Ciara’s stomach made a swan dive toward her toes as realization hit. Great. Just great. Her new handler was a nonbeliever. Wasn’t that going to be fun?
So much for the pheremoney goodness his cleft chin inspired. The last thing she needed was to pin her touchy-feely fantasies—no matter how pointless—on a dickwad fed who didn’t know how to respect the badassness of her abilities.
Her affinity for lost and stolen objects was the
one
thing that was good about her gift. If he didn’t respect that, he didn’t respect her. And she had no time for men who didn’t respect her. One phone call to her boss and she could get herself a brand new handler who wasn’t a complete non-believing douchebag.
Ciara should just slam the door in his face and call Karma to have him replaced, but something stopped her. Probably the fact that he was so damn pretty. How often did she get to drool over thoroughly drool-worthy federal agents? If he’d been ugly, she could have kicked him to the curb without a second thought. Double-standard, thy name is libido.
“It isn’t magic,” she heard herself explaining. “There are no spells involved. It’s just a gift. Ever since I was fifteen, I’ve had this weird ability to find lost and stolen things.” And a complete inability to maintain physical contact with another human being.
“Was Cranson in on it? Or was he just that gullible?”
“Cranson was my handler. He would call me with descriptions of lost items,” Ciara said, confused. Hadn’t they just gone over this?
Agent Studly nodded slowly, his serious brown gaze locked steadily on her. “Do you steal the jewels yourself and turn them in to the FBI for the insurance reward money? Or are you working with a fence, turning the gems he can’t unload over to us in exchange for the appearance of virtue and a little finder’s fee?”
Ciara coughed with laughter. He couldn’t be serious. When an ominous frown started to darken his brow, she couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.
Ciara raked her eyes over the too-sexy-to-be-believed “Federal Agent” on her doorstep. She should have known. Feds didn’t come that hot and her FBI liaison didn’t make house calls.
Her boss had sent her a stripper.
“Agent Smith?” Ciara snickered helplessly. “God, I can’t believe I fell for that. Like the
Matrix
. Who came up with that? Was it Jo?” She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. “You’re the
Matrix
dude.” Only about a thousand times hotter.
“Agent Smith” narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I’m the
Matrix
dude
.
Except I’m not a machine and I’m not fictional. Other than that, we may as well be the same person.”
“And a smartass too,” Ciara said, delighted, getting into the game. “But how can you be sure you aren’t a machine? What if you were one and didn’t know it, like in the last Terminator movie? You could be a badass killing machine sent back from the future to destroy me and you wouldn’t even know it.”
He frowned at her repressively. “I think you missed the part where I said I wasn’t fictional.”
She shrugged. “Most of the people I meet are fictional.” It was an unfortunate byproduct of having her social life dictated by her Netflix queue. “Who sent you?” She giggled, not even bothering to keep a straight face. “It was Karma, wasn’t it? I know I whine about feeling isolated sometimes, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation sent me,” he said with laser precision.
Ciara lost it. She collapsed against the doorjamb, laughing helplessly.
A pair of young mothers pushing strollers along the sidewalk looked over to see what the commotion was. Ciara waved at them cheerily, feeling none of her usual jealousy over their normal, touchable life. Until Agent Smith shifted his big shoulders to block her view.
“Perhaps we should continue this conversation inside,” he said icily, his gaze shifting pointedly downward.
Two realizations hit simultaneously and blood rushed to Ciara’s face. One, she was still wearing only a towel. And two, Special Agent Nate Smith of the FBI was no stripper.
Chapter Two—What Would Grace Kelly Do?
“Karma?” Ciara huddled beside the window with the phone pressed to her ear, peeking out at the federal agent still camped on her doorstep.
“Ciara.” Her boss’s voice, usually so unflappable, sounded distracted and harried. “We found the dress. Brittany’s back, so we’re good. Thanks for looking.”
Ciara kicked herself. She’d completely forgotten the wedding dress she’d been tracing when Agent Smith started ringing her doorbell like the salesman from hell. It was a good thing Karma’d found it, since Ciara hadn’t had time to see a damn thing.
Then she realized Karma was about to disconnect the call. Her panic spiked. “Karma, don’t hang up!”
“What’s wrong?” Her boss immediately shifted into crisis calm. “Are you okay? Do I need to send someone over there?” Ciara felt Karma’s attention lock down around her like a physical presence, firm and comforting.
“I’m fine.” A sheepish squirming started in her stomach in response to the crisis tone. This wasn’t nuclear-warheads-headed-toward-Manhattan level catastrophe. She just had a small personality conflict with Agent Smith, who thought she was a felon. She could handle it. Couldn’t she? “There’s already someone here, actually. The FBI sent me a new handler.”
After a millisecond pause, Karma said, “What’s wrong with him?”
Trust her boss not to beat around the bush. “He doesn’t believe my abilities are real. He thinks I’m in cahoots with some fence or something. Stealing jewels and then turning them over to the FBI for reward money.”
“Shit.”
Ciara gaped at the phone. She didn’t think she’d ever heard of Karma losing her calm enough to swear. “Karma?”
“Does he have a warrant?”
“To search the place? He isn’t going to find anything here.”
“For your arrest, Ciara,” Karma corrected. “Does he have a warrant for you?”
Fear slithered down her spine. He couldn’t actually arrest her, could he? Someone with her limitations couldn’t do prison. “I don’t think so. He probably wouldn’t have let me slam the door in his face if he had a warrant.”
“Good girl.” She could hear Karma’s smile.
“I think at this point he’s just skeptical.”
Someone shouted something on Karma’s end and then her voice came out muffled like she was holding her hand over the phone. “Tell the minister Lucy’ll be ready in five, Jo. I’ll be right there.”
The pieces snapped into place—the dress, the minister—and Ciara’s sheepishness escalated to full-blown mortification. “You’re at your brother’s wedding, aren’t you? Oh crap, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. It’s nothing.”
“No, Ciara. You should always call. Whenever you need anything. You know that.”
“Go watch your brother get married. I’m fine. I’m great, actually. The fed’s totally doable—er, tolerable. I can manage him. Give the happy couple my best, would you?”
“I will. But, Ciara, I don’t think you should deal with this guy anymore. I’ll contact his superiors on Monday and make sure you get a new handler, but in the meantime, steer clear, okay? And call me if you have any problems. Even if it’s in the middle of the ceremony.”
“Will do, boss,” Ciara lied. “You have fun.”
She thumbed the off button on the phone and tossed it on the couch. Wrapping her towel more tightly around herself, she leaned over to peek out the front windows.
Agent Smith, cyborg asshole, stood on her doorstep, completely unaware that she’d just made the call that would get him kicked off her detail.
Karma had said to steer clear, but Agent Smith didn’t look like he was going anywhere. She had to open the door to tell him he was history, didn’t she?
He probably wouldn’t believe her. He didn’t seem like the type who took much on faith.
Ciara rushed to the bedroom and grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
She wasn’t ready to face Agent Smith again just yet. He was too…something. Too big. Too skeptical. Too serious.
And he was watching her too closely. From the second she’d first opened the door, he hadn’t taken his eyes off her. Sure, it was because he thought she was a criminal, but Ciara wasn’t used to that kind of focused intensity. It was kinda hot.
To say she didn’t get out much was the understatement of the year. If a stranger bumped into her on the street and their skin brushed, it felt like a firecracker exploded in her brain. The more she tried to brace for it and block against it, the worse it seemed to be. When it was really bad, she couldn’t even stay on her feet, and then, of course, all the good Samaritans rushed over to touch her to make sure she was okay, setting off more explosions until the inside of her head felt like the Fourth of July.
So Ciara didn’t leave the house much. Or ever, really. Her groceries were delivered. Delivery people didn’t tend to be touchers. They respected her distance. Between the internet and her DVR, she had all the entertainment she could possibly ask for.
So what if she didn’t have real human contact? Who did these days? Wasn’t that what everyone was always bitching about on
Oprah
and
The Today Show
? How technology had disconnected them from real human interaction?
Well, technology was the only way Ciara
could
interact, so she made the most of it. She watched movies and TV shows and read at least five books a week, unashamed to be living vicariously through them. At least she was living.
But then Agent Smith had to show up, with his intense stare and his cleft chin, making her feel like her life had been thrown under a microscope. Making her feel uncomfortable and nervous…and yet somehow, strangely, infinitely more
alive
.
Over the last decade she’d gotten good at telling herself she didn’t need adventure or excitement. But if that was true, why did she get such a thrill out of just standing on her front step
talking
to Nate Smith?
Ciara tugged on the hip-hugging jeans and well-worn T. The psychic static of the fabric against her skin was so familiar it faded into background noise. She touched her lips with a finger, mourning the fact that she didn’t own so much as a tube of lip gloss.
She could pretend she was going back out there to tell him to piss off, but she’d never been very good at lying to herself. Her life had gotten too safe. The risk he represented drew her almost as strongly as the man himself. Six feet of delicious temptation.
Ciara closed her eyes, counted to ten, and then slowly opened them. She tipped back her chin, bracing herself for another round of that awkward, delicious microscope feeling.
Just another day at the office.
Nate stood on the doorstep, calling himself twenty different kinds of fool.
He’d tipped his hand too early and scared her off. What kind of a dumbass, rookie move was that? He deserved the door slammed in his face. How was he supposed to interrogate her if she wouldn’t even talk to him?
When the door to 1134 Honeydew Circle creaked open a second time, Nate held himself perfectly still, suppressing the urge to shove his foot in the door and trying to look harmless as Ciara Liung’s up-tilted black eyes peered out at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, before she could speak. “I shouldn’t have accused you. That was uncalled for. I just don’t understand any of this.” He waved his hands in a broad gesture to encompass all the
this
he didn’t understand, going for baffled rather than condemnatory.
Her eyes narrowed, but she opened the door a little farther and angled her shoulders into the opening. He was not disappointed she’d gotten dressed. He
wasn’t
.
“You’re sorry?”
“Abjectly.” He widened his eyes, hoping the expression made him look penitent, and flashed his most earnest smile. “Can I come in? I’d like to understand.”
Ciara glanced over her shoulder into the house, as if gauging whether he was trustworthy enough to be allowed into the inner sanctum.
Nate mentally ran through his playbook. He needed to establish a sense of connection with the subject. Reaching out, he placed his hand over hers on the doorjamb.
She cried out, jerking her hand out from beneath his and cradling it to her chest, hissing in pain like he’d thrown acid in her face. “Don’t do that! You can’t touch me. No one can touch me.”
Ciara Liung was a hell of an actress, but Nate kept his skepticism to himself. He assumed an expression of utter contrition. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Are you all right? Let me see.”
She shook her head, shying away from him. “No. It’s nothing. I’m fine now. I just… Don’t touch my skin, okay?”
Something about the expression on her face seemed familiar. She looked guarded. Defensive. It was exactly how he felt whenever someone looked at him like a cripple.
Nate wasn’t above exploiting every angle.
He lurched slightly to the side, steadying himself with his cane and making sure Ciara’s eyes flicked down to see his white-knuckled grip. She opened her mouth, and he could see her about to ask what had happened to him. He let every drop of icy pride he had show on his face and watched her words freeze in her throat.
“Come on in,” she said, swinging the door open wide and turning away, pointedly ignoring his unsteadiness, as if crippled FBI agents were a dime a dozen.
Nate gimped forward. On his best day, the limp was noticeable, but right now he played up his new disability to the max. He hobbled after her into the living room.
Then he took one look around and froze.
Nate was drooling, but if there was a time when drool was called for, this was it.
Seventy-two-inch plasma flat screen. Bose stereo surround sound. Mammoth Barcalounger, big enough to dwarf even his own substantial frame. And to top it all off, the woman had the single most impressive DVD collection he’d ever seen in his life. She made Blockbuster look poorly stocked.
This wasn’t a living room. This was Heaven.
He ran a finger along the titles lining the closest of the floor-to-ceiling shelves. The yellow spine of one case caught his eye.
To Catch a Thief
. Well, wasn’t that fitting? Nate snagged the Hitchcock masterpiece off the shelf and turned it over. Grace Kelly gazed up at him with a beguiling combination of sensual knowledge and naïveté.