Intimate Knowledge Page 6

  “Agent Lockhart, are you going to blow your cover?”

  “No, sir.”

  “See, Pierce? Everything will be all right.”

  Logan grabbed the putter and pulled it away from Carmody’s line of vision.

  “Commander—”

  Too late he realized his tactical error. The absolute stillness on Carmody’s face as he turned to him told him the discussion was finished. As if he’d ever really considered changing his mind. He’d picked the agents he wanted on this case, and now he expected them to do their job.

  “Your concerns are duly noted. But I’m confident that between her brains and your experience, you can complete the assigned task in record time.” He pulled the putter from Logan’s unresisting grasp and returned to his practice stance. “I believe the clock is ticking.”

  Dismissed without another word, Logan followed the smug sway of Grace’s butt down the hallway to the elevator. Her shoulders were thrown back in proud triumph at having the boss side with her. She wore a gray suit today, too. But the softer charcoal color, shorter hem length and belted waist had subtly transformed her appearance from a shapeless box into a confident, professional—sexy—woman.

  Maybe that was part of his problem. Guilt. He’d been so busy trying to dress her up and have some fun with her that he hadn’t seen the real problem.

  She might be half good at this assignment. But half good was worse than no good. If she thought she had some skills—such as her eye for details, her thorough research on Mitchell, her way around a computer—she’d take risks.

  And for an agent with no covert experience, taking risks could be suicide. She’d panic or lose her temper or pull that soft and vulnerable act the way she had when her mother had stopped by yesterday. Any one of those mistakes would clue in a smart guy like Mitchell to the fact she wasn’t who she claimed to be.

  All that would change now. If he had to train her for deep cover work, he would train her hard. No time for flirtations and fun. He had four days to make her as tough and savvy about the business as he was.

  Four days of sheer torture.

  There were just the two of them on the elevator. Still, Grace stood by the button panel while he leaned against the rail on the opposite side. Not once had she turned to look at him since leaving Carmody’s office.

  “Don’t think you’ve won anything here,” he said.

  “I’m not trying to win anything. I’m trying to do my job.”

  “Your job?” As if she knew what this job was about. Logan bristled at the same naiveté he’d found so intriguing at their first meeting.

  He reached in front of her and punched the stop button, triggering a high-pitched buzzer and stalling the elevator between the sixth and seventh floors.

  “Lie to me.”

  “Are you crazy?” As any cubicle-trained technician would, she immediately searched for the right button to push to silence the alarm and get them moving again. “What are you doing?”

  “Tell me a lie and make me believe it.” Logan grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her to the back wall. He released her, but blocked her way to the doors, the buttons, and any chance of freedom. “You may catch Mitchell’s eye with your new look, but you won’t last two minutes if you can’t convince him that every word you’re saying is the truth. So tell me a lie.”

  Her big emerald eyes clouded over with thought. The emergency buzzer might as well have been her own death knell.

  Her eyes brightened the instant before she spoke. “I appreciate your…” she paused—a dead giveaway “…Unorthodox training techniques.”

  “You lose. Try again.” He leaned in a fraction, upping the stakes in this little dare. “Rule number six is surprise a man. Show him the unexpected. If I can read you like a book, then so can Mitchell. I don’t think you can do it. I don’t think you can tell a convincing lie.”

  This time she had the good sense to look down and fiddle with her bag while she tried to think of what to say. A classic gambit that Mitchell might recognize, though it was a step in the right direction.

  But when she looked up at him, her cheeks flamed with color, a sure sign of distress. “I resent the hell out of you taking my fitness for this assignment up with Carmody.”

  “That’s not a lie.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  He bombarded her with questions, purposefully inciting her temper, forcing her to fight for logic and control and credibility. She failed on every count.

  “Damn it, Logan, what do you want me to do?”

  A sheen of perspiration glowed on her skin. The elevator filled with the heat of her frustration, which was multiplied by the heat of his body’s unbidden response to her fire. Without touching, he was breathing as hard as he’d been last night when he’d nearly stripped her naked inside that dressing room.

  Logan pushed out a cleansing breath as he turned away. One of these times he’d get smart and do this battle-of-wills thing with her someplace wide open. Well-ventilated. Air-conditioned, even.

  He punched the start button and felt the elevator lurch deep in his bones. He absorbed the sudden jolt of movement as easily as he absorbed the brunt of her accusatory silence.

  “I want you to resign from this case.”

  5

  RESIGN FROM THIS CASE.

  As if!

  Grace removed the heavy earphones that muffled the sounds of the firing range and hung them around her neck while she reloaded blanks into the Smith & Wesson .38 Logan had given her. She brought the paper target into view and cringed with embarrassment.

  “Damn it.” She’d missed all five shots.

  She never claimed to be any kind of marksman, but at least with her company-issue Sig Sauer she could meet the basic proficiency requirements.

  “Time to go back to your cubicle, Gracie.”

  The hated nickname rippled along her spine, and her self-appointed sentinel unfolded himself from the shadows of the booth behind her.

  “The weight of the gun is so light.” She refused to give him the satisfaction of getting defensive again. But she had to argue the logic. “The barrel is shorter. It’s hard to get used to the kick of this.”

  Tall and dark and oozing superiority in his spare movements, Logan came up behind her and peered down the lane that separated them from anyone else who might be practicing. “It’s smaller so that it’s easier to conceal. That’s why it’s called an Undercover .38.”

  She’d asked him to teach her about being sexy, not categorize her as some helpless female or incompetent rookie. Yet here he was, patronizing her, just like her coworkers who thought she was crazy for wanting to trade in her safe, predictable computer job to become a field agent. Patronizing her just like the men who had paraded through her life growing up, abusing her mother’s trusting nature for a shot at making it with a starlet.

  Using Grace herself as a poor substitute. Until she’d learned to hide her attributes behind bulky clothes and thick glasses. Until she’d decided to play the role of responsible adult and tried to teach Mimsey the difference between taking in someone in need and simply being taken in.

  “You need to be as smooth with the gun as you are with a lie. If you have to defend yourself, you won’t get a second chance to shoot.”

  There he went with the lie thing again. How many times did she have to prove herself before Logan would take her seriously? Before he’d trust that she actually had more brain cells than boobs?

  For a while yesterday she’d thought Logan was different from the other men she’d met. Sure, he’d noticed her ample breasts and hips. But she thought he’d seen beyond them. That maybe he’d actually listened when she’d talked about her fears and hurts.

  But no. He was turning out to be like every other man on the planet.

  Commander Carmody was giving her a chance to do something important, something meaningful. Something only she could do. Grace suspected that if she failed, she wouldn’t get another chance.

  Logan P
ierce and his sexy eyes and shadowed past weren’t going to ruin this opportunity for her.

  Resign from the case, indeed! She had a thing or two to show Logan Pierce.

  She hoped.

  Grace put the earphones back on and adjusted her goggles. Logan slid his left hand along her arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake. His larger hand covered hers where it rested on the butt of the gun.

  He lifted the right ear cup and whispered a command. “Compensate for the lighter weight like this.”

  By the time he had his chest pressed against her back, with both hands holding hers around the gun, an idea had taken root.

  The man wanted surprises?

  Well, she was about to give him one—and teach him a lesson in the process.

  Maybe there were advantages to being an actress’s daughter.

  Thinking back to her mother’s heyday on the big screen, Grace pursed her lips in a studious pout and squinted as she concentrated on sighting the target. She adjusted her shoulders so that they nestled snugly beneath Logan’s outstretched arms, and wriggled her bottom against the juncture of his thighs.

  Though words would be impossible to hear, the warm hiss of his breath at her temple told her she had made contact with her intended target.

  Wrapped like a cocoon in the cradle of Logan’s body, Grace hid her triumphant smile and squeezed the trigger. Her shoulders recoiled into his chest. Her shot went wide of the target.

  She adjusted herself again, this time angling the crown of her hair along his solid jaw. She dragged her tongue along the arc of her lips, and with his hands guiding hers, she pulled the trigger a second time.

  She made a hole in the shoulder of the paper target. But, more importantly, Logan’s arms tightened around her to steady her next shot.

  Think like Mimsey, she coached herself, ignoring her body’s softening response to the hard contact of Logan’s body. What Grace didn’t possess herself, she’d borrow from her mother. Play a part. Mimsey Lockhart had played seductresses and lusty innocents in all her movies, always winding up in a passionate embrace just as the monster or alien or scientific creation-gone-wrong was about to attack and destroy the world.

  The only thing Grace wanted to destroy was Logan’s superior attitude. She could work undercover. She could lie if she had to.

  She could stay in control and surprise a man. Rules number two and six, if memory served her correctly.

  She’d beat Logan at his own game. Use his list of what he found sexy against him.

  Just think like Mimsey.

  Think sexy.

  While she prepared to shoot again, she spread her feet a half step apart, putting one foot on either side of Logan’s. Her lower regions grew mysteriously heavy. Moistened with thoughts of the game she was playing.

  She retreated another fraction of a step and felt the solid trunk of Logan’s thigh pressing along the seam of her buttocks. Every muscle between her waist and thighs jumped at the contact, then tightened involuntarily. Anticipating. Waiting. He adjusted his position, rubbing his hard thigh into the natural space between her curves. The hidden muscles clenched again. Her new silk panties dampened with heat.

  Denying her body’s flagrant response, Grace peered through the lenses of her protective goggles and focused on the target.

  But Logan was having some trouble concentrating, too. His nose stirred the hair at her temple in a nuzzling caress. Seizing the advantage of his distraction, she squeezed the trigger a third time. Momentum threw her backward, but the unbending wall of Logan’s body refused to budge. She would have stumbled forward, but his left hand snaked around her waist, catching her, trapping her in the deliciously hot vise of his body.

  If he spoke, either tutoring her aim or condemning her little tease, she never heard him.

  His forearm drifted upward, catching beneath the weight of her breasts. The size and heat and hardness of him surrounding her, splitting her, shielding her, distracted her from the carefully calculated role she was playing.

  She tried to form a picture of her mother playing out a similarly breathless scene with a heroic sheriff in Mutant Rat Attack.

  But the only image that would come to mind was the memory of herself, half-naked, mounted on Logan’s knee in the cramped confines of the dressing room last night. Her bare, damp breasts flattened in the crisp, curling hair on his chest as the erotically masculine reflection of broad shoulders and big hands and his long, sleek, leather-holstered gun tantalized her from every angle.

  Her palms tingled with remembered heat around the grip of her pistol.

  Think like Mimsey! She practically screamed the words inside her head, begging her mind to seize on the painful memories from her childhood and stifle her body’s helpless reaction to this calculated seduction.

  Without even trying, Logan was claiming the upper hand in this latest tutoring session.

  Again.

  She wouldn’t let him.

  Grace opened her mouth and breathed slowly, in and out, consciously dragging cool air into her feverish body.

  Stay in control. Rule number two.

  Almost as if guided by instinct, his fingers curled around hers on the gun. She lifted it and fired.

  She was inside the target outline now.

  And then his lips grazed her neck, moist and hot, pushing aside the curls at her nape. An unfamiliar ache throbbed at her center, changing dampness into a little gush of honey. She shifted her stance to ease the pressure, and inadvertently gave him access to a tiny dimple behind her ear.

  Erogenous zones. Rule three. She made the observation through instinct as a blaze of molten rapture pulsed to the spot. He touched it with his tongue and her teeth nearly chattered as waves of sheer pleasure shivered through her.

  In the aftermath she became aware of something new, something firm and strong pressing against her bottom. He was aroused.

  Okay, technically, so was she. But intellectual triumph gave her the control she needed for that last shot at the target.

  Stretching herself like a cat, priming the tension in her own body, she backed every inch of herself against Logan that she could. His hand moved up inside her jacket and palmed her breast. Through her blouse and bra he squeezed. Grace gasped at the exquisite tingle of pleasure-coated pain. She struggled to stay in control. She had something to prove. She could lie. She could do this.

  His fingers glided along the silky material, rubbing at the tender peak until the vibration she felt in her chest could have been his moan…could have been her own.

  Grace inhaled deeply, fighting for oxygen and coherent thought. Logan took advantage and found his way inside her bra to bare skin. He pushed the strap aside and seized its full, straining weight. His thumb and forefinger rolled the aching tip until she cried out at the delicate agony of his touch.

  He pulled his other hand from hers, dragging it with a teasing, deliberate friction along the length of her arm, over the thrust of her breast, into the nip of her waist, and then farther down. His fingers splayed at her abdomen, pushing it flat. His long fingers reached farther to dance across her inner thighs, bunching up her skirt in his hand. And then, through her panties and hose he cupped her raw, swollen heat.

  Instinctively her crotch gyrated against the pressure. Her low, keening moan rang in her ears until she could hear nothing more, think nothing more, but the snare of Logan’s hands and mouth and body in which she was trapped.

  “What are you doing to me, Grace?” His voice was a ragged whisper against her skin.

  What are you doing to me, Miss Nancy?

  Grace’s eyes shot open as a snippet of rational thought crept into her mind once more. That was the line the sheriff had said to her mother’s character in the movie. Logan’s words were almost identical.

  Mimsey. Of course. Remember Mimsey.

  Stay in control. This was all a lie. She was playing a part.

  Grace sought the survivor’s strength that had seen her through her childhood.

&nbs
p; She raised the gun, clutching it in both hands now, needing something—anything—to hold on to, to concentrate on, besides the unfamiliar tension nearing its snapping point inside her body. She narrowed her gaze and focused on the circle drawn around the target’s heart.

  Logan’s hands squeezed.

  She pulled the trigger.

  Something keen and unexpected exploded inside her, in rhythm with the gun’s report.

  Orgasm.

  Oh, my God. Was that…? Did she…? Without…?

  Grace never got the chance to analyze the rapturous sensation that drained her, released her, leaving her stunned and shaking.

  In one fluid motion, Logan pried the pistol from her unresisting fingers and turned her in his arms. Goggles and earphones clattered to the floor as he swept her into his kiss. His hands were on her breasts, grabbing, stripping, squeezing. He backed her against the booth counter and lifted her up, hiking her skirt to her thighs and walking between her legs. He speared his fingers into her hair, catching her and holding her beneath his mouth as he plundered and took what he wanted.

  She surrendered to his demands, letting her tongue mate with his, letting her hands find their way around his waist where they dipped lower, past the pockets of those very jeans she had folded that morning. She squeezed him tight and held him, wantonly rubbing herself against the ridge in his pants. He groaned into her mouth and she repeated the action, reveling in her newfound femininity, delighting in her power over him as his hips rocked against hers.

  “Grace. Damn it. Grace.” His words were a low-pitched rasp against her lips. “Someone might see—”

  That was enough to break the spell. Enough to give her an opportunity to think. To remember how this had all started.

  She moved her hands to his chest and pushed away. She pressed her knuckles to her ravaged mouth and concentrated on breathing at an even tempo. Despite legs that supported her like twin sticks of jelly, she dropped her feet back to the floor and summoned all the prim dignity of the Grace of old. She straightened the front of her blouse and tugged down the hem of her skirt.