Читать книгу Nobody Does It Better - JENNIFER LABRECQUE - Страница 8

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THE LOCK CLICKED INTO PLACE on the other side of his door leading to the washroom, and Gage settled back onto the bed in his adjoining room, the laptop monitor giving him a clear view of the loo and the Gorgon’s room. The Gorgon proceeded to examine the washroom. She peered into the corners, stood on her tiptoes to check the showerhead and even gave the toilet itself a cursory once-over.

He grinned and crossed his arms behind his head. He wasn’t sure what she used in the way of spyware, but Gage employed cutting-edge technology. She could look all day and never detect the motion-activated audio-video equipment planted in both rooms.

She offered an almost imperceptible shrug and leaned into the washroom mirror, peering at her face. A queer feeling jolted through him and he shook it off. Her eyes were positively arresting, yet the rest of her face was singularly unremarkable except for a slightly lush mouth.

She sighed and stepped back. Without ceremony, she unzipped and slipped out of her trousers. He wasn’t a voyeur and he would only watch her undress for as long as it took to ascertain she didn’t have any information hidden on her.

Her top came past her thighs, but Gage would’ve had to be a eunuch—and he wasn’t—not to notice and appreciate the lovely length of shapely leg. The Gorgon boasted the legs of a 1940’s pinup girl. She neatly folded her trousers and placed them on a towel on the washbasin’s edge.

In one fluid motion she tugged the top over her head and all the air seemed to suck right out of Gage’s body. Lush rounded curves covered by black knickers, cut high on the thigh and low on the hip, and a black bra. In the center of her chest a small zippered travel pouch was affixed to her two bra straps. Unsnapping the pouch, she stacked it and her top on her trousers.

She raised her arms over her head as she arched her back in a sinuous stretch—a siren’s call, all the more difficult not to heed as she was unaware of her audience—and then brought them down and back. She slowly rotated her head on her neck, as if ridding herself of the day’s tension, and then rolled her shoulders in an unerringly erotic motion.

She reached between her breasts and unhooked her bra. One simple shrug of her elegantly rounded shoulders and it was gone, joining her trousers and top.

Throughout the years, his gallery had displayed countless art pieces with nude subjects in varying states of undress. Strictly as a chap who appreciated the human form as a work of beauty, he was appreciative. Her back, from neck to hip, was a fluid, sensual work of art. Golden brown nipples tipped full breasts. As a man who hadn’t had a lover in months, he noted the alabaster globes, the slight rounding of her belly and the curve of her hips.

She turned and started the shower, stepping aside to avoid the spray. While the water heated, she skimmed her knickers off. A triangle of crisp curls covered the apex between her thighs and her lush bum formed an inverted heart at the base of her spine.

Desire, usually buffered by an emotional distance, slammed into him with a force that shook him. Intense wanting knifed through him, bypassing all rationale and objectivity. She stepped under the shower spray and he deliberately looked away from the screen, drawing a deep breath and holding it before exhaling slowly.

He’d never reacted this way, felt such a…connection to anyone before. His detachment seemed to have deserted him at a most inopportune time.

His operative task was broken down into a series of small objectives, which would ultimately lead to him attaining his primary goal. This particular objective had been satisfied. His cock stirred and he grimaced. Satisfied was a piss-poor choice of wording. How about met? He’d met his objective. He’d ascertained she wasn’t hiding any documents or goods in her clothing, although it could still be in her knapsack or the small pouch she’d worn. To watch her shower moved beyond his professional role and there was no room for that. She was a job. An assignment. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Out of nowhere she moaned, a low, husky direct feed in his ear. Like an adrenaline hit, it shot straight to his cock. What the hell? He glanced at the screen. Her head was tilted back. Water cascaded over her shoulders and the slopes of her honey-tipped breasts, running in rivulets over her belly and down the length of her legs, darkening her pubic hair.

Blood pooled between his thighs, thickening his cock to full attention. So caught up was he in the water flowing over her nakedness, he reached between his legs before he realized what he was about to do.

Bloody hell. He’d never sat about wanking his tool while on assignment and he wasn’t about to take it up now. He deliberately looked away, willing his cockstand back down.

He’d go one better than a cold shower. He’d ring Mason with an update.

“Everything’s in place?” Mason said. “You had time to set up?”

“Yes. She made contact on her mobile. She says everything is set to proceed as normal tomorrow. She referenced a Ming who’s to be picked up tomorrow and she warned he would try to get out.”

“We’ll see what we can find on a Ming. Any other names? Other references?” Mason’s voice sharpened with impatience.

Wouldn’t he have said so? Gage merely said, “No. What about her case? Find anything of interest?”

“It’s clean. We destroyed it, ripped out the seams in her trousers and knickers, even took the locks apart, nothing. Not that we really expected to find much. Anything of consequence will be on her.”

Perhaps in her backpack, or in the pouch she’d carried in her bra but not immediately on her now. The Gorgon was too seasoned to hide anything in her case, although sometimes, the best course of action was the least-anticipated move.

In the next room, the shower stopped. He quickly disconnected the phone.

Listening to the sound of her toweling herself dry, Gage prided himself on his professionalism. There was no need to watch her until she left the washroom. Unfortunately, he seemed singularly incapable of not seeing her in his mind’s eye.

Water splashed in the sink and the accompanying sound of her brushing her teeth echoed in his earpiece. The water ran a bit longer and a quick glance at the screen revealed she was rinsing out her knickers, the hotel towel wrapped around her, sarong-style. In short order, she unlocked his door from the inside, indicating it was free for him to use it, exited the washroom and immediately locked her bedroom door behind her.

He watched her via the monitor as she hung her clothes in the wardrobe and her knickers on a hanger to dry. She retrieved a pair of glasses and a small notebook and pen from her knapsack, placing them on the bedside stand.

Gage had monitored other operatives numerous times and always with a clinical detachment. Why then did it feel so intimate to watch her perform these routine tasks?

The Gorgon stood before her bedroom mirror and finger-combed her tangled hair. “My kingdom for a blow dryer,” she muttered before turning away in disgust. Gage grinned. Poor Gorgon. But that’s what one got when one made a living selling secrets.

She pulled off the towel and draped it over the chair back. “I guess I’ll just have to wear the sheet if there’s a fire in the middle of the night,” she said to her reflection, wrinkling her nose in an innocent way. But Gage knew better. He knew the bad guys weren’t always all bad and he knew the good-guy’s hats were more often gray than white. Still, it struck him as…well, rather cute. One didn’t expect the Gorgon to display a cute side when she was alone in her room talking to herself in the mirror. That’d get him in for a bloody evaluation in no time. Yes, Mason, the Gorgon displays a cute side to her when she’s alone. For chrissakes, puppies and kittens were cute, not sodding spooks. Actually, it’d almost be worth it just to watch the look on Mason’s face at the thought of his number one agent slipping over the edge.

THE GORGON GASPED HER pleasure. The blond man—was his name Raymond?—tugged harder at her nipple held between his fingers and alternately sucked and nipped at the one in his mouth.

“Do you like that?” Tightening his grip on her massage-oil-slicked thighs, the dark-haired Trevor worked his cock in and out of her harder and faster. She slid her hand up and down Raymond’s engorged penis in the same rhythm, scraping her nail lightly against the sensitive ridge on the underside.

Rule one: Don’t limit sex to good-looking, well-endowed men. Often the less-attractive ones, or those with smaller dicks, were more grateful and thus much more easily manipulated. They also tried harder to please.

Rule two: She was in charge…and they knew it. No one came until she came.

Rule three: Never let them know her real name or her number. She contacted them. It kept it simple and it kept them needy. Even the ones with girlfriends or wives came, no pun intended, when she called. Sometimes, the men even brought their significant others along. She, the Gorgon—she rather liked thinking of herself by that name—had an appetite for things the wives and girlfriends often didn’t.

And rule four: Sex was better with three on the playing field.

On the hotel nightstand, her phone vibrated. It’d be him with an update. She’d instructed him to text rather than call, telling him she had a meeting. Paranoia, possessiveness and insecurity on his part all worked to her advantage, but he wouldn’t like it if he knew what she was doing now.

“Hold that thought, gentlemen,” she said, unhanding Raymond’s cock. He was the less gifted of the two in the size department. She had plans for him after the commercial break.

She slid up the four-hundred-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and flipped open her phone. She downloaded the text message and quickly scanned it.

A slow smile curved her mouth and the sexual excitement she’d felt with Raymond and Trevor intensified. Everything in Europe was going precisely as she’d planned. Carswell had been unleashed on the unsuspecting Holly Smith. She flipped her phone closed.

She got off on this spy business. She’d kind of miss it when she retired. She’d have to find something else to occupy her. And this news definitely called for a celebration. She rolled to her knees and turned to Trevor, where he waited at the end of the bed. “I think it’s time we switched things around, gentlemen.” She crawled the length of the bed on her hands and knees, her breasts swinging free and heavy. Braced on one hand, she wrapped her other hand around Trevor’s cock, teasing her tongue along the tip. He quivered in her palm and her smile widened.

She paused to glance over her shoulder at Raymond. “You’re invited to the party, too. But use the back door.”

Yes, this called for a celebration, indeed.

GAGE LOUNGED ABOUT IN his bed the following morning, content to do nothing. A bit of a lie-in had always been one of his guilty pleasures. His hard-ass grandfather, the Colonel, had considered it heretical and it hadn’t gone over well at boarding school, either.

Better still if it was a lazy rainy day and he had a spot of feminine company between the sheets.

He stretched and bunched the pillow beneath his head. It wasn’t as if he could do anything until the Gorgon made a move. Thus far, she’d made an early-morning visit to the loo, which he’d not watched once he ascertained there was nothing in her hands.

She nabbed her mobile and dialed, hugging one naked arm around her naked waist right below her naked breasts. Why didn’t she put on some bloody clothes? All that nakedness was damned distracting. Naked was a good look on her.

“Buon giorno.” She identified herself and gave her room number. “Has my suitcase arrived?” She paused. “You’re sure? Thank you. Grazie.”

She disconnected the call with a snap of her mobile. “Damn it to hell.”

She revisited the wardrobe, feeling her knickers, obviously far from dry judging by her grimace. She sniffed delicately at yesterday’s clothes and recoiled. “That’s just gross.”

Note to self. The Gorgon wasn’t a morning person. And she also had the most delicious voice, dropping sharp consonants and rounding itself around vowels, lengthening them in a Southern drawl. He’d never considered himself much of an auditory person, but her voice sent a rush through him. Christ, she even made swearing sound sexy. Not a far stretch at all to imagine her in her lovely naked state whispering a bit of naughtiness in his ear…

She rooted around in her knapsack and punched in a series of numbers on her mobile phone.

In all the spy films, the phone was always being monitored and recorded. But until he found a private moment with her mobile, he was privy only to her end of the conversation. She identified herself and her flight number to someone on the other end. Ah, she was following up with the airline. He settled back against his pillow. This should prove entertaining.

“My luggage didn’t make the flight from London to Venice yesterday. It was supposed to be delivered to my hotel this morning. What? There’s no trace of it?” Her voice escalated a notch. “How can you have lost it? It was checked through in Atlanta. I was assured it would be sent to my hotel. Yes, I understand you can’t send it if you can’t find it. But how about you understand this—I need underwear!” Well, now that she’d destroyed Gage’s hearing in that ear… “I washed out my lone pair last night and they haven’t dried. I don’t want to wear wet panties.”

She might be the enemy, but she was magnificent when riled. Her aqua eyes flashed like a stormy sea and her breasts quivered. For chrissake, where was his bloody detachment that had served him so well all his life?

“Does that sound like a good vacation to you? It doesn’t to me. Listen, if I didn’t want to wear underwear, I would’ve left them at home in the first place. I don’t appreciate your attitude. What’s your supervisor’s name? Maybe they can introduce you to the concept of customer service.”

Gage took satisfaction in the fact that her missing case had inconvenienced the Gorgon. One had to relish the small victories as they arose.

She disconnected the call. Gage noted the time. Quarter past eight. Grinning, he shoved back the covers and strolled into the washroom, clicking the lock on her door and locking her out of the washroom.

“Crap,” she muttered in his ear—well, his earpiece—but it might as well’ve been in his ear.

His grin broadened and he turned on the shower.

“Ugh. Yuck.”

Apparently she’d elected to wear the wet knickers. He pushed the sexual connotation out of his mind. Ah, the Gorgon was going to be in rare form when he met her this morning. Might as well go for broke.

A passable tenor, Gage’s voice always improved with the acoustics of a tiled washroom. He burst into a shower rendition of La Bohéme, from act one.

“I have descended into the bowels of hell,” the Gorgon’s voice muttered in his ear.

Gage sang louder.

HOLLY HAD BEEN DETERMINED to put her bad-day karma behind her yesterday…until she’d rolled out of bed naked this morning and discovered still-damp panties, no luggage and a rude airline-customer-service representative.

The only good thing to come of that conversation? She knew her luggage wasn’t showing up today. The woman on the phone had actually seemed delighted to tell her if it hadn’t arrived by now, it wouldn’t make it today.

In the next room, the shower and the singing stopped. Thank God. The voice wasn’t particularly unpleasant, but she wasn’t in the mood to be serenaded this morning. Yet another grand reason for having requested a private bathroom.

Missing luggage necessitated a change of itinerary. She was more thankful than ever that she’d arranged a private tour guide. She’d specifically requested a woman, slightly older than herself and a Venetian native. Holly would feel comfortable with a woman and she’d look less like a tourist, gaining insight into what it was like to live in Venice. She’d been introduced, via the Internet, to her assigned guide, Signora Ciavelli. Forty-seven, with a slightly round face and dark hair sprinkled with a bit of gray, she’d looked kind and capable in her photo.

Signora Ciavelli would know exactly where they should shop. And shop they would, because clammy panties, clothes she’d worn for thirty-six hours, no makeup and no hair-care products just weren’t working for Holly.

She checked out her reflection in the bedroom mirror. To quote her brother, Kyle, she looked like shit on a stick. Some women fared well going au naturel. She wasn’t one of them.

She knew she wasn’t a head-turner. She was just an average woman with odd-colored eyes. The entire time she was growing up, she’d loathed having the eyes she’d inherited from her father’s grandmother. She’d hated it when people commented on them because the compliments always ended a little flat, as if it was a pity the rest of her didn’t match up. She’d embraced her averageness to the point that when she’d begun earning her own money, she’d started wearing brown-tinted contacts. In fact, she’d had brown eyes for more than a decade. Her mother was the beauty. Thank goodness Holly looked more like her father. She didn’t want to be like Julia, flighty and vain. But with all her recent activities, she’d also realized hiding her eye color wasn’t exactly embracing who and what she was. Holly had forsaken her contacts several months ago. People still commented on her eyes, but oddly enough, it no longer bothered her. Funny how self-acceptance colored one’s perceptions. But there was no coloring her appearance anything but lacking this morning.

She desperately needed concealer for the lovely dark shadows beneath her eyes. As for her hair… She leaned forward and tried fluffing it with her fingers while she held her head upside down. She stood upright again and it looked decent…for about three seconds until it settled back into flat waves against her head. Not a good look.

She’d planned to show up at Julia’s address this afternoon. Holly wasn’t the great American beauty, but she’d be damned if she’d arrive looking like something the cat had dragged in.

The lock on the other side of her door clicked, signaling the bathroom was available. She might not have toothpaste, but she could at least brush and rinse with water before she ran downstairs.

She stepped into the bathroom, ribbons of steam hanging in the room. She had to admit she liked the scent of the shampoo and cologne lingering in the room. However, the guy must be near-ancient and hard of hearing, considering how loudly he sang in the shower.

She locked the door on his side. Granted, she was only brushing her teeth, but she still didn’t want the old fellow to get confused and wander in.

Five minutes later, she shrugged into her backpack and headed downstairs to meet Signora Ciavelli, determined to turn a bad start into a good day.

She descended the last stairs into the small lobby area, catching a tantalizing whiff of coffee and fresh bread. Holly’s stomach growled in recognition. Maybe the scent was wafting in from a kitchen that was out of sight. Maybe it was from somewhere else. She just knew she was hungry. Many pensiones included a continental breakfast but once again, she’d thought to shave a couple of dollars by choosing one that didn’t. Besides, her meals were included in her tour.

She’d kill for a cup of coffee and one of the Italian pastries she’d read about in the guidebooks. As soon as Signora Ciavelli showed up, she’d talk her into grabbing a bite to eat.

A couple stood by the front door studying a map and speaking in German…or was it Swiss? Heck, it could’ve been Russian. She just knew it wasn’t English, Italian or French. Tucked in one corner of the room, to the left of the stairs, two chairs upholstered in worn burgundy velvet flanked a small table. A man sat in one chair, his face obscured by a newspaper. The other chair stood unoccupied.

Mrs. Cheese stood behind the dark wood counter that served as the reception desk to the right of the stairs, speaking, in rapid-fire Italian, into a phone propped between her ear and shoulder.

No one, however, remotely resembled Signora Ciavelli. She stepped over to the window beside the heavy wooden door to peer outside. She experienced that same tingling awareness she’d felt the night before when she’d landed at the Marco Polo airport. Maybe it was something in the air here.

“Ms. Smith?”

Startled at hearing her name spoken in a masculine British voice, she whirled around…and found herself in heart-pounding close proximity to one of the sexiest men she’d ever encountered. Average height, dark hair worn a little longish, a lean jaw, dark eyes rimmed in thick dark lashes beneath heavy eyebrows and a hard, masculine mouth. “Yes. And you are…?”

Don’t let it be Signora Ciavelli with a sex change, which wasn’t as far-fetched as it might sound, considering her luck the past couple of days.

“Gage Carswell.” He thrust a very capable-looking hand with well-shaped fingers toward her. Because she wasn’t sure exactly why she shouldn’t, she shook hands with the man, whoever he was. His handshake was strong and firm without being a vice grip, and if she thought she’d tingled before… His touch resonated through her, all the way to her toes. “Signora Ciavelli had a medical emergency. She’ll be fine, but I’ll be taking her place this week.”

She’d never met him before, she was sure of it. But something about him teased at her, a familiarity she couldn’t quite identify.

“But you’re a man.” She realized how idiotic her comment sounded the moment it left her mouth.

“I’ve had occasion to notice.” His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, which further upped his make-her-heart-race quota.

“But I requested a woman. And a native.” She wanted Signora Ciavelli because they would blend in with the locals and Holly could feel relaxed around her. Gage Carswell didn’t appear to fit either criteria.

“So I understand. But I lived in Venice for a few years and I’m quite fluent in Italian.” To illustrate his point, he broke into the language. She thought he said he looked forward to showing her the beauty of Venice. But he could’ve said her butt was too wide and her hair disgustingly flat and she wouldn’t have known the difference.

The missing piece, however, clicked into place for her. He didn’t look familiar but he smelled familiar. And once he spoke Italian, she placed his voice.

The voice in the shower this morning, the scent that lingered in the steamy room. “You wouldn’t happen to be staying here at the hotel, would you?”

“I am. As luck would have it, the room next to yours was available and the agency put me in there.” She’d pegged her bathroom buddy as elderly and deaf. When she was wrong, she was really wrong. She didn’t want to think about him naked in the bathroom, but her mind seemed intent on painting just that picture for her—wet dark hair, water clinging to well-formed shoulders, white towel knotted low on his hips…

She nodded and worried her lower lip between her teeth. “I recognized your voice when you spoke Italian.”

He flashed a not-quite-contrite grin that set off butterflies in her tummy. “The singing this morning. Pardon that. I tend to get carried away.”

She was flexible. She could roll with the punches. She was not, however, this flexible. Gage Carswell was too male, too sexy…too everything. He just wouldn’t do. “Isn’t there someone else they can send for the week?”

“Was my singing that bad?” Another smile and that tingling blossomed into something that felt dangerously akin to lust.

She did not want to be charmed by him. She didn’t need the distraction. And he definitely wasn’t part of her plan.

She ignored his comment and his smile. “I wanted a Venetian native.”

“And I’m quite sorry that you have to make do with me. The agency has authorized me to refund half of what you paid in recompense.”

Well, this was a fine mess. She’d be hopeless navigating her own way around. And now she also had to spend money she hadn’t planned to spend to replace her luggage and clothes. If she settled for this guy, she got half of her money back. And being on a tight budget…

“Okay.” She just couldn’t muster being gracious.

His own smile seemed a tad tight. “So, according to what you’d arranged through the agency, we’ll have a spot of breakfast and then it’s off to Dorsoduro.”

That had been her plan, to check out the southwestern district, or sestiere, which was her mother’s last-known address. From what she’d read, it was an area of quiet neighborhoods and charming canals replete with tree-shaded squares, home to wealthy Venetians and foreigners. The Dorsoduro, however, would have to wait until this afternoon. “There’s a change of plans, Mr. Carswell. After breakfast, we’re going shopping.”

“Want to get the souvenirs out of the way up front?”

She knew her smile was grim. “No. We’re going to buy panties.”