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He could barely feel the pressure of her fingertips at his waist. Definitely not the way a sexy woman held on to her man. Time to teach her another lesson.
“Just hold on.”
He revved the engine and kicked it into gear, pulling the bike up to forty miles per hour before even reaching the security gate. By the time he had her on the highway cruising toward New York City, Grace had become a second skin to him, her face buried in the middle of his back and her arms cinched around his middle. He glanced down at her white-knuckled grasp on his belt buckle.
Oh, yeah.
Between her body and his guilty conscience, the next five days were going to be one hell of a ride.
3
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?”
