Ace in the Hole (10 page)

Stone’s stare narrowed a little. He frankly didn’t like reminding everyone in sight of a giant asshole. “This was Christian’s lame idea. As you know, the senator will be out of pocket at least four or five days. Mrs. Lacey told Christian to find a way to make all of Jack’s appearances happen, and this was the only thing we could come up with.”

“It might just work. I had to practically be in your shorts to realize you weren’t Senator Lacey.”

Tucker was emphatically not the person Stone wanted in his shorts. That person was currently smirking in satisfaction at the success of the ploy.

“Then you’ll help us with the ruse, Travis?” Christian asked. “If nothing else, you can use Stone as bait to draw out whoever’s trying to kill Jack.”

Tucker grinned. “Talk about dedication to duty. You’re willing to become the guy to protect him.”

“That’s me. I’m the job. We’ll need you to start acting like a bodyguard again tomorrow.”

Tucker nodded. “Sure thing. Just fire me an itinerary, Chris.”

“Will do. We’ll be staying in until the Latin Chamber of Commerce event tomorrow night. I’ve got a crap-ton of briefings to get through if Stone’s going to convince them he’s Jack.”

“I assume you’re moving into this suite, then?” Tucker asked.

Stone started. He hadn’t given it any thought.

“Yes, he is,” Christian answered smoothly. “And I’ll be staying in the second bedroom to keep working on teaching him how to be Jack.”

Tucker grinned. “Good luck with that. Just don’t turn him into a flaming jerk.”

Christian grinned broadly, no doubt enjoying Tucker’s unwitting joke.

Travis headed for the door. “I’ll let you two get to it, then. G’night.”

Stone shoved a hand through his newly short hair. He’d love nothing more than to get to it with Christian. But he wasn’t at all sure Christian was up for a repeat of last night. He’d been all business ever since Mrs. Lacey hired Wild Cards for herself.

“Walk across the room,” Christian ordered.

Stone’s attention jerked back to his immediate surroundings. “What? Why?”

“To see if you walk like him.”

“No one’s going to watch how I walk. As long as I look like him and say what you tell me to, they’ll buy the act.”

“We can’t be too careful. You need to walk like him, talk like him, have the same mannerisms—”

“Let’s not get too carried away, bro. I’m not an actor.”

“No, but you do have to save both our careers.”

Gee. No pressure there.
Frowning, Stone walked across the spacious living room.

“No, no, no. That’s all wrong. You have to roll from your bootheel to the ball of your foot. It’s a cross between a ramble and a swagger.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“How Jack walks. Try again.”

He didn’t take three steps before Christian stopped him, saying, “Watch me.”

Stone stared appreciatively at Christian’s muscular thighs and tight ass as the man strode away from him. “Do it like that.”

“Like what?” Stone echoed.

“Concentrate!”

“I am. On your ass.”

Christian whirled, glaring.

Stone grinned broadly. “I’m just saying. Those jeans fit you like a glove, and you have a great ass. I can tell you do a shitload of squats to get it. A guy’s allowed to appreciate hard work, isn’t he?”

“Don’t you try to butter me up, Stone.”

“Butter, huh? I usually go for a nice water soluble lube—”

“Stop it,” Christian snapped.

Stone threw up his hands in mock surrender. “All right, already. Show me this walk thing one more time….”

CHRISTIAN
worked Stone hard all evening long, having him practice Jack’s fake Texas drawl and even more fake cowboy saunter. He did it as much to distract himself from wanting to jump Stone’s bones as he did it out of necessity. Thankfully Stone’s playful mood passed, and he quit tempting Christian almost beyond endurance. Although Christian had to admit he secretly enjoyed the flirting. His life had never been structured to enable or encourage anyone to actively seduce him.

Stone might not be an actor, but he was a hella quick study. In just a few hours of coaching, he had impersonating Jack Lacey down to a fine science.

Crap. He had to find some other way to keep their minds off the hot sex they both craved. They were back to being coworkers, and no hint of impropriety whatsoever must mar Christian’s sterling reputation if he was ever going to work at the Justice Department. His work life was entirely separate from his private life, which was, well, private. But Lord, that man was tempting.

He reached for a file of position papers he’d printed out earlier and pulled the top one off the stack. It was possible that someone, somewhere, would ask faux-Jack a question off the cuff. And Stone would have to field an unrehearsed answer.

Within about a half hour, Stone complained, “Can’t you just step in if someone tries to interrogate me and claim I’ve got another engagement to go to or something?”

“I’m only an aide. People at a certain level of influence won’t stand for me deflecting them.”

“God. How do you stand being some asshole’s flunky? You’re too smart to be stuck in a job like this.”

“From your mouth to God’s ear,” he replied dryly.

“I mean it. You don’t value yourself highly enough.”

What was he supposed to say to that? He resorted to a noncommittal shrug.

It was a nightmare trying to cram years’ worth of position papers and political platforms into Stone. But the man did an admirable job of absorbing the information being shot at him out of a virtual water cannon. The good news was that Jack rarely absorbed all the details and nuances of Christian’s position papers, so any holes in Stone’s knowledge wouldn’t come across as strange. Stone was, indeed, as sharp as he’d seemed in the hotel bar when they’d bantered over proper whiskey consumption. And hoo baby, were all those smarts
hot
.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stone blurted, staring down at a position paper. “Lacey’s opposed to gay marriage and won’t support antidiscrimination laws or an equal rights amendment?”

“Correct.”

“So you knowingly work for the devil.”

“Tens of thousands of bright-eyed wannabes graduate from college and flock to DC, convinced they’re the next great thing to hit that town. At best, a couple hundred of them will get entry-level coffee-pourer jobs on Capitol Hill. I landed a job as a Senate senior staffer. It doesn’t matter with whom. I took the job.”

“Still. Satan.”

“Newsflash—most of them are Satan’s handmaidens. Jack’s not the worst of the worst.”

Stone shook his head. “Congress gave my military outfit no end of trouble. Apparently they thought it was cool to hang out in a situation room and watch us hang our asses out to dry on low-light minicams for their entertainment.”

God knew, Jack had been exactly that type.

“Can I order us some room service?” Christian asked. “I’m famished, and you’ve been working at least as hard as I have.” Plus he really needed something to distract him from all that burning intelligence radiating from Stone. It was possibly the sexiest thing about him to date.

While he ordered up cold sandwiches, Stone ran both hands over his scalp, standing his newly short hair up on end. It reminded Christian sharply of sex between the two of them, and his groin tightened. Now that Stone was back on the payroll, he was off-limits again.

But it was more than a simple question of business ethics. Stone Jackson was the kind of man who could derail Christian’s carefully ordered life. Stone would jet off to his next assignment and resume the nomadic lifestyle, and he’d be left behind. Oh, it would be a wild ride while it lasted, full of thrills and chills, but at the end of the day, it would be a train wreck. And he couldn’t afford that. He couldn’t afford anything that made all the dreadful things his family thought and said about him true.

He really ought to give up trying to impress them. But crap on a cracker, that was easier said than done. They’d sunk their hooks in him when he was young and impressionable, and as long as they continued to yank at those strings, he continued to dance on them.

“Earth to Christian, come in.”

He looked up, startled. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Was it a good fantasy?”

He screwed up his face. “Not even remotely.”

“Damn.”

Christian smiled apologetically. “Have you got any questions about Jack’s position on global warming?”

“Nope. Global warming doesn’t exist and it’s a left-wing conspiracy.” Stone rolled his eyes. “All I have to do is say pretty much the opposite of what I think, and I’ve got this guy nailed.”

“His foreign-policy positions are generally sensible,” Christian retorted.

“Yeah, and I’ll bet you wrote every one of them, didn’t you?”

“Well, maybe.”

Stone grinned and started for the door as a knock announced the arrival of their late snack.

“Sit,” Christian ordered firmly. “You’re the senator. Other people do the menial chores for you.” He was amused at the ensuing tirade from Stone, delivered entirely under his breath. “You must be fun in a foxhole with a mouth like that.”

“You have no idea,” Stone drawled, sticking his tongue in his cheek.

Christian rolled his eyes at the crude gesture. “Crawl back up onto the curb.”

“Hey, you’re the one who said it.”

And that was how eating egg-salad sandwiches turned into a metaphor for their relationship. Stone grinned unrepentantly and charged ahead, while Christian glared disapprovingly and held back.

After the light meal, he asked, “Do you need me to go down to your suite and get any of your stuff for you since you’ll be staying here now?”

“Actually, my gear needs to come down here where I can keep an eye on it.”

Glad for an excuse to escape Stone’s magnetic appeal, he headed down the hall. The metal trunk in the corner of Stone’s room was surprisingly heavy. He hoisted it onto his back and hauled it down the hallway without any trouble, though.

Stone jumped forward to help with the trunk as he swung it off his back in Jack’s suite.

“What’s in this thing, anyway?” Christian asked.

“Surveillance gear. Spare ammo. Bullet-resistant vests. The usual.”

Right. Usual. “You live in a strange, strange world, Mr. Jackson.”

“And getting stranger by the second.”

He went back to Stone’s room to fetch underwear, razor, and toothbrush. Impersonating Jack Lacey could only be carried so far, after all.

It felt weird to be handling Stone’s personal stuff. Which was disconcerting, given that they’d crawled all over each other’s bodies already. How much did he really know about the security man? He’d been so gobsmacked by all that sizzling sexuality that he hadn’t really stopped to know the man himself. And he couldn’t very well start asking Stone a lot of personal questions now. He needed the guy to immerse himself in being Jack Lacey, not dredging up childhood memories and digging into what made Stone Jackson tick. He sighed.

He found a small sports duffel and stuffed in Stone’s undies and toothbrush. He was careful to leave the room looking lived-in, in case a maid from the hotel were to say something to the wrong person. Which was probably a little more paranoia than the situation called for. But he was more nervous about pulling off the impersonation ruse than he cared to admit.

It might be Stone’s job to anticipate everything that could go wrong, but it was his job to focus on everything that could go well. Stone needed a cheerleader right now, not a naysayer. The man was already skeptical enough about this project without him adding his own doubts and fears to the equation. As always, he repressed what he was really feeling and painted on a positive face as he stepped back into the senator’s suite.

“Thanks, man,” Stone said warmly as he took the bag from Christian and peered inside. “That was thoughtful of you.”

“That’s me. Always thinking.”

“Yeah. I noticed. Do you ever let your hair down and go off the clock? You know, just relax?”

“I met you in a bar. Drinking. I was relaxing.”

“That’s unwinding, not relaxing. Doesn’t count.”

He’d been more relaxed than he had been in years when he’d woken up in Stone’s bed. But he wasn’t about to hand over the power that sharing such a detail would give Stone. Instead he opted to go on the offensive. “You’re pretty tightly wound, yourself, Stone. What do you do to relax?”

“I run. Or go to a firing range.”

“You shoot guns to wind down? Holy hell. I’d hate to see what you do to rev yourself up!”

“I listen to god-awful rap music. Puts me in a foul mood in one minute flat.”

“Duly noted,” he commented drolly.

Stone stepped close to him and said quietly, in a charged voice, “I can think of one more thing I do to relax….”

Christian gulped. He shouldn’t. Really, really shouldn’t. But damned if he wasn’t going to. Just one more time. And then he’d swear off of this man before he became an irrevocable addiction.

STONE
had done some crazy shit in his life, but impersonating Jack Lacey was right up there. A crowd of close to a thousand people crammed into the auditorium of a local community college while he stood in the wings at stage right, sweating all over the printed copy of the speech Christian had written for Jack.

“You’ve got this,” Christian muttered encouragingly. “Just remember the Texas accent.”

“Got it. Twang.”

“And flirt.” A pause, and then Christian added hastily, “With the women.”

That drew a bark of laughter from him. “Check. Chicks.”

“This is no laughing matter—”

“Relax, babe. I’ve got this.”

Christian sputtered and turned an interesting shade of tomato as the introduction concluded. Stone stepped out from behind the curtain and fell into Jack’s “I’m-the-Shit” swagger. He threw in his best British monarch wave too. And then he reached the podium and turned to face the crowd. And every last one of the people out there was looking back at him.

So, stage fright was a thing.

And he discovered it the hard way, staring out at all those expectant faces. Surely they saw him for the fraud he was. Jesus, he felt naked up there.
C’mon, man. Pull it together. You’re a highly trained operative and can overcome any challenge.
Including a bunch of harmless civilians and reporters.