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“Decide that you’re sexy. Once you believe it, everyone around you will, too.”
Without a doubt her mother was sexy. The woman knew what she had and she used it to her advantage. Mimsey Lockhart had learned all about being sexy.
But all Grace had ever wanted was for Mimsey to learn how to be her mother.
LOGAN CLOSED the fashion magazine and slumped on the couch of the department store fitting room, wondering how much more of this Pygmalion stuff he could take. The store could at least provide some male reading while he waited. Anything with fishing rods or pitching stats would be appreciated. He needed something to distract his overworked imagination from creating pImages** of Grace behind the closed door at the end of the hallway, stripping naked and trying on the wardrobe of clothes the salesclerk had selected for her.
He’d been intrigued by Grace’s request to turn her into a seductress. But it had taken those big green eyes of hers, staring up at him with trust and innocence, to trigger a protective impulse and make him say yes to working as her partner.
He’d tried scaring her away from this suicide mission with some crass behavior—the kind Mitchell might throw her way. But it had backfired on him. Badly. She’d responded to his forward touches as if they’d been lovers. As if she’d known exactly the way he liked a woman to respond to him.
She’d battled words with him, proving that intellectual moxie she kept bragging about.
He’d met her mother, saw the potential for the beautiful woman Grace could become.
He’d tortured himself all afternoon and into the evening, watching the transformation take place.
After fitting her for contact lenses, they’d taken a trip to a salon where a man named Miguel had cut her hair into a riot of sexy, chin-length curls, and then highlighted the whole beckoning array to bring out bright gold and soft strawberry shades. Miguel’s friend Bruce had made up her face in a palette of soft colors that emphasized the emerald richness of her eyes and the sensuous pout of her lips.
And now—Logan inhaled deeply and silently cursed the partial arousal that had been with him on and off throughout the day—she’d been parading past him in a variety of outfits that reflected every mood from professional to fun to provocative.
“Logan? Do you think I’ll really need something like this?”
Grace’s sinfully seductive voice interrupted his thoughts and wound into his fantasies. When he looked up at this latest in a long line of outfits, he wished he still had that magazine to pull over his lap.
The woman had the survival skills of a turnip.
She stood in front of him, wearing nothing more than some sort of slip thing and a doubtful expression.
“It’s called a bra-slip. The clerk suggested I wear it with that evening gown I tried on earlier. I could save some money, though, and wear one of my own slips with a strapless bra.” Though he heard her explanation, he paid more attention to the movements of her hands. She cupped the sides of her breasts and pushed them forward, nearly spilling the satiny globes over the tiny strips of ivory silk and lace that cradled them. “The top doesn’t give me much support, anyway.”
Logan stood, fatigue and frustration and a sudden rigid strain in his jeans overriding patience and good intentions.
She needed to have that piece of lingerie. She very definitely needed to have it.
But Harris Mitchell didn’t need to see it.
And no man who accidentally wandered past the dressing room’s waiting area needed to see it, either.
Logan snatched Grace’s arms above the elbows and turned her back to her dressing room.
“Don’t you have a lick of common sense?” he asked, pushing her into the closet-size area and pulling the door shut behind him. “You can’t go parading around in something like this.”
“I thought you wanted to approve all the changes I’ve made. I’m sorry. Did I embarrass you?”
Logan sputtered. Was she really that naive? “It’s perfect. It’s sexy. It’s gorgeous.”
She folded her arms across her chest, hiding her bounty in self-conscious shame as she had that morning. “It’s just a piece of underwear—”
“No.” He pressed a finger over her lips, silencing her apology. “Rule number five. Never explain away a man’s compliment.”
“But—”
“Say thank you,” he ordered, trying not to react to the brush of her lips on his sensitive fingertip. “You’ve turned into a real knockout, Agent Lockhart.” Her shoulders lifted and her eyes swelled with protest, but he shushed her again. “What do you say?”
“Fank oo?” He pulled his finger back and let her try again. That same vulnerability that had sucker punched him into taking this assignment in the first place darkened her eyes. “You really think I’m a knockout?”
He let his gaze sweep the three mirrors in the dressing room, catching her in that slip from every delectable angle. He’d seen garments that showed less of a woman—garter belts, bustiers, thongs. But there was something incredibly appealing about the demure silk molding to her curves, stopping at her thighs and creating a shadowy cleft between her legs. Something wonderfully enticing about a swath of lace barely hiding the pink areolae at the tips of her breasts. Something about that creamy expanse of bare skin across her shoulders just a shade darker than the ivory silk straps that held the whole confection up.
“Oh, yeah. So much so that I’m going to treat myself to one of my favorite lessons. I’m going to kiss you.”
He touched her with just his lips, bending down and capturing her startled “Oh” with his mouth. She tasted sweet and potent, just like the creamy coffee she’d had on their dinner break. It was a gentle mating, and he held back the urge to plunder her mouth. Her lips moved shyly, as if testing the whole idea of kissing. A true researcher, Logan observed in heady amusement.
He clenched his hands into fists at his sides, trying to remember that this woman was his job partner, not his bedmate. He was supposed to teach her, not take her. Her hesitant, though willing, response should remind him of that fact.
But he couldn’t resist. A lock of her hair got caught between their mouths and he had to brush it away. Then he tunneled his fingers into the springy softness of her hair and stepped closer, angling her head back to receive the full advantage of his kiss.
“Just a second.” Grace’s hips backed away. His fingers were still tangled in her hair as she reached for something behind her. She came up with that damn notebook, flipped it open to a blank page, and clicked her mechanical pencil. Twice. “I want to know how to do this just right.”
“Grace—”
She tipped her face back to his and puckered her lips. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Damn the woman. Maybe she could frustrate Harris Mitchell into surrendering to the authorities.
Logan tightened his grip at the nape of her neck and pulled her up onto her toes. He kissed her again, harder this time, plunging in and stroking the soft skin inside her mouth with his tongue. He kept his eyes open, demanding she look at him. When he touched his tongue to hers, she did. Green eyes snapped at gray. He circled her tongue…suckled…angled his mouth to do any number of delightful things to hers.
When he came up for air, she ran her tongue along her lips and then pressed them together, tasting and savoring the new sensations they’d created together.
Or so he thought.
“Hold on.” This damn research was hard on a man’s ego. At least she had the decency to be short of breath. Her hand shook as she tried to write.
Logan smiled. Maybe this kiss wasn’t just about research anymore.
He nuzzled the side of her neck, ran his tongue down to that exquisite nerve bundle along her collarbone until he found the spot that made her shiver. “Put down the notebook.”
Grace pushed at his chin, turning his gaze up to meet hers. “I want to learn how to kiss.”
“I want to teach you.”
The steno pad hit the floor with a thunk as Logan lifted her hands around his neck. She arched into him as he skimmed his palms down her sides, cupped her ripe, round bottom and lifted her up to his mouth and his heat. She opened her mouth, giving all that he asked of her and more, and he seized her offering.
He came back to fill his hands with her generous breasts. He pushed them together the way she had earlier and buried his face between them. He tasted the salty tang of sweat deep in her cleavage, inhaled the delicate scent of the rare fragrance she wore.
“Touch me, Grace,” he commanded on a breathless whisper, capturing a beaded peak in his mouth through lace and silk. She groaned in her throat, and as he laved the responsive bud with his tongue, the groan became a purr that vibrated through him, that teased his loins and made him impossibly hard with want. “Touch me.”
“I’ve only done this kind of thing once.” Her fingers flailed against the collar of his jacket, even as her lips scudded across his temple and found the sensitive shell of his ear. “I don’t know how.”
“Any way you want.”
He was drunk with passion by the time she’d pushed his jacket off his shoulders and worked his shirt free of his jeans. She bunched up the material in her hands, tugged it behind the holster that hung from his shoulder, exposing his chest and torso to her curious quest. Her hands scorched him with their searching. A delicate brush of a fingertip here. An outright grab there.
He ground his hips into hers, amazed at how quickly, how thoroughly, this prude-turned-seductress had aroused him. She didn’t need any lessons on how to seduce a man. She was a natural. A prodigy.
“Miss Lockhart?” Three sharp raps on the dressing-room door brought Logan up short. “The store is closing in fifteen minutes. If you like, I could start ringing up your selections.”
The salesclerk’s friendly voice intruded from the outside world. Logan tore his mouth from Grace’s. He breathed silently through pursed lips so as not to reveal his presence, and pressed the palm of his hand against Grace’s mouth, keeping her ragged breathing from giving them away.
He tried to collect his thoughts, but the image looking back at him from three different angles made him wonder just how far he would have gone before he realized he had completely botched this mission. His knee was wedged between Grace’s thighs. He had the ivory slip hiked up to the waistband of her panties. The straps dangled loosely in the crook of her elbows, leaving her breasts bare and beautiful from every conceivable view. Her hands were lost inside his shirt, her mouth red and swollen with his kisses—and the whole scene was reflected in the dressing-room mirrors.
“Is everything all right?” Now the clerk sounded vaguely concerned.
Logan slowly pulled his hand away and mouthed the words, “Say something to get rid of her.”
“What should I say?” she mouthed back.
He tilted his head and glared at her.
Grace shrank away from the hard look. She pulled the slip straps back over her shoulders and covered herself, but finally responded to the message. “I’m fine,” she said in a loud, surprisingly clear voice. “I’ll be out in just a minute. Thank you.”
After the clerk left, Logan shook his head. “That’s the fastest you can think on your feet?”
Her unshielded eyes swelled with something more than embarrassment at being caught in a compromising position. “Is that what this was? A test?”
“No.” He was too honest to tell her otherwise. He swiped his fingers through his hair, literally and figuratively trying to straighten the mess he’d made of their professional relationship. “But there’s a hell of a lot more to working undercover than just looking the part.”
“I know that. I might be naive, but I’m not an idiot.”
He tucked in his clothes and backed himself up to the door. No. He was the only idiot here. She’d crossed her arms in front of her, but stood straight in that proud yet vulnerable stance he’d gotten to know so well today.
“Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on covert weaponry. And we’ll work on some self-defense tactics.”
His aching groin and shredded sense of self-preservation mocked the cool authority in his voice. He’d known this assignment would be trouble from the start, and he’d already blown it big time by losing his objectivity to a case of carnal lust.
“Fine. Would you step out so I can get dressed, please?”
He closed the door and headed back to his lonesome spot on the couch.
“Definitely need to work on self-defense.”
4
AUTUMN IN NEW YORK be damned. The September humidity was wreaking havoc on both her hairdo and her mood.
For the umpteenth time, Grace pushed an annoying curl out of her eyes. Useless. Absolutely useless. Just what was the advantage of this new hairstyle, anyway?
Surrendering to the forces of nature, she let the curls fall where they may and knocked on the door of the town house. She’d come all the way to New Jersey by subway and cab, thinking the trip would be less wearing than sitting in morning traffic for two hours.
Ha!
She pulled out her steno pad and made an entry reminding herself that unless she had proof the public transport’s air-conditioning systems were working, she would rely solely on herself for transportation.
Her watch already registered 9:15 a.m. She was late, to boot. She leaned back and double-checked that she did, indeed, have the right address before knocking again. Then she used those few moments of time to bemoan that she had natural curl in her hair, and that no matter how many products Miguel recommended she use, it was going to kink up into an unruly mess until the humidity dropped below fifty percent.
If only she hadn’t spent so much time on her hair this morning. If only she’d gotten up sooner. If only she’d been able to get a decent night’s sleep.
But no, pImages** of Logan’s steely-gray eyes had haunted her dreams, laughing at her at first, then looking at her in ways she didn’t fully understand. She’d woken up more than once with her mouth open, panting hard, remembering the feel of his mouth on hers. The unique taste of his lips, hard and soft, hot and sweet, all at once.
And once, near three o’clock in the morning, she found herself wrapped around her pillow, rubbing against it, squeezing it tight between her thighs, her body straining for the memory of something it had never found.
She’d gotten up and showered then, but quickly discovered that the warm pinpricks of water reminded her too much of the fiery scrape of Logan’s whiskers across her skin. Sensitizing her, seducing her.
His body seemed to be hard wherever hers was soft. And the shape of him had been completely different from hers. Enticingly male, while she’d felt, oh, so terribly, wonderfully female.
But she hadn’t known what to do. She hadn’t known what he wanted from her. She scarcely knew what she wanted for herself.
Only that she shouldn’t want it.
This distracting, confusing, consuming obsession with Logan had to stop. Or she’d never get any work done.
That meant she’d never capture Harris Mitchell. She’d never earn the respect she deserved. She’d never get a second chance to bring down a user who was so much like those men who had abused her mother’s trusting heart.
As a child, she hadn’t been able to help Mimsey. But she could now. She could help all the innocents who’d been taken advantage of by greedy, self-serving egomaniacs. If she didn’t do this, she’d always be frumpy Grace Lockhart, spinster computer geek, second-rate shadow of her halfway-famous mother.
It was a mighty sad epitaph.
But ten life-changing lessons from Logan could turn her into a knowledgeable woman of the world who understood how to use her body as well as her brain to lure Harris Mitchell into her clutches, and straight to prison.
She hated depending on anyone else though. Any other project, she could take a class or read a book, make herself the expert she needed to be. But not this sexy thing.
She needed a man to learn that.
She needed Logan.
But, oh, Lord, she didn’t want to need him. For her work or her fantasies.
Fantasies?
Rule number five in the ladies’ dressing room last night had nearly undone her.
“Oh, God,” she whispered out loud as her body heated all over again at the very thought of what lessons six through ten on Logan’s list might entail.
Grace breathed in deeply, desperate now to regain some semblance of decorum. The hot, moist air didn’t help cool the frustration broiling within her.
She raised her fist to pound at the door once more. “Damn you, Logan Pierce.”
Her fist never hit the wood. Instead, she got caught in the quick reflexes of Logan’s hand, mere inches from his naked chest. “Good morning to you, too.”
