried after him. She saw a length of well-worn denim stepping onto the elevator. When he turned around, she rushed forward, her desperation replaced by a self-righteous anger. “I don’t care what kind of agent you are, Pierce. I don’t care if you think you failed Roy Silverton. Despite what Commander Carmody said, those aren’t the skills I want from you.”
His cheeks flushed at the mention of his deceased partner’s name, and his fingers curled into a fist at his side. Grace flinched when he raised that fist. But his hand shot over her shoulder to brace the door open. “What skills are you talking about?”
His size and proximity didn’t matter right now, even as he towered over her. The heat in her own cheeks fueled her anger. She tilted her chin and stated her case.
“I’ve devised a plan to bring down Harris Mitchell. From the inside. I can handle the computers once I’m in, but I need your help to get there.”
“What skills, Miss Lockhart?” he repeated, moving a step closer, forcing her to tip her head back farther.
“Agent Lockhart.” She corrected him and continued on without taking a breath. “Harris Mitchell is eccentric. He hires only women for his inner circle. His bodyguards, chauffeur, housekeeper, hit men—hit women, I suppose—”
“What skills do you want from me?” He articulated each word with probing finesse. His warm breath fanned across her lips, shocking her into silence.
Her anger vanished in an instant and she became acutely aware of just how close he stood to her. How his arm stretched beside her cheek, close enough for her to turn her head and bury her nose in the leathery smell of his jacket. How his chest rose and fell in steady rhythm just inches away. How she could feel his heat at the tip of her chin, at the tips of her breasts, even at the tips of her toes.
“I do need you to keep me safe. But…”
What was she doing? What was she thinking?
Her glasses fogged as her skin rapidly chilled with a sense of foreboding. Without thinking, she reached up to adjust them on her face and inadvertently brushed her fingers against his stomach. He sucked in his breath and she snatched her hand away, hugging it close to her chest as if she’d been singed.
“But what?” His low voice vibrated through her.
What did she have to lose? She’d already tossed away most of her pride by chasing him so relentlessly.
She had to have his help. There was only one way to get to Harris Mitchell. Carmody would reassign the case if she couldn’t learn what she needed to. And she knew Logan Pierce, legendary field agent, undercover expert, and love-’em-and-leave-’em ladies’ man was the best choice to teach her.
She lowered her gaze to his scuffed boots and followed a hesitant path up the tantalizing length of his legs and chest before meeting him eye-to-eye.
“I need you to teach me how to seduce a man.”
2
GRACE TWISTED AGAINST the soft steel grip on her elbow as Logan steered her down the hall to the first empty office he could find. He shoved her inside, locked the door behind him, and closed the outside blinds before turning to face her.
“What did you just say to me?”
She stood in the center of the room, clutching her steno pad to her chest while he circled her, eyeing her like a hawk with a delectable bit of prey in his sights.
“I need you to turn me into a femme fatale.”
“A femme fatale?” He plowed his fingers through his hair, standing it up on end in spiky disorder. “Who talks like that anymore?”
Okay. So maybe she had no clue what she was doing. But, damn it all, she’d done her research. Logan Pierce’s way with women was standard gossip around the break room.
If one liked the dangerous, smooth-talking, bad-boy type.
And judging by her uncontrolled reactions to Logan—the shallow breathing, that naughty feeling that had tingled in her fingertips when she’d accidentally touched him, the way she kept turning her head now to keep him in her line of vision—she did like that type. A little. Well, maybe more than a little. Okay, probably too much for her own good.
He reminded her of those handsome backstage bums and one-night stands who had chased after her mother all those years.
The kind of man who promised nothing but heartache.
The kind of man she needed right now.
“As I said earlier, Harris Mitchell will only work with women. Directly, that is.” She fought to keep the businesslike detachment in her voice. “Word on the street is that as he gets ready to expand his enterprise, he’ll be hiring a new personal accountant. I intend to be that woman.”
“Word on the street?” Was that a swearword that hissed between his teeth? “What do you know about ‘word on the street’? How many times have you even been out of your cubicle?”
“If you’ll kindly watch your mouth, Agent Pierce.” Grace’s fingers trembled in their grip on the steno pad. “I’ve done my research—”
“I’ll bet you have.” He stopped circling and closed the distance between them. She felt the heat of him at her shoulder as he leaned in behind her, felt his hot, moist breath like a caress down the side of her neck. “But can you think on your feet? Be creative? Dodge bullets? Forget who you really are and become someone else?”
When she realized that the tempo of her own short breaths matched his, she took a step away and turned. She would not let this man distract her from her purpose.
“Commander Carmody gave me the green light for this project. I intend to go forward, with or without your help.”
As that hawk who had circled her earlier, Logan snatched her glasses from her face, plunging her world into a blur of smeared colors and lights and shadows.
“What are you doing?”
She reached out blindly, groping the air.
“Seeing if you have what it takes to go forward.”
“I can’t see a damn thing right now.”
“If you’ll kindly watch your mouth, Agent Lockhart.” He clicked his tongue behind his teeth in admonishment.
Embarrassed by the instinctive panic in her reaction, she hugged her steno pad to her chest, calming her fluttering heart and giving her shaking fingers something to do. “I am an excellent student, Agent Pierce. If this is some sort of test…” Her nose detected the smell of well-worn leather, and she guessed he’d circled behind her again. Pleased with her detection skills, she actually smiled. “I graduated top of my class. I’m a Phi Beta Kappa. I had personal recommendations from two senators for my appointment—”
“Yeah, yeah. But can you kiss a man and make him forget what he was thinking?”
With a magical snap of invisible fingers, he zapped her confidence and took her into uncharted territory. “I beg your pardon?”
“When it comes down to it, can you turn all that brain power into a seductive smile that Harris Mitchell will find irresistible?”
“I—”
She felt the heat of his lips brushing against her ear. “Can you do this…?” A vise clamped around her waist—Logan’s arm. She snatched at his leather sleeve to free herself, but froze as he pulled her back against him. Shoulders to chest. Hips to belt buckle. Bottom to…Grace squirmed at the vee of pure masculine heat that cupped her buttocks, not yet understanding the lesson he was teaching her. The long, strong fingers of his free hand seized her hip and stilled her struggle. “Without flinching?”
His lips moved to the column of nerves that ran down the side of her neck. “Can you let a man do this to you…?” She tilted her head to the side, straining away from his hot, moist assault on her senses. His tongue joined the foray, supping at an undiscovered indention where her neck met her shoulder. The electric current that had tingled beside her ear now shot out to the tips of her breasts, hardening her nipples, making the tender globes feel heavy above the restricting band of his arm. “And pretend you enjoy it?”
Pretend?
A damp mix of pleasure and pain gathered between her legs. Her hand, which had once tried to push him away, now tugged at his arm, unconsciously begging him to ease the friction gathering in the breasts it cradled.
Grace turned her jaw to his mouth, struggling to speak, fighting through the current of unaccustomed electric heat consuming her. He was making a point, she tried to remind herself, teaching her about working undercover.
“I should—” she stuck out the tip of her tongue and licked the circle of her parched lips, trying to regain control of the conversation—and her traitorous body “—be taking notes.”
He shifted his attention to the movement of her tongue and traced the same circle around her lips with an erotic rasp of his own tongue. The electric current humming through her transformed into an outright jolt. Her thighs clenched together and she lifted her bottom, rubbing herself against his bulging heat.
“Logan?” The sensation was too much. He was too much.
She was drowning. Falling. Building. Rushing.
She was alone.
Logan had released her and stepped far beyond her line of vision. He left her cold and exposed and swaying in the center of the room, counting silently to herself as she retrained her lungs to breathe in, then out, all over again.
As she gathered her senses, she could hear his measured breathing across the room. Was he sneering at her inexperience? Laughing at her combustible reaction to a simple embrace? Shaking his head over just how ill-suited she was for this task? His voice, which had rumbled in such a seductive pitch beside her ear, now clipped with all the command of a military officer. “That’s what you’ll have to do. If Mitchell suspects for one moment that you’re not sincere, you’ll be dead.”
Logan’s first lesson had bordered on virtual heaven. But the reality of his harsh words chased away the haze of sensual awareness and reminded her that he had yet to agree to work with her on the case.
“I’m aware of the danger, Agent Pierce. I’m not so naive as to believe there’s no risk involved in this assignment. That’s why I asked for your help.”
Reaching over her shoulder, he plucked the steno pad from her fingers.
“Hey!” She heard it land on something soft as he tossed it aside. The bombardment of man and lingering sex and unexpected actions made her jump when she felt his hands at her nape. “What are you doing now?”
“Seeing if I can help you.”
Logan’s deft fingers seemed to have had plenty of practice unfastening pins and rubber bands. He loosened her hair from its constrictive wrap and it fell around her shoulders down to the middle of her back. It had grown long and untamable, so she never wore it free. Even at night, she wove it into a braid to sleep.
But there was something…distracting…in the way he sifted the long strands through his fingers. Lifting it to test its weight, easing the pressure on her scalp. Something…soothing…in the way he draped it along her shoulder blades.
She should write this down. This feeling of being tended. This…
“It has a natural wave in it. Lots of potential—if you do something with it. We’ll cut it so the weight doesn’t pull it straight.”
His impersonal tone snapped her out of her foolish observations. It seemed he was doing his job. At last. She should remember her job, as well. “I’m prepared to alter my appearance.”
“I hope so.” He released her hair and stepped away. “The only way you’ll turn any man’s eye with that outfit is if you take it off. Let me have the jacket.”
“Agent Pierce, I hardly think—”
He was already tugging at the shoulders. Grace quickly unhooked the buttons before it ripped and he pulled it off.
“You want me for my expertise. I need to see what I have to work with.”
A whisper of wool gabardine landed in the corner somewhere. “This is a two-hundred-dollar suit, Agent Pierce.”
“You’ll have to cut the ‘agent’ crap. Call a man by his name.”
She felt the tug on the top button of her blouse before she saw his hand there. Grace swatted it away. “What do you think you’re doing—” she swallowed hard and forced herself to say his name “—Logan?”
“That’s better.” His hands returned, resuming their path down to her waist. “All of this has to go so I can assess what you’re asking of me. I’m all for getting Mitchell, but I don’t like impossible missions.”
“Impossible?”
Plain white cotton seemed no barrier for the man, either. He pushed the blouse down her arms and pulled it free of her waistband. It joined the jacket. In a self-conscious habit learned by the age of fourteen, she crossed her arms in front of her, laying her left hand on her right shoulder, her right hand at her waist, forming a shield of armor to mask every plump inch from an unkind word or critical eye.
His fingers moved to the zipper on her skirt.
Impossible, he’d said. That hurt. She had never flaunted her body. Not intentionally at any rate. Not once. She forced her mind away from the taunts and teasing of her adolescent peers. She shut down the memory of grown men leering at her, speaking to other parts of her anatomy instead of making eye contact.
At least Logan was denigrating her for the right reasons, not casting her aside as inconsequential because she’d managed to inherit one inescapable thing from her mother.
Make that two.
She was down to bra, half-slip, panties and hose before he pried her hands from their protective positions and spread her arms wide to either side of her.
Grace knew the exact moment when his gaze lit on her breasts. Though she couldn’t see his expression, she could imagine the surprise, maybe even admiration, and certainly interest that would cross his face.
Attached to a five-foot, five-inch body, a 40DD seemed to have that dumbing-down effect on a man.
Maybe he even noticed the ample hips, rounded to match, giving her body that out-of-date, out-of-place hourglass shape that had served her mother so well in the string of B-movies she’d starred in back in the 1970s.
That same shape that Grace had fought for years.
“I know I’m fat—”
“Fat?”
“—but there’s no way I can lose ten or twenty pounds in a week’s time. You’ll have to work with what’s here. If you’re willing to take the job, that is.”
Logan released her arms and she hugged herself again, praying the room’s rise in temperature was due to a faulty thermostat and not her own blushing skin.
“You’re worried about seducing a man with a body like that?”
“Yes! Why the hell else would I…”
The husky timbre of his voice registered. The low-pitched rumble skittered along her skin, raising goose bumps. His voice alone triggered the same electric switch that had left her body humming from his touch just moments earlier. Damn, she wished she could see his face. Was he calling her an idiot for not knowing how to use her mother’s gifts to full advantage? Or was there a note of promise in his tone that meant he was considering working with her?
“Does this mean you’ll be my partner?”
Above her own pounding heartbeat, his long-winded sigh was the only sound in the room. Grace squinted, trying to read his expression, trying to find out if that was a yes or a no. Though she could see his silhouette, he was just a big, broad blur to her eyesight.
“There are ten things I find sexy in a woman, Miss Lockhart—Grace. The first is when she looks me straight in the eye. You should write that down as rule number one in your little notebook.”
Grace began to hope. “Well, since you’ve conveniently taken my glasses and my notebook from me, there’s no way I can. And I asked you to call me Agent—”
Her words caught in a strangled gulp in her throat as Logan suddenly stepped into focus. That meant he was close enough to… The temperature went up another ten degrees. He was close enough…she could feel his measured breath stirring the tendrils of hair along her forehead. He was close… She was standing in her underwear and he was fully dressed. For decorum’s sake, she should move away.
And yet those steel-gray eyes ensnared her as if she was a helpless bird caught in his trap.
“Eye contact?” Oh, God, that quavering, wispy voice sounded so like her mother’s. “What are the other nine rules?”
He didn’t touch her, yet she could feel him. Their breaths mingled in a strangled heat. And she did her research. Up close like this, she could see the individual whiskers on his cheeks and jaw, dark little pinpricks that made her palms itch with curiosity to touch them.
Rule number one. Look a man in the eye.
She ran her gaze past the flat, flexing plateau of his lips and up beyond the slightly bent angle of his nose to those eyes. This close, she could see the silvery sunburst of color around his pupils, bewitching irises of dove-gray and steel and flint, rimmed by a darker shade of charcoal.
She’d never seen such beautiful eyes.
“Just like that,” he whispered, his words stirring a caress of air against her cheek.
Grace’s lungs expanded, as if just now remembering to breathe. The sudden intake of oxygen seemed to stir some coherent thought inside her brain.
“Does that mean you’re taking the assignment?”
“You’re going after Mitchell no matter what I say, aren’t you?”
Trapped by the unexpected warmth in those beautiful gray eyes, she could only nod.
“You’re clueless enough that somebody needs to watch your back.”
His shoulders shifted in her peripheral vision, and a moment later she felt the weight of silk-lined leather settling around her, enveloping her in Logan’s warmth and scent. She clutched his jacket together at her neck, but wondered if the tender gesture was the equivalent of another dismissive pat on the head.
“Will you be the one watching my back?”
He raked his gaze down along the swell of her breasts, giving her the distinct impression that he might be willing to watch even more. She pressed her lips together to quell the anticipation that raced through her, not trusting her ability to read a man’s thoughts.
“You have the raw materials to get the job done. But a rookie like you needs the best in the business to pull this off. You need me.”
There was less cocky arrogance in his statement than there was a reluctant acceptance of fact.
“So you’ll have me ready to go undercover by the end of the week…partner?”
“I won’t promise miracles. You still have nine rules to learn.” He pushed her glasses back onto her nose, plunging her back into plain-Jane obscurity and reminding her of the enormity of his task. “And don’t call me partner.”
WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT? The stunned question played through Logan’s mind again as he unpacked a second helmet from the back of his Harley-Davidson.
His body still ached from that torrid encounter back in the administration building with Grace. He thought he could scare her off from her foolish notion of going after Harris Mitchell. Knock some sense into that virginal determination of hers. But she’d been so soft to the touch, so responsive to his hands and mouth.
Teach her how to seduce a man?
She’d damn near seduced him.
And she didn’t even know it.
Grace Lockhart was deliberately disguising a national treasure. She was plain as a bucket until she lost her temper. But a little bit of makeup would get her noticed no matter her state of mind. She was blind as a bat, but contacts would help. She had soft hair with a tendency to curl that she controlled in an unflattering bun. A reputable salon would know what to do there.
But beneath that gray, shapeless suit—
Who’d have thought?
She might be the brainy strategist Carmody claimed, but she had inexperience written all over her. Sexual and professional. He had to make her smarter. Teach her survival skills. Teach her to mentally detach herself from a man’s touch when she was working undercover, to look at him with those liquid green orbs and make him think he had just given her the best sexual rush of her life.
A look like that could make a man think the cuddling and fondling and kissing they shared was the real thing.
Logan raked his fingers through his hair and struggled to find a similar detachment. He had five days to mold Grace Lockhart into a savvy, sexy field agent who could bring Harris Mitchell to his knees, and then walk away unscathed. Did he really think he could pull this off? Or was he just too afraid that nobody else understood the consequences of failure?
A sobering image of Roy Silverton’s bullet-ridden body blipped into his mind and reaffirmed his decision to take this assignment. He had to do this right. He hadn’t prepared Roy for every contingency. But he’d make double sure Grace knew how to take care of herself. How to think on her feet.
And what he couldn’t teach her, he’d take care of himself. He’d keep her alive.
To do that, he couldn’t let himself be distracted by the temptation of that goddesslike figure. He had to play this like a pro. Keep his mind focused on the mission. Keep Grace in one piece, not take her to his bed.
The scuff of her flat-heeled oxfords on the asphalt pavement announced her arrival long before she said a word.
“You’re joking, right?”
He watched her look down at the slim fit of her skirt and up at the back seat of his Harley. She thumbed over her shoulder toward the center of the parking lot. “My car’s just over there. We could take it to lunch, instead.”
“Sensible sedan, right?”
She nodded. “Safe. Good mileage—”
“We’ll requisition a new car for you. Something sporty. Red, I think.” Lustful thoughts of long blond hair blowing across the back seat of a red convertible eased the doom and gloom that had consumed him. A nice roomy back seat where…
“I would prefer blue. Or green.”
Logan opened his eyes and shook his head at her earnest expression. She’d rebuttoned her gray-suited armor up to her neck, and fastened her hair back into that tight little bun. She hadn’t even left any curling wisps free to soften her face. Instead, she’d added a functional black shoulder attaché to the outfit. Probably where she carried that ever-present notebook.
She just didn’t get it, did she? Men would salute that body of hers. Harris Mitchell would voluntarily go to prison for that body. He, personally, would sacrifice a well-earned vacation for the opportunity to know that body better—once he got her through this assignment.
He had to teach her to get comfortable with her fantasy-proportioned figure. To use it to her advantage.
Oh, yeah.
“Definitely red.”
Logan reached into his jeans and pulled out his pocketknife. Confused, distrusting perhaps, Grace took a step back when he knelt in front of her. “What are you—?” With a grasp and a twist, he slit the seam of her skirt. “Hey!”
He preferred that flash of fire in her cheeks to her usual pasty-faced demeanor.
“If you want to work undercover, you have to be willing to take risks. Willing to do what you don’t normally do. Willing to do whatever’s necessary to get the job done.” He punctuated his first bit of advice by ripping the seam of her skirt up to the hemline of her jacket.
“Oh, my God. You ruined it.”
Logan stood, smiled, put away his pocketknife, and enjoyed the twists and turns of her body as she struggled first to assess the damage, and then to tuck her slip up beneath the thigh-high slit. “Don’t worry, just make a note of it. The agency will reimburse you. C’mon.”
He put on his helmet, buckled the second one around the flushed fury of her face and climbed onto the Harley. When he had the engine purring smoothly beneath him, he extended his hand for Grace.
“I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”
He’d guessed as much. He steadied her while she tested one foothold and then another, finally climbing aboard as if it were a horse waiting to buck her off. She settled astride the seat, behind him, leaving a good five inches of space between them. “What do I do?”
Logan grinned. “Hold on, sweetheart.”
He could barely feel the pressure of her fingertips at his waist. Definitely not the way a sexy woman held on to her man. Time to teach her another lesson.
“Just hold on.”
He revved the engine and kicked it into gear, pulling the bike up to forty miles per hour before even reaching the security gate. By the time he had her on the highway cruising toward New York City, Grace had become a second skin to him, her face buried in the middle of his back and her arms cinched around his middle. He glanced down at her white-knuckled grasp on his belt buckle.
Oh, yeah.
Between her body and his guilty conscience, the next five days were going to be one hell of a ride.
3
GRACE WATCHED Logan slip twenty dollars to the maître d’. “Is the agency going to pick up the tab for that, too?”
Logan smiled at her sarcasm and urged her along in front of him.
Despite his casual attire and her torn skirt, they were seated in the center of the plush Willingham Hotel restaurant, amid tables filled with businessmen and women dressed more appropriately and impeccably in suits. Keenly conscious of several curious stares, Grace opened her menu and hid her face behind it.
Once their arrival became old news and the patrons returned to their own conversations, she slapped the menu shut and leaned forward. “What the hell are we doing here?”
Logan had unzipped his jacket and sprawled back in his chair. With his long legs hidden beneath the white linen tablecloth, he sipped on a glass of water topped with a twist of lime. “I believe it’s called lunch.”
“I said I was happy to eat at the hot dog vendor’s down on the corner.”
At the snap of her whisper, Logan set down his glass and leaned forward, as annoyingly relaxed in their posh surroundings as she was self-conscious. “Hot dogs are a whole other lesson. You want to seduce a big-time crime lord. So we have to learn the big-time lessons first. Mitchell’s got money out the wazoo. You’re going to have to look like you’re at home in places like this.” His eyes lit with amusement at her expense. “So far you’re not doing very well, Gracie.”
She stiffened at the nickname, hearing the cutesy, belittling appellation like a hundred bad memories slapping her in the face. “Never call me Gracie. I am a twenty-six-year-old professional law enforcement officer. Grace or Agent Lockhart will do just fine.”
He patted the air with his hands, placating her. “Don’t be so eager to defend yourself. Keep your temper. Grace, it is.”
At least he’d allow her that one smidgen of respect. She had a feeling she’d have to swallow plenty of pride before this mission was accomplished. She pulled out her steno pad and opened it to the page where she’d listed ten numbers.
“Is that one of your rules?” She clicked her mechanical pencil and prepared to write. “Play it cool? I can do that.”
He reached across the table and stilled her hand. Sensing her instinct to jerk away from the personal contact, his long, calloused fingers wrapped around hers, pencil and all, trapping her in a vise of velvet and steel. Short of stabbing him with a fork or screaming her head off, she was his prisoner.
She shot him as damning a glance as she could muster through her glasses.
“Control, Grace.” Logan shook his finger at her like the recalcitrant pupil she was. “I’m talking about control. A man likes the challenge of breaking that control. You want to be his match, not easy pickings. He wants to earn his reward.”
Something about the softly articulated movement of his lips distracted her from the need to assert herself. The husky pitch of his voice, whispered for her ears alone, seeped inside her like a promise.
She heard her voice in the same soft whisper. “What’s your reward in all this?”
“Walking away from this assignment with you in one piece.”
“I can handle myself.”
Without blinking, those silvery eyes fixed on hers, capturing her curiosity, demanding her attention. Logan pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Grace jumped in her chair, shocked by the bubbling heat that simmered beneath the firm, warm pressure of his lips against her pulse. The whiskers on his chin abraded an apparently sensitive patch of skin there, sending out thousands of tiny little aftershocks in the kiss’s wake.
What surprised her more though, was the lingering, languid warmth that seemed to turn her arm into molten putty, rendering it useless. Rendering her useless for the time being.
“If you can’t handle this, you can’t handle Mitchell.”
“What? Oh.” Grace pulled her hand away and tucked it beneath her napkin in her lap, subconsciously hiding the betraying appendage until she could gather the good sense to compensate for such a mind-numbing reaction to a simple kiss.
Logan settled back and nodded toward her notebook. “You’d better write that down, too. Rule number three. Know your erogenous zones. But don’t tell a man where all of them are. He likes the thrill of discovering some for himself.”
The discovery part hadn’t been all that bad for her, either. She was honest enough to chart that bit of research in her memory. But, good God, it was just a kiss! The world hadn’t shattered beneath her feet. She’d seen no fireworks. After all, men and women had been kissing for centuries, eons, in fact. No need to make a big deal of it. He hadn’t even touched her mouth, just a silly little nibble on her wrist.
She quickly jotted down seduction rules numbers two and three—stay in control; know erogenous zones—embarrassed to admit that, though the earth hadn’t swallowed her up whole, she had, for a few moments, lost all capacity for rational thought. Logan had a point. If she couldn’t stay focused in Harris Mitchell’s company, she wouldn’t be able to plant the computer virus that would expose all his contacts. And she’d be endangering both her and Logan’s cover.
In an act of self-preservation, she quickly turned to the front of her steno pad and wrote a word at the top of the first page.
Research.
Only, she went back to add, in capital letters. No sense getting confused by the education process. Logan was teaching her what she needed to know about working undercover. She was the student who needed to know about catching Harris Mitchell’s eye, winning his trust, and becoming part of his organization. This was research.
This wasn’t real.
Getting trapped in those silvery eyes, collapsing after a kiss on the wrist or a sweep of Logan’s tongue against her neck—none of that was real.
She caught a glimpse of her torn skirt. What was left of her self-righteous anger deflated in a heartbeat. She was Grace Lockhart, frumpy computer nerd. She’d spent her formative years developing her brain and a defensive suit of armor to compensate for the developing shape of her body and a fear of repeating her mother’s mistakes.
Logan Pierce was a secret-agent hero. A handsome, dangerous man who could have any woman he wanted around the world.
She was a curiosity, perhaps. One of those challenges he said men liked. He might even be intrigued by the outrageous proposal to turn her into a seductress. But no way could she be on his list of desirable women. No way.
She went back to the Research Only note and added five exclamation points and a handful of stars.
GRACE HAD JUST POLISHED off her grilled chicken and mushroom pasta when she heard the voice.
“Gracie!” That high-pitched, whispery voice managed to carry across the entire restaurant. “Gracie, darling!”
Her fork clattered on her plate and she scanned the room for the nearest exit.
“Friend of yours?” Logan set his napkin on the table beside his coffee.
“Not exactly.”
Though she’d already been spotted, she nevertheless tried to shield her face behind her hand.
But the woman would have found her one way or the other. Something about a special bond she claimed they shared.
She felt a hug around her shoulders and a kiss on her cheek. Automatically, Grace wiped the spot with her napkin, knowing there would be a splotch of crimson lipstick.
Odd, she thought, when she looked at her napkin. Pale pink.
“Honey. Aren’t you going to get up and give me a hug?”
The different shade of lipstick had thrown her enough to respond without thinking—the way she had when she was a child.
“Mother.” She stood and hugged the woman she matched physically, inch for inch, although the outside trappings were considerably different.
Mimsey Lockhart leaned back and held Grace’s hands. “I never thought I’d run into you in the city today. What a glorious coincidence.”
“May I get an introduction?” Grace recognized a touch of more-than-polite interest in Logan’s husky voice.
“Mother. This is Agent Logan Pierce. My mother—Mimsey Lockhart.”
“Delighted to meet you.” His dangerous charm turned on to full magnetism was practically blinding. He clasped Mimsey’s hand between his and lifted it to his lips. Grace caught her breath.
He kissed her mother’s hand! Not quite the way he had kissed her wrist, but still… Grace averted her face, ashamed to recognize a stab of jealousy. She quickly derailed the emotion by remembering two things. Logan was a natural charmer. If he didn’t have the ability to please all the ladies, she wouldn’t have requested him for this assignment.
And, second, she knew that beaming smile on her mother’s face could have been achieved with considerably less than a kiss on the hand.
“Won’t you sit down?” Oh, God, had Logan really invited her mother to join them?
Grace shot him a look across the table. “We were just leaving.”
“No, we weren’t.” Logan absorbed her subtle plea for help with a smile of feigned innocence. “We haven’t finished our coffee.”
“Who needs coffee?” she muttered between clenched teeth. “The caffeine’s bad for us.”
Ignoring her not-so-subtle hint, he pulled out a chair and Mimsey perched on the edge. “I can’t stay long, anyway. Grant’s checking into the hotel and then he’s taking me down to his new theater.”
Logan sat, angling his body toward Mimsey, a gesture of interest and acceptance that irked Grace. “Grant?” he asked.
“Grant Stewart.” Mimsey patted her platinum coiffure and turned to Grace. “You remember him from our California days, don’t you, dear?”
What had he been, paramour two? Seven? Twenty?
But Mimsey hadn’t really been expecting an answer, so she turned back to Logan. “Grant’s a producer, mostly Hollywood stuff. But he’s expanding into the New York theater scene now. He’s putting together an off-Broadway play, and is thinking about casting me in the role of the aunt.” She reached for Grace’s hand and squeezed it. The excitement playing over Mimsey’s painted features was contagious. Almost.
“Congratulations,” Grace offered, but couldn’t help remembering all the other promises made to her mother and broken over the years. “I hope it works out for you.”
“Imagine.” Mimsey’s green eyes lit with the sparkle of hope. “A legitimate stage play, after all these years. That’s how I started my career, you know. Long before you were born.”
“That’s where I know you.” Logan snapped his fingers and diverted Mimsey’s attention. “The Ants That Ate Metropolis. The Beast from Beneath the Sea. You’re that Mimsey Lockhart.”
Seriously? He knew her mother’s movies?
Grace watched in horror as her mother’s fan-club personality emerged.
“Is there any other?” Mimsey laughed, her beautiful smile undimmed by fifty years of flamboyant living. She clutched a modest hand to the plunging décolletage of her pink suit. “I’m flattered you remember those old flicks.”
“Are you kidding?” Was Logan’s enthusiasm for real? Or was this all part of the act that made him irresistible to women? “Sci-fi Sundays were a staple in the old neighborhood. I grew up thinking I could save the world, too. Maybe that’s part of why I went into law enforcement.”
“That’s so sweet.”
Grace had to give her mother credit. She’d never become the actress she’d aspired to be, but she was always proud of the work she’d done. Those monster flicks had put food on the table and given her a place to go when one lover after another abandoned her for younger, easier—childless—fare.
“Mimsey?”
A tall, polished man with jet-black hair touched by gray at the temples joined them at the table.
Did Grace detect a subtle change in her mother’s smile? “Grant, darling, you remember my daughter, Gracie.”
“Of course.” He took her hand and offered a slight bow. “It’s been too many years. You’re looking well.”
Not pretty, not sexy. Well.
Ah, yes, Mimsey stirred hormones, turned heads. Grace looked…well. Like a healthy horse or a well-seeded lawn. Maybe Logan’s mission was impossible, after all. Maybe she had no business trying to prove herself as a competent agent by taking on an eccentric crime lord.
It required every bit of strength she had to look him in the eye and dredge up a smile. “Mr. Stewart. It’s good to see you again.”
“I’m taking Mimsey down to the theater to introduce her to the director personally. Then I have a meeting with some financial backers. Perhaps you could join us for dinner later?”
“Uh, no. Thank you.” She had to take her mother in short spurts, and allow herself plenty of time to recover for the next encounter. She excused herself on an easy white lie. “Agent Pierce and I are working together on a special project.”
“’Round the clock,” Logan added. Her gaze shot across the table and clashed with the terminal amusement in his soft gray eyes. Grace’s cheeks blazed with heat. After all these years in her mother’s company, she should have picked up a few tricks on how to handle a man’s teasing. But no, she’d been busy learning calculus and studying the history of modern warfare instead.
“Another time, perhaps. Pierce.” The two men shook hands. “Grace.” He nodded politely and pulled out Mimsey’s chair.
Before Grace could stand, Mimsey had leaned over her and wrapped her in a tight, maternal hug. Grace gave in to the urge to return the hug, missing those days of innocence when she hadn’t worried about her mother being taken advantage of by men interested more in her breast size than her heart or career.
But Mimsey was independent as ever. Her conspiratorial whisper tickled Grace’s ear. “That Logan’s a keeper, honey. Maybe this FBI gig is working out better than we thought.”
“Mother—”
But Mimsey was gone in a whirl of drama before Grace could launch a proper protest.
Lost between dazed and fuming, she didn’t notice that Logan had moved to the chair beside her until his hand covered hers where it fisted in her lap.
“At ease, Agent Lockhart.” Unwittingly her fingers turned and clutched at his supportive hand. “Embarrassed by Mimsey, are we?”
“Worried about her. She doesn’t always make the best choices. I hope Grant’s sincere in wanting to help her.”
He leaned closer, close enough for the scent of the tangy gel he used in his hair to tease her nose. “You don’t have to live in her shadow, you know.”
He was close enough that she could have seen him without her glasses. But, for once, she was very grateful to have that barrier between them. “What are you talking about?”
“You could learn a lesson from your mother.”
Grace frowned. “What lesson?”
“Rule number four. Sex appeal is all about attitude.”
“What does that mean?”
“Decide that you’re sexy. Once you believe it, everyone around you will, too.”
Without a doubt her mother was sexy. The woman knew what she had and she used it to her advantage. Mimsey Lockhart had learned all about being sexy.
But all Grace had ever wanted was for Mimsey to learn how to be her mother.
LOGAN CLOSED the fashion magazine and slumped on the couch of the department store fitting room, wondering how much more of this Pygmalion stuff he could take. The store could at least provide some male reading while he waited. Anything with fishing rods or pitching stats would be appreciated. He needed something to distract his overworked imagination from creating pImages** of Grace behind the closed door at the end of the hallway, stripping naked and trying on the wardrobe of clothes the salesclerk had selected for her.
He’d been intrigued by Grace’s request to turn her into a seductress. But it had taken those big green eyes of hers, staring up at him with trust and innocence, to trigger a protective impulse and make him say yes to working as her partner.
He’d tried scaring her away from this suicide mission with some crass behavior—the kind Mitchell might throw her way. But it had backfired on him. Badly. She’d responded to his forward touches as if they’d been lovers. As if she’d known exactly the way he liked a woman to respond to him.
She’d battled words with him, proving that intellectual moxie she kept bragging about.
He’d met her mother, saw the potential for the beautiful woman Grace could become.
He’d tortured himself all afternoon and into the evening, watching the transformation take place.
After fitting her for contact lenses, they’d taken a trip to a salon where a man named Miguel had cut her hair into a riot of sexy, chin-length curls, and then highlighted the whole beckoning array to bring out bright gold and soft strawberry shades. Miguel’s friend Bruce had made up her face in a palette of soft colors that emphasized the emerald richness of her eyes and the sensuous pout of her lips.
And now—Logan inhaled deeply and silently cursed the partial arousal that had been with him on and off throughout the day—she’d been parading past him in a variety of outfits that reflected every mood from professional to fun to provocative.
“Logan? Do you think I’ll really need something like this?”
Grace’s sinfully seductive voice interrupted his thoughts and wound into his fantasies. When he looked up at this latest in a long line of outfits, he wished he still had that magazine to pull over his lap.
The woman had the survival skills of a turnip.
She stood in front of him, wearing nothing more than some sort of slip thing and a doubtful expression.
“It’s called a bra-slip. The clerk suggested I wear it with that evening gown I tried on earlier. I could save some money, though, and wear one of my own slips with a strapless bra.” Though he heard her explanation, he paid more attention to the movements of her hands. She cupped the sides of her breasts and pushed them forward, nearly spilling the satiny globes over the tiny strips of ivory silk and lace that cradled them. “The top doesn’t give me much support, anyway.”
Logan stood, fatigue and frustration and a sudden rigid strain in his jeans overriding patience and good intentions.
She needed to have that piece of lingerie. She very definitely needed to have it.
But Harris Mitchell didn’t need to see it.
And no man who accidentally wandered past the dressing room’s waiting area needed to see it, either.
Logan snatched Grace’s arms above the elbows and turned her back to her dressing room.
“Don’t you have a lick of common sense?” he asked, pushing her into the closet-size area and pulling the door shut behind him. “You can’t go parading around in something like this.”
“I thought you wanted to approve all the changes I’ve made. I’m sorry. Did I embarrass you?”
Logan sputtered. Was she really that naive? “It’s perfect. It’s sexy. It’s gorgeous.”
She folded her arms across her chest, hiding her bounty in self-conscious shame as she had that morning. “It’s just a piece of underwear—”
“No.” He pressed a finger over her lips, silencing her apology. “Rule number five. Never explain away a man’s compliment.”
“But—”
“Say thank you,” he ordered, trying not to react to the brush of her lips on his sensitive fingertip. “You’ve turned into a real knockout, Agent Lockhart.” Her shoulders lifted and her eyes swelled with protest, but he shushed her again. “What do you say?”
“Fank oo?” He pulled his finger back and let her try again. That same vulnerability that had sucker punched him into taking this assignment in the first place darkened her eyes. “You really think I’m a knockout?”
He let his gaze sweep the three mirrors in the dressing room, catching her in that slip from every delectable angle. He’d seen garments that showed less of a woman—garter belts, bustiers, thongs. But there was something incredibly appealing about the demure silk molding to her curves, stopping at her thighs and creating a shadowy cleft between her legs. Something wonderfully enticing about a swath of lace barely hiding the pink areolae at the tips of her breasts. Something about that creamy expanse of bare skin across her shoulders just a shade darker than the ivory silk straps that held the whole confection up.
“Oh, yeah. So much so that I’m going to treat myself to one of my favorite lessons. I’m going to kiss you.”
He touched her with just his lips, bending down and capturing her startled “Oh” with his mouth. She tasted sweet and potent, just like the creamy coffee she’d had on their dinner break. It was a gentle mating, and he held back the urge to plunder her mouth. Her lips moved shyly, as if testing the whole idea of kissing. A true researcher, Logan observed in heady amusement.
He clenched his hands into fists at his sides, trying to remember that this woman was his job partner, not his bedmate. He was supposed to teach her, not take her. Her hesitant, though willing, response should remind him of that fact.
But he couldn’t resist. A lock of her hair got caught between their mouths and he had to brush it away. Then he tunneled his fingers into the springy softness of her hair and stepped closer, angling her head back to receive the full advantage of his kiss.
“Just a second.” Grace’s hips backed away. His fingers were still tangled in her hair as she reached for something behind her. She came up with that damn notebook, flipped it open to a blank page, and clicked her mechanical pencil. Twice. “I want to know how to do this just right.”
“Grace—”
She tipped her face back to his and puckered her lips. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Damn the woman. Maybe she could frustrate Harris Mitchell into surrendering to the authorities.
Logan tightened his grip at the nape of her neck and pulled her up onto her toes. He kissed her again, harder this time, plunging in and stroking the soft skin inside her mouth with his tongue. He kept his eyes open, demanding she look at him. When he touched his tongue to hers, she did. Green eyes snapped at gray. He circled her tongue…suckled…angled his mouth to do any number of delightful things to hers.
When he came up for air, she ran her tongue along her lips and then pressed them together, tasting and savoring the new sensations they’d created together.
Or so he thought.
“Hold on.” This damn research was hard on a man’s ego. At least she had the decency to be short of breath. Her hand shook as she tried to write.
Logan smiled. Maybe this kiss wasn’t just about research anymore.
He nuzzled the side of her neck, ran his tongue down to that exquisite nerve bundle along her collarbone until he found the spot that made her shiver. “Put down the notebook.”
Grace pushed at his chin, turning his gaze up to meet hers. “I want to learn how to kiss.”
“I want to teach you.”
The steno pad hit the floor with a thunk as Logan lifted her hands around his neck. She arched into him as he skimmed his palms down her sides, cupped her ripe, round bottom and lifted her up to his mouth and his heat. She opened her mouth, giving all that he asked of her and more, and he seized her offering.
He came back to fill his hands with her generous breasts. He pushed them together the way she had earlier and buried his face between them. He tasted the salty tang of sweat deep in her cleavage, inhaled the delicate scent of the rare fragrance she wore.
“Touch me, Grace,” he commanded on a breathless whisper, capturing a beaded peak in his mouth through lace and silk. She groaned in her throat, and as he laved the responsive bud with his tongue, the groan became a purr that vibrated through him, that teased his loins and made him impossibly hard with want. “Touch me.”
“I’ve only done this kind of thing once.” Her fingers flailed against the collar of his jacket, even as her lips scudded across his temple and found the sensitive shell of his ear. “I don’t know how.”
“Any way you want.”
He was drunk with passion by the time she’d pushed his jacket off his shoulders and worked his shirt free of his jeans. She bunched up the material in her hands, tugged it behind the holster that hung from his shoulder, exposing his chest and torso to her curious quest. Her hands scorched him with their searching. A delicate brush of a fingertip here. An outright grab there.
He ground his hips into hers, amazed at how quickly, how thoroughly, this prude-turned-seductress had aroused him. She didn’t need any lessons on how to seduce a man. She was a natural. A prodigy.
“Miss Lockhart?” Three sharp raps on the dressing-room door brought Logan up short. “The store is closing in fifteen minutes. If you like, I could start ringing up your selections.”
The salesclerk’s friendly voice intruded from the outside world. Logan tore his mouth from Grace’s. He breathed silently through pursed lips so as not to reveal his presence, and pressed the palm of his hand against Grace’s mouth, keeping her ragged breathing from giving them away.
He tried to collect his thoughts, but the image looking back at him from three different angles made him wonder just how far he would have gone before he realized he had completely botched this mission. His knee was wedged between Grace’s thighs. He had the ivory slip hiked up to the waistband of her panties. The straps dangled loosely in the crook of her elbows, leaving her breasts bare and beautiful from every conceivable view. Her hands were lost inside his shirt, her mouth red and swollen with his kisses—and the whole scene was reflected in the dressing-room mirrors.
“Is everything all right?” Now the clerk sounded vaguely concerned.
Logan slowly pulled his hand away and mouthed the words, “Say something to get rid of her.”
“What should I say?” she mouthed back.
He tilted his head and glared at her.
Grace shrank away from the hard look. She pulled the slip straps back over her shoulders and covered herself, but finally responded to the message. “I’m fine,” she said in a loud, surprisingly clear voice. “I’ll be out in just a minute. Thank you.”
After the clerk left, Logan shook his head. “That’s the fastest you can think on your feet?”
Her unshielded eyes swelled with something more than embarrassment at being caught in a compromising position. “Is that what this was? A test?”
“No.” He was too honest to tell her otherwise. He swiped his fingers through his hair, literally and figuratively trying to straighten the mess he’d made of their professional relationship. “But there’s a hell of a lot more to working undercover than just looking the part.”
“I know that. I might be naive, but I’m not an idiot.”
He tucked in his clothes and backed himself up to the door. No. He was the only idiot here. She’d crossed her arms in front of her, but stood straight in that proud yet vulnerable stance he’d gotten to know so well today.
“Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on covert weaponry. And we’ll work on some self-defense tactics.”
His aching groin and shredded sense of self-preservation mocked the cool authority in his voice. He’d known this assignment would be trouble from the start, and he’d already blown it big time by losing his objectivity to a case of carnal lust.
“Fine. Would you step out so I can get dressed, please?”
He closed the door and headed back to his lonesome spot on the couch.
“Definitely need to work on self-defense.”
4
AUTUMN IN NEW YORK be damned. The September humidity was wreaking havoc on both her hairdo and her mood.
For the umpteenth time, Grace pushed an annoying curl out of her eyes. Useless. Absolutely useless. Just what was the advantage of this new hairstyle, anyway?
Surrendering to the forces of nature, she let the curls fall where they may and knocked on the door of the town house. She’d come all the way to New Jersey by subway and cab, thinking the trip would be less wearing than sitting in morning traffic for two hours.
Ha!
She pulled out her steno pad and made an entry reminding herself that unless she had proof the public transport’s air-conditioning systems were working, she would rely solely on herself for transportation.
Her watch already registered 9:15 a.m. She was late, to boot. She leaned back and double-checked that she did, indeed, have the right address before knocking again. Then she used those few moments of time to bemoan that she had natural curl in her hair, and that no matter how many products Miguel recommended she use, it was going to kink up into an unruly mess until the humidity dropped below fifty percent.
If only she hadn’t spent so much time on her hair this morning. If only she’d gotten up sooner. If only she’d been able to get a decent night’s sleep.
But no, pImages** of Logan’s steely-gray eyes had haunted her dreams, laughing at her at first, then looking at her in ways she didn’t fully understand. She’d woken up more than once with her mouth open, panting hard, remembering the feel of his mouth on hers. The unique taste of his lips, hard and soft, hot and sweet, all at once.
And once, near three o’clock in the morning, she found herself wrapped around her pillow, rubbing against it, squeezing it tight between her thighs, her body straining for the memory of something it had never found.
She’d gotten up and showered then, but quickly discovered that the warm pinpricks of water reminded her too much of the fiery scrape of Logan’s whiskers across her skin. Sensitizing her, seducing her.
His body seemed to be hard wherever hers was soft. And the shape of him had been completely different from hers. Enticingly male, while she’d felt, oh, so terribly, wonderfully female.
But she hadn’t known what to do. She hadn’t known what he wanted from her. She scarcely knew what she wanted for herself.
Only that she shouldn’t want it.
This distracting, confusing, consuming obsession with Logan had to stop. Or she’d never get any work done.
That meant she’d never capture Harris Mitchell. She’d never earn the respect she deserved. She’d never get a second chance to bring down a user who was so much like those men who had abused her mother’s trusting heart.
As a child, she hadn’t been able to help Mimsey. But she could now. She could help all the innocents who’d been taken advantage of by greedy, self-serving egomaniacs. If she didn’t do this, she’d always be frumpy Grace Lockhart, spinster computer geek, second-rate shadow of her halfway-famous mother.
It was a mighty sad epitaph.
But ten life-changing lessons from Logan could turn her into a knowledgeable woman of the world who understood how to use her body as well as her brain to lure Harris Mitchell into her clutches, and straight to prison.
She hated depending on anyone else though. Any other project, she could take a class or read a book, make herself the expert she needed to be. But not this sexy thing.
She needed a man to learn that.
She needed Logan.
But, oh, Lord, she didn’t want to need him. For her work or her fantasies.
Fantasies?
Rule number five in the ladies’ dressing room last night had nearly undone her.
“Oh, God,” she whispered out loud as her body heated all over again at the very thought of what lessons six through ten on Logan’s list might entail.
Grace breathed in deeply, desperate now to regain some semblance of decorum. The hot, moist air didn’t help cool the frustration broiling within her.
She raised her fist to pound at the door once more. “Damn you, Logan Pierce.”
Her fist never hit the wood. Instead, she got caught in the quick reflexes of Logan’s hand, mere inches from his naked chest. “Good morning to you, too.”
“I might have known you’d oversleep.” There. She sounded justifiably ticked off. Dignified even.
If only she’d quit staring at the broad expanse of skin lightly dusted with coffee-dark hair that curled over well-defined muscles and faded into a narrow vee before veering in a straight line down beneath the unhooked snap of his jeans.
Maybe then she could manage to look a little dignified, too.
Grace tugged her hand away, more angry with herself for her adolescent gawking than for any tardiness on his part. But anger was an easy emotion to latch on to. Far easier than trying to decipher the tightening of unseen muscles low in her belly.
“We’re down to four days of training. I thought we’d agreed to an early start.”
“I’m coming off forty-eight hours without any sleep. I needed to catch up.” He turned away and walked on into the house, expecting her to follow. “If your highness can spare me another fifteen minutes, I’ll hit the shower and grab some breakfast.”
As he walked away from her, she noticed he had a shape remarkably similar to that of a lean, muscular T-bone steak. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, narrow hips.
Men and women were so utterly different, she observed.
And Logan was different from any man she’d known.
Maybe only because he was giving her a chance to do research with him, to study those differences in details. Straight lines and rounded curves…
“Coming?”
Fine-tuning her powers of observation, she also noted that his deep voice lacked any trace of the indulgent patience and charm he’d had in such abundant supply yesterday.
Grace shut the door and hurried after him. “Is everything all right?”
She backpedaled to avoid plowing into him when he suddenly stopped and spun around.
“First, no conversation before coffee in the morning.”
He turned and headed up a half flight of stairs, leaving Grace standing at the bottom. “What’s the second thing?” she called after him.
He disappeared around the corner and a door slammed shut.
“Logan?”
The sound of running water provided her only answer.
So where was the irresistible lady-killer who had kissed her senseless and haunted her dreams? Where was the legendary agent who brought down smuggling rings almost single-handedly?
Who was this sexy, rumpled grumpy-butt who refused to even talk to her?
Four days and counting. Maybe infiltrating Harris Mitchell’s ladies-only workforce was an impossible mission, after all.
Left alone without any direction, Grace gave herself a tour of the main floor of the town house. As far as housekeeping went, Logan was the one who could use some training. And the place was sparsely furnished to the point of being ascetic. A leather couch and maple entertainment center with a TV and VCR were the only furniture in the main room. He didn’t even have a lamp to read by.
She dropped her attaché onto the couch beside a pile of laundry and, needing something to do to pass the time, began to fold. The towels were easy. Then came the jeans.
It felt almost naughty to straighten and fold the soft denim. Smoothing the wrinkles out of the considerable length of leg. Pressing her hand over the rear pockets and running her fingers along the same material that cupped his buttocks. Zipping up the front where…
Grace cleared her throat and snatched her hands away, feeling as embarrassed as if she’d been caught snooping through his things. She set the last pair on top of the pile and moved on to the safer territory of the kitchen.
“Yeesh.” Apparently secret-agent school didn’t include any classes on health codes. Stacks of takeout trash, from flat pizza boxes to folding Chinese food cartons, littered the countertops.
She went to the first box and pried a fork from the graying contents. Hadn’t Logan said he’d been away on an assignment? Surely he hadn’t left these things sitting here all that time. And wouldn’t a man who had as many conquests as he reportedly did have at least one woman willing to clean up after him?
Scrounging a garbage bag from under the sink, Grace made quick work of all the trash. She had coffee brewing in a freshly scrubbed pot, and utensils running in the dishwasher by the time Logan walked into the kitchen.
She rinsed her hands in the sink and was drying them with a towel before either of them spoke.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Just cleaning up a bit. I didn’t know how long you’d be. I waited until your shower was done before turning on the dishwasher.” She noted his clean-shaven jaw, exposing an angular stretch of tanned, smooth skin. Idly she wondered how it would feel against her cheek compared to yesterday’s more dangerous look.
“This is all a little too domestic for me.” He already had his black leather holster strapped across his shoulders. He tucked in his New York Yankees T-shirt and scanned the kitchen. “Is that real coffee there?”
Grace nodded. “I found some in the cabinet. It’s past its expiration date, but I don’t think—”
Any explanation proved superfluous. Logan pulled a mug from the cupboard and poured himself a cup, even before it finished brewing. The dripping coffee popped and sizzled as it hit the hot plate and spattered onto the counter.
She picked up the dishcloth and moved toward the mess. “I just cleaned that—”
“Not a word.” He carried the mug to his lips and savored the first sip.
“I was just helping out. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Are you here to catch a crook or to play house?”
Grace absorbed his rudeness by transforming it into sarcasm. “Sor-ry. I thought you might appreciate some civilized behavior since you seem to be in such short supply yourself.” She slapped the dishcloth in the sink and left the room. In a way, she was glad he’d been so curt with her. It made it a hell of a lot easier to knock him off that obsessive fantasy pedestal she’d elevated him to last night.
Some sexy man-god. He could be as rude and ungrateful as any of her mother’s lovers had been.
She picked up her attaché and slung the strap over her shoulder. Grumpy, she could handle. She’d even forgive him for not appreciating her help.
But to question her commitment to this case?
Grace was fuming by the time she reached the door. She flung it open, eager to welcome the heat and humidity outside. It would be a damn sight cooler than the resentment building up inside her right now.
A vise clamped around her wrist. Logan pulled her back inside and slammed the door shut. She whipped around, fist raised, her heel aimed at the instep of his foot. He shuffled his feet and avoided her punch, pinning her to the door in a deft move that made her feel like an amateur.
His big hands pressed her shoulders into the wood behind her as he threw her off balance by wedging one leg between both of hers—a mockery of the embrace they’d shared last night.
Trapped in this position, with her breasts thrusting out toward his chest, and that ultrasensitive feminine spot at the juncture of her thighs balanced like a fulcrum atop his knee, she felt exposed and vulnerable. The layers of blouse and suit she wore didn’t help. His heated gaze swept across her breasts like the caress of his hands, and that feminine spot tingled in response.
But his moody silence demanded she ignore both her self-conscious fears and her body’s unexpected reaction to their brief struggle. She looked up into those deep gray eyes, darkened now to the color of fierce summer storm clouds. “Let’s start this conversation again. Only this time, you tell me why you’re so upset.”
“Upset?” He laughed. But it was an unpleasant sound that rasped deep in his throat. “‘Teach me how to seduce a man.’ Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?”
The crisp line of his mouth moved with damning precision. But his soft, dark voice caused her more confusion than fear.
She kept her own voice hushed and even when she answered. “I’m going after Harris Mitchell. You tried to change my mind yesterday and it didn’t work. It won’t work today, either.”
“We’ll see.”
He eyed her a moment longer, held her prisoner in the same arms that had held her so tenderly the night before. And then he released her. Her heels hit the floor. She adjusted her clothes against her sensitized skin before following his determined stride at a more cautious pace.
On the way to the kitchen, Logan pulled a large envelope from the entertainment console and plunked it down on the table. “This was delivered earlier this morning.”
She recognized the courier’s logo, and the return address of Commander Carmody’s office. So she hadn’t been the first to awaken him. “What is it?” she asked.
“What the hell are you thinking, going after this guy? He’s a freak.”
Grace reached for her glasses in an unconscious habit. But her nervous fingers brushed against an unadorned cheek. “Excuse me?”
“Harris Mitchell.” He thumbed through the dossier on Mitchell’s background. Pages and pages of allegations. Eye-witness testimony that had been tossed out of court because the eye witnesses kept disappearing or recanting their stories. It had taken her weeks to pull all that information together. He’d read through it in a single morning?
She dropped her attaché into a chair and stood straight, defending her hard work. “If you’ve read his file, then you can see why he has to be stopped. He runs a multimillion-dollar money-laundering business. He’s strengthening the positions of several different mob factions and bypassing the entire Internal Revenue system. You understand why we have to do this, don’t you?”
“Understand?” He jabbed the stack of papers, then he pointed that same finger at her. “Look, Gracie, I thought we were playing a game here. Teaching you a few tricks so you could go after a standard-issue hoodlum. But Mitchell’s serious business.”
“I know that. Don’t call me Gracie—”
“The man’s nickname is Mr. Clean. And it’s not because he showers twice a day. His loose ends wind up in the city dump, which is where you’ll be if he even suspects you’re an undercover agent. And I haven’t even started on all the kinky stuff in his file.”
Grace planted her hands on her hips and swelled with indignant fury. She wasn’t an idiot. She had no delusions about Harris Mitchell being an easy case. “So he’s a dangerous man. The FBI doesn’t put pool hustlers on their Most Wanted list. I’ll be careful.”
“You’ll be dead. You’re a rookie. A walking disaster waiting to happen. This guy is slick and smart and expecting trouble. Carmody must be out of his mind to send you after him.”
“Disaster?” Defensive anger swelled inside her, pushing its way past the self-doubts, past the need to prove herself to a world that refused to take her seriously. “I earned this assignment. I came up with the plan. It’s my computer program that’s going to find his second set of books and flush out all his contacts. It’s my strategy. I’ve done my homework.”
“On paper.” He plowed his fingers through his short-cropped hair and paced the kitchen, shaking his head as if the idea of her succeeding was incomprehensible. “Sure, your numbers look good. You can download his files and corrupt his system so all his little minions come out of the woodwork to find him. Well guess what, sweetheart? He doesn’t want that to happen.” He stopped abruptly and faced off over the table, leaning toward her in a way that made her curl her toes inside her pumps to keep from retreating.
“If he finds out you’re a Fed, you’re dead.”
Grace resisted the self-preserving need to look away from the accusatory gleam in those piercing silver eyes. “Then it’s up to you to make sure I don’t screw up.”
“You’re not going.”
“I’m not Roy Silverton. And sticking me behind a desk won’t bring him back.”
Logan froze as if she had slapped him. His cheeks flushed with color. It was a cruel reminder, she knew, but she had enough obstacles of her own to overcome without having to compete with the memory of a dead man.
She gentled her voice to reason with Logan. “It didn’t matter that Roy was on his first field assignment. You couldn’t have foreseen what was waiting for him on that dock. I’m sorry. But a seasoned agent would have been slain, too.”
“And that’s supposed to reassure me?” Logan stood straight and tall again, dismissing her argument. And her compassion. “I’ll take this up with Carmody. If anyone’s going after Mitchell, it’s going to be me.”
Logan strode from the kitchen. He pulled on his leather jacket, expecting her to obey his pronouncement like a good little girl.
Grace did one better. She grabbed her bag and circled the room, blocking his path before he reached the door. The man couldn’t argue with cold, hard logic.
“Afraid you can’t do that, Agent Pierce. You lack the necessary credentials for the job.”
“Credentials? Like what?”
She looked down at her chest, which he had studied so thoroughly only minutes ago, then back up at him. “Forty, twenty-eight, thirty-eight.”
“Take your forty, twenty-eight, thirty-eight and get in the damn car.”
NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME in his life, Logan wished he’d spent more time practicing his diplomacy skills. Sam Carmody held up his hand like some magic talisman and demanded the room be still. Then he lined himself up at a forty-five-degree angle to his putter and knocked the tiny golf ball across the plush carpet into a green mechanical cup.
Logan bit down on his protest, grinding his teeth on the silence until his jaw ached. A red light blinked on the cup, signaling victory. When the ball spit back out, Logan was released from the spell.
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Julie Miller
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: It was an undercover assignment that required some «under the covers» expertise…Grace Lockhart: Behind-the-scenes FBI agent. Shy, naive…and a sex kitten waiting to happen.Logan Pierce: FBI field agent and the best of the best. Confident, cocky…and incapable of saying no to a beautiful woman.The case:Agent Grace Lockhart has spent months developing a computer program that will put the city′s biggest crime lord behind bars. And now that it′s ready, all the FBI needs is somebody to smuggle it in to Harrison Mitchell′s estate. Only, because Mitchell is notorious for surrounding himself with a harem of beauties, that somebody has to be a woman….Grace Lockhart wants to be that woman, but she′s anything but a femme fatale. But not for long. Because she′s heard that her new partner, sexy superagent Logan Pierce, is an expert at «hands-on» training….