How Spy I Am (14 page)

He looked down to
study the ramekin that looked tiny turning around and around
between his large hands. “So instead, I spent the last few months
torturing myself, knowing you were with other men
instead
of
me. Hellhound. Rossburn. That underwear model, dammit. Chubby
little Dave… I shouldn’t say it that way, Dave seemed like a good
guy and he risked his life for you, but…”

“I didn’t sleep with
them, if that’s what you mean,” I interrupted. “Except Arnie, but
you already knew that.”

“Oh…” He paused.
“That’s… really none of my business.” He sat up straighter,
searching my face. “But you did tell me flat-out that you were
planning to go home with Dante, and, I quote, ‘ride him all night
long’.”

I dropped my gaze to
the floor, feeling heat rising in my cheeks. “I was mad. I was
drunk. And I needed you to believe I was going to be occupied all
night. Sorry,” I added as I glanced up again.

He scrubbed a hand
over his face and muttered something that sounded like ‘idiot’.
Then he straightened, holding me with his clear grey gaze.

“Aydan, is it too late
for me to go for the ‘friends with benefits’ option?”

My heart leaped up to
drop-kick the back of my throat before rattling around my rib cage,
apparently searching for an escape route.

“Um.” Suddenly the air
seemed oxygen-deficient. I squirmed a little farther away from the
fire, which was generating more heat than absolutely necessary.

Bad, bad, BAD idea. I
knew it with every cell in my body.

“Um… can we defer that
question for a few minutes?” I tried to hyperventilate
unobtrusively. “Friends with benefits seemed like a good idea at
the time, but it’s not an option if you have other
attachments.”

He frowned. “What
other attachments do you think I have?”

“I saw you and Honey
at the park yesterday.”

“Oh.”

His flat tone made my
heart twist with disappointment. “What were you planning to tell
her if I said yes?” Slow anger crept into my veins. “Or were you
planning to tell her at all? And what were you planning to tell
those little kids who think you’re the greatest thing since sliced
bread?”

“Aydan.” He met my
gaze unhappily before leaning back in the chair with a sigh. “Is
there any chance you’ll listen to my explanation before passing
judgement?”

“I’ll listen. But if I
find out you’ve lied to me, there will be nothing left. Never mind
friends with benefits, we won’t even be friends. Got it?”

“Yes.” Kane sat up
purposefully.

“When I heard you’d
been killed in a car accident, I… I lost it completely,” he began.
“I called Hellhound…”

I leaned back in the
sofa and let him talk. If he’d decided to lie, he was smart enough
to synchronize his story with Arnie beforehand.

But Arnie wouldn’t lie
to me. Not even for Kane.

I hoped.

“…she invited me for
dinner,” Kane was continuing his narrative. “I told her right away
I was in a committed relationship, but she said she needed to talk
to somebody with a top-level security clearance without Stemp
knowing, and I was the most plausible candidate for a dinner
invitation.”

He grimaced. “If
Richardson had been in town, I’d have pointed her in his direction,
but he was in Calgary and she swore it couldn’t wait. Hellhound and
I decided it would work well to divert Stemp from thinking I was
involved with you, so I went. I didn’t realize she had kids until I
got there.”

Kane’s face softened.
“Did you see how cute they are? Ivy’s such a little angel, and
Brendan’s just full of mischief and energy.”

I swallowed a pang.
Kane had once told me his ex-wife had been devastated by her
inability to have children, but it seemed she hadn’t been the only
one who’d mourned the loss.

“Anyway,” Kane went
on, “I reassured Jack as much as I could. I wasn’t planning to see
her again, but I’d told the kids some of my stories and they were
begging for more. Her ex has them for the next couple of weeks, so
I didn’t think it would hurt.”

Sadness briefly
shadowed his expression. “By the time they’re back, they’ll have
other things on their minds. I won’t see them again, and they won’t
miss me. No harm done.”

My pang turned into a
full-fledged stab of sympathy. “Why not see them again?” I asked.
“I could tell they loved being with you. You loved being with them.
I think Hon… uh, Jack really likes you. Why not give it a try?”

He frowned. “Are you
finished trying to drive me away yet?”

“I wasn’t…” I closed
my mouth on the lie and rephrased. “That wasn’t actually uppermost
in my mind. I was thinking about your happiness.”

“I’ll take
responsibility for my own happiness, thanks.” He spoke gently, but
his tone indicated the discussion was closed. “Can we get back to
the original question?”

Stall.

“You said you were
telling some of your stories to the kids? What stories?”

“Ah.” His gaze shifted
to the ceiling. “Some little stories I wrote.”

I sat up to study his
sudden nonchalance. “You’re a writer?”

He met my eyes for a
moment before standing to stir up the fire and add another log.
“I’m working on a children’s book,” he said to the fireplace. “I
pick away at it whenever I have some spare time. Which isn’t
often.”

“That’s so cool. May I
see what you’ve done?”

He turned back to face
me. “If you want to. But I’d rather you answered that deferred
question.”

Another surge of heat
made me slightly breathless. Damn fireplace.

Stall, stall!

“May I see it now?” I
blurted.

The mellow firelight
accented the teasing smile curving onto his lips. “See what?” he
rumbled.

“Your
book
!
Your book,” I repeated, trying not to gabble.

“Only if you promise
to be gentle with me.”

I drew in a shallow
breath, and Kane chuckled. “We authors are very sensitive about our
work-in-progress.”

“Right…” I said to his
receding back.

Jesus, woman, get a
grip.

My dirty mind
immediately suggested a particularly satisfactory place to get a
grip and I sucked in another breath, trying not to think about it.
Kane in professional mode was hot enough. Kane actually flirting
did a lot to explain the phenomenon of spontaneous human
combustion.

Before my heart rate
had a chance to stabilize, he returned carrying a sheaf of papers.
When he sat beside me on the sofa, I realized my attempt at
distraction had backfired. Inches away, his body radiated the same
heat as the fireplace.

“It’s just a
collection of little stories,” he said, handing me a few sheets.
“Here’s the first one.”

I skimmed it,
captivated by the simplicity and sweetness of the tale and the
subtlety of the underlying message.

“This is wonderful!” I
exclaimed as I looked up to meet his smile. “I can see why kids
would love it, but it’s got enough in it to speak to the adults,
too. And these illustrations are amazing. Did you do them?”

He nodded, and I
turned back to the page to admire the way the bold ink strokes
conveyed action and excitement. Their simplicity was deceptive, and
like the stories themselves, a closer look revealed the delicacy of
the details.

“Are you going to
publish it?” I asked.

“Some day, maybe. It’s
a tough market.” He retrieved the pages from me and smoothed them
back onto the pile.

“I’m surprised you
don’t write spy thrillers. You must have tons of stories to
tell.”

He shrugged and rose.
“Yes. But when I’m on my own time, I don’t really want to think
about work.”

“I can certainly
understand that,” I agreed with feeling, and he shot me a smile as
he ducked back into his office. “Do you want another drink?” he
asked when he emerged a few seconds later.

Jesus, never mind
wanting a drink, I
needed
a drink. I still hadn’t figured
out any workable way to escape the ensuing conversation.

“Yes, please. How
about one of those beers you promised me?”

I racked my brain
while he disappeared into the kitchen. Maybe I could call Arnie to
come and rescue me. Except that being the good friend he was, the
lousy bastard would probably refuse until Kane and I had finally
hashed this out. And I couldn’t call him anyway, because according
to my tracking device he and I were snuggled together in his hotel
room. Calling him from my cell phone would cause awkward questions
if anybody was watching the call record.

I twitched when Kane
reappeared to hand me the icy bottle. Corona. My favourite.

“You seem nervous,” he
said, and his provocative smile made my mouth go dry. Dryer.

I swallowed a large
mouthful of beer and faked moderate concern. “Actually, I just
realized I’m carrying my cell phone. Can’t Stemp track my location
with it?”

Kane sobered. “Yes.
This is a calculated risk. I don’t think he’ll bother when he’s
tracking you through that implant.”

“Maybe I should go. I
don’t want him to get suspicious.”

“Nice try.” He sat
opposite me again, leaning elbows on knees and swirling the
half-inch of amber liquid in his glass. Ice cubes clinked, and a
whiff of scotch drifted over.

Kane’s eyes met mine.
“We need to resolve this. Postponing it isn’t the answer. Friends
with benefits?”

“I… really don’t think
that would be a good idea,” I said faintly. I sent another generous
portion of beer down my throat. “Friends with benefits requires a
certain amount of…”

Dammit,
why
did
he choose this moment to raise his glass for a sip of whiskey,
giving me an eyeful of succulent bicep?

“…detachment,” I
finished hoarsely, and took another drink. “You said yourself you
get jealous easily, and I think if you have unresolved
feelings…”

God, there was that
edible bicep again. He slowly licked a drop of scotch off the rim
of the glass, his gaze never leaving me.

“That’s not fair,” I
croaked, clenching my bottle in both hands to prevent myself from
guzzling its contents.

Kane placed his glass
on the coffee table and leaned back in the chair to link his hands
behind his head.

Sweet Jesus, a
two-bicep assault. And that chest. And reclining like that, his
T-shirt stretched across the hard ridges of his abs. And below
that…

I jerked my eyes up to
his face again when he spoke. “What’s not fair?” he inquired
lazily.

“N… never mind.” I
gulped another long swallow of beer before remembering I was going
to slow down my drinking. “What I meant was… I think it would make
things difficult at work, and…”

“I think it might
actually make things easier,” he observed. “We’ve both been edgy
the last few months, trying to ignore the attraction. If I get
reinstated to your project, we’ll have to keep up an outward
appearance of indifference, but it’ll be a lot easier when we’re
not trying to fight it in private, too.”

“It’s easier as long
as it’s just friends on both sides, but we both know it’s more than
that for you.”

“I’m very clear that
it’s just friends with benefits, nothing more.”

I blew out a shaky
breath. “If Stemp found out, you’d probably get canned. Or
killed.”

He smiled, the naughty
twinkle in his eyes framed by those irresistible laugh lines. My
breathing suffered a momentary short-circuit at the sight of all
that hotness lounging across from me, and I almost missed his next
words.

“We’re spies,” he
rumbled. “I’m sure we can keep a secret.”

I resumed breathing
with an effort. “You’re a spy. I’m a dumb civilian, I’d mess up for
sure, and I think the whole thing would be a really bad idea.”

My attempt at a
decisive tone didn’t sound quite as final as I’d planned. I slugged
back another swallow. “Dammit, I
know
it would be a really
bad idea.”

“We’re only talking
about friends with benefits,” he said. “I understand you don’t want
commitment.”

I gulped. A
no-strings-attached opportunity to fulfill my recurring fantasies.
With crème brulée on top. Pure lust ignited the sofa beneath me
while my head attempted to float away. I sucked in a breath and
tried to summon up a grain of common sense.

Goddammit, no.
Bad,
bad idea
!

Kane leaned forward to
catch my unfocused gaze and spoke again. “Tell me you’re not
interested, and I’ll drop it right now. Tell me you don’t wonder
what it would be like to be with me when I’m not drugged to the
eyeballs. What it would be like if I had a chance to make love to
you for hours instead of taking you in a red-hot scramble while you
scream for more and come your brains out…”

“Not fair! Really,
really not fair,” I protested.

The beer bottle
sloshed in my shaking hand as I swallowed another too-large
mouthful. Goddamn, I could feel his heat from across the room.

He stood. Stretched
his arms above his head, powerful muscles bunching and releasing. A
sensuous twist of his spine reminded me all over again how flexible
he was.

Like I needed to be
thinking about that right now. I gasped like a beached fish in the
too-warm air.

Kane smiled. “You said
earlier I must have lots of stories to tell.” His black-velvet
voice caressed my ears. “Here’s one that might interest you.”
Again, that subtle, sexy twist of his body. “Did I mention…”

He paused and hooked
his thumbs in his belt loops, making the waistband of his jeans
gape enticingly over his taut abs. His outspread hands framed a
luscious denim-wrapped package, and I was struggling to wrench my
stare back up to his face when he finished his sentence.

“…that I once spent
three months undercover as an exotic dancer?”