Intimate Knowledge

“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.”