Sparks (A Special Agent Novel Book 1)

by C. P. Mandara

  I nodded, duly chastened. My ego shrank further still. With a small voice, I asked, “When and where do you want to meet?”

  He chewed his lip as he considered my question, no doubt trying to figure out the option that would piss me off the most.

  “The Barracuda. Meet me at eight o’clock sharp.”

  My eyes closed in horror, and I counted to three under my breath. I absolutely loathed seafood in all of its various denominations. The man behind me must have been a mind reader. Not trusting my quavering voice to object, I opened the door in front of me and walked quickly through it. Had my level of restraint not been honed with years of perfection, I would happily have slammed the thing until there was nothing left but shards of broken glass.

  Three

  The evening loomed before me like a nine-headed Hydra. Alas, I was no Heracles, and the chances of me slaying even one of the dragon’s evil heads was small. Should I quit now? The thought banged around in my brain for a bit as I tested its weight. Leaving him high and dry in a restaurant did put a small smile upon my face, but I wasn’t a quitter. The challenge had been issued and I was going to see it through. Having said that, seeing as how he had decided to make life as difficult as possible for me, I guessed there could be no harm in trying to return the favour.

  Taking a long, hot shower, I primped and preened to the best of my abilities. Perfumed shower gel and matching scented body lotion was liberally smeared all over my skin until I was so smooth, James Leverett would have needed a set of suction cups to get his hands on my body. James. It was a nice old-fashioned English name. It didn’t suit him. I wondered what his real name was and if I’d ever find out. The odds were against it, I guessed. In any case, judging by the books I’d read on BDSM, I’d be calling him ‘Sir’ if he agreed to grant me a session tomorrow, and I was in no way convinced that he would.

  He’d surprised me. The man had reflexes as good as, if not better than, mine. That was rare. He was also exceptionally intuitive. That should have scared me, but it didn’t. If the meeting tonight was a success, I’d be baring a whole lot more than a few dark fantasies. I knew that I’d be naked in front of him, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that. That was a crazy enough thought in itself, because not only would I be naked, I’d probably be bound, too. The idea terrified and excited me in equal measure. In all of the relationships I’d had so far, I’d either been in control, or in an equal partnership. Giving up control was not something I was particularly comfortable with, but I couldn’t deny that the thought lit up my prefrontal cortex like a Fourth of July party. It sent heat down my body to all the right places, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I was going to enjoy my little scenario more than I thought possible.

  Pulling a sheer, black, lace-topped stocking slowly up my leg, I debated on my outfit for this evening’s massacre. He wasn’t going to be impressed by a short skirt. He’d probably seen hundreds of naked bodies in his line of work, so I decided I’d opt for the opposite and cover up as much of my flesh as I could. As he wouldn’t get anywhere near the real deal until tomorrow, letting his imagination run wild might work in my favour. I smiled. It couldn’t do any harm, could it?

  Debating my choice of dress, I decided that the Barracuda was an upscale seafood joint, and I wouldn’t look out of place in a floor-length number. It was all new-age sustainable wood, bamboo and flowing water features. Tables were arranged for a romantic tête-à-tête meal, and candles would be dotted about appropriately. Luckily, there was a black sheath by Valentino in my wardrobe. It had been a work-related present, and I had only worn it once, but it screamed “look at me.” Generally, that wasn’t something I tried to encourage, but in this case, I might make an exception. This session needed to go ahead tomorrow, and it couldn’t hurt if I encouraged some sort of spark between us. I was all too aware that this was last chance Saloon Street.

  It wasn’t long before the mountain of black crepe de chine was tugged over my head and smoothed slowly down over my curves. I then had to perform ridiculous contortionist moves to fasten the waist to neck zipper, but the result was worth it. I would say it fit like a glove, but believe me when I say that no glove fit quite this well. Looking at the front, I had a neatly cinched waist, a delicately outlined bust, and the effect was expertly finished with a black collar that reached around my neck. The back was a little more daring. Two panels of black parted to reveal a cream interior that gently swayed as I walked, and it had been cut out in a ‘V’ shape that revealed a generous expanse of flesh. Pairing it up with some black stilettos and a simple cream clutch purse, the finished deal was quite startling.

  A spritz of Coco Chanel and full war paint completed the look, which included traffic-stopping scarlet lipstick. Taming my glossy chestnut curls into submission, I placed them into a French knot and used half a bottle of hairspray to glue them in place. I was in control at the moment, and that was the message I wanted to convey. I immediately laughed at myself. Who was I kidding? As soon as that beautiful face was before me, I would need tranquillizers to subdue my body’s response. That would work in my favor behind closed doors, but it would be almost unbearable seated two feet away from the man. Briefly considering the idea of a stiff drink before my interrogation commenced, I dismissed the thought. Whilst it might dull the sight of blinding beauty before me, I needed all my senses on high alert. Undoubtedly we were going to spar at the dinner table, and I needed to keep my wits about me. Letting down my guard was something I had always been uncomfortable with. That’s why I needed him in the first place.

  Keeping an eye on the clock, it was slightly disconcerting to find I only had twenty minutes to spare. Be still, my pounding heart! Ignoring my nervous flap of either dread or anticipation, I managed to occupy my time searching for a few finishing touches. Sitting down at my Victorian dressing table, I pulled out a pair of gold filigree earrings and slowly slid the posts through my ears. Rummaging around in my jewelry box again, I found a matching bracelet that would complete my look. I sensed I was going to have to work for my dinner, and if that was the case, I intended to enter the arena in full armour.

  Four

  “Fuck.” James shot to his feet as I approached.

  He’d been there at the table, waiting for me as I was led across the restaurant. The whole place seemed to go silent as I glided past, and it was the first time in a long time that I enjoyed the power my body could hold over the opposite sex.

  “Lovely to see you, too,” I replied, smiling softly as his ironclad composure from earlier slipped somewhat. It was nice to know he wasn’t entirely unaffected by my presence. It certainly wouldn’t do him any harm to have a taste of his own medicine. My heart rate was currently thumping out heavy metal beats, and my chest did not appreciate the exertion, especially as it was heavily confined in tight black silk.

  “What happened to the shy and retiring little mouse that graced my office earlier?” He recovered quickly, to give him his dues, but I had prepared myself for a barrage of questions.

  Sitting down as our waiter neatly placed my chair underneath me, I said, “You were worried she wasn’t going to be able to stand up to your devious torments. I’m here to tell you she will.” I took the menu that was being hovered near my head and offered up a cheerful, “Thank you.”

  With a single finger, he pulled down the leather bound menu that I was now hiding behind and waited for me to look up. When I reluctantly did, he shook his head. “That is not what I’m worried about. I think you will probably stand up to all I could dish out and more. Your ability to handle yourself during the session doesn’t concern me.” The piercing blue eyes searched my features as if trying to read my mind. One look at the determination in his expression and I was almost convinced that he would succeed.

  “Then why am I here?” I pushed the menu back up so that my expression was once again covered. The man in front of me was far too perceptive, and I didn’t want to give him anything more than I had to.

  “Because I’
m hungry and I like seafood.”

  The menu lowered again, because I couldn’t resist rolling my eyes at that comment. “And?” If he thought he was a master of interrogation, he hadn’t seen anything yet. I raised an eyebrow as he took his time answering my question.

  “I also like pretty girls.”

  I couldn’t help a snort at that one. “Oh, please. You can do better than that.” If there was a touch of sarcasm in my voice, it was too bad.

  “I think you’re emotionally damaged.”

  His comment stole my breath away. How on earth had he been able to detect that from a half hour meeting? Looking at him steadily, without giving a clue as to my thoughts, I merely replied, “Aren’t we all?”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment, then frowned. “What happened?”

  The menu shot up again, and it gave me a few precious seconds in order to compose myself. We were not talking about this here. As words like ‘langoustines, oysters, lobster, and seafood bisque’ blurred in front of my eyes, I blinked away the tears and inhaled slowly.

  “If you don’t tell me now, I’ll get it out of you in the scene, and that will be harder for you.”

  I began to rise from my seat. “Are we having a scene, then? If so, I’ve had a lovely evening and I’ll see you…”

  “Sit.”

  James issued his commands with the kind of tone you did not ignore, and my body instantly obeyed, even though my mind rebelled. It was the story of my life.

  “What happened?” His tone was softer now, as if coaxing me into thinking he wasn’t really a monster, but I already knew that for a lie. This man was my worst nightmare and ultimate fantasy, all combined into one.

  I lowered my hands slowly towards the edge of the table and let my fingers grip it tightly. He had my full attention. The tears were thankfully gone, but they had now been replaced by outright fury. “Why do you care?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “I’m curious, but you’re a stranger. You usually have to know someone in order to care.” He then closed his menu and placed it beside his wine glass. “I think I’ll have the king scallops with lime and coriander, followed by the lobster in garlic butter.”

  “Thank goodness you don’t have sex on your mind, then,” I remarked, my eyes frantically scanning through the dishes for something that wouldn’t turn my stomach.

  He laughed. “Garlic breath has never managed to scare any of my dates away before. Would it scare you away, Lois?”

  I didn’t want to go anywhere near that question. The man was already well aware of exactly how attractive he was. Getting women in his bed would require little more than a click of his fingers, and probably not even that.

  Studying him openly, I considered the question. His chiselled jaw, high cheekbones, thick eyebrows, and a perfect Greek nose were all excellent features. A flock of dark, wavy hair, artfully flicked away from his face, curled gently at his neck, and if that didn’t grab you, he now wore a day-old beard that screamed sex with around one hundred decibels of intent. When you paired all of that with the piercing ice-blue eyes, he was drop dead gorgeous, and I would have run at least fifty miles in the other direction in order to avoid him. Thankfully, I wasn’t after date material. I just wanted an afternoon and a stranger. I could pretend he was ugly for a few hours. My body might not listen, but that was too bad.

  Finally, I looked up and smiled at him. “I don’t date men.”

  His eyes shrank to narrow slits, and he was clearly sceptical with regard to my latest statement. “You don’t date men, as in you like women, or you don’t date anyone?”

  It amused me that he felt the need to clarify the point. A snort of laughter escaped my lips at the look on his face. “I am not a lesbian, no.” I had probably just destroyed some of his wildest fantasies with that statement, but he waved his hand in the air, indicating I should continue. “I don’t have the time or the inclination to date. There’s nothing more to say.” Zeroing in on the menu yet again, I decided on the miso soup to start, followed by the sea bream with lemon and chervil butter. My stomach would handle those without too much fuss.

  “Do you like sex?” The expression upon his face was puzzled. He was thinking, here’s a pretty girl who doesn’t like men. Some jerk’s done a number on her. Unfortunately for the male sex, it was usually the other way around, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “I like sex.” Fortunately, our waiter chose that moment to break up our scintillating conversation, and he briefly took our orders. James also ordered a bottle of Sancerre to accompany our meal, and his cutlery was then reset, giving him all the necessary implements with which to destroy his crustacean. I was far happier with my simple knife and fork.

  When we were alone again, James frowned upon my choice. “Don’t like getting your fingers dirty?”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be your job?” I queried innocently. His eyes darkened, and he gave me a lazy smile in return.

  “I haven’t decided. I know what I should do, and that’s tell you to go home and find someone else.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and sighed.

  “You’ve gone to an awful lot of expense to do that,” I replied, as my eyes sparkled with humour. I couldn’t help it. What was he up to?

  “You intrigue me,” he replied, pursing his lips. “And I feel the need to unravel you. That doesn’t mean I will, but you have my curiosity spiked.”

  Great. He had me down as a science project. I could feel the beginnings of a headache buzzing between my eyes and wondered if I’d remembered to put some aspirin in my bag.

  “What do you do for a living?”

  On second thought, aspirin probably wasn’t going to cut it. I wondered if I had any of that oxycodone left from my last prescription. I might need that.

  “Doctor, lawyer, stockbroker, ballet dancer, footballer?” He regarded me thoughtfully as he slowly drawled each choice.

  The man had a unique way of putting me off my guard, but I’d had far too many years of practise in subterfuge to fall for such tactics. “I work in advertising.”

  He raised an eyebrow and smiled lazily at me. “For whom?” By his sceptical look, it was clear he didn’t believe me.

  “Activity Advertising.” The lie slipped from my tongue far too easily, and it was said with conviction.

  “And where are they located?”

  Obviously the lie wasn’t quite as good as I thought it was. The next question was usually what position I held there. Keeping my face carefully neutral, I said, “Our offices are on Silver Street in Enfield.” As my knowledge of Activity Advertising was limited, I hoped there wouldn’t be too many more questions headed my way. If there were, I was going to have to improvise, and that tended to get messy.

  “Who’s your boss?” James had now put his elbow on the table and his chin rested upon his hand. He looked at me idly, but I was not fooled for a second. Somehow, the infernal man knew I was lying. But how? This was the second time he’d seen through my façade, and I was beginning to worry my standards were slipping. When he pulled a fancy looking smartphone from his pocket and started punching some keys around, I knew I was in trouble.

  “Richard Mullane, although I fail to see why you’d want to know a detail like that.” I was on the defensive, and I couldn’t help a petulant frown.

  “And how old is Mr. Mullane, exactly?” James sucked upon his bottom lip in an effort to contain his laughter, but his eyes were alight with mirth. I wanted to throttle him.

  “I’m guessing he’s in his forties, but I’m not very good with ages.” I had absolutely no idea how old Richard Mullane was, and there’d been no accompanying photo of him on the company’s website. I could have researched the man further, but hadn’t thought it would be necessary. Clearly I had been wrong.

  “Oh, I think you’re exceptionally good at everything, Ms. Reeves. Too good normally, I suspect.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his neck, and for a moment I thought I was off the hook. “Okay, I admit age can be tricky.
Let’s go for hair colour. What colour is his hair?”

  “I refuse to answer any more questions along this ridiculous vein,” I remonstrated, desperately hoping that the chefs of the Barracuda would hurry up and pull their fingers out. I needed James Leverett distracted and quickly.

  “It’s my last question. I promise I’ll stop after this one.” He smiled at me, and in reply I shook my head mutinously. “How hard can it be? You work with the man. Does he have blond, brown, black, red, or grey hair? You’ve got a twenty percent chance of getting it right, Lois. Or I could just reel all sorts of questions off about Activity Advertising for the next half hour or so.” His eyes saw right through me in that instant and I shivered.

  “Which I could refuse to answer,” I bit out.

  “Then you might as well go home now, because we will not be meeting tomorrow. Just answer the damn question, Lois.” Those eyes did not leave my face, and inwardly they made me squirm.

  “So it’s Lois now, is it? What happened to Ms. Reeves?” I was clutching at straws and he nailed me immediately.

  “Don’t even think of trying to divert the conversation. Answer the question, Lois, or we’re done here.”

  “Rubbish. You’re going to walk out on king scallops and lobster? I don’t think so.”

  “Want to put that theory to the test? Because not only will I be walking out on my meal, I’ll be walking out on you.” James put his cell phone back in his pocket, and the sound of his chair legs scraping across the wooden floor made me wince.

  “Grey.” It was a calculated guess. The law of averages said that anyone who’d risen to managerial status in a firm was probably in their forties or fifties, and there was a good chance that a male might have grey hair at that age.

  James pushed his chair back under the table and smiled at me. “Okay, it’s your turn now. If your scene goes ahead tomorrow, do you have any burning questions about what might happen?” He raised an eyebrow.