by Vivi Andrews
“Agent Smith?” Ciara snickered helplessly. “God, I can’t believe I fell for that. Like the Matrix. Who came up with that? Was it Jo?” She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. “You’re the Matrix dude.” Only about a thousand times hotter.
“Agent Smith” narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I’m the Matrix dude. Except I’m not a machine and I’m not fictional. Other than that, we may as well be the same person.”
“And a smartass too,” Ciara said, delighted, getting into the game. “But how can you be sure you aren’t a machine? What if you were one and didn’t know it, like in the last Terminator movie? You could be a badass killing machine sent back from the future to destroy me and you wouldn’t even know it.”
He frowned at her repressively. “I think you missed the part where I said I wasn’t fictional.”
She shrugged. “Most of the people I meet are fictional.” It was an unfortunate byproduct of having her social life dictated by her Netflix queue. “Who sent you?” She giggled, not even bothering to keep a straight face. “It was Karma, wasn’t it? I know I whine about feeling isolated sometimes, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation sent me,” he said with laser precision.
Ciara lost it. She collapsed against the doorjamb, laughing helplessly.
A pair of young mothers pushing strollers along the sidewalk looked over to see what the commotion was. Ciara waved at them cheerily, feeling none of her usual jealousy over their normal, touchable life. Until Agent Smith shifted his big shoulders to block her view.
“Perhaps we should continue this conversation inside,” he said icily, his gaze shifting pointedly downward.
Two realizations hit simultaneously and blood rushed to Ciara’s face. One, she was still wearing only a towel. And two, Special Agent Nate Smith of the FBI was no stripper.
Chapter Two—What Would Grace Kelly Do?
“Karma?” Ciara huddled beside the window with the phone pressed to her ear, peeking out at the federal agent still camped on her doorstep.
“Ciara.” Her boss’s voice, usually so unflappable, sounded distracted and harried. “We found the dress. Brittany’s back, so we’re good. Thanks for looking.”
Ciara kicked herself. She’d completely forgotten the wedding dress she’d been tracing when Agent Smith started ringing her doorbell like the salesman from hell. It was a good thing Karma’d found it, since Ciara hadn’t had time to see a damn thing.
Then she realized Karma was about to disconnect the call. Her panic spiked. “Karma, don’t hang up!”
“What’s wrong?” Her boss immediately shifted into crisis calm. “Are you okay? Do I need to send someone over there?” Ciara felt Karma’s attention lock down around her like a physical presence, firm and comforting.
“I’m fine.” A sheepish squirming started in her stomach in response to the crisis tone. This wasn’t nuclear-warheads-headed-toward-Manhattan level catastrophe. She just had a small personality conflict with Agent Smith, who thought she was a felon. She could handle it. Couldn’t she? “There’s already someone here, actually. The FBI sent me a new handler.”
After a millisecond pause, Karma said, “What’s wrong with him?”
Trust her boss not to beat around the bush. “He doesn’t believe my abilities are real. He thinks I’m in cahoots with some fence or something. Stealing jewels and then turning them over to the FBI for reward money.”
“Shit.”
Ciara gaped at the phone. She didn’t think she’d ever heard of Karma losing her calm enough to swear. “Karma?”
“Does he have a warrant?”
“To search the place? He isn’t going to find anything here.”
“For your arrest, Ciara,” Karma corrected. “Does he have a warrant for you?”
Fear slithered down her spine. He couldn’t actually arrest her, could he? Someone with her limitations couldn’t do prison. “I don’t think so. He probably wouldn’t have let me slam the door in his face if he had a warrant.”
“Good girl.” She could hear Karma’s smile.
“I think at this point he’s just skeptical.”
Someone shouted something on Karma’s end and then her voice came out muffled like she was holding her hand over the phone. “Tell the minister Lucy’ll be ready in five, Jo. I’ll be right there.”
The pieces snapped into place—the dress, the minister—and Ciara’s sheepishness escalated to full-blown mortification. “You’re at your brother’s wedding, aren’t you? Oh crap, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. It’s nothing.”
“No, Ciara. You should always call. Whenever you need anything. You know that.”
“Go watch your brother get married. I’m fine. I’m great, actually. The fed’s totally doable—er, tolerable. I can manage him. Give the happy couple my best, would you?”
“I will. But, Ciara, I don’t think you should deal with this guy anymore. I’ll contact his superiors on Monday and make sure you get a new handler, but in the meantime, steer clear, okay? And call me if you have any problems. Even if it’s in the middle of the ceremony.”
“Will do, boss,” Ciara lied. “You have fun.”
She thumbed the off button on the phone and tossed it on the couch. Wrapping her towel more tightly around herself, she leaned over to peek out the front windows.
Agent Smith, cyborg asshole, stood on her doorstep, completely unaware that she’d just made the call that would get him kicked off her detail.
Karma had said to steer clear, but Agent Smith didn’t look like he was going anywhere. She had to open the door to tell him he was history, didn’t she?
He probably wouldn’t believe her. He didn’t seem like the type who took much on faith.
Ciara rushed to the bedroom and grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
She wasn’t ready to face Agent Smith again just yet. He was too…something. Too big. Too skeptical. Too serious.
And he was watching her too closely. From the second she’d first opened the door, he hadn’t taken his eyes off her. Sure, it was because he thought she was a criminal, but Ciara wasn’t used to that kind of focused intensity. It was kinda hot.
To say she didn’t get out much was the understatement of the year. If a stranger bumped into her on the street and their skin brushed, it felt like a firecracker exploded in her brain. The more she tried to brace for it and block against it, the worse it seemed to be. When it was really bad, she couldn’t even stay on her feet, and then, of course, all the good Samaritans rushed over to touch her to make sure she was okay, setting off more explosions until the inside of her head felt like the Fourth of July.
So Ciara didn’t leave the house much. Or ever, really. Her groceries were delivered. Delivery people didn’t tend to be touchers. They respected her distance. Between the internet and her DVR, she had all the entertainment she could possibly ask for.
So what if she didn’t have real human contact? Who did these days? Wasn’t that what everyone was always bitching about on Oprah and The Today Show? How technology had disconnected them from real human interaction?
Well, technology was the only way Ciara could interact, so she made the most of it. She watched movies and TV shows and read at least five books a week, unashamed to be living vicariously through them. At least she was living.
But then Agent Smith had to show up, with his intense stare and his cleft chin, making her feel like her life had been thrown under a microscope. Making her feel uncomfortable and nervous…and yet somehow, strangely, infinitely more alive.
Over the last decade she’d gotten good at telling herself she didn’t need adventure or excitement. But if that was true, why did she get such a thrill out of just standing on her front step talking to Nate Smith?
Ciara tugged on the hip-hugging jeans and well-worn T. The psychic static of the fabric against her skin was so familiar it faded into background noise. She touched her lips with a finger, mourning the fact that she didn’t ow
n so much as a tube of lip gloss.
She could pretend she was going back out there to tell him to piss off, but she’d never been very good at lying to herself. Her life had gotten too safe. The risk he represented drew her almost as strongly as the man himself. Six feet of delicious temptation.
Ciara closed her eyes, counted to ten, and then slowly opened them. She tipped back her chin, bracing herself for another round of that awkward, delicious microscope feeling.
Just another day at the office.
Nate stood on the doorstep, calling himself twenty different kinds of fool.
He’d tipped his hand too early and scared her off. What kind of a dumbass, rookie move was that? He deserved the door slammed in his face. How was he supposed to interrogate her if she wouldn’t even talk to him?
When the door to 1134 Honeydew Circle creaked open a second time, Nate held himself perfectly still, suppressing the urge to shove his foot in the door and trying to look harmless as Ciara Liung’s up-tilted black eyes peered out at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, before she could speak. “I shouldn’t have accused you. That was uncalled for. I just don’t understand any of this.” He waved his hands in a broad gesture to encompass all the this he didn’t understand, going for baffled rather than condemnatory.
Her eyes narrowed, but she opened the door a little farther and angled her shoulders into the opening. He was not disappointed she’d gotten dressed. He wasn’t.
“You’re sorry?”
“Abjectly.” He widened his eyes, hoping the expression made him look penitent, and flashed his most earnest smile. “Can I come in? I’d like to understand.”
Ciara glanced over her shoulder into the house, as if gauging whether he was trustworthy enough to be allowed into the inner sanctum.
Nate mentally ran through his playbook. He needed to establish a sense of connection with the subject. Reaching out, he placed his hand over hers on the doorjamb.
She cried out, jerking her hand out from beneath his and cradling it to her chest, hissing in pain like he’d thrown acid in her face. “Don’t do that! You can’t touch me. No one can touch me.”
Ciara Liung was a hell of an actress, but Nate kept his skepticism to himself. He assumed an expression of utter contrition. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Are you all right? Let me see.”
She shook her head, shying away from him. “No. It’s nothing. I’m fine now. I just… Don’t touch my skin, okay?”
Something about the expression on her face seemed familiar. She looked guarded. Defensive. It was exactly how he felt whenever someone looked at him like a cripple.
Nate wasn’t above exploiting every angle.
He lurched slightly to the side, steadying himself with his cane and making sure Ciara’s eyes flicked down to see his white-knuckled grip. She opened her mouth, and he could see her about to ask what had happened to him. He let every drop of icy pride he had show on his face and watched her words freeze in her throat.
“Come on in,” she said, swinging the door open wide and turning away, pointedly ignoring his unsteadiness, as if crippled FBI agents were a dime a dozen.
Nate gimped forward. On his best day, the limp was noticeable, but right now he played up his new disability to the max. He hobbled after her into the living room.
Then he took one look around and froze.
Nate was drooling, but if there was a time when drool was called for, this was it.
Seventy-two-inch plasma flat screen. Bose stereo surround sound. Mammoth Barcalounger, big enough to dwarf even his own substantial frame. And to top it all off, the woman had the single most impressive DVD collection he’d ever seen in his life. She made Blockbuster look poorly stocked.
This wasn’t a living room. This was Heaven.
He ran a finger along the titles lining the closest of the floor-to-ceiling shelves. The yellow spine of one case caught his eye. To Catch a Thief. Well, wasn’t that fitting? Nate snagged the Hitchcock masterpiece off the shelf and turned it over. Grace Kelly gazed up at him with a beguiling combination of sensual knowledge and naïveté.
“They don’t make ’em like that anymore, do they?”
Nate looked up to find Ciara watching him. She leaned against the arm of the Barcalounger, tight jeans and a snug T-shirt molding to every curve.
Nate started to drool for a whole new reason, then sharply reminded himself that she was a suspect, a criminal—or at the very least an accomplice. His drool was reserved for the pious women his mother found for him—which didn’t sound like nearly as much fun, but he was no James Bond. He didn’t bed the bad girls before sending them away for life.
Ciara fidgeted, twisting her fingers. He belatedly realized she was waiting for a response, but he couldn’t remember what she’d asked him. Something about the movie? Where the hell was his brain? He’d been out of the game for a while, but he was a professional. He’d been at this too long to be tripped up by a pretty face with a killer movie collection.
He nodded toward the shelves that lined every wall. “You’ve got more movies than God.”
She flashed an impish grin. “Well, you know, He’s a busy dude. I’ve got more time to watch them.”
Nate stilled. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Ciara Liung was flirting with him. Hope kindled. Maybe he hadn’t completely ruined his chances to nail her—in the legal sense. If he could get her talking about her so-called magic process and trip her up somehow, he’d have a tidy little confession from Miss Ciara Liung in no time.
Nate settled onto the couch, propping his cane in front of him and doing his best to look mild and nonthreatening. “So the touching thing…”
Ciara sighed and dropped onto the arm of the Barcalounger. “It’s kinda like Rogue, from X-Men. Only in reverse. When people touch my skin, it hurts me.”
“Is that part of the finding stuff?”
“Sort of. It’s a side effect. I have an affinity for lost or stolen objects. I can see them, but anything touching my skin is like psychic static on the picture. Normally, I can ignore it, tune it out, but water is my catalyst. It amplifies everything. I can see so much more crisply when I’m in the water, but the touch of anything on my skin is excruciating.”
“So…”
“I work naked,” she said flatly.
His brain helpfully conjured images of Ciara working. Nate ignored them. Mostly. “You have to admit that’s awfully convenient.”
Her eyebrows flew up, a small smile quirking her mouth. “Actually, it’s extremely inconvenient.”
“Someone steals some jewels. The FBI comes to you to find them. You disappear and reappear with the location of the jewels. No one can watch you work because you have to work naked. You always find what you’re looking for. You always walk away with the insurance company’s reward money, but we never catch the thieves who stole the gems in the first place. That’s very suspicious, Ms. Liung. If someone tried to sell you that story, wouldn’t you wonder if they were running an elaborate con?”
She met his eyes squarely. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“You want me to believe you’ve solved eighty-five robberies in the last three years because you’re psychic, but only when you’re naked? Are you even listening to yourself?”
“It doesn’t really matter what you believe. You won’t be working with me long enough to matter.” Her smile turned smug.
She looked like she was enjoying herself. Not exactly part of his plan. He’d hoped to discomfit her, but if she was having fun, maybe she’d be more chatty.
Nate had been assigned to her detail until retirement, but he didn’t contradict her. Instead, he tried for a smile. “I’m easy to convince,” he said. “All you have to do is show me.”
She laughed. “I’m not going to strip for you, Agent Smith. No matter how many kinky fantasies you want to live out.”
He held up To Catch a Thief, showing her Grace Kelly oozing perfection on the cover. “What if I told you her necklace had been stole
n?”
She arched an eyebrow. “That’s pretty much the premise of the movie. She thinks Cary Grant did it, only Cary Grant didn’t do it, but now he has to help her figure out who did do it or he’ll take the fall for it. I’m really feeling for Cary Grant at the moment.”
“I’m not talking about the movie. Princess Grace. The Heart of Monaco. It’s the necklace Prince Albert gave her on their wedding day. It’s been stolen. The government of Monaco has reason to believe the thieves will try to fence it in the U.S., so the FBI has been called in to assist in the investigation.” Nate studied her face, looking for telling signs of greed, eagerness or reluctance, but all he saw there was a little quirk of a smile with just the right dash of naughtiness. Which did not turn him on. He refused to be turned on by a suspect. “I’m supposed to ask you to find it.”
“You’re supposed to, but…what? You don’t want me to?”
“The government of Monaco would certainly like it back, but let’s just cut the crap, Miss Liung. You and I both know you aren’t psychic. Just give me the name of the fence you’re working with. I’ll see what I can do about mitigating the charges against you. Just confess…or get naked. Your choice.”
Ciara bit her lip. He could see her thoughts racing behind her dark eyes. Nate smiled internally.
If she started stripping to prove her innocence, he might have to believe his luck had changed. Blown cover, shot in the leg, blood infection, permanent muscle damage—his life had sucked lately. A Chinese-American fantasy giving him a private striptease would be a hell of a way to reverse his fortunes.
Any moment now she’d admit it was all a scam. She’d lead him straight to whoever was behind the robberies. In a matter of days he would go from being the pitiable crip relegated to working a desk to being the Bureau hero responsible for bringing down a major jewelry theft ring. Visions of commendations and promotions danced in his head. He would prove that he wasn’t just some poor schmuck with only one leg who wasn’t good for anything anymore. He’d get his goddamn dignity back. Just as soon as little Miss Ciara Liung acknowledged the impossible was really impossible. She wasn’t a psychic. She was working both sides.
