Intimate Knowledge

“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.”