by Lisa Weaver
The look he sent her way was demanding, but there was a hint of vulnerability behind the steely confidence that completely annihilated her defenses. Not trusting her voice, she simply nodded, allowing him to pull her closer.
And then there was no room for thought. An all-encompassing carnal haze enveloped her as he connected their bodies in the tight positioning the tango mandated. When the final sensual beats played out, he dipped her to the floor. He held her there for a moment, his gaze colliding with hers.
He was looking at her as though he was seeing her—really seeing her—for the first time.
His gorgeous blue eyes dropped to her lips, his gaze glittering hotly, and her breath caught in her throat.
Kiss me, she urged him silently, hoping the expression in her gaze would convey how desperately she needed to feel the firm press of his lips against hers.
His head bent toward hers, and for a second she thought he’d read her mind and planned to follow through. But as suddenly as the moment had materialized, it vanished. He drew her to her feet and off the dance floor, leaving her wondering if she’d imagined what had just transpired.
“What was that all about?” she blurted out in an effort to cover up the disappointment and confusion his abrupt withdrawal had left in its wake.
“Call it a preemptive strike to convince Landers you’re already spoken for. I want to make certain he sees us as a couple.”
“I’m not a toy to be claimed,” she seethed. “And you can tone down the testosterone. I told you—I’ve already made it clear to him I’m not interested.”
“Landers can be very persuasive when he wants something, and it’s obvious he’s decided he wants you. He’ll persist until—”
“You can stop right there,” she cut him off, narrowing her eyes at him. “Now you’re insulting me. Even if he wasn’t embroiled with the criminal element, as you say he is, I wouldn’t have the least bit of interest in getting personally involved with him. Do you really think I can’t see right through his handsome facade?”
“I’m just asking you to be careful, Steph. He isn’t trustworthy. He makes a hobby out of collecting women for his twisted personal trophy case.”
“I don’t need you to run interference in either my professional or my private life. I’m a big girl now, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
He drew her closer, his fingers skimming up from her waist to lie dangerously close to the sensitive underside of her breasts. “Oh, I’ve noticed.”
Heat scorched her skin where his fingers brushed, leaving behind a tingling awareness that had her breath catching in her throat.
Then he lowered his head to her ear and whispered a challenge—one she knew she should refuse. To her chagrin, his proposition proved as impossible to resist as the man himself.
And she heard herself say “Yes.”
Chapter Two
Later that evening, back in the alleyway …
This is what you get for caving to Frank’s charms, Stephanie silently admonished herself. She hated her lack of resolve when it came to him. Sure, the man was the epitome of eye candy, but that didn’t mean she should let lust take over every time he stepped within fifty feet of her. She needed to find her backbone and shake off her silly crush.
Speaking of getting in touch with her backbone, she hadn’t had much luck standing up to her boss earlier, when Liz had assigned her to make contact with Damon Landers—a financial tycoon whose ties to suspected mobster Lawrence Mendacci had earned him a spot on the Sentinels hot list.
Certain her less-than-glamorous librarian cover image made her a poor choice of bait for a man whose Achilles’ heel was his weakness for beautiful women, she’d insisted there was no way she’d be able to attract their target’s attention.
Instead of doing the reasonable thing and letting her off the hook, Liz had brushed off her concern that she wasn’t the right agent for the job. Her boss had simply waved her magic wand and arranged for a whirlwind makeover.
The instant transformation from straitlaced librarian to sexy seductress had left her feeling like Cinderella, but Liz’s plan had worked. She’d garnered Damon’s attention and he’d offered her a side job setting up his personal library in his new estate. She was traveling to his private island in Long Island on Sunday to begin cataloging his extensive book collection.
Buoyed by her success, she hadn’t seen any harm in accepting Damon’s invitation to dance. The closer she could get to the handsome playboy, the easier it would be to gain his trust. And trust meant she’d have a better shot at uncovering the evidence that would put Lawrence Mendacci behind bars for good.
Still, she really needed to learn to quit while she was ahead. If she hadn’t lingered at the gala after she’d accomplished her mission, Frank wouldn’t have caught up with her. She’d be home relaxing in a tub of bubbles with a glass of wine and a good book—instead of here playing with fire.
The sudden and unexpected clanking of metal against metal startled her out of her musings. Scanning her surroundings for the source of the disturbance, she exhaled a relieved sigh when she spotted an alley cat slinking away from an overturned trashcan.
At least the furry creature was a card-carrying member of the nine lives club, and not a rat. The alleyway might appear to be a barren wasteland at first glance, but she had no doubt it wasn’t as deserted as it seemed. Both the four-legged and two-legged variety of rodent were afoot here, and letting her attention wander was the kind of reckless behavior that could get a girl in trouble courtesy of the latter.
Focus. She needed to focus.
The next noise she heard wasn’t as innocuous, and it had her reaching for the pistol holstered at her hip.
This time it wasn’t a stray feline that sprang out from the shadows, but an armed assailant. And he had her in his sights.
Taking aim at the gunman’s chest, she got a shot off before he had a chance to fire. The round connected, sending him dropping to the ground.
Four more assailants followed, and she took three of them down as effortlessly as she had the first. She had a lock on the last attacker when the unthinkable happened. Her gun malfunctioned.
Only one thought reverberated through her head. Unless she came up with a plan in the next few seconds, she was toast.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
A maelstrom of danger-induced adrenaline surged through Frank as he watched the scene unfolding before him. He wasn’t armed, having heeded his surgeon’s direction to limit the use of his shoulder until the muscles and tendons shredded by the bullet that had ripped through it healed. Fortunately, he knew plenty of other ways to take down an opponent. Especially when he had the element of surprise on his side.
Leaping into the middle of the fray, he positioned his body between Stephanie and her attacker. One well-placed kick later, he eliminated the threat.
The reward for his effort was a visual skewering, courtesy of the daggers flying from Stephanie’s gorgeous hazel eyes.
He’d thought she’d be grateful that he’d stepped in to help, but it wasn’t gratitude spilling out of those pools of amaretto swirled with forest green. Clearly she didn’t appreciate his intervention. He made a mental note to add “fierce independent streak” to the personality traits he hadn’t known she possessed.
“Why did you do that?” she demanded, sparks still shooting from her eyes. “I had the situation under control.”
“That’s not what it looked like from where I was standing,” he countered.
She tilted her chin up and glared at him defiantly. “You didn’t need to race to my rescue. I was planning my next move. I was about to make it when you interfered.”
God, she’s even more gorgeous when she’s angry.
He’d never noticed it until tonight. Earlier, when she’d lost her temper in the ballroom, her beauty had taken his breath away. Like it was doing now.
Liz had told him Stephanie was one of Sentinels’ best sharpshooters, so when his injury had forced him to the
sidelines of his laser competition team, he’d invited her to try out for his spot. Dared her, actually.
She’d jumped at his challenge, despite the short notice that had necessitated her going directly from the hotel to the playing field without having an opportunity to change out of her evening gown.
He found himself wishing she hadn’t responded to the provocation, because the sight of her in the slinky black satin number she’d poured herself into was doing treacherous things to his libido.
“A word of advice. Unless that bracelet you’re wearing doubles as a bullet deflector, you might want to do a bit less strategizing and a lot more acting.”
“Very funny. For your information, I was going to use that discarded chain by the wall as a backup weapon when you went all Rambo on poor Bruce, here.”
Turning to see ‘poor Bruce’ ogling Stephanie, his jaw tightened at the expression of unadulterated male admiration on his teammate’s face. If Bruce didn’t peel his eyes off her cleavage, Stephanie would see what his version of going Rambo really looked like.
“That would have been a great move, but you didn’t put it into play fast enough,” he countered brusquely. A little too brusquely, judging by the angry flush that washed across her sculpted cheekbones.
He hadn’t meant for his response to tumble out so roughly, but in a real-life attack faltering like she had could get her killed.
“I had the situation in hand,” she snapped back.
Her righteous indignation gave him pause.
In hindsight, perhaps she had every reason to be annoyed with him. Maybe he had acted a bit prematurely. In the heat of the moment, all he’d been able to think about was rushing to her aid. It hadn’t occurred to him she might not appreciate being on the receiving end of his knight-in-shining-armor treatment.
Deciding now wasn’t the time to point out that if he’d waited one second longer it would have been game over, he toned his cockiness down a notch.
“I’m sorry,” he offered sincerely. “I was out of line. My competitive streak got the best of me.”
Interrupting her during the shooting match and interceding with Landers’s personal assistant on her behalf weren’t the only missteps he’d made that night. Asking Stephanie to dance had been his first error in judgment. Now all he could think about was how right she had felt in his arms.
She tossed her head in aggravation, sending her titian waves bouncing. “Is what you did even allowed?”
“Of course. The rules state that when a teammate is in trouble it’s okay to give them an assist. You had an awesome run going, but you were losing valuable seconds. I wanted you to hold on to that perfect score.”
Clearing his throat to draw their attention, Bruce stared at them pointedly. “If you two are done bickering like an old married couple, can we get back to the game?”
Bruce’s inquiry splashed across Frank’s psyche like a drenching from a bucket of ice water. He’d been so wrapped up in Stephanie he’d forgotten they had an audience.
And Stephanie had been just as absorbed in him. He could tell she was all too aware that she’d lost sight of what she was there for, and that she was shaken by the lapse. Her reaction was barely perceptible, but his trained eye didn’t miss the way her hand trembled slightly as she traded the laser-simulator pistol she’d used for the first round of the match for the assault rifle version of the weapon she would employ in the second round.
Laser shooting competitions were held on realistic courses that duplicated potential real-life scenarios, mirroring situations the players might encounter in the field. Players used guns that emitted electronic pulses to indicate hits, and they were allowed to employ other mock weapons or feign martial arts moves if their primary protection failed.
For this round, the course had been set up in an abandoned alley to simulate an apartment complex under siege. The players filled the roles of both innocent civilians and dangerous assailants—it was up to Stephanie to differentiate friend from foe.
He gave the signal for the round to begin, and it quickly became clear she wouldn’t need his help for this segment of the trial. She eliminated the threats in record time, without a single innocent civilian taking a hit.
Bruce whistled softly in appreciation. “Damn, she’s good. That’s a new record.”
“See? I told you she’d be a great addition to the team,” Frank asserted, knowing there was more than a little pride in the boast that rolled easily off his tongue.
Stephanie had navigated the course as smoothly as she’d fielded the genuine crisis they’d been caught up in a few weeks ago when they were ambushed. A rookie field operative, she’d handled the threat like a seasoned veteran. And she’d done far more than impress the hell out of him.
She’d saved his life.
He sent her a thumbs-up. “If you’re sure you want to join a group of law enforcement officers and bodyguards playing what amounts to a paintball game on steroids, you’re in.”
“Of course I’m sure,” she said, beaming. “I’d love to.”
Bruce wrapped Stephanie in a celebratory hug. “I think you may have lost your spot on the team permanently, Frank. She just tied your best score.”
Tamping down the urge to peel Bruce’s arm away from its silken resting place on Stephanie’s shoulder, Frank told himself it couldn’t possibly be jealousy heating his blood to a boil. Fortunately, he was spared having to respond to his buddy’s good-natured ribbing when their four remaining teammates—Barry, Kent, Andy, and Wyatt—circled around Stephanie to offer their congratulations.
“Since we’re keeping her, she needs a nickname,” Andy insisted with a grin.
“Oh, a code name!” she enthused, flashing Andy a broad smile.
As another jolt of jealousy pierced him, Frank tried not to dwell on why he found the thought of his friends bestowing a nickname on Steph oddly unsettling.
What was wrong with him tonight?
Not only was his sudden—and unexpected—attraction to Stephanie damned inconvenient, it was also entirely unacceptable. She was a friend. In no way, shape, or form should his feelings for her ever cross the border of buddy-hood into sexual temptation territory. So how had he let that very thing happen?
Shaking his head in self-deprecation, he shoved the disconcerting question aside. “The guys all have nicknames. Bruce is Goblin, Barry is Bear, Kent is Cruncher, Andy is Flash, and Wyatt is Shadow.”
“And what do they call you?” she asked.
When Frank hesitated rather than answering her question, Andy jumped in to reply. “Tiger,” he supplied with grin.
“That’s going to cost you, Flash,” Frank told him before turning his attention to the team. “Okay, guys. Stephanie did me a favor by coming down to try out for the team when she had another commitment tonight. It’s time we let her get back to her evening. You can decide on a nickname for her at our next practice.”
She’d always be “Kitten” to him, but he didn’t want anyone else calling her by that moniker.
Watching his buddies congratulating Stephanie, it was obvious she’d already managed to wrap them all around her little finger. He wasn’t surprised the men had taken to her so quickly. She was intelligent, witty, and a gifted markswoman.
Not to mention drop-dead gorgeous.
Once they were alone, she turned to him, one eyebrow raised in inquiry. “Since you’re letting me join your team, is it safe to assume you’ve forgiven me for not telling you about my work with Sentinels?”
“No.”
“No?” she parroted.
“No. There’s nothing to forgive.”
“If that’s true, then why have you been doing your best to avoid me ever since Liz told you what I really do for a living?”
“I haven’t been trying to avoid you,” he insisted. “I’ve just been busy.”
His conscience twinged a bit at the statement. Maybe he had been skirting her, but the fact that she hadn’t trusted him with the covert nature of her chosen career
still stung. Her lack of faith in his friendship had stoked his temper at first.
But when she’d shown up at the benefit dinner dressed to kill in an evening gown that screamed seduction, every drop of that disappointment had evaporated and pure, unadulterated lust had leaped in to fill the void.
He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder in reassurance. “Look … I’m not upset with you. I’m just disappointed you didn’t trust me enough to confide in me. I would have kept your secret, you know.”
“I know. And I planned to tell you, but I didn’t want to fill you in via an e-mail or text message. I was waiting until I saw you face-to-face. Then you left the CIA and joined Sentinels, and Liz inadvertently beat me to the punch. So I owe you an apology. That wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.”
“It’s okay. I understand why you can’t go around broadcasting what you do. I can count on one hand the number of people I clued in to what I did for a living when I worked for the CIA.”
“But you told me.”
He nodded. “You’re important to me. So, are you still angry with me for interfering?”
They both recognized he was talking about more than the shooting match. He’d overstepped his bounds by nosing in on her new assignment.
“Yes,” she shot back cheekily, but her reply lacked the bite of her earlier dressing down. “I’ll forgive you, though, since you gave me a shot at joining the team.”
“You did good tonight, Kitten. I’m proud of you.”
Even as he spoke the words, the feel of her soft, warm skin under his palm taunted him. It was more than pride coursing through him. It was lust flooding every cell in his body, urging him to make her his. And that was wrong on so many levels. She trusted him—counted on him to be a loyal friend, not a desire-fueled lothario. And even if their friendship could survive a casual fling, Steph wasn’t that kind of girl. She didn’t do one-night stands—didn’t do intimate relationships outside of marriage, period. And marriage didn’t factor in anywhere in his plans.
Which meant he couldn’t act on his feelings for her. Ever.
