STORY EXCERPT

“I got nothing to say to the FBI, no matter how sexy the agent they send in is.” He reached up toward the doorbell-like apparatus to ring the guard.

“Wait!”

He hesitated.

“You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

“I sincerely doubt it.”

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life in here?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yes.”

She let the enormity of that sink in, waiting for him to turn to her with eager questions. But his face was still deadpan. He flopped back on the cot, lounging lazily, and pulled the T-shirt back over his head and on. “Okay, so you’ve got my attention. Talk. You don’t mind if I jerk off while you do it, though, do you? It’s the least you can do. Turn away if it upsets your delicate sensibilities. I’ll still be able to hear you.” He cocked his head, as if considering. “And I bet the rear view’s just as nice.”

She hesitated. His fly was still open, his hands hovering in the general vicinity. Oh, God, what if?

“I’m kidding,” he muttered at her horrified stare, zipping his pants up, very carefully adjusting with his other hand.

“Yes, right. I knew that.”

“Sure you did. Not that you won’t be starring in my nocturnal jerking off tonight, though.” His fixed stare made it unclear as to whether he was still joking, but she decided to ignore it and get to the business at hand.

“I’m authorized to offer you a deal, Mr. McCade.”

“Me? Why’s the FBI got any interest in me?”

“You ran Smith and McCade for years.”

“It’s just Smith now, I understand.”

“Yes, one of the most elite, most highly advanced technology companies in the country. It’s also one of the most dangerous to our national security.”

He guffawed and muttered a dismissive curse.

“And you know that company better than anyone. So you’re ideally suited to help us.”

“Help you do what? Not that I even know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Close our investigation of a smuggling ring that has been operating with Smith as part of it. In the case of Smith, it’s computer chips to China, but in other cases, it’s weapons, drugs, to all parts of the world. We believe all these disparate crimes are connected and we’ve been trying for years to prove the connections, but we’ve stalled. And that’s where you come in.”

“You got a question on Smith, why don’t you ask old man Smith? He knows the place just as well as I do. And, of course, he’s not a felon.”

“We don’t know who is involved. We can’t trust him. It’s too risky.”

“And you can trust me? Please.” He started to get up.

“We can trust you. We know we can. And we’re willing to back that up. If you cooperate with us in our investigation—”

“Cooperate how? I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. This is a waste of time.”

“You don’t know what they’re doing at Smith, but don’t you see, that’s exactly why we can trust you. We have a computer program of theirs that we need analyzed. We don’t know if it’s a virus or something else, but we think with your specialized knowledge of your old company, you might be able to help us.”

“Sure. No problem. I’ll just fire up the prison library computer and get started.”

“We’d get you out.”

For just a second, he seemed speechless. He bent over to get the rubber band he’d discarded moments before and fastened his silky black hair back into its ponytail. Then he said guardedly, “When? For how long?”

“Just as soon as we can. This week even. And forever. It’d be forever.”

“You can get my conviction reversed?”

“Well, not exactly. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

His smile was so white it caught her off guard. “Ah, I see. Sort of like a beautiful woman coming out of nowhere to fuck me. Not quite the genuine article. I get it. Well, you can just fuck your empty promises.”

“We can’t get the conviction reversed. It’s too public. Not now anyway.”

“Oh, so you promise to do it later. I bet.”

“We will. I do promise. But for now the plan is just to engineer what looks like a transfer and to put you in a safe house while you work on the case for us. Then we can get you in witness relocation, and when the time’s right, we’ll work on the conviction and get you your life back.”

“Get me my life back.” He shook his head. “That’s never going to happen. But if you can get me the hell away from here, then …” He didn’t finish, but he finally said, “Okay.”

“Fine. Good. I’ll work out the details. Just go along with whatever you’re told about a transfer. We won’t have any further contract with you until after then.” She made her way to the guard buzzer, but he caught her hand. She felt a little frisson of excitement at his hard, big hand on her skin again, but he dropped it just as fast when he’d gotten her attention.

“Shouldn’t you wait the whole hour?”

She looked at him suspiciously before she conceded. “No, of course. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. Dangerous in my business.”

“Mine too.”

“We can talk about some details anyway.”

Before she could mention any, he gestured at her and said, “So what was the idea with this getup?” He returned to the cot, thankfully just sitting on it now, not lounging.

She searched for something to sit on other than the bed and came up empty, settling for leaning against the wall. She did manage to recollect her jacket, though, and don it, but she still felt his unsettling gaze on her too naked limbs. “We were afraid you wouldn’t see me otherwise. You’ve been refusing visits as we understand it, and we didn’t exactly want to force it on you and advertise you had a visit from somebody who might or might not be with the FBI.”

“And you figured nobody would ever think you were with the FBI.”

“Not in this outfit.”

“Not in any outfit, I suspect.”

She mulled that over, not sure if it was a compliment.

“Even without that wig or those contacts, I’m sure you’d get ‘stripper’ as a more frequent guess than ‘bureaucrat.’”

Okay, so not a compliment. She shrugged. It wasn’t like it was something she hadn’t heard before. She supposed he was entitled to be a little snippy under the circumstances. She deliberately focused on his face, choosing to not see whether he was still turned on.

“So did they recruit you special for this job? They look around the bureau for the biggest tits or something like that? The nicest ass?”

Well, now he was just being insulting. It hurt her feelings a little, remembering how careful he had been before all this. How he seemed to see beyond her appearance and value her intelligence. Depressingly, she wondered what he had really thought of her back then. Was this hard-edged cynic underneath all the time and the warm, fair-minded modern man just a façade for the sake of political correctness? Of course, he had ended up hitting on her back then, too, after all.

“It so happens I was the best qualified in terms of experience,” she said coolly.

“I just bet you were.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, which seemed to surprise him. He laughed.

“Your cover’s perfect, but you need to work on your vocabulary. I believe Lola would never utter the words ‘for heaven’s sake.’ Something stronger may have been in order. A swear word or two perhaps.”

She smiled sheepishly and his eyes narrowed.

“Wait a minute.  I know you, don’t I?”

She debated about a second. “Kind of.”

“But I can’t quite place it.” He cocked his head, studying her. 

“I was undercover at Smith and McCade for a while. I worked as a temp secretary for Mitzi Krelin at first.” At the time, the FBI had thought Mitzi may have been the key to the operation, but Meredith soon discovered she was as ditzy as her name implied. Brilliant with computers, but no criminal mastermind, that’s for sure. “And one day for you.”

“Right,” he said. “I can see it now.  Was that your real hair color back then?”

“Brown, you mean?”

“Yeah, brown, I guess.”

“Yes. There was no reason to disguise myself then.  It was a long time ago, though.”

“A lifetime,” he whispered.

ADULT EXCERPT

Her fingers moved from his collar to the buttons of his shirt, and she swiftly divested him of it while he stood impassive under her ministrations. Her busy fingers then went to the snap at the top of his jeans, but he grabbed her wrist before she could make any further progress.

“What?” she taunted.

“I’m not going to apologize for this one.”

“Who asked you to?” He let go of her wrist, and she guided the zipper down carefully. She hadn’t noticed whether he had had on briefs before, but she certainly noticed now. He didn’t. His enthusiasm popped out at her, hard and hot in her hand. She stroked his cock leisurely and felt him tense, as if she were torturing him, still very still. “What’s the matter? You don’t like that?” she whispered in his ear, standing up on her tippy toes, never letting up her petting.

“I like it so much, I’m about to do something I haven’t done since my very first time.”

“And what’s that?”

“Come in your hand. So if that’s not what you’re trying for, I’d let up. I don’t have much control right now.”

She laughed but slid her hand up to his waist, the other joining it to caress his lower back and then slide the jeans down. She knelt as she did so.

He groaned. “Jesus, Meredith.”

“Hush.” Her mouth was perilously close to his aching cock, and he knew if she put it in her mouth, or even brushed those soft lips against the heated surface of his erection, he would seriously, maybe literally, lose it in two seconds. She kissed her way up the flat-rock solid plane of his stomach, and when he tried to put his arms around her, she pushed them away. She locked her own arms around his neck, standing on tippy toes again to press small, light kisses along his jaw, rough with bristles. “I gave you a haircut, but you still need to shave,” she teased and then caught his mouth and plunged her tongue in.

He’d had enough. He kissed her back fiercely and picked her up, just picked her up and walked over to the bed. He deposited her gently on the coverlet and came down beside her, still kissing her, his cock pulsing against her bare thigh. But when his hand went to her hip to slide the panties down and he started to come on top of her, she wrenched her mouth away and with a firm hand pushed him to his back and climbed up to straddle him. “None of that. I’m calling the shots this time.”

Jesus, he thought. He really would die this time if she didn’t let him fuck her. He deserved whatever game she was playing after practically, well, no kind of actually, attacking her downstairs, but he would.He’d fucking die if she didn’t put him in her. But apparently, thank God, she had no such plan to let him expire. Her hand moved to position him, not taking off the panties, just sliding the crotch panel to the side. He held his breath.

When he’d come to her door to apologize, he’d been jarred to see that she was not fully dressed yet. He guessed he should have given her a little more time. But even as his contrite words came out, haltingly, he could not stop staring at the expanse of creamy white skin, the curve of her graceful back, the long sleek thighs. He could barely think, let alone digest whatever the mixed signals she was sending him meant. She’d been angry as hell. That much was obvious. But enjoyed it? She had the balls to ask him if he’d enjoyed fucking her. God, his cock was so hard just from looking at her that he was sure no blood was getting to his brain. And then the stripping began. To his immense surprise, her stripping him. He’d tried to be a sport about it, let her play whatever she was playing. Hell, it was worth it just to have those soft little hands all over him. But when she’d taken his zipper down and started pumping him, it  was too much.

It was too much now, as she sat delicately poised above him, the crest of his cock no more than an inch into that sweet warmth, no further, as she closed her eyes and hummed softly. He watched her, but when she made no move to put him out of his misery, he clutched her hips suddenly and brought her down hard, both of them groaning. Her eyes flew open, and she grabbed his wrists and spread his arms out on the bed.

“That was cheating. You keep your hands to yourself.”

He was breathing hard. He didn’t know what to say. Her hot warmth was engulfing him, but she still didn’t move. She kept her hands over his wrists, leaning over him now, her tits still covered by the bra dangling in his face as she eyed him, ostensibly locking his arms to the side, although they both knew he could overpower her with very little effort.

“For Christ’s sake, move,” he finally bit out. “Fuck me.”