Absolute Pleasure

She hid a smile and glanced around the well-kept grounds before turning her attention to Caruso. He sat on a padded bench in the van before an instrument control panel monitoring the immediate vicinity and keeping in contact with another van with two more agents at the rear of the estate. “See or hear anything unusual?”

Caruso reached for the pack of cigarettes on the seat beside him. “I’ve been in cemeteries at 3:00 a.m. with more action,” he complained. “The lab techs left about an hour ago. They didn’t tell us dick, either.”

Sunny bit back the reminder hovering on her lips that smoking was strictly prohibited inside a government vehicle. Surveillance could be dull as dirt under the best of circumstances. Watchdogging a nonviolent crime scene was dead work, occasionally handed out as punishment for agents on the shit-list of someone higher up the Bureau food chain. Since she’d worked with Caruso in the past during her own days as a field agent in the D.C. office, she figured he, rather than Weidman had ticked off her old boss, Gib Russell, big time.

Caruso flicked the lighter. Weidman handed Sunny her ID and shot the older, seasoned agent a disapproving glance. “Do you have to do that in there?”

Caruso blew a plume of blue smoke in Weidman’s direction as he climbed out of the van. “Go read a manual or something,” Jack groused. To Sunny he said, “You want to talk pain in the ass, spend an hour with Whiny Wally. Makes me look like Sister Mary Sunshine.”

Caruso shielded his eyes from the harsh glare of July midmorning sunshine and squinted in Sunny’s general direction. “And who did you piss off to get stuck with this piece of crap case, Mac?”

Sunny slipped a recently permed curl behind her ear before straightening her shoulders. “I requested the assignment.”

Caruso drew deeply on his cigarette, then shook his head and emitted a raspy chuckle. “You still a glutton for punishment? They have therapy for that sort of thing, you know.”

SEDSCAM, Bureau-speak for the Seduction Scam Investigation, remained an unsolved nonviolent crime under the Criminal Investigation Division’s jurisdiction. So far, a grand total of seven thefts had occurred nationwide. Just because Sunny had asked to run the investigation didn’t necessarily mean she suffered from masochistic tendencies. What she really wanted was to garner the attention of the head of the Investigative Support Unit.

The crunch and spray of gravel from the tires of a big black SUV moving too fast down the graded driveway kept her from putting Jack in his place. The vehicle slowed, then stopped as Caruso approached, exchanging a few words she couldn’t discern with the driver.

“Probably a reporter,” Weidman said with distaste from inside the van. He pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his sweaty forehead. “We’ve been waiting for them to start sniffing around all morning.”

“A rich heiress bilked by a smooth-talking con artist to the tune of half a million dollars in cash and property and the FBI is suddenly involved? You bet the newshounds will be here.” Not that she had any concerns on that score. She had experience with the press and wasn’t above using the media to her advantage if necessary.

Sunny glanced toward the driver when he got out of his vehicle and joined Caruso. One look at the guy and she had him pegged him as a reporter. He had the whole I’m-your-new-best-friend thing going for him, which gave good journalists an edge over the competition. And this guy definitely had an edge, she thought, but it had zero to do with instilling confidence in a would-be source and everything to do with heightening her curiosity.

He walked with Caruso across the drive in her direction. As he neared, Sunny stared in utter and complete fascination. Generally she preferred brains and substance over beauty and brawn, but in this instance, she’d seriously consider making an exception.

Not that she was hard up or anything.

The crisp white shirt with fine gray pinstripes he wore enhanced a wide set of shoulders that tapered down to a lean waist, slim hips and long, powerful legs emphasized quite nicely in a pair of neatly pressed gray khakis. She enjoyed the rebounding view, as well, noting the casual way he rolled back the sleeves of the shirt to reveal tanned and powerful-looking forearms. A tie, one of those Wall-Street-power types, was knotted loosely at his throat, where he’d left the top button of his shirt undone. He came off looking crisp and rumpled all at the same time, in a way no woman with a pulse could ignore.

Continuing the mesmerizing journey into beauty and brawn, she wondered exactly when she’d become so shallow as to fall for a pretty face and a hot body. Probably the moment she realized she’d gone without a man in her bed for more than just a few months.

The bright morning sunshine made his slightly wavy, blacker-than-midnight hair gleam. Oh, she really needed to get a grip, here. Except that deeply tanned face with all those sharp lines and angles did nothing to aid her recovery from a lust-induced stupor. The directness of his brilliant, bluish-gray eyes when he removed his sunglasses didn’t help much, either.

The barest promise of a breathtaking smile touched his lips as he tucked the pair of Maui Jim’s inside the breast pocket of his shirt. “Duncan Chamberlain,” he said in a voice so deep and rich a skitter of pleasure skimmed across the surface of her skin. Or were those delightful tingles the result of the warm clasp of his hand enveloping hers?

The answer evaded her, but she decided it made no difference. Not long after she’d joined the Bureau she’d come to the depressing conclusion her job intimidated a good percentage of the male population. The meager remaining percentage operated under the misguided assumption she lacked the double X chromosomes that made her very much a woman in every sense of the word. Just once she’d like a man to look beyond the 9mm Glock she carried and see the woman beneath the shoulder holster.

Of course, finding a man to hold her interest for more than two minutes would be a helpful improvement. She suspected that wouldn’t be much of an issue with a major hottie like Duncan Chamberlain. The man had managed to snag her attention and then some.

Sixty seconds and counting.

“Sunny MacGregor.” She pulled her hand from his and resisted the urge to dig her fingernails into her palm to quell the sharp tingling making her hand itch. “You’ve already met Agent Caruso,” she said with an inclination of her head toward the older agent. “And this is Agent Weidman,” she indicated his partner, who must have exited the vehicle when she’d been entranced by Duncan’s worship-worthy shoulders and all that mouthwatering sex appeal.

Duncan’s lips twitched again, as if he found something amusing, but she’d noticed the barely perceptible movement. How could she not? She’d been staring at his full bottom lip wondering if he tasted anywhere near as scrumptious as he looked.

Ninety-three seconds. Things were looking up for a change.

“You’re Agent MacGregor?” Duncan asked, looking to Caruso for confirmation. “She’s Mac?”

Caruso chuckled. “She’s the one.”

She didn’t much appreciate the note of amusement in either man’s voice, even if she had grown accustomed to similar responses in the six years she’d been an agent. The Bureau didn’t exactly employ a platoon of five foot, three inch female agents.

“Special Agent MacGregor,” she corrected. A relatively new title bestowed upon her, and one she’d worked damned hard to earn. The move from the Washington D.C. field office to the criminal investigation division’s nonviolent crime unit two years ago had come her way after she’d gained a blip of recognition for her contribution on another difficult-to-solve case. Since her transfer, she’d garnered an even greater reputation for solving the unsolvable, which made her a natural for some of the more complex investigations the nonviolent crime unit offered. As far as Sunny was concerned, the promotion put her one step closer to what she really wanted—to become a member of the elite team of FBI profilers in the Investigative Support Unit.

“What business do you have here, Mr. Chamberlain?” she asked.

He reached into his hip pocket and withdrew a brown leather billfold, extracting a business card. “Chamberlain Recovery and Investigations. My firm’s been hired by Ms. Wilder’s insurance company.”

He handed her the card along with another jolt to her feminine senses with the return of his killer smile. Needing a moment to recover her common sense, she concentrated on the card. Plain, simple, without frills.

“And the name’s Duncan,” he added.

Her West Virginia roots perked up at the slight trace of a southern accent. Texas or Oklahoma she guessed by his somewhat lazy drawl.

Weidman peered over her shoulder to read the card. “Hired to do what, exactly?” he asked.

“Recover the personal property stolen from Ms. Wilder last week.” Duncan turned all that charm in her direction. “Agent Caruso here said I need permission from the agent in charge to enter the estate. Mind if I poke around a bit?”

Despite that sexy-as-hell grin, Sunny instantly became suspicious. In her experience, recovery firms and the people that ran them were a microstep above repossession agents on the humanity food chain. All too often they had a reputation for unorthodox, or even unethical, means of recovering stolen merchandise. The last thing she needed was some self-proclaimed hot shot recovery expert screwing with her investigation, especially one attempting to charm his way onto her crime scene.

“I’m here to conduct an interview with the victim,” she said. “Considering the sensitive nature of this case, I’m not sure Ms. Wilder would appreciate an audience.” In all honesty, she didn’t feel comfortable conducting the interview in his presence. “A male audience, in particular.”

The wind stirred, rustling the leaves of the trees but doing little to cool the air so heavy with summer humidity. A lock of wavy hair fell across Duncan’s forehead.

“I would think it’d be easier on the vic the less she has to relive the humiliation.” He shoved the hair back in place, then leaned slightly toward her, his gaze intent. “Come on, Mac. You’re not going to make me beg, are you?”

She seriously doubted any guy as tempting as Duncan Chamberlain ever had to resort to begging, especially from a woman. Interagency cooperation was hardly unusual, though, and they were supposedly on the same side. Did it matter if that wasn’t the only reason she considered allowing him to sit in on her interview?

“All right,” she agreed. “In the spirit of cooperation, I’ll permit it, provided the victim has no objections.” She did her best interpretation of hard-ass agent and gave him an appropriately matching stare. “But I’m conducting this interview. Forget that, and I’ll have you banned from the premises.”

Despite the threat, his smile deepened. She struggled to remain standing and not have herself a good old-fashioned Victorian swoon.

“You won’t even know I’m there,” he promised.

She had her doubts. Based on her reaction to the sensuous tilt of his mouth and those get-lost-in-me eyes, if he was in the vicinity she’d know it—with every last, rudely awakened, nerve ending in her body. Okay, so maybe he had managed to capture the attention of her neglected libido, but that didn’t mean she was willing to dive headfirst into the steamy waters of sexual attraction. Or was she? The idea sure held a wealth of intriguing possibilities she found hard to ignore.

“I’ll need to see some ID,” Weidman said.

While Weidman entered Duncan’s information in his neatly kept log, she issued reminders to Caruso about keeping quiet should the press show up again. Five days after the incident, Margo Wilder was officially old news, but Sunny expected more attention once word leaked to the press the FBI was conducting an investigation into the theft. Her only hope was that the nonviolent nature of the crime would hold little interest to reporters.

Weidman returned Duncan’s ID, and she took off on foot for the main gate. Duncan fell in step beside her and her libido instantly zinged back to life. She had a job to do, but professional or not, she really wanted to take a flying leap off the high dive and go for a nice long swim in those steaming waters.

DUNCAN TRAILED Sunny and the uniformed butler who led them away from the foyer with an elaborate, curving, gilt staircase, down a long rosewood-paneled corridor. While Sunny was busy taking in the opulent surroundings, Duncan enjoyed the view of her curvy backside swaying enticingly beneath her navy slacks.

He’d spent eight years in Dallas as an agent for the FBI, the last three working deep-cover assignments. In all that time, he’d never seen anything on the Bureau’s payroll as remotely sexy as the perky little superagent that had managed to spark his interest in something other than his work.