The Spy Who Tamed Me

He heard a door open and then footsteps that seemed to stop at the end of the bed. He opened his eyes a little more. Pretty was his first thought. Funny was his next.

It was the woman from last night. He remembered her mouth and her ears. He didn’t remember her eyes being quite such a tawny vivid gold.

‘You awake?’

He also remembered her voice. His body heartily approved of her voice. ‘Mmm …’

She wasn’t just any woman. She was a director of counter-intelligence and he was in deep trouble. She wore a white collared shirt, dark grey trousers and a thin silver-coloured necklace that looked as if it would break the minute someone tugged on it. She was older than him by a few years and then some, and he was attracted to her, aware of her, in a way that he hadn’t been aware of a woman for a very long time.

‘We met last night,’ he offered, in a voice still thick with sleep.

‘So we did.’

No rings on her wedding finger. No rings anywhere on those slender, expertly manicured fingers.

‘Not sure I remember who you are, though. Memory’s a little fuzzy.’

Could be he was winding her up—just a little. Could be he wanted to see if her eyes would flash with irritation at having to introduce herself again, section director being such a forgettable position and all.

But her eyes did not flash with irritation. Instead, crinkles formed at the edges of them as she smiled, slow and sure. ‘Oh, you poor darling man. I knew you were confused last night, but I didn’t know you were that far gone. I’m your sister’s wedding caterer.’

‘I see.’

He really didn’t see.

‘You don’t remember begging me to give you a lift to the nearest motel?’ She looked so guileless. Damn, she was good. ‘Because I did. Take you to the nearest motel, I mean. But the night manager took one look at you and remembered that he didn’t have any vacancies. I was a little sceptical, but he was very certain. He figured you were either going to puke all over the room or die in your sleep, or both, and apparently that’s bad for business. Also, you had no ID. He didn’t like that either.’

Jared smiled. He had no idea where she was going with this story, but he figured he might as well let her run with it. Or maybe he just liked hearing her voice.

‘What happened after that?’

‘I offered to take you to the hospital.’ She leaned her forearms over the slatted wooden bed-end. ‘To which you said an emphatic no. You then told me I had the sexiest mouth you’d ever seen.’

‘I did?’ He might have thought it. He didn’t think he’d said it.

‘I was swearing at you at the time. Trust me, I was surprised too.’

Jared let his gaze slide to her mouth, all shapely and tilted at the corners as if she was always ready to smile. “You shouldn’t have been that surprised.’

‘And then …’ she said, and followed those words with a very long pause. ‘Then you said that if I gave you a bed for the night you’d give me an orgasm I would never forget.’

‘I— What?’

‘I know. An offer too good to refuse, right? I mean … I have this mouth, you have that face … I think you’ve cracked a rib or four, but we could have worked around them. So I brought you here and offered you coffee, but you said if it wasn’t Turkish you didn’t want it. That’s when I got my first inkling that we might not be soul mates.’

We might not be wha—?

He was almost awake, and thoroughly confused, and, okay, he might have offered her a good time at some point—it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility—and the coffee line sounded like him, but still.

‘And then you told me that the ripples in my hair reminded you of deep ocean waves—in the moonlight, no less—and I figured we might just be soul mates after all. I’ve been wrong before.’

‘I did not say that. I would never say that. Your hair’s too short for ripples. It’s unrippleable.’

‘I gave you a glass of milk and three prescription painkillers and you groaned your gratitude. It was a deep and growly groan. Very sexy. I still had faint hope of an exemplary orgasm. Ninety seconds later you were asleep.’

She was better at this game than he was. He was playing injured, for starters. But maybe, just maybe, she was the better player.

‘You can stop now, Director. I know who you are.’

‘Of course you do.’ She shot him a very level gaze. ‘You need to stop playing me for a fool, Mr West. You need to stop looking at my mouth. And then you need to pay attention to what I’m about to say.’

He eased into a sitting position, wincing as he slung his legs over the side of the bed. At least he still had his trousers on. He remembered bandages too, but maybe they’d been coming off rather than going on. Either way, they were nowhere to be seen. Neither were any of his other clothes. Possibly because they’d been filthy.

He eyed the suitcase in the corner with interest. ‘I’m listening.’

‘You need to know that there’s no record that you were working for us during your time with Antonov. No one’s going to claim you as their dark pony. You’re on your own.’

That got his attention. He dragged his gaze from the suitcase back to the section director standing at the end of the bed. ‘So you’re throwing me under a bus?’

These things happened when you came back covered in filth rather than glory.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, but she didn’t deny it.

‘I want to talk to my handler.’

‘Then talk. Because right now the closest thing you have to a handler is me.’

‘No offence, but I don’t know you.’

‘No offence taken, but I do hope there’s someone in-house that you’re willing to talk to. I’ll be in your sister’s kitchen, Mr West. As for you, it’s time to get dressed. My people are almost ready to leave and you’re coming with us.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes. Either willingly or not.’ She smiled gently. ‘We don’t care.’

‘You know, they never mentioned that in the brochure.’

This time she laughed. ‘Maybe you should have read the fine print.’

If Jared had figured to slip quietly out of the farmhouse unnoticed, he’d been sadly mistaken. A big breakfast cook-up was in progress by the time he emerged from the bedroom, with his brother, Damon, wielding the tongs and his sister Poppy presiding over the flipping of fried eggs. The director was there too, sitting on a stool, sipping coffee and reading something on her computer, looking for all the world as if she had a place in his family—as if she was comfortable there.

He headed for the coffee machine. Looked at it and sighed. It was shiny, spanking new, and he had no idea what half the knobs on it did. ‘Does this do double-shot espresso?’

‘Only if you ask nicely,’ said Damon’s very pregnant wife.

Ruby was her name, and Jared eyed the bright green bow atop her head warily. She opened the lid of the coffee container and the aroma of freshly ground beans assaulted his nose and sent him straight back to a little coffee house in Istanbul.

Ruby obligingly waved the container beneath his nose. ‘We can put this in a pot and make it Turkish-style, if that’s your preference?’