The Watson Brothers (26 page)

IN DANGER
The Shaughnessey Accord

Tripp Shaughnessey has a habit of seducing every woman he says hello to. But the one who really gets him hot and bothered is Glory Brighton, the curvaceous owner of his favorite sandwich shop. The nonstop banter between Glory and Tripp has been leading up to a full-body kiss in the back storeroom. And that’s just where they are when all hell breaks loose and the shop is under siege. Now Tripp must use his skills as a well-trained, hardcore covert op as he’s put to the test.

The Samms Agenda

Julian Samms knows you keep people alive by running a smooth, clean, and quick operation, and that’s how it plays under his watch—except for today. The mission was straightforward: extract Katrina Flurry, ex-girlfriend of deposed Spectra frontman Peter Deacon, from her Miami condo before a hit man can silence her for good. But things didn’t go according to plan, and Julian’s suddenly on the run with Katrina. Stuck in a cheap motel with a force of nature determined to get them killed, Julian can’t believe his luck. Katrina is infuriating, unpredictable, adorable, and possibly the most exciting, sexy woman he’s ever met.

He flipped open the box and knocked the cards loose like he would a cigarette. “You want to pick first or you want me to?”

“You’ve got the deck. You go,” she said, brushing back that mane of hair and looking at him with purely dry and, oh, such wicked eyes.

Sap, hell. He was a puss. He slid two cards from the box, slapped them facedown on the table.

She took the box from his hand and did the same for him. He met her gaze, refusing to check out the cards he’d been dealt. “I win, I want your pants.”

“Fine.” Her voice didn’t even shake. “I want your shirt.”

She turned over her cards, the queen and ten of hearts.
“Ai ya,”
he muttered, knowing she’d have no idea who or what he was damning, and flipped his two of clubs and four of spades into the center of the table.

He muttered further while yanking his T-shirt over his head and off. He tossed it beyond her shoulder to the corner of the couch.

And he swore the moment fabric hit fabric, the mood in the room tightened to bursting. As if a ratchet had been applied to the tension and torqued.

Katrina’s sleepy, seductive eyes widened, then closed. She pursed her lips, blew out a slow, steady stream of breath. A subtle shudder seized her limbs and she flexed her fingers, pointed the toes of her left foot.

It was when she looked back at his face that he knew the depth of the trouble he was in. Wine or no wine, pain or no pain, she had sex on her mind.

And not the cheap and quick, any-dick-will-do variety, but intimate and intense sex with him.

“You going to deal or what?” he finally asked, hating the raw sound of his words.

She tapped the box on the table, tugged two cards free and used two fingers to slide them to him facedown. Then she offered the box, which he took, grabbing the two topmost cards and slapping them down for her.

She picked them up, but was a long time looking at them, her gaze wandering instead over his bare shoulders and throat and what she could see of the rest of him with the table blocking her view.

Meat.
Zhandou de yi kuai rou
. He felt like a friggin’ piece of meat, and forced his gaze to his hand, which was no better this time than it had been the last.

A five of hearts and six of diamonds. A whopping total of eleven.

Katrina turned her cards over slowly and one at a time. The seven of diamonds. The six of clubs. Besting him by two.
Gou shi
. Shit, shit, shit.

She stared at both hands of cards, worried her bottom lip with the edges of her teeth, finally lifted her gaze, which had grown heated and heavy, to say, “I want the band from your hair.”

He blinked, caught off guard, having expected her to strip him to his skivvies. Instead, he tugged the leather band the length of his hair and handed it over, watching her watch the strands brush his shoulders, watching her watch him shove it back from his face.

He couldn’t help it. He had to know. “You looking for something in particular?”

She shook her head, grinned slyly. “Just a fantasy I’ve been entertaining lately.”

He snorted, grabbed up the box, handed her two more cards. “Here. Fantasize that this time I win.”

“Okay, but you realize I have to take off my shoe to take off my pants, which is an unfair advantage.”

“Here.” He reached down and slipped off both of his shoes. “I’ll give you two shoes to your one.”

She didn’t even hesitate, adding her athletic high-top to the mix, turning over her king and ace of spades.

He gave a cursory glance to his nine and jack of the same friggin’ suit and reached for his fly.

“Wait.”

Hands at his waist, he looked up.

“You’re still wearing two socks.” She made a “gimme” motion with her hand. “One of them will do.”

For her, maybe. He was ready to be done with this exercise in bad luck that was dragging out way too long. He wanted to get to sleep because he was not going to bed her.

Still, he did no more than pull off one sock as she picked up the deck of cards.

Finally. He stared at his two tens while watching her turn over two fours. Once he laid his cards down atop hers, she reached for the copper button at her waist, lifted her hips, tugged the denim down and off.

That left her sitting in borrowed white panties that did little to curb his appetite.

They played another round without speaking. Not that either of them had said much at all—a reality that should have made him a lot more comfortable than it did.

Mindless, uninvolved sex he could handle. If he took her right now, that was exactly what he could have. He could get her out of his system and be done with it.

But that wasn’t what he wanted. And because he wanted more, he wasn’t going to allow himself to do more than look and lust.

DEEP TROUBLE
The Beach Alibi

Ultimate spy Kelly John Beach is in big trouble: during his last mission, he was caught breaking into a Spectra IT high-rise on one of their video surveillance cameras. The SG-5 team has to make an alternate tape fast, one that proves K.J. was elsewhere at the time of the break-in. The plan is simple: someone from Smithson will pose as K.J.’s lover, and SG-5’s strategically placed cameras will record their every intimate, erotic encounter in elevators, restaurant hallways, and other daring forums. But Kelly John never expects that “alibi” to come in the form of Emma Webster, the sexy co-worker who has starred in so many of his not-for-primetime fantasies…

The McKenzie Artifact

SG-5 operative Eli McKenzie was in deep cover in Mexico, infiltrating a Spectra ring that kidnaps young girls and sells them into a life beyond imagining when someone on the inside poisoned him, forcing him to return to the Smithson Group’s headquarters to heal. But his quick departure led Spectra operatives to nab a private investigator named Stella Banks. Eli knows the only way to save her life is to reveal himself to Stella and get her to trust him. Seeing the way Stella takes care of the frightened girls melts Eli’s armor, and soon, they find that the best way to survive this brutal assignment is to steal time in each other’s arms…

Emma Webster had just packed up her Billy Bag satchel when the private line on her desk phone rang. It was six-thirty P.M., and she’d thought the office empty.

She’d gone down to the health club at five, had a quick salad at Brighton’s after working out, then come back upstairs to grab the novel she’d been reading at lunch before finally heading home.

Instead, she picked up the receiver on the third ring. It was Hank, and if he was still here and looking for her, her cell would be ringing next. “Emma Webster.”

“Emma. Hank here.”

“Hank. I thought you left hours ago.”

“I was called out for a bit”—he cleared his throat—“and I’m afraid I’ve had an emergency of sorts dropped into my lap. I’m going to have to ask you for some overtime.”

“I’ll be right in.” She took a deep breath and conjured up the image she’d checked in her cheval mirror before leaving her apartment this morning.

Not the image reflected back at her from the glass door to Brighton’s ten minutes ago. The image of a woman who had spent the last hour sweating like a politician caught with a cigar and an intern.

Oh, well. An emergency was an emergency, even if she was wearing white cross trainers and slouch socks, hot pink Spandex shorts and sports bra, and a white pullover worthy of a wet T-shirt contest.

Not exactly an outfit conducive to professionalism. At least at this late hour, her boss should be alone.

He wasn’t, of course, which was bad enough. Even worse was the six-foot-two, two-hundred-ten-pound, blue-eyed, black Irish reality of who was leaning on the edge of his desk.

One very sexy Kelly John Beach.

She placed her satchel on the thick carpeting just inside the door and crossed the expansive office, refusing to adjust her clothing or touch her hair, or give in to any of the copious nervous reactions to being seen at her absolute physical worst by the very man she most wanted to attract.

He was one of Hank’s special Smithson Engineering project consultants. A group of men rarely seen around the office, but causing all tongues belonging to female employees to wag when walking through.

All tongues save for Emma’s. In her position as Hank’s assistant, wagging was unacceptable. She didn’t speak out of turn. Ever. A well-known and well-documented fact that had helped land her this job.

She wondered for less time than it took her to reach Hank’s desk if Kelly John was involved in the request for her overtime. The grave look the two men exchanged answered her question. She cringed, but only to herself, wishing like hell that she could step into this meeting on a more even footing.

But such was not to be when one wore hot pink Spandex. Even had she been wearing the pieces of her work wardrobe she’d had on earlier in the day, the balance would have leaned heavily in the male favor. As was too often the case.

“Sit, Emma, please,” Hank requested once she’d reached his desk. She hesitated briefly, but it was enough to broadcast her discomfort at the disadvantage. He picked it up and added, “Let’s all sit.”

Emma took the seat closest to where she stood, Kelly John the one nearest the window. Hank dropped into his executive chair and braced his elbows on his desk, steepling his fingers as if the pious gesture would lessen the inappropriateness of the request.

Because the way both men seemed reluctant to speak to her or each other, or to meet her inquisitive gaze, she was certain inappropriate would barely cover what they wanted her to do.

She cleared her throat. “You mentioned overtime?”

“Overtime, yes. But this time it’s more than my dad-blamed habit of procrastinating on paperwork.” Hank paused, and color bloomed in the apples of his cheeks. “As a matter of fact, it’s overtime giving you legal grounds to charge my sorry hide with sexual harassment.”

“Oh, really,” she said, blinking away the strangest sensation of being caught up in a fog-like dream. Even the words he’d spoken were weirdly surreal.

Hank Smithson had never, in the five years she’d worked for him, come close to crossing such a line.

At her side, Kelly John shifted to lean forward, bracing his forearms on his knees and lacing his fingers into one big fist. He hung his head, but she wasn’t fooled for a minute.

He exuded the same tension she saw in the set of Hank’s shoulders, the deeply creased furrows lining his brow.

The room, in fact, fairly crackled with the buzz of expectant anticipation. As if what hung in the air was a suggestive truth neither man wanted to address for fear of offending her beyond repair.

And suddenly she knew. She knew. The inappropriate request involved this man at her side.

The very man who all too frequently played a part in her dark-of-the-night fantasies. She wanted to shiver with the possibilities, but instead she tamped down a response that she feared would strip away her current advantage.

Especially as there was a little bird telling her she needed to hold onto all that she could.

“Well, now that you’ve warned me, I’ll have to admit a rather prurient curiosity. This is hardly what I expected.”

“And you shouldn’t expect it. No woman ever should.” Hank leaned back in his chair, laced his hands over the slightly rounded rise of his stomach. “And I suppose we could call off this whole kit and caboodle right now. Save us all what might turn out to be an uncomfortable circumstance.”

At her side, Emma heard Kelly John blow out an audible breath. The sound of a scoff. A surrender. A pox on the situation that had brought them here.

She half expected him to push from the chair and walk out of the room, but he sat where he was and said nothing. Nothing to counter Hank’s suggestion. No offer of another.

Her back straight to the point of being stiff, she crossed one leg over the other, laced her hands over her knees and said, “Actually, I’d like to hear everything.”

“You sure?” Hank asked, giving her one last out.

She nodded. “You would hardly go so far out of character to suggest anything improper if you didn’t feel it your best option.”

That said, she waited, watching the glances that passed between the two men. The silent conversation—
Are you sure? I don’t know. Is there any other way? None so simple
.—left her sitting literally on the edge of her seat, swinging her foot, nervously waiting for the balloon to pop.

It was Kelly John who pricked the fragile skin.

“I’ve gotten into trouble with one of my assignments. And the most convincing way for me to get out is to have you pose as my lover.”