Читать книгу Intimate Knowledge - Julie Miller - Страница 9

GRACE WATCHED Logan slip twenty dollars to the maître d’. “Is the agency going to pick up the tab for that, too?”

Logan smiled at her sarcasm and urged her along in front of him.

Despite his casual attire and her torn skirt, they were seated in the center of the plush Willingham Hotel restaurant, amid tables filled with businessmen and women dressed more appropriately and impeccably in suits. Keenly conscious of several curious stares, Grace opened her menu and hid her face behind it.

Once their arrival became old news and the patrons returned to their own conversations, she slapped the menu shut and leaned forward. “What the hell are we doing here?”

Logan had unzipped his jacket and sprawled back in his chair. With his long legs hidden beneath the white linen tablecloth, he sipped on a glass of water topped with a twist of lime. “I believe it’s called lunch.”

“I said I was happy to eat at the hot dog vendor’s down on the corner.”

At the snap of her whisper, Logan set down his glass and leaned forward, as annoyingly relaxed in their posh surroundings as she was self-conscious. “Hot dogs are a whole other lesson. You want to seduce a big-time crime lord. So we have to learn the big-time lessons first. Mitchell’s got money out the wazoo. You’re going to have to look like you’re at home in places like this.” His eyes lit with amusement at her expense. “So far you’re not doing very well, Gracie.”

She stiffened at the nickname, hearing the cutesy, belittling appellation like a hundred bad memories slapping her in the face. “Never call me Gracie. I am a twenty-six-year-old professional law enforcement officer. Grace or Agent Lockhart will do just fine.”

He patted the air with his hands, placating her. “Don’t be so eager to defend yourself. Keep your temper. Grace, it is.”

At least he’d allow her that one smidgen of respect. She had a feeling she’d have to swallow plenty of pride before this mission was accomplished. She pulled out her steno pad and opened it to the page where she’d listed ten numbers.

“Is that one of your rules?” She clicked her mechanical pencil and prepared to write. “Play it cool? I can do that.”

He reached across the table and stilled her hand. Sensing her instinct to jerk away from the personal contact, his long, calloused fingers wrapped around hers, pencil and all, trapping her in a vise of velvet and steel. Short of stabbing him with a fork or screaming her head off, she was his prisoner.

She shot him as damning a glance as she could muster through her glasses.

“Control, Grace.” Logan shook his finger at her like the recalcitrant pupil she was. “I’m talking about control. A man likes the challenge of breaking that control. You want to be his match, not easy pickings. He wants to earn his reward.”

Something about the softly articulated movement of his lips distracted her from the need to assert herself. The husky pitch of his voice, whispered for her ears alone, seeped inside her like a promise.

She heard her voice in the same soft whisper. “What’s your reward in all this?”

“Walking away from this assignment with you in one piece.”

“I can handle myself.”

Without blinking, those silvery eyes fixed on hers, capturing her curiosity, demanding her attention. Logan pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Grace jumped in her chair, shocked by the bubbling heat that simmered beneath the firm, warm pressure of his lips against her pulse. The whiskers on his chin abraded an apparently sensitive patch of skin there, sending out thousands of tiny little aftershocks in the kiss’s wake.

What surprised her more though, was the lingering, languid warmth that seemed to turn her arm into molten putty, rendering it useless. Rendering her useless for the time being.

“If you can’t handle this, you can’t handle Mitchell.”

“What? Oh.” Grace pulled her hand away and tucked it beneath her napkin in her lap, subconsciously hiding the betraying appendage until she could gather the good sense to compensate for such a mind-numbing reaction to a simple kiss.

Logan settled back and nodded toward her notebook. “You’d better write that down, too. Rule number three. Know your erogenous zones. But don’t tell a man where all of them are. He likes the thrill of discovering some for himself.”

The discovery part hadn’t been all that bad for her, either. She was honest enough to chart that bit of research in her memory. But, good God, it was just a kiss! The world hadn’t shattered beneath her feet. She’d seen no fireworks. After all, men and women had been kissing for centuries, eons, in fact. No need to make a big deal of it. He hadn’t even touched her mouth, just a silly little nibble on her wrist.

She quickly jotted down seduction rules numbers two and three—stay in control; know erogenous zones—embarrassed to admit that, though the earth hadn’t swallowed her up whole, she had, for a few moments, lost all capacity for rational thought. Logan had a point. If she couldn’t stay focused in Harris Mitchell’s company, she wouldn’t be able to plant the computer virus that would expose all his contacts. And she’d be endangering both her and Logan’s cover.

In an act of self-preservation, she quickly turned to the front of her steno pad and wrote a word at the top of the first page.

Research.

Only, she went back to add, in capital letters. No sense getting confused by the education process. Logan was teaching her what she needed to know about working undercover. She was the student who needed to know about catching Harris Mitchell’s eye, winning his trust, and becoming part of his organization. This was research.

This wasn’t real.

Getting trapped in those silvery eyes, collapsing after a kiss on the wrist or a sweep of Logan’s tongue against her neck—none of that was real.

She caught a glimpse of her torn skirt. What was left of her self-righteous anger deflated in a heartbeat. She was Grace Lockhart, frumpy computer nerd. She’d spent her formative years developing her brain and a defensive suit of armor to compensate for the developing shape of her body and a fear of repeating her mother’s mistakes.

Logan Pierce was a secret-agent hero. A handsome, dangerous man who could have any woman he wanted around the world.

She was a curiosity, perhaps. One of those challenges he said men liked. He might even be intrigued by the outrageous proposal to turn her into a seductress. But no way could she be on his list of desirable women. No way.

She went back to the Research Only note and added five exclamation points and a handful of stars.

GRACE HAD JUST POLISHED off her grilled chicken and mushroom pasta when she heard the voice.

“Gracie!” That high-pitched, whispery voice managed to carry across the entire restaurant. “Gracie, darling!”

Her fork clattered on her plate and she scanned the room for the nearest exit.

“Friend of yours?” Logan set his napkin on the table beside his coffee.

“Not exactly.”

Though she’d already been spotted, she nevertheless tried to shield her face behind her hand.

But the woman would have found her one way or the other. Something about a special bond she claimed they shared.

She felt a hug around her shoulders and a kiss on her cheek. Automatically, Grace wiped the spot with her napkin, knowing there would be a splotch of crimson lipstick.

Odd, she thought, when she looked at her napkin. Pale pink.

“Honey. Aren’t you going to get up and give me a hug?”

The different shade of lipstick had thrown her enough to respond without thinking—the way she had when she was a child.

“Mother.” She stood and hugged the woman she matched physically, inch for inch, although the outside trappings were considerably different.

Mimsey Lockhart leaned back and held Grace’s hands. “I never thought I’d run into you in the city today. What a glorious coincidence.”

“May I get an introduction?” Grace recognized a touch of more-than-polite interest in Logan’s husky voice.

“Mother. This is Agent Logan Pierce. My mother—Mimsey Lockhart.”

“Delighted to meet you.” His dangerous charm turned on to full magnetism was practically blinding. He clasped Mimsey’s hand between his and lifted it to his lips. Grace caught her breath.

He kissed her mother’s hand! Not quite the way he had kissed her wrist, but still… Grace averted her face, ashamed to recognize a stab of jealousy. She quickly derailed the emotion by remembering two things. Logan was a natural charmer. If he didn’t have the ability to please all the ladies, she wouldn’t have requested him for this assignment.

And, second, she knew that beaming smile on her mother’s face could have been achieved with considerably less than a kiss on the hand.

“Won’t you sit down?” Oh, God, had Logan really invited her mother to join them?

Grace shot him a look across the table. “We were just leaving.”

“No, we weren’t.” Logan absorbed her subtle plea for help with a smile of feigned innocence. “We haven’t finished our coffee.”

“Who needs coffee?” she muttered between clenched teeth. “The caffeine’s bad for us.”

Ignoring her not-so-subtle hint, he pulled out a chair and Mimsey perched on the edge. “I can’t stay long, anyway. Grant’s checking into the hotel and then he’s taking me down to his new theater.”

Logan sat, angling his body toward Mimsey, a gesture of interest and acceptance that irked Grace. “Grant?” he asked.

“Grant Stewart.” Mimsey patted her platinum coiffure and turned to Grace. “You remember him from our California days, don’t you, dear?”

What had he been, paramour two? Seven? Twenty?

But Mimsey hadn’t really been expecting an answer, so she turned back to Logan. “Grant’s a producer, mostly Hollywood stuff. But he’s expanding into the New York theater scene now. He’s putting together an off-Broadway play, and is thinking about casting me in the role of the aunt.” She reached for Grace’s hand and squeezed it. The excitement playing over Mimsey’s painted features was contagious. Almost.

“Congratulations,” Grace offered, but couldn’t help remembering all the other promises made to her mother and broken over the years. “I hope it works out for you.”

“Imagine.” Mimsey’s green eyes lit with the sparkle of hope. “A legitimate stage play, after all these years. That’s how I started my career, you know. Long before you were born.”

“That’s where I know you.” Logan snapped his fingers and diverted Mimsey’s attention. “The Ants That Ate Metropolis. The Beast from Beneath the Sea. You’re that Mimsey Lockhart.”

Seriously? He knew her mother’s movies?

Grace watched in horror as her mother’s fan-club personality emerged.

“Is there any other?” Mimsey laughed, her beautiful smile undimmed by fifty years of flamboyant living. She clutched a modest hand to the plunging décolletage of her pink suit. “I’m flattered you remember those old flicks.”

“Are you kidding?” Was Logan’s enthusiasm for real? Or was this all part of the act that made him irresistible to women? “Sci-fi Sundays were a staple in the old neighborhood. I grew up thinking I could save the world, too. Maybe that’s part of why I went into law enforcement.”

“That’s so sweet.”

Grace had to give her mother credit. She’d never become the actress she’d aspired to be, but she was always proud of the work she’d done. Those monster flicks had put food on the table and given her a place to go when one lover after another abandoned her for younger, easier—childless—fare.

“Mimsey?”

A tall, polished man with jet-black hair touched by gray at the temples joined them at the table.

Did Grace detect a subtle change in her mother’s smile? “Grant, darling, you remember my daughter, Gracie.”

“Of course.” He took her hand and offered a slight bow. “It’s been too many years. You’re looking well.”

Not pretty, not sexy. Well.

Ah, yes, Mimsey stirred hormones, turned heads. Grace looked…well. Like a healthy horse or a well-seeded lawn. Maybe Logan’s mission was impossible, after all. Maybe she had no business trying to prove herself as a competent agent by taking on an eccentric crime lord.

It required every bit of strength she had to look him in the eye and dredge up a smile. “Mr. Stewart. It’s good to see you again.”

“I’m taking Mimsey down to the theater to introduce her to the director personally. Then I have a meeting with some financial backers. Perhaps you could join us for dinner later?”

“Uh, no. Thank you.” She had to take her mother in short spurts, and allow herself plenty of time to recover for the next encounter. She excused herself on an easy white lie. “Agent Pierce and I are working together on a special project.”

“’Round the clock,” Logan added. Her gaze shot across the table and clashed with the terminal amusement in his soft gray eyes. Grace’s cheeks blazed with heat. After all these years in her mother’s company, she should have picked up a few tricks on how to handle a man’s teasing. But no, she’d been busy learning calculus and studying the history of modern warfare instead.

“Another time, perhaps. Pierce.” The two men shook hands. “Grace.” He nodded politely and pulled out Mimsey’s chair.

Before Grace could stand, Mimsey had leaned over her and wrapped her in a tight, maternal hug. Grace gave in to the urge to return the hug, missing those days of innocence when she hadn’t worried about her mother being taken advantage of by men interested more in her breast size than her heart or career.

But Mimsey was independent as ever. Her conspiratorial whisper tickled Grace’s ear. “That Logan’s a keeper, honey. Maybe this FBI gig is working out better than we thought.”

“Mother—”

But Mimsey was gone in a whirl of drama before Grace could launch a proper protest.

Lost between dazed and fuming, she didn’t notice that Logan had moved to the chair beside her until his hand covered hers where it fisted in her lap.

“At ease, Agent Lockhart.” Unwittingly her fingers turned and clutched at his supportive hand. “Embarrassed by Mimsey, are we?”

“Worried about her. She doesn’t always make the best choices. I hope Grant’s sincere in wanting to help her.”

He leaned closer, close enough for the scent of the tangy gel he used in his hair to tease her nose. “You don’t have to live in her shadow, you know.”

He was close enough that she could have seen him without her glasses. But, for once, she was very grateful to have that barrier between them. “What are you talking about?”

“You could learn a lesson from your mother.”

Grace frowned. “What lesson?”

“Rule number four. Sex appeal is all about attitude.”

“What does that mean?”

“Decide that you’re sexy. Once you believe it, everyone around you will, too.”

Without a doubt her mother was sexy. The woman knew what she had and she used it to her advantage. Mimsey Lockhart had learned all about being sexy.

But all Grace had ever wanted was for Mimsey to learn how to be her mother.

LOGAN CLOSED the fashion magazine and slumped on the couch of the department store fitting room, wondering how much more of this Pygmalion stuff he could take. The store could at least provide some male reading while he waited. Anything with fishing rods or pitching stats would be appreciated. He needed something to distract his overworked imagination from creating pImages** of Grace behind the closed door at the end of the hallway, stripping naked and trying on the wardrobe of clothes the salesclerk had selected for her.

He’d been intrigued by Grace’s request to turn her into a seductress. But it had taken those big green eyes of hers, staring up at him with trust and innocence, to trigger a protective impulse and make him say yes to working as her partner.

He’d tried scaring her away from this suicide mission with some crass behavior—the kind Mitchell might throw her way. But it had backfired on him. Badly. She’d responded to his forward touches as if they’d been lovers. As if she’d known exactly the way he liked a woman to respond to him.

She’d battled words with him, proving that intellectual moxie she kept bragging about.

He’d met her mother, saw the potential for the beautiful woman Grace could become.

He’d tortured himself all afternoon and into the evening, watching the transformation take place.

After fitting her for contact lenses, they’d taken a trip to a salon where a man named Miguel had cut her hair into a riot of sexy, chin-length curls, and then highlighted the whole beckoning array to bring out bright gold and soft strawberry shades. Miguel’s friend Bruce had made up her face in a palette of soft colors that emphasized the emerald richness of her eyes and the sensuous pout of her lips.

And now—Logan inhaled deeply and silently cursed the partial arousal that had been with him on and off throughout the day—she’d been parading past him in a variety of outfits that reflected every mood from professional to fun to provocative.

“Logan? Do you think I’ll really need something like this?”

Grace’s sinfully seductive voice interrupted his thoughts and wound into his fantasies. When he looked up at this latest in a long line of outfits, he wished he still had that magazine to pull over his lap.

The woman had the survival skills of a turnip.

She stood in front of him, wearing nothing more than some sort of slip thing and a doubtful expression.

“It’s called a bra-slip. The clerk suggested I wear it with that evening gown I tried on earlier. I could save some money, though, and wear one of my own slips with a strapless bra.” Though he heard her explanation, he paid more attention to the movements of her hands. She cupped the sides of her breasts and pushed them forward, nearly spilling the satiny globes over the tiny strips of ivory silk and lace that cradled them. “The top doesn’t give me much support, anyway.”

Logan stood, fatigue and frustration and a sudden rigid strain in his jeans overriding patience and good intentions.

She needed to have that piece of lingerie. She very definitely needed to have it.

But Harris Mitchell didn’t need to see it.

And no man who accidentally wandered past the dressing room’s waiting area needed to see it, either.

Logan snatched Grace’s arms above the elbows and turned her back to her dressing room.

“Don’t you have a lick of common sense?” he asked, pushing her into the closet-size area and pulling the door shut behind him. “You can’t go parading around in something like this.”

“I thought you wanted to approve all the changes I’ve made. I’m sorry. Did I embarrass you?”

Logan sputtered. Was she really that naive? “It’s perfect. It’s sexy. It’s gorgeous.”

She folded her arms across her chest, hiding her bounty in self-conscious shame as she had that morning. “It’s just a piece of underwear—”

“No.” He pressed a finger over her lips, silencing her apology. “Rule number five. Never explain away a man’s compliment.”

“But—”

“Say thank you,” he ordered, trying not to react to the brush of her lips on his sensitive fingertip. “You’ve turned into a real knockout, Agent Lockhart.” Her shoulders lifted and her eyes swelled with protest, but he shushed her again. “What do you say?”

“Fank oo?” He pulled his finger back and let her try again. That same vulnerability that had sucker punched him into taking this assignment in the first place darkened her eyes. “You really think I’m a knockout?”

He let his gaze sweep the three mirrors in the dressing room, catching her in that slip from every delectable angle. He’d seen garments that showed less of a woman—garter belts, bustiers, thongs. But there was something incredibly appealing about the demure silk molding to her curves, stopping at her thighs and creating a shadowy cleft between her legs. Something wonderfully enticing about a swath of lace barely hiding the pink areolae at the tips of her breasts. Something about that creamy expanse of bare skin across her shoulders just a shade darker than the ivory silk straps that held the whole confection up.

“Oh, yeah. So much so that I’m going to treat myself to one of my favorite lessons. I’m going to kiss you.”

He touched her with just his lips, bending down and capturing her startled “Oh” with his mouth. She tasted sweet and potent, just like the creamy coffee she’d had on their dinner break. It was a gentle mating, and he held back the urge to plunder her mouth. Her lips moved shyly, as if testing the whole idea of kissing. A true researcher, Logan observed in heady amusement.

He clenched his hands into fists at his sides, trying to remember that this woman was his job partner, not his bedmate. He was supposed to teach her, not take her. Her hesitant, though willing, response should remind him of that fact.

But he couldn’t resist. A lock of her hair got caught between their mouths and he had to brush it away. Then he tunneled his fingers into the springy softness of her hair and stepped closer, angling her head back to receive the full advantage of his kiss.

“Just a second.” Grace’s hips backed away. His fingers were still tangled in her hair as she reached for something behind her. She came up with that damn notebook, flipped it open to a blank page, and clicked her mechanical pencil. Twice. “I want to know how to do this just right.”

“Grace—”

She tipped her face back to his and puckered her lips. “Okay. Go ahead.”

Damn the woman. Maybe she could frustrate Harris Mitchell into surrendering to the authorities.

Logan tightened his grip at the nape of her neck and pulled her up onto her toes. He kissed her again, harder this time, plunging in and stroking the soft skin inside her mouth with his tongue. He kept his eyes open, demanding she look at him. When he touched his tongue to hers, she did. Green eyes snapped at gray. He circled her tongue…suckled…angled his mouth to do any number of delightful things to hers.

When he came up for air, she ran her tongue along her lips and then pressed them together, tasting and savoring the new sensations they’d created together.

Or so he thought.

“Hold on.” This damn research was hard on a man’s ego. At least she had the decency to be short of breath. Her hand shook as she tried to write.

Logan smiled. Maybe this kiss wasn’t just about research anymore.

He nuzzled the side of her neck, ran his tongue down to that exquisite nerve bundle along her collarbone until he found the spot that made her shiver. “Put down the notebook.”

Grace pushed at his chin, turning his gaze up to meet hers. “I want to learn how to kiss.”

“I want to teach you.”

The steno pad hit the floor with a thunk as Logan lifted her hands around his neck. She arched into him as he skimmed his palms down her sides, cupped her ripe, round bottom and lifted her up to his mouth and his heat. She opened her mouth, giving all that he asked of her and more, and he seized her offering.

He came back to fill his hands with her generous breasts. He pushed them together the way she had earlier and buried his face between them. He tasted the salty tang of sweat deep in her cleavage, inhaled the delicate scent of the rare fragrance she wore.

“Touch me, Grace,” he commanded on a breathless whisper, capturing a beaded peak in his mouth through lace and silk. She groaned in her throat, and as he laved the responsive bud with his tongue, the groan became a purr that vibrated through him, that teased his loins and made him impossibly hard with want. “Touch me.”

“I’ve only done this kind of thing once.” Her fingers flailed against the collar of his jacket, even as her lips scudded across his temple and found the sensitive shell of his ear. “I don’t know how.”

“Any way you want.”

He was drunk with passion by the time she’d pushed his jacket off his shoulders and worked his shirt free of his jeans. She bunched up the material in her hands, tugged it behind the holster that hung from his shoulder, exposing his chest and torso to her curious quest. Her hands scorched him with their searching. A delicate brush of a fingertip here. An outright grab there.

He ground his hips into hers, amazed at how quickly, how thoroughly, this prude-turned-seductress had aroused him. She didn’t need any lessons on how to seduce a man. She was a natural. A prodigy.

“Miss Lockhart?” Three sharp raps on the dressing-room door brought Logan up short. “The store is closing in fifteen minutes. If you like, I could start ringing up your selections.”

The salesclerk’s friendly voice intruded from the outside world. Logan tore his mouth from Grace’s. He breathed silently through pursed lips so as not to reveal his presence, and pressed the palm of his hand against Grace’s mouth, keeping her ragged breathing from giving them away.

He tried to collect his thoughts, but the image looking back at him from three different angles made him wonder just how far he would have gone before he realized he had completely botched this mission. His knee was wedged between Grace’s thighs. He had the ivory slip hiked up to the waistband of her panties. The straps dangled loosely in the crook of her elbows, leaving her breasts bare and beautiful from every conceivable view. Her hands were lost inside his shirt, her mouth red and swollen with his kisses—and the whole scene was reflected in the dressing-room mirrors.

“Is everything all right?” Now the clerk sounded vaguely concerned.

Logan slowly pulled his hand away and mouthed the words, “Say something to get rid of her.”

“What should I say?” she mouthed back.

He tilted his head and glared at her.

Grace shrank away from the hard look. She pulled the slip straps back over her shoulders and covered herself, but finally responded to the message. “I’m fine,” she said in a loud, surprisingly clear voice. “I’ll be out in just a minute. Thank you.”

After the clerk left, Logan shook his head. “That’s the fastest you can think on your feet?”

Her unshielded eyes swelled with something more than embarrassment at being caught in a compromising position. “Is that what this was? A test?”

“No.” He was too honest to tell her otherwise. He swiped his fingers through his hair, literally and figuratively trying to straighten the mess he’d made of their professional relationship. “But there’s a hell of a lot more to working undercover than just looking the part.”

“I know that. I might be naive, but I’m not an idiot.”

He tucked in his clothes and backed himself up to the door. No. He was the only idiot here. She’d crossed her arms in front of her, but stood straight in that proud yet vulnerable stance he’d gotten to know so well today.

“Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on covert weaponry. And we’ll work on some self-defense tactics.”

His aching groin and shredded sense of self-preservation mocked the cool authority in his voice. He’d known this assignment would be trouble from the start, and he’d already blown it big time by losing his objectivity to a case of carnal lust.

“Fine. Would you step out so I can get dressed, please?”

He closed the door and headed back to his lonesome spot on the couch.

“Definitely need to work on self-defense.”