Carnal Innocence

“You’ll be acting as my girlfriend. My mistress. We’ll have to do a little kissing and cuddling in public to justify our presence there, but otherwise it’s a free day at the spa for you. Use the hot tub or whatever facilities they’ve got. It’s on the Bureau.”

Now she turned her whole body in her seat. The look she gave him must have let any number of junior-high students know they were in trouble. “You said I’d be serving my country. I agreed to do this because I wanted to see some action. How is sitting in a hot tub doing my patriotic duty?”

Sean raised a placating hand. “I’m the one who’s trained in covert ops and investigation procedures. I’m the one with the gun and the experience.”

“And I’m just Mr. Untouchable’s moll. Yippee.” She turned again and glared out the windshield. She crossed her arms with a decisive shrug, and the black strap of her sundress fell off her shoulder and caught in the crook of her elbow.

Sean narrowed his eyes on the road, but couldn’t resist the urge to glance over at that long stretch of bare skin. Too long without sex, his mind warned. He felt equally powerless to stop himself from reaching out and lifting that strap up onto her shoulder. So what if the back of his knuckles brushed across the smooth skin there? He didn’t mind.

He did mind when she flinched away from his caress. “You’ll have to get used to me touching you,” he warned, placing his hand safely back on the wheel. “And you can’t be afraid to touch me. Not if we’re going to make a convincing couple.”

“I’m not afraid of you. I’m angry.” She scooped her hair behind her ear, exposing a long line of naked neck for him to stew over while she lectured him. “My father is a retired Marine Corps general. He served his country proudly for over thirty-five years. My brothers are following in his footsteps. One is specializing in diplomatic security and the other works in Special Forces.” Her touch-me-not glare never wavered from the endless stretch of cars and highway before them. “I’ve always wanted to give to our country the way they do. I’ve wanted to be a part of the action.”

Sean wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but it was his nature to play devil’s advocate. “So why didn’t you enlist or go through ROTC? There are plenty of women making careers in the military.” Her long silence prompted him to look her way again. He saw one hand nervously picking at the hem of her dress where it rested high on her thigh. She had gone somewhere inside herself. Not for the first time, he wondered if he’d picked the wrong woman for this job. Not that he’d had much choice. “Caitie?”

“My name is Caitlin.” She muttered the correction as if by rote. As if he wasn’t the first person she’d set straight on not using the shortened version of her name. Just when he thought she might not say another word, she lifted her gaze to his. The energy that had thrummed through her—part anticipation, part anger—had dissipated. “I can’t pass the physical.”

“Oh.” Sean looked back at the road and slowed the car to maneuver the twisty highway that circled around Washington, D.C. Was Caitlin ill? Flat-footed? Crazy? He brought up pImages** of her body, already well-ingrained in his memory. Long, strong legs. Soft, flawless skin. Wild, sexy hair. To look at her, Caitlin McCormick was the picture of a healthy, fit woman.

“What’s wrong with you?” he finally asked when she didn’t explain further. He shook his head. An interrogation with a criminal suspect he could handle blindfolded. But this conversation wasn’t going so well. Maybe his perpetual lack of charm with the ladies was partially to blame for his extended celibacy. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be blunt. But if it could affect my investigation, I have a right to know. I mean, are you going to have a heart attack on me? Am I keeping you from a dialysis treatment?”

She took a deep breath that stirred the best parts of her body. “I have asthma. It’s a chronic disorder that stems from lung damage I sustained when I was hospitalized with pneumonia as a child. I’ve outgrown the worst of the attacks. I take regular medication for it, which generally keeps it under control. But sometimes unusual stress or an allergic reaction can still trigger it. I’ll cough or wheeze and have shortness of breath. Then I’ll use my inhaler or, on rare occasions, take an epinephrine shot. But it isn’t life threatening. It just…keeps me out of the action.”

Apparently this wasn’t the first time she’d been asked to explain her condition. Her speech had been glib and well-rehearsed. And alarming. “Unusual stress?”

Caitlin laughed, but her lips were pressed together too tightly for her expression to qualify as a smile. “I don’t run marathons, I don’t work in a coal mine or with hazardous chemicals. I don’t own a cat.”

“Any of those things could trigger an attack?”

She nodded. “But I do swim three times a week. I go sailing when I can. I have a teaching career. I read a lot.”

“What do you read?”

“Fantasy. Action-adventure. Romance. Mysteries. Classics. Biographies—”

“A little of everything, huh?”

She nodded and sank back into that quiet place inside herself again.

He listened to the hum of the tires on the pavement for several minutes, processing everything she’d told him. She read books to find the adventures she couldn’t experience herself. But she clearly wasn’t an invalid. She exercised regularly—her fine, toned body was proof of that. She probably lived her life on a predictably even keel. He’d shown up at her front door and had bullied and cajoled and practically dared her to play his mistress this weekend.

What should he do? Turn the car around and drive her home? Risk an asthma attack? Take her back to her safe, sedate apartment and her books, or take her to Maine and put her in the middle of a charade that could prove very stressful?

“Why did you say yes to my proposition?” he finally asked.

“Because I thought it sounded exciting. Well, it did until you said I wouldn’t be doing anything except sitting in the hot tub.” Her reprimand gave way to a heavy sigh. “And because you said it was top secret. My father would never have to find out. He’s a little overprotective.”

Sean could definitely relate. “I’ll bet he’s more than a little overprotective.”

“He thinks my brothers can take care of themselves. My mother died when I was young, so I get a lot of his attention. He had a heart attack that forced him into early retirement, and I try not to aggravate his concerns. I lead a pitifully sheltered life for a twenty-seven-year-old woman. I haven’t been any man’s girlfriend for over a year, much less any man’s mistress.” She folded up the faded T-shirt she’d been wearing earlier and clutched it in her lap. “I suppose you want to drop me off at the nearest bus station and send me home now.”

Sean slid his eyes across the dashboard clock and let her sad, dull tone sink into his bones. He was at twenty-one hours and counting. He wanted to do the right thing here, but he had a job to do, too.

Met with his moody silence, Caitlin rambled on. “At least I got to change my clothes in the back seat of a sports car. I’ve never done that before. Heck, I’ve never even ridden in a car like this before. Low-slung and fast and hot.”

Heck? Was this innocent act for real? Sean’s jaded sense of trust was being thrown off-kilter by her guileless confessions. She had a body made for sex, but she talked like a…well, someone very naive.

Needing some fresh air, he pushed a button on the dashboard and opened up the sunroof. Caitlin angled her head to watch the smoked Plexiglas slide back and reveal the full moon above them. The rush of cool night air lifted her hair and made it dance along that tantalizing column of bare neck.

So much for cooling off.

“Nice touch,” she whispered.

I’ll say.

Though she was still talking about going home, her voice picked up a more positive note. “You asked me to go away with you. A decently attractive man, on the spur of the moment without knowing anything about me, asked me to go away with him for the weekend. That’s something that would happen to Cassie, not me.”

“Decently attractive, hmm?”

The sudden stain of color on her cheeks made him think that had been more than a pretty decent compliment. Those big gray eyes, when she turned them on him, were full of honesty, a trace of embarrassment and something bolder that reflected her intelligence and strength. The effect was absolutely bewitching.

“That didn’t come out the way I intended. You’re not conventionally handsome, but—” When her gaze dropped to his chest, Sean inhaled deeply, trying to dispel the curious warmth that suffused him. Her eyes darkened in response and the warmth refused to leave. “—you’re put together very nicely. And I love your accent. It almost sounds foreign. Even when you’re all-business, I like listening to it.”

Sean narrowed his focus to the endless white lines dotting the road in front of him. Maybe he was the crazy one. During his relationship with Elise, she’d never once got him all hot and bothered with just an appreciative look and an ingenuous compliment. But Caitlin McCormick did.

It had to be those damn months of all work and no sex that had him wanting to teach this sheltered wannabe adventuress how to act on those longing looks. He’d never been a sucker for sad stories or quirky charms, but he half wished he and Caitlin were really going away for a weekend of sex together. Damn, what he’d love to teach the teacher.

Stick to the job, a nagging voice tried to warn him. But his brain had been working overtime for these past few weeks. Another part of his anatomy needed a workout right now. Caitlin liked him. He liked that she liked him. Probably more than he should.

“My mother’s American, but my father’s British. I’ve picked up some of his speech habits.”

Sean could tell she liked that revelation by the smile that softened her worried expression. “So you’re a real James Bond.”

He shook his head. “My dad was, though. You like James Bond?”

“Of course. Fast cars. Evil villains. Gadgets and intrigue and sex and adventure.”

And then Sean had his answer. They both needed what the other had to give. “Do you still think you can handle this weekend? I can’t promise it’ll be stress free. But if you’re up to it, I’ll even put you in charge of distracting the other guests while I do some in-depth searching of the premises.”

She perked up another notch. “You’d give me an assignment?”

He glanced across the car at her. She was quite pretty when she smiled like that. “If you’re up to it. I don’t really have time to find someone else,” he added honestly.

Now she sat straight up. “I can do it. I have all my meds in my purse in case I have a reaction. I want to help.”

Sean hoped he wasn’t making a mistake here. He promised himself to keep a very careful eye on her. He promised to remember her concerns about her father. But there was something strangely seductive about granting Caitlin McCormick her wish. Something that coursed through his veins just as powerfully as his sexual attraction to her did.

“All right, then, Agent 99, prepare yourself for a weekend of adventure.” He twirled his finger in the air. “Turn around.”