You've Got Male (23 page)

She found his reaction curious, so she, too, glanced down at the book in her hands, really seeing it for the first time. Its cover was facing him, but its title was reproduced on the back. And it was with no small amount of embarrassment—damn, that was twice in one night—that she read the words printed there.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Oh, dear.

“Is there something I should know, Ms. Nesbitt?” Tanner asked, still smiling.

This time, though, Carly smiled back. “Actually there’s something
I
need to know, Gillespie.”

“What’s that?”

“How long did you say you have before you have to go to work?”

He smiled with supreme confidence at that, moving one hand toward her face to strum his fingertips lightly over her cheekbone. Heat flared in Carly’s belly at first contact, spreading like wildfire through her body when he turned his hand backward to skim his knuckles along the line of her jaw, across her lower lip and down to her throat. He touched her cautiously, curiously, as if he wanted—no, intended—to get to know every inch of her. Intimately.

Not much caring where it landed, Carly tossed the book onto a nearby chair. Then she threaded the fingers of one hand through his hair, cupping the other lightly over his nape. Little by little he lowered his head to hers, and little by little she pushed herself up on tiptoe to meet him halfway. When their mouths connected, it was the most seductive, most delicious sensation Carly had ever felt. Tanner kissed her as if she were the secret to his happiness, kissed her as if he intended to make her very happy, too. He brushed his lips lightly over hers once, twice, three times, four, then traced her plump lower lip with the tip of his tongue. As he kissed her, he grazed his fingers lightly down the length of her bare arm, electrifying every inch of her flesh along the way. He wove the fingers of his right hand with the fingers of her left, then brought her hand up to his mouth to treat it to a series of gentle kisses, too.

Something inside Carly came apart as she watched him, and, unable to help herself, she withdrew her hand from his and raked her fingertips across his mouth, too. So soft. So warm. So incredibly sexy. The things he could probably do with that mouth…

She leaned forward and kissed him this time, and this time neither of them stopped. Tanner slanted his mouth over hers, first one way, then the other, as if he wasn’t sure which he liked best. But Carly didn’t mind, because she was trying to make some similar decisions. Hand cupping his shoulder? Palm cradling his jaw? Knuckles skimming along his throat? Fingers tangled in his hair? Oh, why not just enjoy them all?

As she did, she challenged him for possession of the kiss, turning her own head and opening her mouth to invite him inside. He entered eagerly, tasting her deeply, his breathing growing heavier and more frayed every time his tongue penetrated her mouth. Carly fisted the fabric of his shirt in both hands, then splayed her fingers wide over the broad expanse of his chest, pressing her palms against him as she dragged her hands higher, over his shoulders and back into his hair.

Tanner tore his mouth from hers and moved it over her jaw, her throat, the sensitive skin of her bare shoulder. She tipped back her head as he went, her own breathing coming in rapid, ragged breaths now. She felt hungry, impatient, needy. Never in her life had she wanted anything the way she wanted Tanner in that moment.

He traced her collarbone with his lips, then his tongue, then dipped his head lower, to the place where her warm skin met the top of her dress. Carly stilled when she felt his hot breath there, then looked down to see him lift a hand toward the bright pink fabric to tuck his long middle finger inside. He glanced up at her face once, not really asking permission but more, she thought, to give her advance warning. When she smiled, he inserted another finger into her dress and then slowly, gently, he began to pull the fabric down.

Beneath it was the filmy pink lace of a demicup bra, certainly no match for someone like Tanner. Instead of pushing that garment aside, too, though, he pressed his mouth to the bare flesh peeking out of the skimpy cups. And when he did, it was with such sweet tenderness that Carly went weak all over.

Not sure she would be able to keep standing much longer—and glancing over to see that the library doors were still open and that anyone might walk in and catch them anytime—she cupped her hands over Tanner’s shoulders and pushed herself away from the shelves. When he looked up, puzzled, she tipped her head toward the entryway.

“This isn’t the place,” she said softly.

His eyes were dark with his passion, and they never left hers as he rearranged her dress and put everything back the way it was. Well, almost everything, Carly thought. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be the same after this.

“Maybe it’s not the place,” he agreed, “but is it the time?”

Without hesitation, she nodded. “Past time, really. But you’re going to have to tell me your real name,” she added breathlessly when he began strumming his fingers over her bare shoulder again.

“Why?” he asked.

She lifted her hand to his hair again, weaving it through her fingers once more. Something told her she would never get enough of touching this man. Very softly she told him, “I’ll need to know what to call you in the throes of passion.”

He arched one eyebrow and smiled. “Then, Ms. Nesbitt, I suggest we find a secluded place where we can…rendezvous. Then I’ll tell you everything I want you to do for this covert assignment.”

She grinned back at him. “Well, then, Agent Gillespie. Your secluded place or mine?”

D
IXON KNEW HE’D BEHAVED
like a jerk when he fled the dining room the minute dinner was over without saying a word to Avery. At the time he’d told himself he was in a hurry because he had a lot to do, that he was overly preoccupied by thoughts of what lay ahead that evening with regard to Sorcerer. But as he’d left the room—oh, all right, as he’d stomped out like a big baby—he’d had no choice but to admit that what had him more preoccupied than anything were thoughts of Avery.

And that had been true even before she’d come into the room looking more beautiful than he’d ever seen her looking.

He sighed heavily as he rose from his bed in the room opposite hers and tugged viciously on the necktie that dinner with the Nesbitts dictated. If this assignment went on much longer, he was going to wind up in tighter restraints than the ones they’d had Avery wearing. Five days he’d been here. It felt more like five months. She’d survived seventeen
years
in this place. Hell, it was a wonder she wasn’t psychotic.

He stripped off the rest of the dark suit he normally only wore for official government business and hung it haphazardly back in his closet. His room, like Avery’s, had been furnished with guests in mind, in bland neutrals with few personal touches. Still, even with his very limited knowledge of such things, Dixon suspected the heavy antique furniture would have brought in six figures at auction.

He shook his head in wonder. For such wealthy, tasteful people, the Nesbitts had some of the emptiest souls he’d ever met. And hell, he should know, since, after his little performance down in the dining room, he wasn’t exactly a model of amiability.

He’d been more than a jerk tonight, he told himself as he tugged on a pair of jeans and a Washington Capitals sweatshirt.
Jerk
was a word you used for someone who was stupid and thoughtless. What he’d been downstairs was far worse. He’d been…Hell. He didn’t want to put a name on what he’d been tonight. Because there was nothing bad enough to label himself, even in his vast cache of profanity.

Coward.
There. That was a start. But he’d been a coward before tonight because he’d spent the entire day trying to avoid Avery. He hadn’t known what to say to her after what happened last night. Mostly because he wasn’t sure what
had
happened last night. Other than some of the most explosive, exhaustive, X-rated sex he’d ever enjoyed. But after that last time they’d come together, around four in the morning, when she’d fallen asleep in his embrace, her silky black hair wrapped around both of them, her slender arms roped loosely around his waist, Dixon had experienced a moment of terror unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Carefully, so as not to wake her, he’d dislodged himself from beside her and silently returned to his own room.

He told himself he’d done it to avoid an ugly morning-after scene. He never spent the night with women for that very reason. He didn’t know why he always assumed the morning after would be ugly. He’d never hung around for one to find out. But there was something about the thought of going to bed with a woman in the evening and waking up beside her in the morning that smacked of domesticity. And if there was one thing Dixon was not, it was domestic. He was a feral creature and he intended to stay that way. Home, to him, was a minuscule apartment in Georgetown where he spent a few months out of the year—though none of them consecutive. He had the place because he needed a home base, if not a home per se. He traveled constantly in his work, wherever OPUS sent him. Eighty percent of his life was spent somewhere other than that anything-but-permanent address in D.C. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Avery, though, was a woman for whom it was virtually impossible to leave home. Her Central Park address was permanent in every sense of the word. It was the only place she felt safe, where she lived, worked, played, everything. The last thing she wanted was to go anywhere.

But even that wasn’t why he had avoided her all day. He’d been involved with women in the past he should have steadfastly avoided, often for only a few days. It wasn’t a temporary involvement with Avery that had made him bolt from the dining room earlier. It was something else entirely he feared happening with her. Something that wasn’t temporary. Something that went beyond involvement.

But even
that
wasn’t the worst of it. Last night Dixon had completely forgotten about the assignment. No, worse than that. It wasn’t that he had forgotten what he and Avery were supposed to be doing. It was that he had stopped caring. He’d wanted something more than he had wanted to catch Sorcerer. He’d wanted Avery. To the exclusion of everything else. Including the job.

And that, he knew, was the most abominable offense of all. Not that he’d wanted Avery. He was only human, after all. Reading what she was writing to Sorcerer as she was writing it, being so close to her, feeling her heat, hearing her ragged breathing, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her…No man in his right mind would have behaved any differently than Dixon had last night. But he had wanted Avery more than he’d wanted to catch the man responsible for his father’s death. Last night, for the first time in years, Dixon had lost sight of what had made him wake up day after day after day. He had forgotten what motivated him. He had forgotten his father and his need to avenge his father’s death. And for that he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to forgive himself.

Of course, that was no reason for him to lash out at Avery. It wasn’t her fault he had wanted her as much as he had. On the contrary, unlike Dixon, she
had
been doing her job last night. Even though she hadn’t wanted to. Even though she’d been offended by what she had to do. She’d done it because she knew it was her duty. It was he who had fallen down on the job, he who had been weak and unfocused.

He lifted a hand to his forehead and rubbed hard. Christ, what he’d been reduced to in one week’s time. Sneaking around. Avoiding people. Shirking his duty. Forgetting his mission in life. If this was what he was like after a week in Avery’s presence, what was he going to be like by the end of the assignment? Because even though they’d made contact with Sorcerer, they were going to have to reel him in slowly. Especially after losing him so easily last night. Dixon was confident he and Avery could manufacture some excuse for her disappearance from cyberspace that would wash. But it would still take time to build up Sorcerer’s trust in her enough to draw him out into the open.

Dixon sighed heavily, muttered a ripe epithet under his breath and told himself to get to work. But the hardest work that lay ahead, he realized then, didn’t involve Sorcerer at all. Because it wasn’t Sorcerer’s trust Dixon was worried about.

A
VERY RETURNED TO HER ROOM
after dinner feeling more foolish than she had ever felt in her life. Which was saying something, since there had been innumerable times in her life when she’d felt foolish.

How could she have been so stupid? How could she have thought last night with Dixon had been anything more than what it was—two people having sex because they were too turned on not to. Hell, they didn’t even like each other. How could she have woken up that morning thinking anything had changed between them? How could she have felt giddy and bubbly all day at the simple prospect of seeing him again? How could she have allowed herself to feel hopeful and buoyant and happy that her life may have taken a turn for the better?

How could she have dressed for dinner in a way she had thought would please him, when she hated to wear clothes like that?

Her face flamed to even think about what she had done and her stomach rolled with self-loathing. She was such an idiot. Dixon had probably left the room so quickly after dinner because he’d had to go somewhere and laugh himself silly. Working with him after this was going to be unbearable.

As quickly as she could, she jerked off her mother’s cast-off clothing and hung it back in the closet—in the very farthest reach, where she wouldn’t see it again. Then she pulled on her grubbiest blue jeans and the rattiest sweatshirt she’d brought with her. She tore the ribbon—a
ribbon,
for God’s sake!—out of her hair and threw it in the wastebasket, then ruthlessly braided her hair without even paying attention to whether or not it was straight.

She fired up her computer but didn’t go online. Dixon had forbidden her from doing so without him present, and for some reason she still felt obligated to abide by his edict. Because he held her future in his hands, she told herself. If she disobeyed his instructions, he could send her back to jail. It wasn’t because she cared that he would be disappointed in her if she broke the rules.

Oh, God, what had she become? There had been a time in her life when she’d reveled in breaking the rules. When she’d been driven by a consummate need to be her own person, and if the rest of the world couldn’t handle her, then bugger ’em. What had happened to that person? she wondered. Had it been two years of prison that had broken her? Ten years of alienation from her family? Eight years of self-inflicted solitary confinement? Countless years of anxiety and panic attacks? What? When had she stopped caring about herself? When had she stopped liking herself? When had she stopped wanting to be herself?

The moment those questions unrolled in her head, Avery realized why she had awoken that morning overcome by happiness. It wasn’t because anything had changed between her and Dixon. It was because something had changed in her. She had liked herself this morning. And she had cared about herself, too. For the first time in a long time. Knowing Dixon liked her enough to make love to her—or at least have sex with her—had made her think maybe she was worthwhile. And how bad was that, that it took a man’s interest in her to make her think she had some value? She really was a broken shadow of her former self.

Her epiphany was cut short by a quick trio of raps at her door. Dixon, she knew before even opening it. Who else would it be? Of course, he was only here because the two of them had work to do. Long work that would last almost until morning. She had to endure hours alone with him, pretending nothing was wrong, before she’d be granted some small measure of privacy again.

She swiped both hands over her face, as if that might physically remove any expression she was wearing, but her stomach roiled with anxiety as she gripped the doorknob hard and turned it. As she opened the door, she waited for her anxiety to escalate into panic at seeing him again. But really all she felt was sad. And tired. And hopeless.

“Come on in,” she said by way of a greeting. Maybe if she just pretended nothing was wrong, he’d take his cue from her and go along with the charade.

He was silent as he entered and closed the door behind him. And he remained silent as he pulled up his usual chair behind her usual stool and sat down. Avery, though, couldn’t quite make herself move toward him and instead retreated to the far side of the bedroom, where she switched on a light. Dixon looked surprised by the gesture, which wasn’t surprising, since she had always insisted on working in the dark, as she did at home. But he still said nothing, only glanced meaningfully at his watch, then back up at her.

“It’s still early,” she told him. “He won’t be online yet.”

“How do you know?” he asked. “Things ended so unexpectedly last night that he might—”

He halted abruptly and closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t believe he’d said what he had. But Avery strangely was grateful for his gaffe. Maybe it would be better to clear the air.

“We should talk about that,” she said.

He nodded resolutely, then opened his eyes. “Yeah, we should. Have you decided what you’re going to say to Sorcerer to explain your sudden disappearance?”

“No, I meant we should talk about what happened between you and me last night.”

“We had sex,” he said flatly.

This time Avery was the one to nod. “And that’s all it was,” she said emphatically.

Her remark seemed to surprise him even more than her turning on the light did. So what the hell, she went for broke.

“It won’t happen again,” she told him.

That remark seemed not to surprise him at all. It also seemed to piss him off. Not that she cared.

Nevertheless, he sounded agreeable enough when he replied, “Sounds like we’re both on the same page then. Let’s get to work.”

Gee, Avery thought, it was just so great when two people could talk like grown-ups and get right to the heart of a matter without having to wade through a lot of pooh-pooh.

“Let’s get to work,” she echoed.

And with that, she crossed the room and took her seat, clicking on the icon to go online. She left the lamp on, however, eschewing the darkness tonight, and decided not to think about why. She only allowed herself to think about the matter at hand—finding Adrian Padgett ASAP so she could get Dixon out of her life. ASAP.

It didn’t take long to find him. Especially since it turned out he was already on the Net looking for her.

What happened to you last night? he IMed her within seconds of her signing in. You disappeared just when things were getting good.

Power went out in the building, Avery typed, knowing it was a legitimate excuse because it had happened once before. Not when they were in the middle of sex, but when they’d been having a regular conversation. Super said this morning it was because of construction up the block again. I missed you, too.