“Yes and no. He’s all work at work. Follow the rules, dot the i’s, cross the t’s. He’s going to fold his hands on his desk, and that means all hell is going to be unleashed. You need to set him on edge to have an advantage if he’s unleashing the hounds of hell.”
Kate fought the desire to jump from the vehicle, on the highway, speeding along at God knew how fast. “How?”
“Just be you, Kate. You’re my TNT. You have the power to knock him for a loop.” Jake grinned. “You already did. Once. Go do it again.”
She didn’t believe she could do it again, not for one second. Not any more than she believed she’d make a good spy.
Jake sighed, which set her more on edge. Jake never sighed. “Look. He hasn’t told me a damned thing about you beyond what I needed to know to find you in New York when you ran. Just the facts. That means you’re either high-clearance, he likes you more than he’s willing to admit, or you are in a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“Do you know who I was…before?”
“Yes.” Well, that took care of high-clearance.
She blinked and swallowed, hard. Chase couldn’t like her. “I think he’s embarrassed, his ego is hurt, and I’m in a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“Maybe.” A one-word answer from Jake was never a good sign.
“Can you stay with me? One shouldn’t have to meet the devil alone.”
He barked out a short laugh. “The devil? He’ll like that.” But then Jake shot her a skeptical frown. “I don’t think you need me. You’ll be an amazing match for the devil. You just need to believe in yourself.”
She believed she might barf and pass out, that’s what she believed. “Please?”
“Fine.”
****
Chase Sanders drove back to the office, taking a more leisurely route than the highway, so he could think. Kate Wells had made him think about quite a bit in the last year.
Before meeting her as Emma, he had thoroughly loved his job. Now he wasn’t so sure. A year ago he would have never believed in love at first sight. If someone had told him he would fall in love with a certain virgin, he would have shot them dead sniper-style, picking them out of a crowded room, off a busy street. He didn’t fall in love. He was done with love.
But seeing Emma—no, Kate—again, being close enough to touch her, for her to realize who he was, had definitely shaken that premise out of the tree.
The sexual attraction was still there. His cock had hardened immediately as he watched her work out with Jake, which was pretty damned unusual. Work and women didn’t mix. Period. But his dick had forgotten that rule as blood rushed through his veins, filling the one part of him that didn’t need to notice her.
Notice wasn’t accurate—enamored was more like it, which pissed him off. Usually his mind hummed with work, information that flowed in his subconscious like a river of knowledge. But the river became muddied when he thought of how good she looked. Lean yet curvy, her lips soft, inviting, even while frowning.
She’d smelled damned good considering the workout Jake had given her. Floral, with just a hint of salt as she had stood before him, so unsure. Her gaze had devoured him, terrified but so damned turned on. And fuck if he hadn’t wanted to take her right there, in front of Jake, to finish what they had started a year ago.
Chase stopped the vehicle, waiting as the construction mess ahead sorted itself out. His phone dinged—a text coming in. He picked up his phone and sighed. Jake.
Jake lived for texting, and Chase would often go days without seeing him but get a zillion texts filled with shards of Jake-isms. Chase hated texting, spelling crap out, finding punctuation—he hated punctuation. He usually just picked up the phone and bitched at whomever. Plus, he had a sixth sense about things, and it was hard to tell if Jake was slacking off in a text or e-mail. He knew right away on the phone.
Chase wouldn’t admit it, but those texts were high points in his boring day, even the ones Jake sent him in the midst of meetings Chase was leading. Usually he sent SFB—so fucking boring, or same fucking bullshit. Chase was allowed to interpret the meaning of the day. Jake was his link to the outside world, a world he liked far better than the one he lived in now.
Jake’s text read:
My little bundle of TNT won’t meet with you unless I can stay. I’ll bring her in and dump her at reception. Helen won’t let her bolt.
Jake gave everyone a name of some sort. Except Chase—he was just the boss. Chase gave a sharp laugh and replied,
TNT? Insensitive to shock and friction, is she?
But he found it hard to believe Jake would nickname a meek thing like her after explosives, despite her calling in the lab, working with bombs. Then again, he didn’t see her as Jake did. When he thought of Kate, he saw her either as Emma, trembling and aroused, or as Kate, broken and near death in her hospital bed.
While she had fought for her life, Chase had petitioned to make her an agent, her genius brains and the scientific skills she’d learned at her father’s hand enough to con his bosses. He had sat with her every night in the hospital as she recovered from the plane crash, then the surgeries, always leaving before she woke. She never knew it was him holding her hand, and he had planned to keep it that way.
Jake shot back,
I wouldn’t know how she responds to friction since your dick was inside her. I would assume she’s blown your mind since you didn’t share the 411.
Chase snorted.
Nothing happened
That wasn’t true. He’d had a sweet run to third base, got knocked out, and then sat on the bench because he’d fucked up. His ego hated him for it. He was former military, sniper-trained, a member of elite forces at one time. He now ran a spur division of secret agents seeking intelligence to benefit the American government. Who knocked him unconscious? Not a sweet, pretty virgin with no training whatsoever.
But she had, and then she had run away, fucking up his mission, nearly blowing his cover as a business associate purchasing bomb making skills for a small country in the former USSR, and getting him into a whole heap of trouble with his bosses. Chase never screwed up. Never. Until then, that is.
He’d set his men on her, Jake included. How long would it take to track her down, a civilian? Forty-eight hours, max. But it had taken him a month because she was so damned smart, so crafty that she had fooled him, eluding capture at every turn, always a step ahead of him.
Finally one of her father’s men had found a small piece of information that had connected the dots, but when Chase had sent in an agent, her father had gotten there already, and she was on a plane, en route to D.C.
Before the plane landed, he had made arrangements with her father. The crazy bastard had wanted to offer her as a bargaining tool to sweeten the arms deal. When he realized how sick the man was, Chase had feared for her life and had basically purchased her from him. It was that easy, that sick. That sad. But then her plane had crashed, her father had died, and suddenly she was his responsibility, collateral damage from his failed mission.
Jake texted again.
So you want coffee? I’m going to try a latte.
This isn’t a social engagement
. Chase sighed. Parts of him wished it were a date. And he didn’t date.
What happened to espresso?
Kate thinks it makes me surly.
Chase rolled his eyes. How could one hundred thirty pounds of blonde bombshell turn his buddy into a puddle of mush? Especially when she wasn’t fucking him.
Since when do you care what a woman thinks?
Since she makes you use punctuation in texts. She can also blow me to kingdom come, and I don’t mean the fun way.
Yes, Kate was lethal now, a far cry from mousy Emma, though Emma had been just as deadly with the C-4. From afar, Chase had watched her morph from the terrified yet aroused woman in his bed into an incredibly hot killing machine. The plastic surgery didn’t do a thing for him, though. He’d found her attractive before they changed a single cell on her body.
But he loved how scary smart she was, as Jake would say. He had watched from monitors as she schooled their bomb technician on his shortcomings, and then proceeded to show him exactly what he had done wrong, with long words, chemical names, and diagrams written in Japanese. He would have taken her then and there, if she knew he existed.
She was as smart as he was accurate behind a sniper rifle and it made him almost come in his pants, knowing her mind worked so quickly. She could wire his office, his car, even his pen with a bomb and kill him without giving him a single clue, yet leave no collateral damage. She was that good.
There weren’t many women he felt were an equal to his skills, and her equality turned him on, made him so hot that he couldn’t think, feel, and had sworn off all other women until he could make sense of her.
Chase turned into the parking complex and then into his parking space, his heart hammering a mile a minute. Unfortunately, the bosses above him had discovered through their very thorough physical examination that she lacked experience. He never thought his job would demand he find a way to get her laid. Who the hell was a virgin at twenty-five? But she was, and they wanted it taken care of before her first mission in a few weeks.
He had given her to Jake as a partner, hoping nature would take its course and he’d bed her. Of course she shot Jake down at every turn, which surprised him. And gave him hope. Women didn’t turn Jake down. Period. But a part of Chase selfishly wondered if she dreamed of a certain Alexander Bishop finally scoring the home run of his life.
Still, Chase had to know, so he could make the appropriate plans.
You still haven’t scored with her yet?
Nope. But now I know why.
Why? Chase wanted to know, because this should have been Jake’s feather in his cap. Not his.
You going to share why?
Nope. The package is en route. With coffee.
Fuck. That meant he was up to bat. But secretly, he had never wanted his turn more. Ever.
The upcoming mission they had her slated for made him uneasy. The powers-that-be were so eager to get this target, to complete the objective they would do just about anything, even if it meant sacrificing Kate.
He wouldn’t allow that. Not only because he loved her, but because she was a member of his team. Okay, definitely because he loved her. He loved her smile, her wit, the way she shot down Jake’s advances. He loved her, and though he fought it, he was the man to get her laid.
He just wished he was the man who could make her dreams come true. But he was her boss, she was a spy, and their love would never work.
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