“Too early to tell,” I offered. “So far it’s looking entertaining.”
“Glad I amuse,” Brook grumbled. I shot him a beaming grin making him shake his head in mock disgust.
“What exactly did you teach at Philomel?” Jason pressed.
“You were a Navy drill instructor?” Koki asked, sounding surprised.
“What, I don’t look butch enough to you?” I teased.
“Ah, no,” both Koki and Brook said in unison, confirming the two peas in a pod theory I’d begun to have about them.
“Charlie didn’t teach basic training,” Adam offered, saying more in those few words than he’d intended, I think. All eyes turned to him with various looks of intrigue.
“And how do you know that exactly, Mr Savill?” Brook asked, a smile on his stubbled face.
“I read her file,” he mumbled.
“Pardon?” Koki pushed. “What was that? You say you read her classified file? Is that right?”
“It was hardly classified,” Adam snapped. “Nick had me read over it.”
“I’d quit now, while you’re…” Jason paused then added, “Well, not ahead as such, but not quite buried under a shit pile of dirt anyway.”
“Fuck off!” Adam tried.
“Oh, no,” Koki said getting more animated than I’d seem him yet tonight. “This is just starting to get interesting. Nick had you look over Charlie’s file? Anything we should know about the lieutenant?”
“She could kick your butt in under three minutes flat?” I offered. All four men ignored me.
“She taught languages,” Adam said and silence met his words.
Slowly all eyes moved towards me.
“Languages,” Brook murmured. “That’s strangely disappointing, Lieutenant.”
“Maybe it was how to kill someone with a foreign language,” Jason added, offering me a smirk and a wink.
For a second, I wondered if his friendly actions were an act. It would be SOP for the Captain.
“Japanese is lethal, I’m telling ya,” Koki added.
“Ben would argue Māori was more so,” Brook countered.
“Ben’s not here, though, is he?”
“Hey, can you speak Māori?” Brook asked, looking at me.
“Can you?” I offered.
“We’re not talking about us, Lieutenant. You’re the newbie, you get to be razzed.”
“Razzed?” Adam asked. “Who says razzed?”
“I do,” Brook said affronted. “Do you then?” he added, clearly speaking to me and not about being razzed.
“Māori, no,” I replied. “But I speak several others,” I added in French.
“Ooh, that’s sexy,” Koki said with an appreciative head nod.
“You think every thing’s sexy,” Jason drawled.
“But French?” Koki countered. “Come on!”
“What else?” Brook asked, munching on a chip.
I turned to look at Adam, raising an eyebrow. “Well?”
“Well, what?” he replied, shifting back in his seat as if to place distance between us.
“I’d love to know what my file said,” I explained.
“Yeah,” Koki and Brook agreed together. “Spill,” one or other of them added; I wasn’t looking, so couldn’t be sure which. If I wasn’t careful, I’d start to see them as a unit, homogeneous, despite their clearly different ancestry and looks.
Adam sighed, obviously feeling severely put-upon. Or regretting his admission of earlier.
“English, French, Russian, Mandarin, German, and Farsi.” Silence met Adam’s words again. Silence but for the U2 song blasting out of the speakers in the main room of the pub.
“Wow,” Brook said, the first to break his stun. I wasn’t surprised in the least. It was true, and all part of the cover devised especially for this assignment.
“Six,” Koki offered. “That’s impressive.”
“Six highly important and strategic languages,” Jason offered, drawing everyone’s attention with the measured tone of his voice. “Interesting combination for a naval officer to have.”
All eyes shot to my face, but I was holding that whiskey brown stare that saw more than it should have. No, I hadn’t passed all the tests Jason Cain would throw my way yet. Not by a long shot.
“Our military gets around,” I offered, breaths even, pulse rate steady, face pleasantly impassive.
“Yeah, but you were in the navy, Lieutenant. What’s the navy doing in Iran?”
Brook shifted in his seat, picking up on the tension that had suddenly sprung up between Jason and myself. I could feel Adam’s eyes on my cheek; hot, oddly branding me there. Koki just crossed his arms over his chest and sat back waiting for the fireworks to explode.
None of them knew me, really knew me. Adam thought he’d met the leather clad biker woman who’d barely spoken a word. Koki and Brook saw the hard-nosed tough act. Jason identified the government trained asset; he just hadn’t been able to reconcile what he thought he saw with what I was meant to be.
I’d outstayed my welcome. Sowed the seeds for camaraderie, sure, but now risked inquiry that crossed a line I needed to avoid at all costs.
I arched my brow, reached forward and picked up my Guinness, draining the glass in one large swallow. Placing it back on the table, I pushed up from my chair and leaned towards where Jason sat.
“I’m an assassin for hire,” I whispered, making all four men move forward on their seats in order to hear me. “Trained to infiltrate enemy camps and eliminate my targets from within.” It was bullshit, they all knew it. At least, in the world they lived in, it was a tall tale.
I stood up and smiled. Gotcha. Then added, “Even the navy has its secrets, Captain. You of all people should know that.”
The blow was on target. His eyes shuttered, a blank expression crossing his face. His jaw clamped shut, a muscle twitching in his cheek. And then slowly he inclined his head, accepting my volley.
Jason Cain had been a member of an elite team. As had Eric Shaw. Of all the men inside ASI they were my greatest threats. They would see themselves in me, if I let them. They would see too much that could raise questions and make my task impossible to complete.
But they also understood discretion. The need to protect your military unit. The contracts signed that sealed your lips, that would forever keep your chosen service’s secrets quiet. On penalty of death. Jason held secrets on behalf of the New Zealand Army. He now thought I held secrets on behalf of the New Zealand Navy, too.
He just didn’t realise that my employer was not a branch of the defence force. My employer was more powerful than that.
More powerful than the military.
More powerful than the government.
Because whoever runs a country’s espionage unit, runs the country. Believe me, I know.
And that power was now after me.
Chapter 5
But I Was Not Going To Be Alone When I Got There
Adam
“She… is… awesome,” Brook, the fucking dickhead, announced, after Charlie had left. Silence had reigned for all of thirty seconds, but that silence had been weighted, monumental. Fucking brilliant.
The problem was, Charlie was awesome. The type of awesome that could change a man. And there was no denying that there was something there. I saw it in the way she looked at me, the way she couldn’t speak when trapped by my stare.
But her recovery had been extremely professional. I’d expected nothing less from someone Nick Anscombe had recruited, of course. But it was more than that. For once in my life I felt like I was being hunted, not the hunter. That ASI was being hunted. The thought was disconcerting and completely unwarranted, I was sure.
But there was no denying her comeback to Jason had to have felt like a slap to his face, shutting the ex-SAS soldier up with that one cutting remark. A feat rarely seen or heard of.
“Secrets,” I said, interrupting Brook’s continued poetic praise of all things Lieutenant Downes. “Now there
’s a woman with a few secrets.”
“What would you know, Savill?” Jason shot back, exactly as I’d suspected he would. Once in the defence force, regardless of branch, always in the defence force.
Charlie had an ally in Jason whether she realised it or not.
“Just an observation, Cain,” I replied steadily, taking a sip from my beer. It had gone fucking flat.
He grunted, but didn’t comment further. One thing to be said about Jason, he knew when to shut his mouth. Which made me realise just how closely related his and Charlie’s military training must have been. Why had Nick chosen me to be her trainer? Why not Jason who would understand the differences, bridge the gaps and smooth her path to civilian investigation and security that much better than me?
Nick often worked in weird and mysterious ways.
Which only made me think of Charlie. “Weird” and “mysterious” were two descriptors that fit the lieutenant well. There was something strangely captivating, something unexpected, unfamiliar, atypical about the woman. And yet, strangely compelling as well.
I cleared my throat and finished my beer, preparing to call it a night. I’d been on night-shifts for the past week trying to catch my mark. Amber’s intel this afternoon meant tonight was to be the first night in my own bed for over seven days. It was a no-brainer. Drink myself into oblivion with these numbskulls or catch some z’s in my rocking king sized bed.
“I’m off,” I declared unnecessarily, as I stood from my chair.
“Why in such a hurry?” Jason asked, his own beer glass empty, and what with Katie waiting for him at home, I knew for a fact he’d be outta here in less than five minutes flat.
He was just the sort of prick who liked to dig and dig and dig some more. The guy shoulda been a fucking spy.
“Bored shitless now the only thing worth looking at has been scared off by your sorry arse.”
“You didn’t look at her butt once,” Brook offered, making Koki chuckle and Jason sit back with arms folded over his chest; waiting for the gossip.
“How the hell did you hear about that?” I demanded.
“I have my talents,” Brook replied, innocence personified in his gaze.
“That’s not what that chick Becky said last Friday,” Koki couldn’t help but quip.
“Yeah, well, Becky has some kinky as shit ideas about what’s appropriate behaviour in the back seat of a Ford.”
“I thought you were into kink,” Koki argued, my eyes shifting off the “old hags,” as we called them, and landing on Jason.
“And you ask why I want to leave?” I offered.
He shook his head, but stood to go as well.
“It used to be entertaining,” he said, moving off towards the toilets at the back of the pub. “Now it’s just fucking sad.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” I muttered, my words drowned out by Koki and Brook’s newest argument.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have said those two would make a perfect couple.
I snorted to myself, as the cold night air hit my cheeks. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if half their stories were made up. We specialised in covers, why not have covers to hide our true selves?
Me, what you saw is what you got. Jason was pretty much the same. But Charlie? Now there was a puzzle I wouldn’t have minded cracking. In the most delicious and fucking erotic ways.
I shook my head in disgust at my douchebag self and strode towards my bike, immediately spotting some fucktard futilely trying to start their own bike next to it. Amateur was just cranking it over and over. Sacrilege, because if I wasn’t mistaken, that was a Ducati being abused right now.
“Hey, lay off on the throttle,” I shouted, as I made my way towards them.
The person stood up from their lean over the bike and roughly pulled off their black helmet. Blonde locks fell down around leather clad shoulders and my balls involuntarily tightened.
Ah, Christ.
“Fucking useless piece of shit,” Charlie muttered, making me smile. Chicks swearing at bikes, almost as good as watching them ride one.
“I’m sure it’s not that bad, just the fuel supply or something,” I offered, peering over her shoulder and feeling my jaw drop.
A fucking Diavel Titanium. Limited edition. Fifty grand sitting there forlornly being maltreated.
“Hey, firecracker,” I said, reaching forward and staying her hand before she wrecked the thing. “Easy on the anger, pull it back a notch. This baby needs only a little coaxing to get her to purr.”
“And I suppose you’d know all about that?” she growled. It was cute. Even her cheeks were red with rage.
“I’m an expert at lot of things, sweetheart. Bikes are just one of my many talents.” She snorted and made a show of rolling her eyes. Like that, is it? “How long you had it?” I asked, laying my helmet down on my bike seat and pulling out a mini mechanics kit from inside my jacket. Never leave home without my multipurpose tools. I started to work on the fairing, feeling the heat of her body down my back and side as she watched.
“Got it today,” she said, tapping her foot as though she had places to be and people to see.
“You in a hurry?”
“Just pissed off you found me like this.”
Her honesty was refreshing. Most people wouldn’t have admitted to the embarrassment so easily, but I was beginning to see Charlie was not like most people.
“Here’s your problem,” I said, finding it within a second of baring the bike’s stunning insides. This machine was sweet. “Some idiot didn’t attach the fuel line properly.”
I reattached the hose, securing it tightly.
“Give it a go,” I said, standing and wiping my hands together to remove the grease.
I turned my face to see Charlie watching me, her head tilted to the side contemplatively, her grey eyes smoky in the lamp light, her plump lips begging to be licked and bitten. Fuck, this woman was sex on legs and I was about to watch her throw one over and ride this beast of a machine off down the road.
There would be weeks of spanking material from this one moment alone, I was sure.
Her gaze slowly moved to my Monster and then she bit her lower lip. Sex kitten. That’s what she was. Pure fucking sex kitten. I wanted her. I’d been toying with the idea from the second I’d laid eyes on her; barely registering the need but going with the flow, like you do. But now I’d put it into words. Silently. I wasn’t a fuck-knuckle. I’d mentally said the words to myself.
I wanted her. And by fuck I was going to have her.
Every other bastard at ASI got what they wanted, why not fucking me?
“You ever ridden a Diavel?” she asked, long lashes fanning over high cheekbones.
I wanted to kiss them.
“Nah,” I managed to somehow say.
“Why don’t you take it for a ride?”
Yes, please. Oh, you mean the bike?
“Seeing as you fixed it and all,” she added.
“You’re not heading home?” I asked, too tempted by far; by the bike; by the woman; by the moment.
She shook her head, making her hair fly out and the soft scent of vanilla waft on the air. I almost groaned out loud.
“Nice night for a ride,” I agreed a little too suddenly. Thinking I would make an utter tool of myself if I didn’t say something. “Ridden a Monster before?” I added, unable to stop the litany of fucking words rolling off my traitorous tongue.
She smiled. It lit up the street like a thousand watt light bulb.
Christ, there was no denying, I was in deep and I hadn’t even tasted her.
Her arm snaked out, her keys lying in the palm of her open hand. I stared at them for a long moment, feeling like I was about to accept something more than just a spin on her new limited edition superbike. Feeling like I was standing at the precipice to a chasm and one wrong step could end it all.
My eyes shot up to her face, alarmed I’d had that thought. But I couldn’t see any indication that this was anything oth
er than what it seemed. An invitation to go for a night ride on a colleague’s motorbike.
“Where to?” I asked, taking her keys and handing her mine.
She turned her helmet over, preparing to don it, and licked her lips. My eyes couldn’t seem to look away from the sweep of her tongue across plump flesh.
“Why don’t you show me what you’re made of, Adam Savill,” she taunted, and it was a taunt. An outright invitation to tangle.
I smiled, picked my helmet up and readied it.
“Think you can keep up, Lieutenant?” I said, throwing a leg over her bike and getting all sorts of thrills outta knowing she’d just been riding it.
“You have no idea, Savill,” she purred, the sound even smoother than her Panigale had been.
I thrust the key in the lock and depressed the clutch, gunning the engine and laughing out loud. Fuck, it was beautiful.
My bike sounded up off to the side; throaty, angry, drowning out the Diavel, but somehow still complementing it.
I flicked my gaze towards the woman beside me and revised my earlier thought.
The bikes were beautiful, but the woman was stunning.
And then she lowered herself over the tank and peeled out of the carpark.
My eyes locked onto her arse, and didn’t stray, as I tore off after her. The first time a chase, a hunt, had ever been so damn exciting. Charlie Downes was an enigma, but watching her ride my bike, as though she owned it, ruled it, somehow left me feeling all kinds of freaking hot.
I knew one thing for certain. This night was going to end up between my sheets, on my bed.
But I was not going to be alone when I got there.
Chapter 6
Fuck Friendships And Fuck Your Friends
Charlie
I felt a thrill as I tore off down Broadway, taking the tiny back roads of the shopping suburb to launch Adam’s Monster onto the motorway on-ramp, heading south. He’d fallen for the fuel issue easily. And fixed it just as easily as well.
I liked watching his hands at work. How deftly they manoeuvred the wrench into position. How much bigger they were to the clamp that held the hose in place. There were signs of old injuries to his knuckles, my mind fixated on the reason why they might be there. Work related? A fight? Or simply the after effects of tinkering on motorbikes; a hobby that hadn’t shown up in his dossier.
Sweet Seduction Secrets (Sweet Seduction, Book 8): A Love At First Sight Romantic Suspense Series Page 5
