Sex, Lies & Lace (Sex and Lies Book 4)

by Kris Calvert

  A vibration rang out in my pants right on cue. My phone buzzed and I reached into my pocket to fish it out and push my ever-growing manhood back into its resting place. I wasn’t going to bed with Tina, but I wasn’t dead either.

  “Hello,” I said holding up my hand silently apologizing for taking the call.

  “Sorry to disturb you Dr. Giles.”

  Lilah Preston, my new executive assistant, had tagged along on the trip to Atlanta. It was a way for her to get to know me better outside the office—strictly in a business capacity. I was a weird creature and I knew it. If an assistant wanted to stand the test of time with me and be employed longer than a couple of weeks, it was best they knew all my public quirks—my private life would always be off limits. So far in the six months she’d been in my employ, Lilah was doing her best to keep up.

  “Yes, Lilah.”

  “I know you don’t like to be disturbed after you send me the text that says, Do Not Disturb—”

  “Well that is the point, but what is it?”

  “Dr. Laskin has been looking for you. He has everyone on the BioGen marketing team searching everywhere. He says he’s been trying to reach you.”

  “My phone only accepts calls from you, Lilah when I go into DND, and you know only to call if it’s an emergency.”

  “Dr. Giles?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know if it’s really an emergency. But I’m pretty sure Dr. Laskin thinks it’s an emergency.”

  2

  REAGAN

  I stared at my own reflection. The glare of the florescent lights that covered the ceiling caused the mirrors in the ladies room to cast a green glow across my face. Ripping the hair tie from my wrist, I pulled my long mane of blonde ringlets into a sleek ponytail. It was bad enough being the only female FBI agent in my graduating class, but I felt the need to constantly play down the body I’d worked so hard to keep and the feminine edge I refused to relinquish. Wiping the hint of gloss I’d rolled across my lips fifteen minutes earlier off with the back of my hand, I gripped the sides of the sink and stared at myself. I looked deep into the brown eyes laced with dark circles, deliberately blinking. I had come to the Academy in Quantico to change the FBI, not have it change me. Now, with one meeting looming over my head, I was about to discover where my career was headed.

  The door to the bathroom swung wide and Benny, one of the secretaries, stopped in her tracks, as she checked her watch.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in a meeting with Agent Daniels?” she asked.

  I took a deep breath and glanced at my own wrist. Mickey Mouse stared back at me. A gift from my grandparents when I was young, it had some scratches but the mouse’s hands still rotated around his little torso without a problem. I’d taken some heat over wearing it in college at Washington and Lee and then the Academy, but Mickey and I were still together. “I have four minutes to take the seven or eight paces down the hall, Benny.”

  She gave me a smile and a single nod. “You know what he says—if you’re early—”

  “You’re on time,” I said finishing Agent Nick Daniel’s favorite phrase. “If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, you’re dead.”

  “Get it over with, sweetie. All the girls in the secretarial pool are rooting for you. It’s been a few years since a woman graduated at the top of the class. You’re badass,” she said giving me a gentle punch in the arm. “Own it.”

  Straightening my shoulders, I tilted my chin up and gave myself one last look in the mirror, convincing myself to own it, and headed to the door. “Thank you, Benny.”

  “You’re welcome,” she shouted from the stall.

  Walking along the corridor, I smoothed my black pants down from the waist to my thighs, drying the perspiration from my nervous hands. The last thing I wanted was to let Agent Daniels see me sweat. I pulled the shirttail of my bright blue oxford down, smoothing it across my breasts and over the black dress pants that accentuated my narrow hips. I was all muscle, but I still looked like a woman. Every painstaking moment I’d sacrificed at the gym making my body into the tool that it was—a finely tuned, yet delicate, killing machine—was worth it in the end.

  Checking my watch once again, I knocked twice on Daniels’ door and waited.

  “Come in, Agent Weatherford.”

  This is it, I thought gripping the doorknob. This is where I meet my future. It was like agreeing to an arranged marriage. I had no idea who I’d end up working with or where, and yet I fully consented to the unknown for the chance to have what I wanted.

  “Agent Daniels,” I replied.

  He motioned for me to take a seat but instead I held out my hand to give his a firm shake. I didn’t like being treated differently than the men in my class. He obliged me and only then did I sit.

  “Reagan, to say that you’ve outdone yourself here would be an understatement. You were at the top of your class in academics, case exercises, operational skills and your firearms and hand to hand combat training is second to none.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “The Director’s Leadership Award is a big deal. You deserved it.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “That being said, there were many agents who wanted you on their team.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But I’m the one who got you.”

  “Sir?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There wasn’t a trainee on the Farm at Quantico who didn’t want to work for Nick Daniels. A thirty-year veteran, he didn’t run field operations any more, he merely held the keys to the lives of at least twenty undercover operatives. I was mission ready, I just didn’t know if I was ready to be out of sight and undercover right out of the gate.

  “Russian intelligence and surveillance has given us some information on their mob—ROC.”

  “Russian Organized Crime? Bratva?” Unfortunately, I knew exactly who they were. Bratva meant brotherhood and the organized criminal groups that belonged weren’t playing games. Mostly ex-KGB, the brothers were stealthy at money laundering, prostitution and narcotics, but even better at more refined thievery—stock manipulation, dirty politics, arms deals and terrorism. “Excuse me sir, are you sending me to Russia?” I had a Russian grandmother who escaped and came to the United States when she was a young girl during World War II. She’d made sure my mother and all of her grandchildren could speak Russian. She spoke perfect English, but refused to use it in my presence. She wanted me to understand and know my heritage. She wanted me to be proud of it. The people of Russia are not the Russian government, she would say. Good people. Bad government.

  Nick Daniels sat back and the oak chair whined in protest as he placed his templed hands on his chest. “You’re not going to Russia—at least not yet. There’s plenty of activity right here on American soil. How is your Russian?”

  “U menya prevoskhodnyy russkiy.”

  He raised his eyebrow at me and I bit my lip.

  “My Russian is perfect…sir.”

  “Agent Weatherford,” Daniels began, leaning back into his desk. “We’re sending you to New York City. Benny has all the details you’ll need to ship out. Get there. Get settled.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I stood, excited and a little scared to begin a new journey. Extending my hand once again, I waited for him to shake it. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re gonna have a partner up there, Weatherford.”

  “A partner?” I dropped his firm grip.

  “Agent Holloway.”

  I swallowed hard. “Win Holloway?”

  “Is there a problem, Weatherford?”

  I pursed my lips and shook my head. “No problem, sir.”

  “Good. Pack your things. Benny’s made arrangements for you to have a place in the city and has the case file outside waiting for you. You’ll hear from Holloway in the next twenty-four hours. You’re on a plane tonight out of Quantico.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “And Reaga
n?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You were made for this. Don’t let anyone give you shit.”

  I nodded and allowed the grin that crept from deep inside to surface on my lips. “Thank you sir.”

  I shut the door and stared into Benny’s smiling face as she sat behind her desk, satisfied as a fat cat. “You’re unbelievable.”

  “You know I can’t say anything.”

  I loved Benny but she could’ve given me a heads up if she knew I was going to be working with Win Holloway. The guy was a legendary skirt chaser at the FBI. It didn’t make him any less of an effective agent, but it would’ve kept me from having my slack-jawed moment of surprise in Nick Daniel’s office.

  I’d had one encounter with Agent Win Holloway and it was enough to last me for the rest of my life. I’d met the tall blonde with the striking green eyes and southern drawl my second day on the Farm. My eyes caked with mud from the obstacle course, the one functioning contact lens was cloudy, and the other eye as useless—as my father would so eloquently say—as tits on a nun. Not knowing the layout of the Academy very well, I wandered off the course and into the Men’s locker room instead of the Women’s. It shouldn’t have been such a terrible mistake, as all of the male agents were still on the course—and yet it was a disaster.

  One agent happened to be in town—Win Holloway. He’d worked out in the gym and was standing naked in front of me with a towel hanging around his neck. My vision was blurry, but I could still see why he was popular with the secretarial pool. Stunned when I happened upon him, I turned my back, trying to think of my next move.

  “Why are you in here?” I made sure I asked the question with authority.

  “Because I wanna be?”

  “No, why are you in the Women’s locker room?”

  “Why are you in the Men’s?” he asked without taking a beat.

  “What?”

  “Turn around.”

  “What? No. Am I in the wrong locker room? Tell me now,” I asked as my eyes began to sting and my blurred vision now in a full-on pained squint. Blindly walking forward, I ran headfirst into the concrete wall that surrounded the maze leading into the locker room. “Shit!”

  “That looked like it hurt a little. Why don’t you just turn around?”

  “No.”

  “Turn. Around.”

  “You’re naked.” My eyes still closed, I felt a soft damp towel fall on my shoulder.

  “Wipe your face so you can find your way into your own locker room.”

  I pulled the towel from my shoulder, my back still squarely to him. “Is this the wet towel from your body, dude?”

  His sexy chuckle was low and sweet. “Ah, no. That’s a clean towel that I wet for you. Wipe your face and find your way out of here so I can dress without an audience. That is, unless you wanna watch.”

  “Oh,” I said before placing it on my face and wiping enough of the grit from my eyes to find my way out.

  Embarrassed, I never wanted to lay eyes on the agent again. But I did. The next day he gave a seminar and I was forced to look at Win Holloway in his tailored suit for two hours straight. When the talk was over, he stopped me on my way out of the classroom and said, “Nice to see you again, Agent Weatherford.”

  I was mortified to say the least. I’d told no one but Benny. Now here I was, heading off to New York and whom was I working with? Win the Wonderschlong. A man blew through women like Charlie Sheen—without the coke habit.

  “I’m sorry they have you shipping out tonight,” Benny said handing me a file. “We’ll have to celebrate later.”

  Benny stood, walking around her desk to hug me. Hugs weren’t something you saw every day on the grounds of Quantico. This was where the toughest of the tough trained, and I was one of them. I hugged her back. I was still human. I was still a woman with feelings.

  “Make me proud.”

  “I will.”

  3

  REAGAN

  It was two in the morning when I made it to the furnished apartment on the lower east side of Manhattan. Dropping my two bags at the door, I flipped the switch to illuminate my new digs. It was a clean and empty studio apartment where the kitchen and bathroom were so close together they were basically one room. There was a desk and the double bed was ready for me to slip into silent slumber. I walked the six steps it took to get from the bed to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator hoping for anything. I wanted to eat, take two Advil and hit the sack. Tomorrow would be filled with research and I needed to get my best sleep in order to be on my toes. I was a woman in a man’s world. That meant I needed to be twice as prepared—three times as smart.

  The light in the fridge cast a shadow across the black and white checkerboard kitchen floor. On the top shelf along with six bottles of Aquafina was one bottle of Champagne, an expensive salad in a fancy plastic bowl and a note. Welcome to the team. –Win.

  Swiping one cold bottle of water from the shelf I wandered back to the bed, throwing myself on the mattress in a heap. Only one word came to mind, so I used it. “Shit.”

  The ring from the phone next to my head caused me to sit at attention and survey my surroundings. I didn’t know exactly where I was. Picking up the phone I could see it was five thirty in the morning.

  “Weatherford.”

  “Top of the morning to you, partner. This is your friendly wake up call.”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Win. Holloway?”

  “Why?”

  “No. Win.”

  “No, Win, why? I was told to meet you at nine.”

  “I’m downstairs. Buzz me up.”

  “What?”

  “Buzz me up, Reagan. Now.”

  Stumbling to the door, I could see a blue light coming from the security video monitor as it rang. Win Holloway’s rugged face filled the screen and I pressed the button with the illuminated key, allowing him into the building.

  Rushing to the bathroom, I took one look in the mirror and gasped. I was a federal agent for pity’s sake, I shouldn’t care what I look like. But I did. I ran my fingers through my hair and pulled the blonde mess into a sloppy bun before wiping the mascara from under my eyes that made me look like a rabid raccoon. I’d slept in the first thing I could find in my suitcase—FBI sweats from the academy—but I didn’t have on a bra and the girls were moving freely when the knock at the door came.

  “Coming,” I said as I searched the room for where my bra might have landed after I unhooked and flung it to the wind last night in my exhaustion.

  “Open up, Weatherford. Let’s go.”

  Opening the door, I stood away from it allowing him to enter. “What’s this all about?” I asked as I shut the door and crossed my arms in front of my breasts trying to hide my erect nipples. “Sir.”

  He was fresh as the morning dew and his rosy cheeks only enhanced the emerald green of his eyes. The stocking hat he wore covered his blonde waves, but I knew they were there as a few peeked out from under the tightly knit wool. The long sleeved half-zip workout shirt gripped his chest and arms and the Adidas sweats he wore showed off his round and muscular butt—no doubt a product of daily squats.

  “First off, don’t call me sir. We’re partners now, so Win or Holloway will do just fine. Get dressed. We’re taking a run and then we’re heading to the gym for a workout.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I said so. Now get dressed.”

  “Geez you’re bossy—especially for someone who’s my partner.”

  “And you’re making us late,” he said walking to the kitchen and pulling a water from the fridge.

  “Hey now.” I protested. “Why are you taking my water?”

  “I put it there. I’ve used this studio from time to time,” he said looking around the place as if he had fond memories that were none of my business.

  “From time to time?” I opened my suitcase and began to dig for my workout clothes. “What’s it like outside?”

  “Dangerous. Now h
ustle.”

  “I am.”

  He gave me a crooked smile as I took my clothes and walked to the bathroom to change. As soon as I shut the door I could hear him walking around the apartment as if to inspect anything I might have brought with me. “I see you didn’t eat the salad I left you,” he shouted through the door.

  Struggling to get my feet through the legs of my running tights, I stumbled into the wall, knocking the shampoo and conditioner from the shelf.

  “You okay in there?” he said bringing his voice down. “Need any help?”

  “Need any help,” I whispered to my reflection. “I’ll help you. I’ll help you right to your knees after I junk punch you in the man bits.”

  “What was that?” he called to me.

  “That was a no, Agent Holloway.”

  I brushed my teeth like a six year old—three swipes across the front, bottom and sides and splashed water on my face, wiping the remaining mascara from my eyes. I didn’t have a stitch of make up on and I really didn’t care. The Casanova standing outside the door was my partner, not anyone who would ever be interested in me outside of whether I had his six in the field.

  Opening the door, I watched him hang his arms from the doorframe flexing his biceps for me. “Bout damn time.” The southern drawl dripped from his perfect lips. I knew he’d used it on too many women at the Bureau.

  I watched him double take as he checked out my body in the form-fitting workout clothes. “Damn, Weatherford. What do you bench?”

  Taking the bottled water from his pants pocket, I flung open the door to the hallway, walking ahead. “Enough.”

  “C’mon,” he cajoled, following me out the door.

  “More than your IQ.”

  At nine a.m., Win Holloway and I walked into a Ukrainian diner on Second Avenue for breakfast. It had been a quick five miles and a long workout at the gym, but it felt good and necessary to sweat. Holding up two fingers to the hostess, we were led to a table in the back corner where we settled in. Purposely taking the seat against the wall, I was able to watch everything that happened around me.