He leaned forward and pushed the curls away from her face, his chest abrading her already sensitive nipples from their latest bout of lovemaking. After their night of riotous sex, she would need extra time to flat iron her hair to get it into a clip for her meeting today.
“How we feel about each other makes the difference.” His lips quirked up in the corner, and his eyes lit with amusement and challenge.
He got off on teasing her. There were times when she didn’t think his teasing was endearing. Like now.
“You’re going to make me say it first, aren’t you? Just so you can lord it over me?”
Neither of them had taken the next step in their relationship and said the three magic words. Reeves was waiting for her to go first. For a genius, he could be slow on the uptake. So, she wasn’t great at sharing her feelings. She demonstrated how she felt by her actions. And taking a leave of absence from the CIA to consult with Jenkins Security should be proof enough of her feelings for the gorgeous man now skewering her with an intense stare.
“I’m keeping to our agreement that we would take our relationship nice and slow. No pressure. We’re in the middle of a trial run, testing whether Jenkins Security and Seattle is the right career choice for you.”
“You know, you can sometimes be an idiot.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, grabbed his shoulders, tightened her hold, and flipped him on his back.
Reeves, anticipating her move, showed no resistance. He laughed. “You need to find other ways of expressing your frustration, honey.”
On top of him, she rubbed against his growing erection. “You don’t like my way?”
“I love your mating methods.” He pressed against her, distracting her from the conversation. “You can do this. You’re the woman who shot Wainwright. You’re a tough ass. Star CIA officer.”
Capturing Wainwright was a career changer for her. She now had options with the CIA and more control over her next assignment. She was a superstar at the agency at this moment. She knew from experience it wouldn’t last.
The CIA director had given her a six-month leave of absence after exemplary work on the ransomware case. It was pretty unheard of, but Richard Dean’s influence played a major part in the director’s generosity. Richard, of course, denied it.
Wainwright gave up his Russian connections to the CIA for leniency. The information had moved up the food chain in the CIA. It was a big win for the agency.
She also was given credit for linking the Sureños with a foreign power. Charging the Sureños with treason gave the FBI leverage to build a case against the entire organization. Also, a win for interagency cooperation and a feather in the FBI’s cap.
She hesitated. It was harder than she thought. “My career choice is probationary, but not us. I wouldn’t uproot my life if I weren’t committed.”
His hot hands rubbed her back in soothing circles. “And if this international gig with Richard doesn’t work, then we’ll move to DC or Libya or wherever the CIA sends you. You’re quite the negotiator … especially when you’re naked.”
Richard had offered her an incredible job. She would be a consultant for his international security. Working in tandem with Jenkins, she’d be in charge of establishing relationships with assets across the globe. She had it all. Global work to make a difference and belonging to a group of professionals she admired. In the CIA, you were on your own. She hadn’t realized how isolated she had become until working with the Jenkinses—how much she missed her brothers and being part of a raucous family.
Reeves had agreed to leave his job if Darcy wasn’t happy in Seattle. Compromise was never easy for her, but Reeves made it simple. He had enough confidence not to be threatened by her need for a challenging career and to exert control over her life. What she couldn’t control were her feelings for Reeves. She never anticipated how loving someone would change everything you perceived as important. She had spent so much time proving herself, and with Reeves, she had no need. He loved her as she was.
She leaned over and tenderly brushed her lips across his. “I love you, Reeves Hewitt. No one else. Never will love anyone but you. I want adventures with you.”
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” His eyes gleamed with humor.
“I love you, Darcy Wilson. And I plan to spend a lifetime providing you with adventures … starting right now.”
And with one smooth move, he flipped her on her back.
Darcy laughed. There were times when losing was a win. Not that she would ever admit it under pain of death to Reeves.
A Note to my Readers
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Sneak Peek: Undercover Danger
Mission: Impossible Undercover • Book 1
Parker Jenkins has no one to trust. Burned by the CIA after years undercover, he has no one to turn to. Will he endanger his brother’s lives in his quest to find the woman who betrayed him?
Read the first in Jacki’s new cross-over series Mission: Impossible Undercover Romantic Suspense Series: Undercover Danger! Coming in late 2021!
Preorder Undercover Danger Now!
Excerpt from Mission: Impossible to Protect
The Impossible Mission Series • Book 6
Hugging the backstage wall, Danni Knorr crept in the shadows with her SIG tucked into her skirt and a flashlight in her hand. The only light in the wings came from the red exit sign. The band’s frenetic sound matched her heartbeat as it raced to its own crazy-ass rhythm. Espionage beat the hell out of spending the day in a biochemistry/physics lab. Undercover as rock star Alex Hardy’s girlfriend/bodyguard, she had discovered a new high. Like drinking expensive French champagne, she got off on danger.
This was a new thing. Before she’d been kidnapped, Danni had never thought about her body more than keeping it in shape and healthy. Had never thought of holding a gun, let alone buying one and practicing with targets weekly. Had never realized just how many threats were out there and how little she’d been able to do to save herself.
Honing her body into a fighting machine with Krav Maga had been her first step to taking charge after she had been kidnapped. Then she’d taken classes on tactical awareness. She’d read up on the FBI and various police trainings. She’d even thought about joining the Jenkins Security agency, but Nick Jenkins had turned her down because of her lack of experience. At least he’d been honest with her.
The last step in her “recovery” was to take ownership of her pleasure. Sex with the famous superstud Alex Hardy was to be the ultimate statement of her proclaimed freedom. She hadn’t yet made up her mind whether she should seduce him.
Right now, acting only as his bodyguard suited her perfectly. Her idea to guard the musician after discovering that he was being stalked had been serendipitous. A year ago, when Jax the Jerk, her ex-fiancé, had left her at the altar for a teenager with more enthusiasm and experience with sex than she had—or so he’d been happy to tell her—Danni had been unable to bite the bullet and seduce any guy. Since then, there was only one man who’d tempted her to open up and be vulnerable as well as passionate, and sadly, it wasn’t Alex, no matter how much she tried to persuade herself to give him a chance.
Danni stopped and hid against the black concrete wall, searching for the location of the backstage crew before she went into the greenroom. She could easily bullshit about why she was wandering backstage, away from Alex’s performance, but she’d rather not draw attention to herself. And she preferred to avo
id creepy Frank, Alex’s childhood friend and head of security.
The murmur of the crew’s voices could be heard outside the stage door where they took their breaks to vape cancer. They had twenty minutes of downtime before the next scene change, allowing Danni less than fifteen minutes to search the belongings of the band and the traveling staff before the backstage crew would be back at work, and the band would take their break in the greenroom.
She knew she was grasping at straws trying to connect the band and staff to Alex’s stalker. But Danni was determined to find how the stalker had accessed Alex’s dressing room to leave the third threatening letter at the last concert in Portland.
Posing as Alex’s girlfriend, she had flown to every city for the last four weeks to hang with the band and the groupies and have her picture taken with Alex. She had declined traveling in the almost all-male—except for Luna, the drummer’s girlfriend and the band’s massage therapist—tour bus, no matter how luxurious their RVs were.
Six cities and all their fake PDA, hoping to bait the stalker to reveal herself, and they had nothing except for another letter. Danni was no further along, with not one lead on how the stalker had breached Alex’s dressing room in Portland.
She slowly opened the door to make sure that the greenroom was clear of the catering staff or aggressive groupies.
Despite the name, the room where the band members hung out during breaks and before the show wasn’t green. As the headliner, Alex had his own dressing room. The greenroom in LA was no different from any of the other performers’ backstage rooms she’d seen the past months.
She decided to snoop without Alex’s knowledge. He was too close to his band and would never believe that one of them could be the stalker. And he most likely was right since there was a ridiculously low probability. But the band and traveling staff all had access to Alex’s dressing room, and they were the only consistent factor since the backstage crews changed in every city. She needed to be absolutely sure that the stalker wasn’t a disgruntled band or traveling staff member.
Guitar cases, gym bags, and backpacks were scattered across the worn industrial carpet. Being on tour wasn’t as cool as everyone imagined. It was exhausting, with boring hours of tedious downtime for the two-to-three-hour high of performance. But, like her newly found danger addiction, performing was a high that fed on itself.
A half-open leather backpack was propped haphazardly against a guitar case. She knew exactly which mess belonged to which member, making it easy to start—Roland Young, drug addict, and the lead guitarist made the top on her list. She didn’t have a clear connection between his addiction and stalking Alex, but he was the only member who raised red flags.
She hurried across the nondescript room, which was painted purple to create an edgy feel in the utilitarian square space. Kneeling next to the beat-up leather backpack, she began a methodical search. She didn’t know what she might find, but she trusted her instincts to recognize a clue.
Her hands shook as the adrenaline surged through her body—part of the thrill of the hormonal rollercoaster. Maybe she had read too many Nancy Drew novels as a young girl.
She went through each pocket—a row of condoms, spiking hair gel, a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Pretty dull findings. Despite being a junky with an oversized ego, nothing suspicious linked Roland to the stalker or even revealed obvious drug paraphernalia.
The center of the pack held deodorant, and two rolled-up T-shirts that he’d change into at the breaks in the set. She shook out both—nada.
She scooted over to Roland’s guitar case and unlatched it. Besides being illegal, this was a ridiculous waste of time.
Danni stopped in response to a possible sound from the hallway. Her heart jolted at the fear of being discovered. She turned quickly to the crew’s side door, where she had just entered. She strained to hear whether anyone was approaching. Part of the downside of the adrenaline rush was it made you hyperalert and a bit overreactive. A possible advantage when your life was in danger. Not great when you’re just snooping and needed to remain undetected.
When no one appeared, she rifled through Roland’s case. Nothing but extra sets of strings and picks. Although Roland was a slob, he took good care of his guitars.
She methodically went through everyone else’s gear with no findings. Checking her phone, she realized she better hurry back to Alex’s dressing room to make sure there were no surprises waiting for him during his break. She now checked Alex’s room before he returned between sets.
Danni was hurrying back toward Alex’s room when the dressing room door opened. She stepped to the side of a giant speaker to watch who was leaving the room. The only person with a credible reason to be in Alex’s room at this point in the show was the wardrobe person.
Her skin tingled as she watched creepy Frank look both ways before he silently closed the door. Why was Frank in Alex’s room? As head of security, he was supposed to verify that the guards were in place to prevent anyone from sneaking backstage during the intermission.
Danni’s pulse sped as Frank headed toward her hiding place. She held her breath and squeezed into the narrow space behind the speaker. The crowd’s shouts for more when the set ended was background noise to her fast-beating heart reverberating in her eardrums. Instead of holding her breath while smashed against the wall, she could have pretended she was returning to Alex’s room. Except this wasn’t the way that she would have come.
She was glad that she didn’t wear heavy perfume since Frank strolled right past her without noticing. She wiggled out of her hiding spot and headed to Alex’s room. Could Frank be the stalker?
Her brain went into hyperdrive. Despite not liking the way Frank stared at her, she couldn’t think of one reason for Frank to sabotage Alex. The man was supposedly his friend and provided Frank’s income. How did Alex ending his tour early benefit Frank? She needed to find out. Lucky Reeves Hewitt, IT wizard for Jenkins Security, was her bestie.
All this skulking around gave her a little thrill, but nothing like those Jenkins boys and their friends. And even though her plans to sleep with Alex had gone by the wayside, she still wanted to prove her strength and smarts. People might focus on her looks, but she knew where her true power lay. And taking down this stalker would fulfill her real desire—to prove just how kick-ass and capable she was. Then maybe it would be time to join Jenkins Security. Or maybe the FBI…
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Excerpt from A Secret Code
The Code Breakers Regency Series
Joie shifted her weight trying to remain still not to move her feet and raise suspicion as she stood behind the screen in the ladies’ retiring room. It was time for everyone to make their way back to the ball. Didn’t the two stragglers hear the orchestra warming up? It would be just her luck that the two chattering women had no partners for the next set. How much longer before the room was empty, and she could sneak down the hall?
Fortunately, there was more than one chamber pot for the use of all the ladies at the ball. Otherwise, her plan of making her way to the servants’ quarters in Rathbourne house would never work. She counted to ten again and steeled herself for patience.
“She sailed into the ball as if everyone would have forgotten her scandalous behavior with Lord Ayer.”
The top of Joie’s ears burned at the mention of the despicable lord. Could there be more than one woman compromised by Lord Ayer? He was enough of a scoundrel to have lured another innocent woman to the conservatory. If there was another victim of Lord Ayer’s malicious behavior Joie would wish to console the poor woman.
“She acts oblivious… As if everyone isn’t talking about the daughter of an archbishop caught in a compromising situation.”
Drat. They must be talking about her since there couldn’t be another archbishop’s daughter who Lord Ayer tried to kiss. None of the high
ranking clergy had a daughter taking in the season. There were all older like her father. She had been a surprise for her childless elder parents.
“Did you see the color of her dress? You would expect after her scandal that she would avoid drawing attention to herself.”
The two tittered.
Joie tried to peak through the crack in the screen to see who the women were.
“Blue and orange. Who would ever wear those two colors?”
The blue silk was closer to a blue-gray; the orange was the color of a muted sunset in a winter sky. Had they not read La Belle Assemblée? The blue was called Turkish Blue and was the rage in Paris. She had always fantasized about living in Paris, feeling more of an affinity for French fashion and art like her mother than the staid sartorial tastes of the English. Not anymore. After tangling with French spies, she was ready to fight against her grandparent’s homeland. Her mother would have supported Joie’s decision.
“She’s supposedly brought Lieutenant Talley up to snuff, but her father has rejected his offer. Everyone had already given up any hope of ever landing him and his large inheritance since he has never shown any interest in decent women—probably why his excellency rejected him.”
“I’d love that man in my bed. He is such a large, delicious specimen.”
One of the women snorted.
“It explains his attraction to her, doesn’t it? She dresses like one of his paramours.”
Joie smiled. She hoped that Reggie found her daring and as exciting as his opera dancers. Her recent dreams involved more than kisses with the enthralling and ardent man. She was limited in her imagination of exactly how the bedding occurred but she wanted more—more of his touches, more of everything.
Mission: Impossible to Deny (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 7) Page 17
