Читать книгу Suddenly Sexy - Susanna Carr - Страница 7

BAD GIRLS HAD ALL THE FUN.

Julie Kent scowled with envy and slammed her book closed. She exhaled sharply as frustration swelled inside her until it felt as if it would burst through her skin. It was probably wrong that she wanted to be like the villainess in the Sex, Spies and Sapphires espionage series, even if the villainess was the main character. Sapphire was sexy, aggressive, kick-ass and daring. She was also a thief. Not to mention fictional.

Julie still wouldn’t mind being a bit more like Sapphire and a little less … Julie. She wanted to break the rules. Break a sweat. Take risks. Take on the world and a few men while she was at it. Sapphire managed to have sex with more men in this book than Julie had in her lifetime.

And this was just one book in a whole series. Julie sighed and dropped the paperback in her bottom desk drawer. She kicked the drawer shut and propped her chin on her hand. She wasn’t asking to have lots of sex with lots of guys. Treating beds as merry-go-rounds wasn’t for her, not that she had any opportunity to treat them as such. She just wanted lots of sex with one guy: Eric Ranger.

Julie turned her head and peered over her gray cubicle, staring at Eric’s closed office door. She bit her bottom lip as she recalled every inch of the man’s lean muscular build. Eric moved with a lethal grace that she found mesmerizing. She bet he could guide her through some of the steamy scenes she’d just read, and come up with a few imaginative positions that would give her maximum pleasure.

“Julie?”

Julie stifled a shriek and whirled around in her chair. Her friend Asia was leaning on the cubicle wall. She smiled knowingly as she drummed her perfectly manicured nails on the cubicle frame. How long had she been standing there?

“We need to work on your observation skills,” Asia teased.

“Sorry, I was daydreaming.” Julie felt the blush heating her cheeks.

“Yeah, I have a pretty good idea who was starring in that dream.” Asia slapped the cubicle with her hand. “One of these days you need to stop fantasizing and just go for it.”

Julie simply nodded. Her friend always gave her this kind of well-meaning advice, but she didn’t understand that they operated under different sets of rules. Asia was drop-dead gorgeous and had the confidence of an action hero. The two traits went hand in hand. The woman strutted through life, knowing she could get any man she wanted.

Julie, on the other hand, could strive for “pretty” on a good day. She was used to being overlooked by men, especially when she hung out with Asia. It was fine. Sometimes she liked to believe that the right guy would be instantly attracted to her without any work on her part, but who was she kidding? A man like Eric could be effortlessly sexy in jeans and a T-shirt, but a woman like herself needed all the help she could get.

“So, what brings you to my little cubicle?” Julie asked. She wasn’t even peripherally involved with Asia’s cases and their lunch break had just ended.

“The boss says Eric isn’t answering his phone or IM. I thought you might like to see if he’s in his office,” Asia said, wagging her eyebrows suggestively. “Everyone is supposed to meet in the conference room in ten minutes.”

“I’ll get him.” She was glad for any excuse to talk to Eric, and she appreciated her friend’s help.

“Unless you’re busy,” Asia said as she strolled away.

Julie rolled her eyes. “That’ll be the day.” She stood up and headed for Eric’s door. Busy. Right. She knew her hometown wasn’t the center for international espionage or criminal activity. Close to Seattle, Redmond was a quiet, suburban city known for Microsoft and which claimed to be the bicycle capital of the northwest. Julie had more of a chance to bump into a computer nerd or cyclist than a crook. Yet when she joined Gunthrie Security & Investigations, she had dreams of high-speed chases, death-defying maneuvers and breathtaking excitement as she saved the world while earning an edgy, cool nickname.

She got a nickname all right. Uniform Girl. From eight to four-thirty Monday to Friday she kept track of the uniforms for their security guards assigned all around the Seattle area.

So much for her crime-fighting career. Perry Gunthrie was a sweet old man who truly felt her job was important. And it probably was to Gunthrie S&I. Times were tough and the investigation cases were not plentiful. The security contracts were barely keeping them afloat.

But Eric Ranger was going to change all that. Julie had no doubt that he would succeed, even if he was only going to be around for a few more weeks until his medical leave was up. Eric didn’t talk a lot about his job, but Julie had learned that he worked for the Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Program under the Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency. ICE. She loved that acronym. It sounded very James Bond to her. Eric’s job was to find stolen artwork and historical artifacts and return them to their rightful owners. Eric got injured while on an ICE assignment in Muscat, wherever that was. It sounded exotic and exciting to Julie. She would bet her paycheck that he’d gotten hurt from taking down a criminal mastermind.

Julie sighed. Some guys have all the fun.

Now he was helping Perry, his godfather, while on a leave of absence. When Julie had first heard that after meeting him, her tongue almost rolled out and landed on the floor. She couldn’t get her last boyfriend to give up a Saturday to help her move, but Eric dropped everything and flew across the country from D.C. to Seattle to help out a friend of the family. There had to be something wrong with this guy that she hadn’t figured out. However, if there were, she really didn’t want to know.

Doing a favor for Perry hadn’t been a vacation for Eric. For the past six weeks he had done everything he could to gain more clients. There had been lots of meetings with companies, lots of crunching numbers and lots of sleepless nights. Julie had never seen anyone work that hard. She had tried to show her support and unofficially looked after Eric behind the scenes. She didn’t think she was much help, and she didn’t get any tips on how to act like a special agent, either. But she still had a few more weeks to study Eric, inch by glorious inch, before he returned to Washington, D.C.

Julie paused in front of his small office and brushed her fingers through her straight brown hair. She lightly tapped on the door. “Eric?”

Nothing.

She knocked harder. “Eric? It’s Julie.” Hmm, he probably didn’t remember her name, but she refused to call herself Uniform Girl.

Still no answer. He probably wasn’t in his office. Eric might be out taking a million-mile jog or leaping tall buildings for a little cardio workout. She should try to emulate him if she wanted to be a kick-ass detective, but she could barely get through her aerobics class without wanting to die.

Julie tried the doorknob and it moved under her hand. She slowly opened the door and found the room dark. “Eric?”

She peered around the door and froze as her heart lurched. Eric Ranger was asleep, sprawled out on the tattered couch, wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs.

Whoa. Julie’s mind started to shut down as she stared at his masculine beauty. Her heart started to race. She studied each slope and angle of his sculpted chest and flat abdomen. Eric was lean and muscular. She felt his power even though he lay sprawled on the couch.

The jagged scar on his side caught her gaze. It was long, deep and an angry red. As she watched him sleep, Julie realized there were quite a few marks scoring his golden skin. On his hands, his legs and the bottom of his feet. Some of them looked decades old. This was the body of a warrior. This was a man who had seen the rough and brutal side of life.

Julie gripped the doorknob and hesitated. She knew the polite thing to do would be to close the door and pound on it until he woke up. But she wanted to stare and memorize every line. No, that wasn’t quite true. She wanted to touch him. Stroke him. Curl up next to Eric and feel the power and strength of his body as she slowly woke him up.

But she would keep her hands to herself. Because she was too much of a good girl, damn it. She vaguely wondered what Sapphire would do in this situation.

Sapphire would probably tackle him. Okay, maybe not right away. First she would tie him down, tease and torment him until he begged for release. And then Sapphire would straddle Eric before licking every inch of him.

Julie swiped her tongue along her bottom lip as her mouth tingled with anticipation. Noooo … Julie pressed her tongue firmly against the roof of her mouth. Why was she even thinking about it? She’d never do that in a million years, no matter how much she wanted to.

She heard the squeaky metal of a chair from behind her. Julie looked over her shoulder and noticed the other employees were heading toward the conference room. She needed to stop hanging back and wake up Eric before someone came looking for both of them.

She took a deep breath and stepped into Eric’s tiny office, dodged a pile of clothes on the floor and firmly closed the door. Heat tingled along her skin, stung with awareness. She needed to control the excitement stirring deep in her belly.

Julie smoothed her hands against her turquoise blue wrap dress and nervously cleared her throat. She might not have the courage to sweep her tongue along Eric’s golden skin, but she could act like she saw practically naked hot guys every day.

Just not ones who were that ripped.

“Eric,” she said in a brisk I-am-so-not-looking-at-your-boxers tone. “You need to get up. The meeting is about to start.”

Nothing. He didn’t move.

“You know,” she said a little louder, “the meeting you’re supposed to lead. The one about our future at Gunthrie S and I.”

Still nothing.

She reached out and tentatively tapped his shoulder. Wow. The guy was muscular. His skin was warm and smooth. She reluctantly pulled her hand away. “Eric?”

He still didn’t move. Julie frowned. That couldn’t be good. Did he always sleep this soundly? Special agents were supposed to be light sleepers, ready to shoot and kill the moment they heard footsteps. Everyone who reads espionage novels knew that. If they didn’t get up, they were dead, drugged or in a coma until the next book came out.

She studied Eric’s sleeping form. He was motionless, his broad, sculpted chest barely moving with every breath. Hmm …

Julie leaned over him, her face just above his, and checked for signs of breathing. “Eric?” she whispered.

Her world suddenly spun. One minute she was standing and the next moment her feet were in the air. Julie cried out as her spine collided against the bristly carpet. Her arms, stretched above her head, were pinned down. Her breath hitched in her throat as a heavy weight descended on her ribs.

She blinked at the sight of Eric’s face inches away from hers. Her mouth went dry as she took it all in. His short blond hair was mussed and his dark blue eyes were still blurry with sleep. Whiskers shadowed his angular jaw and she itched to rub her cheek against his.

Eric squeezed his eyes shut, the lines in his face deepening. He opened his eyes again. “Julie?”

He knew her name, she thought dazedly. That was hopeful.

And he wasn’t moving away from her. Eric kept her pinned to the floor. His knee was deeply, intimately, wedged between her thighs as his big, muscular, not to mention naked chest crushed her breasts.

“How’d you do that?” she asked in a breathless squeak. And could she use that move to flip him into her bed?

Eric jumped to his feet in one fluid movement. He reached for her, his hands surprisingly gentle. Eric set her on her wobbly feet before she could take her next breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He pulled his hand away and rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to do that. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. No harm done.” Except for knowing how it felt to be pressed against his rock-hard body. “I’m supposed to get you for the meeting in the conference room.”

“Damn.” He looked at his watch. It was a sophisticated timepiece that looked as complicated as the dashboard of a race car. “I’ll be right there.”

“Take your time,” Julie offered as she tugged her dress into place and hurriedly made her way to the door. She felt off balance, as if her world had been thrown off its axis.

“Julie?”

She turned around and kept her eyes firmly above his bare shoulders. It didn’t help. Her gaze wandered down to his snug boxer briefs and she started to blush. “Yeah?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Scare me?” She frowned. He thought one accidental tumble scared her? Seriously? What did he think she was made of? Julie thrust her chin out with injured pride. “Eric, the only one who seems freaked out is you.”

HE BLEW IT. ERIC GRITTED HIS teeth as the disappointment rolled through him. Six weeks of being a gentleman and he ruined it by one instinctive move. Tackling a woman and pinning her to the floor was not the way to her heart.

Eric hovered over the sink in the men’s restroom and sluiced ice-cold water over his face. He regretted falling asleep in the office instead of driving back to his hotel in Bellevue. He was alert now, but it was too late to fix anything. He glanced up and looked in the mirror. He saw the scars along with the weariness and the darkness in his eyes. He was not the knight in shining armor that Julie wanted.

He had spent most of his adult life as a government agent. He was honored to serve his country, although he spent most of his days outside its borders. He missed home, but he had a sense of pride over his accomplishments.

He could also speak three languages, assimilate in any major city and handle a gun and knife with the same ease as a knife and fork. So, why did he feel like a monster around Julie?

Because he was a monster. Eric speared his wet hands through his hair, allowing the water to drip down his head and neck. He had been wild and destructive as a child. His home life had been a battlefield and then a wasteland. When he left home, he had been trained to destroy and shoot to kill. Julie was the opposite. She was creative and saw the good in everyone. She liked her espionage novels and believed that good always won over evil.

Eric didn’t remember when he stopped believing in that fairy tale, but he didn’t want her to find out the truth. He may be bitter, but he found her sweetness addicting in a way he never understood before. If he got close to her, even touched her, he would taint her with the darkness of his world.

He wasn’t going to let that happen. He would do whatever it took to protect her sunny view of the world.

What was it about her that had gotten under his skin? There was something about Julie that made him want to linger around her. She was always smiling, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. She had endless energy and an insatiable curiosity.

But there was something about Julie that made him sweat. There was a natural sexiness about her, in the way she walked, in the way she laughed and the way she dressed. At the last casual Friday, Julie had worn a pink tank top, blue jeans and flip-flops. Eric had been so mesmerized that he had found it difficult to concentrate.

And he needed to concentrate right now. Eric wiped the water from his face and gripped the edge of the sink. Today he had to give some bad news to the company. He immediately conjured an image of Julie. She was going to be upset and there was nothing he could do to comfort her. It was just another mark against him.

Eric took a deep breath and straightened to his full height. He wasn’t one to procrastinate. He tugged at his shirt collar, checked his watch and headed for the conference room.

The moment he walked into the room, everyone at the table fell into silence.

There were only fifteen people who worked at Gunthrie S&I. Ten of them were only qualified to do the administration work for the security accounts. The remaining employees were licensed investigators.

Ace, a computer nerd who only wore jeans and gaming T-shirts, did computer forensic work. Martha did interviews and surveillance. A grandmotherly type, she often said that she was good at her job because she was practically invisible. Max was retired military and did most of the background checks.

All of these investigators learned on the job with Perry. The only employee who had any real experience was Asia. She had been a police officer and was Gunthrie’s top investigator.

Until Eric had shown up. Asia wasn’t pleased when he started taking over. Eric knew he had the skills Perry needed right now to keep Gunthrie S&I open for business. He coordinated missions, trained lower-level agents and knew how to represent his work to other organizations and companies.

While working with Perry over the past six weeks, Eric had been giving the older man a crash course in the cutting-edge techniques for conducting criminal investigations. In the past, the latest trends would have excited Perry, but now it made him feel overwhelmed and defeated. When Eric had suggested trying a different kind of investigation, it took a while to convince Perry to give it a try.

Eric saw his godfather sitting at the head of the table and gave him an encouraging smile. Eric automatically searched for Julie.

She was whispering furiously with her friend Asia. As Eric moved to the foot of the table, he considered how strange the friendship was between Asia and Julie. They were an unlikely pair. Asia was shrewd and abrasive while Julie was warm and friendly.

He reluctantly pulled his attention away and noticed the other employees watching him. Did they know everyone was in danger of losing their jobs? They were good people, though some were odder than the others. There were a few he wouldn’t trust with a car, let alone a gun. All of the employees seemed to emulate their detective idol, right down to the catchphrases. They made up for their lack of experience and technological know-how with hard work and enthusiasm.

“Okay, everyone,” Eric said. “I’m going to just open the meeting with some news. We no longer provide security services for Bellows and Groggins. Murphy and Associates won the bid.”

There was a beat of heavy silence. Eric paused to let the news sink in. His attention gravitated toward Julie. He frowned when it registered that she didn’t seem particularly worried. In fact, she looked at him as if he would come up with a perfectly good solution to keep the business afloat.

There was something about that look. It was as if she trusted his skills and strategies completely. As if she knew behind the scars and the fatigue, there was a hero inside him ready to save the day.

The way she was looking at him, he almost believed it, too.

He didn’t realize he’d allowed the pause to linger for too long. The employees started to all talk at once, their voices beginning to rise with panic and anger.

Eric raised his hands and motioned for them to quiet down. “But this gives us an opportunity to move in a new direction.”

He was determined to give the idea a good spin, but he didn’t know how the rest of the office would react. When he ran it by his godfather, Perry was surprised. The sad thing was that it didn’t shock Eric at all. He wondered if that was a sign. Was he jaded? Was he that world-weary and cynical?

“Investigations are a lucrative field and Perry has approved of it.” Eric didn’t feel the need to mention how much convincing it took to get Perry to sign off on the idea. “It will require a lot of man hours so everyone will be assigned cases.”

The tension in the room slowly disappeared. He had a feeling it would. Everyone at Gunthrie S&I wanted to be on a case. They longed to solve puzzles that didn’t come out of the crosswords or Sudoku section of the newspaper.

Eric saw Julie sit straight up in her chair. He should have known. Julie has been badgering Perry to let her on a case. Eric saw the thirst for adventure and excitement inside her. It was his job to keep that in control.

“What type of investigation?” Max asked, as he stroked his Magnum, P.I. mustache.

Eric paused as he tried to come up with the most professional description. “We are going to provide premarital screenings and decoy assignments.”

Max cast a glance at Martha, a Miss Marple look-alike who sat next to him. Max returned a steady gaze at Eric. “You mean we’re going to spy on cheating boyfriends?”

Eric gave a deep sigh. So much for trying to make it sound more important. “That’s one of way of explaining it.”

“And lead them into temptation?” Martha asked.

Eric winced. “Yeah.”

“We’ve never done that before,” Max said, his voice tinged with excitement. “Count me in.”

Everyone started talking. He heard someone claiming seniority while another insisted his dubious familiarity with nightclubs was necessary for the project.

“I’m proposing we do a trial run,” Eric said over the voices and waited for them to quiet down again. “First we will need to put together a surveillance team. Audio, visual …”

A couple of people eagerly put up their hands. Eric assigned them roles best suited for their strengths and weaknesses.

“We need a team to do background checks.” Several hands went up. “And we need a decoy,” Eric said as he wrote down the names of the volunteers.

“Decoy?” Martha frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“We need a seductive woman who will put the moves on our target and see if he takes the bait.”

“Ooh!” Julie’s hand thrust up high. “Pick me!”

A cold chill swept through Eric. No, no, no. Not Julie. She was too innocent, too sweet. He didn’t want Julie as a decoy. It could get dangerous.

“She needs to seduce a man who is probably a bastard,” Eric said between clenched teeth.

Julie waved her hand wildly. “I can do that!”

“She needs to know self-defense,” Eric continued.

Julie propped up her waving arm with her other hand. “I took a course last month.”

“Eric,” Perry said with wry amusement, “I believe someone is volunteering to become a decoy.”

Eric met Julie’s gaze. Her eyes glowed and her cheeks were flushed. She radiated with enthusiasm. Julie looked incredibly beautiful and sexy.

He wanted to be the good guy. He wanted to give her everything her heart desired, but he couldn’t allow her to take on this assignment. She would discover how emotionally draining it was to pretend all the time and lie convincingly. She would start to see the dark underbelly of her world and she would begin to question why she wanted to save it in the first place.

He wasn’t going to be the one who destroyed her innocence. He wanted her to hold on to it just a little while longer.

Eric struggled to break eye contact and looked around the room. “Anyone else?”