Overnight Male

Overnight Male
Elizabeth Bevarly

Is there any mission more dangerous than a hot one-night stand?In the world of international espionage, Lila Moreau is as tough as they come. But she’s finally ready to trade in her secret double life for domestic bliss. That is, after she takes care of one last vendetta: to bring in rogue agent Adrian Padgett before he unleashes disaster.But to find him and his band of merry hackers, Lila must infiltrate small, snooty Waverly College. All while breaking in her sexy new partner, Joel Faraday. Sounds like a challenge – even for a superspy.Soon Joel starts to distract her in more ways than just the professional. And he’s determined to lure Lila into the most impossible mission of all…love.

Dear Reader,

I’d like to thank everyone for their patience while Overnight Male found its place in the schedule. I know from your e-mails how anxiously you’ve been waiting to see the book in print (as have I). I did have a very good time getting Lila and her experiences down on paper. And I think I fell in love with Joel right along with her. Here’s hoping you do, too.

Happy reading,

Elizabeth Bevarly

More delicious “special deliveries”from Elizabeth Bevarly and MIRA Books

EXPRESS MALE

YOU’VE GOT MALE

Overnight Male

ELIZABETH BEVARLY

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk/)

For Wanda Ottewell,

who made every book better.

Thanks.

CHAPTER ONE

Darkness had always been Lila Moreau’s best friend. Throughout her life she had used different kinds of darkness to aid her in different kinds of ways. As a child, she knew the darkness under a bed or in a closet could protect her from her mother’s hurtful words. As a teenager, she felt the shadows of the city could shelter her from people, especially men, who wanted more from her than she was willing to give. As an adult, she used her shady character to keep others from getting too close. But this, the darkness that came with nightfall, was Lila’s favorite. Nighttime was when all the best stuff happened. It was when the world—or at least her world—came to life.

“Hey, lady, ya got a hundred bucks to spare? I ain’t been laid all week, and it ain’t cheap in this part ’a town.”

Lila growled her exasperation at having her profound—and kind of cool and gothic, if she did say so herself—musings interrupted. Okay, so maybe some of the life in her world was more of the low variety than it was of the high. She knew how to deal.

She turned from where she stood on the corner of N Street and Potomac in Georgetown and glared at the lowest-of-all-life who had emerged from the shadows behind her. He was maybe half a foot taller than her own five-four and probably outweighed her by a 150 pounds. Since he was dressed in double-knit sans-a-belt trousers and a shiny polyester shirt that was stained under each arm with perspiration, and since he clearly hadn’t bathed in days—also considering the way he’d just greeted her—he was too poorly dressed and not articulate enough to be a pimp. So Lila concluded he must just be a big scumbag. This part of the nation’s capital didn’t usually attract people like him, since it drew such a large tourist and college crowd and was home to so many of the city’s movers and shakers. (Well, okay, maybe there were one or two scumbags. Not to mention pimps.) But neither was it unheard of to find someone in Georgetown who wasn’t exactly the cream of Washington society.

“Uh, I think you’re a little out of your element here, guy,” she said to the, ah, guy. “Bubba’s Booty Barn is in Cheverly. But good news. You can take the orange line straight there and you won’t have to switch trains at all. Metro station’s that way,” she added, pointing in the general direction of Foggy Bottom, and hoping he’d take the hint.

Of course he didn’t. That would have been too easy.

Instead the guy grinned and said, “On second thought, sweetheart, maybe I won’t need that hundred bucks. You look like the kinda woman who’d be up for just about anything.”

Actually, dressed as she was from head to toe in black, complete with knit cap and gloves, what Lila looked like was a woman who was about to break in to someone’s home. Of course, there was a good reason for that. She was about to break in to someone’s home. Nevertheless, she hated it when men just couldn’t get the gist of the most basic fashion statement. Duh.

Damn. She really didn’t need a distraction like this right now. She had her schedule tonight timed down to the last second. There wasn’t any available room in it at all for a maiming.

But she knew it would be unavoidable when the guy winked at her, nodded his head toward the alley she’d been about to enter, and asked, “Whaddaya say? Do a good job, sweetheart, and I’ll give ya back half of the hundred bucks you’re gonna gimme, too.”

She smiled at him. “Oh, gosh, just keep the whole hundred, big guy. I mean, I should pay you for the privilege, shouldn’t I? A great-looking, charismatic man like you? C’mon.”

His flabbergasted expression in response to her enthusiasm was almost worth the interruption he was causing her. Almost.

It was a testament to his stupidity that he followed Lila into the alley without a speck of hesitation or suspicion. It was a testament to her skill that she unmanned him in even less than her usual five seconds. Oh, he’d still be able to father children someday. Unfortunately. After he regained consciousness. And, you know, found a woman who had the IQ of a piece of lint.

Now, then. Where was she? Oh, yeah. Darkness had always been Lila’s best friend…blah blah blah…the darkness that came with nightfall was her favorite…blah blah blah…nighttime was when all the best stuff happened…blah blah blah…that was when Lila’s world came to life.

Got it.

Brushing off the last lingering remnants of disgust at having come into contact with Mr. Scumbag quite literally, Lila looked around and assessed her situation. The alley between two rows of sleepy town houses was deserted this time of night, save the occasional unconscious—and unmanned—scumbag, and silent save the soft sigh of a late spring breeze that nudged a stray piece of newspaper from one side of the narrow pathway to the other. She gazed up at an unlit window on the third floor of one of those town houses—the one through which she would momentarily be crawling—confident that the occupant was by now fast asleep.

It would be a pretty standard breaking and entering, even though many Georgetown residents were protected by private security systems, this one included. In fact, this residence was even better protected than most, thanks to its owner’s occupation, and might prove a challenge to someone else. Someone who wasn’t familiar with sophisticated protection devices that ran on arcane power sources.

Fortunately, Lila knew everything there was to know about sophisticated protection devices. And she liked to think that she herself was something of an arcane power source.

She flexed her fingers inside the snug black leather gloves, then tucked an errant strand of blond hair back under the black knit cap she’d tugged low over her eyes. The long-sleeved, skintight turtleneck and pants hugged her body like a second skin and served two purposes. Not only did they keep her warm in the cool April night—and, it went without saying, looked fabulous on her—but there was no part of her attire that might slow her down, tangle her up, or offer purchase for a pursuer.

Not that Lila expected to be pursued—never mind purchased—but one always had to be prepared for the possibility. Never, though, had she been caught. At least, not when she didn’t want to be. She certainly wasn’t going to screw up something like this.

Effortlessly and without a sound, she scaled the side of the big brick building, finding footholds by turns in the mortar between the bricks, the rainspout and the thick ivy growing up the side. Having already dismantled the exterior part of the alarm system in the front of the town house, she was lifting the window and pushing herself over the sill within seconds. She paused, standing motionless for a moment to survey her surroundings and ensure everything was as it was supposed to be.

Enough pale blue light emanated from big, illuminated numbers on the nightstand clock to reveal a man’s horizontal form in the bed beside it. He was hunched deep under the covers, sound asleep, completely unaware of her presence. Had it not been for the low, regular thrum of his breathing and the steady rise and fall of his shoulders, Lila wouldn’t have known if he was even alive. Well, had it not been for that, and the fact that she’d scoped the place out yesterday and had seen not a single corpse lying around.

She smiled. She was about to enjoy her favorite thing about being a spy: the takedown. Silently she retrieved a pair of handcuffs tucked into her belt at the small of her back and crept across the room.

It was only after she had launched herself at her quarry that she sensed something wasn’t quite right. Unfortunately, her body was in motion by then, and although Lila Moreau was a woman of many talents, defying gravity wasn’t one of them. Before she could recover and retreat, the man who should have been sleeping was wrapping her in the covers, wresting the handcuffs from her grasp and snapping them—chink, chink—first around her wrist and then around the thick metal spokes in the wrought-iron headboard.

Immediately Lila began to fight, throwing herself completely into her assault. And even one-handed, Lila Moreau could wreak the havoc of ten men. But it quickly became evident that her adversary was more insidious than ten men, because he had her pinned to the mattress in record time. After more frantic struggling, she decided her assailant couldn’t possibly be human. And after still more frantic struggling, she knew she was right. Because she realized then that what had finally brought Überspy Lila Moreau to her knees—or at least facedown into a mattress—was…sheets. And a blanket. And a couple of fluffy pillows.

Damn. This was not going to look good on her report.

Eventually she managed to extricate herself—well, kind of, since she was still handcuffed to the bed. But even though a light had been switched on in the corner, she saw as she shoved the bedclothes off herself that there was no one in the room except her.

The furnishings were what looked like period antiques, but they seemed to be more functional than they were collectible, because all were clearly well used. Likewise, the Oriental rugs were richly colored but worn in spots, the hardwood floor beneath them polished but scarred in places. A fireplace on the other side of the room smelled faintly of burned wood, indicating it had been put to use recently. Its mantelpiece was crowded with models of wooden boats, and bisected floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were crammed full of old books. The remaining walls were hung with what appeared to be commendations of some kind and childishly executed works of art in baroque frames.

As masculine lairs went, this one was something of a departure from the ones Lila usually saw. Of course, most of the masculine lairs she saw had been decorated by men who were morally bankrupt, so there was a chance she wasn’t really in a position to judge the decor. It was nice, though, she had to admit. It made her feel…calm. Until she remembered she was shackled to the bed frame, wherein she felt more than a little pissed off.

Wondering where her target had disappeared to, she reached down into her sock for the spare handcuff key she always hid on her person for just such an emergency and had never had to use.

And discovered it was gone.

Dammit. It must have fallen out while she was trying to subdue the counterpane in the ass. No way could anyone have lifted it without her realizing it. She began to search furiously through the bedclothes as far as she could reach, but there was no sign of the key anywhere.

Great. Now she was going to have to gnaw off her hand to get away. She hated when that happened.

“It’s on the nightstand.”