by Julie Miller
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 actu
ally 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.
