Spies, Lies and Lovers Page 4

  She could be a hundred different women, a thousand. There were so many stored inside her, she found it hard to remember what was real, what was her. But this woman who wore skintight red leather and trembled so easily beneath a man’s hands wasn’t real. She was simply an agent on a mission. Feeling marginally better, Geri slipped behind her mask and went to find her quarry.

  He glanced her way when she stepped into the main room of the cabin. His eyes might have narrowed, his body might have tensed a fraction, but he didn’t take his eyes off her.

  Geri knew what he saw—bare thighs, his own shirt hanging loosely around her, wet hair that fell to the bottom of delicate-looking earlobes. Could he tell she hadn’t bothered with a bra? She figured women in red leather didn’t wear bras, but as his gaze lingered on her breasts, she was no longer sure that standing in front of him like this was a good idea.

  Alex poured her a generous shot of tequila that burned all the way down her throat. She downed it without so much as a grimace.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said, then led her to his bed.

  Chapter 3

  He motioned for her to sit on the side of the bed, then sat down himself in a chair he’d pulled alongside. On the nightstand, she saw gauze pads, bandages, antiseptic, some sort of cream and a pair of tweezers.

  He obviously took his first-aid duties quite seriously. Odd, Geri thought, her mouth twitching. He’d invented something that could blow up thousands of people, but he wasn’t going to let her die from an infected cut she’d gotten from a broken bottle in a bar fight.

  He pulled a lamp to the edge of the bed, snapped it on, then tilted the shade so the light fell directly on her. Geri closed her eyes and turned away, tried to forget she wore nothing but a pair of panties and his old shirt.

  “This is going to hurt,” he warned.

  “I know,” she said. The littlest of cuts often did.

  Closing her eyes might have been a mistake. Every one of her other senses kicked into high gear to compensate. She heard a wonderful voice, low and soothing and sexy. Her skin felt his presence, made her aware that he was very close, every part of him within inches of every part of her. He smelled of dust and wind and heat—something she found quite pleasant—and for some odd reason, she couldn’t help but think of the way he would taste, that sun-browned skin....

  “Oh, please,” she breathed.

  “Please, what?”

  Geri blinked, the light blinding her for a second, and then she saw his face, saw that wry smile, something between amusement and a deep curiosity that scared her. She must have spoken those last words aloud, when she’d meant to keep them entirely to herself.

  She’d been aiming at sarcasm. Oh, please. But obviously, it had come off sounding like something else entirely. Like a breathless plea. To him. What did he think she was asking for?

  “It was nothing,” she said too quickly, too harshly, with a combination of nerves and impatience.

  Before she could come up with an explanation or an apology, he touched a gauze pad soaked in antiseptic to her collarbone. She bit down on her lip to hold everything inside her as ridiculous tears sprang to her eyes.

  She was tired, she told herself. Frustrated. Angry. Confused. More than a little scared. That was the reason she couldn’t find the distance she needed for this assignment. He shouldn’t be able to get this close to Geri, the woman. No one touched her heart. Or her soul. At least, not before the shooting.

  Since then, her feelings had been raw and frighteningly powerful. It seemed as if every emotion she’d swallowed over the years and pushed down inside her had come roaring to the surface all at once. And ever since then, Geri had been out of control, on edge, so unsure of herself. She didn’t recognize the woman who had surfaced after the shooting. She’d given so much of herself to the job over the years, and she now wondered if that had been a mistake—if there was simply nothing left of her.

  And now this man, this dreaded man, kept showing her something new, something totally unexpected. She looked up at him, realizing Alex hadn’t moved or said a word for the longest time. Geri found quiet concern that she simply didn’t understand etched on his face. He let his hand settle on her left shoulder and stay there, in a touch that comforted her, reassured her, reached her in a way that had nothing to do with hands and skin.

  It was as if he could touch her heart. Geri stared back at him, thoroughly puzzled.

  “All right?” he asked.

  She nodded, telling herself it was an act. He was very, very good, and this was an act. He was not concerned about her. He was not kind. He was likely playing some demented game with her, but...he was so good at it. And if it hadn’t been for the shooting, she’d be totally immune.

  “For a minute, you were a million miles away,” he said.

  “More like a thousand,” she said, thinking of D.C., where it had all started.

  “A thousand?” he repeated.

  Geri felt every drop of blood drain from her face. How could she be so stupid as to tell him that? If he was Hathaway, he knew what had happened in the District of Columbia three and a half months ago.

  “A friend of mine,” she said, stumbling on, thinking of other cities a thousand or so miles away, reminding herself that sticking as close to the truth as possible always helped in remembering the lies she told. “He lives in Virginia. Ran into some trouble this past year. And I was thinking of him.”

  Alex nodded. Thankfully, he didn’t press for details. Armed with a cotton ball, he asked, “Are you ready for me to finish this?”

  Geri nodded and told herself not to flinch. As he pressed the cotton ball to her skin, she sucked in another ragged breath.

  “Sorry,” he said softly, his touch infinitely gentle.

  Geri watched him, mesmerized by the way he moved, the smile on his face, the rambling commentary he kept up, she suspected, in an effort to take her mind off the pain. And she found herself liking this man he was pretending to be. Maybe they were simply alike, she thought. Maybe he could put on an act as well as she could, for all the world seeming to be a tender, caring man.

  It occurred to her that she had never known tenderness from a man. Or quiet concern. Or kindness. Her father loved her. But he wasn’t a kind man. Or a gentle one. He was gruff and impatient and busy. There had always been matters more pressing for him to attend to than her. She was closer to her former partner, Dan Reese, than anyone, but there was nothing between them but friendship and respect.

  But this... She’d never been disarmed by kindness, seeduced by tenderness, confused by desire. She wanted to yell at him, Don’t be nice to me. Don’t. Alex was so close she could feel his breath against her shoulder. It was quiet here, his voice the only sound she heard. They were far from anyone, absolutely alone. She flinched as he hit a particularly tender spot on her chest He gave her a tight smile and gentled his touch even more.

  This was unlike any other time she’d been injured on the job. First aid had been highly skilled, brisk and efficient, usually administered on the run, sometimes in a helicopter in midair.

  Never had it been intimate. Never had anyone made such a fuss over a few scrapes. She wanted to tell him that, to yell at him. This was nothing compared to what she’d been through over the years, and especially in the last few months, because of him. So how could it feel like so much?

  Opening her eyes, Geri saw hair, more blond than brown, saw his gaze intent on her as he worked over her injuries, as he touched her so gently.

  The frustration and the burning pain gave way to something else entirely. Her body was responding shamelessly to his nearness, to the sound of his voice, the feel of his breath on her skin. She felt heat gathering low in her belly, felt her breasts swell and start to ache. She liked his touch too much to let him continue.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded.

  Geri saw the knowing look in his gorgeous brown eyes as he pulled away, fighting against the smile forming on his lips. Damn him. Then he reached for
her, smiling sinfully now. She was ready to shove him across the room until she realized he’d done nothing but pull the collar of her shirt open a little wider.

  “You want to get the next button for me?” he asked.

  Geri tried. Angry, she found her hands were shaking. The simple task of undoing a button was nearly too much for her. His hands, when he reached for her, were perfectly steady. Maybe he made a habit of rescuing women from bandits in bars. Maybe there was nothing unusual about him finding a total stranger half-naked in his bed at night Maybe she simply didn’t have the power to make him tremble. But dammit, he could certainly do it to her.

  Alex pulled one side of the shirt aside, baring the beginnings of her right breast. She felt the antiseptic burning. How could it burn so much? It was a tiny cut. She didn’t understand, just felt the air leave her lungs in a rush, felt what seemed to be every bit of her strength, the protective shell that she’d honed to perfect hardness over the years, simply dissolve. Utterly drained and unable to fight anymore, she felt tears running down her cheeks.

  “I’m almost done,” Alex promised.

  Bewildered and angry at herself, Geri swiped at her tears and decided to concentrate on just how much her chest hurt. It was certainly safer than listening to him try to soothe her and tease her both at the same time.

  It had to be about seduction, she decided. Seduction with kindness. With a teasing grin and a cool impersonal touch that could turn wickedly sexy in an instant. The man had turned first aid into foreplay. Geri wondered if he’d been one of those little boys who was constantly trying to con the girl next door into playing doctor with him, wondered if he had some unfulfilled fantasies that he was counting on her to make come true.

  Finally, Alex sat back and dropped his weapon—his cotton ball. Then he warned, “I need to make sure there’s no glass in the cut.”

  “I know.”

  Her mouth went dry and she fought to control her breathing. His hands were wonderfully warm and unfairly steady, his touch, if possible, even gentler than before. Too easily, Geri remembered the sensation of having her body pressed against his on the bike, her breasts against his back, her hands against the hard muscles of his abdomen, her thighs spread wide with his between them. The bike had rumbled at times, bounced around at others, until it had seemed that someone was intent on fusing their bodies together.

  She’d been tortured before, of course. But not like that.

  Alex looked over her injuries slowly, carefully, then picked up one of her hands, checking her palm, then the other, and announced, “All done here.”

  He gave her a devilish grin, one that had her cheeks burning again, and held up a tube of ointment. “This should take away the sting. It has an antibiotic, too.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Be my guest.” He handed over the ointment, offered her a box of bandages. “You want to handle this part, too?”

  “Yes,” she said tightly. With hands that were still shaking, she managed to cover the worst of the damage.

  When she was done, Alex suggested, “Why don’t you lie down while we do the other side?”

  Sighing, Geri rolled over, putting her back to him, undid two more buttons and hitched the shirt up so he could pull it down to bare her shoulder. The bed gave beneath his weight as he sat down beside her, then leaned over her shoulder.

  “These aren’t nearly as bad,” he said.

  The antiseptic still burned. His breath was still cool and comforting as he leaned close, inspecting the damage. His touch was as gentle as ever as he brushed the cuts with ointment and bandaged them. Geri sighed as he tugged her shirt back into place on her shoulder. She couldn’t say his hands were anything but impersonal as he pushed her shirt up and pulled aside a minuscule scrap of lace to expose one hip.

  Burying her face deeper into the pillow, she sucked in a breath and wondered how long it had been since anyone had touched her like this. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if anyone ever had. No one touched her so intimately, so tenderly. And touch was, after all, a basic human need. She’d read studies on it at some point People felt a deep-seated need to be touched, to be held.

  She hated his gentleness and yet was inexplicably drawn to it

  “Don’t, Alex,” she said, reaching her limit.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t be nice to me.”

  “What?”

  “You heard what I said. Don’t do this. Don’t try to be nice. Don’t try to make me like you. Just get this done.”

  She was desperate now, desperate for it to be over. Into her head came the image of her and him locked together in an embrace. Her body positively ached at the thought of how it would be, how good it would feel.

  “You’re one of those women who gets off on pain?” he asked, laughter in his voice.

  Maybe that was the answer, Geri thought. Maybe she had some weird sadistic streak she’d never known about.

  “Maybe I am,” she said, her sarcasm missing somehow and the words sounding weary beyond belief.

  “I don’t believe that,” Alex said. “Not for a minute.”

  Geri didn’t, either. The truth was, there was nothing sensual about her. She was an altogether-practical woman, a determined one, a woman focused on nothing but her career. And in the space of one bizarre evening, he had her thinking she liked this man he’d invented for her, the one that wasn’t any more real than she was. He had her wondering what she’d been missing all these years, wondering if everything would somehow be different with him, the imaginary man playing the white knight to a wounded woman in red leather.

  He went back to work. She was starting to relax when he slid his hands up under her shirt and started kneading the muscles in her back.

  “You’re so tense,” he said. “Are you afraid of me, Geri? Afraid to be here alone with me?”

  She wondered if this was some sort of test, wondered if she’d done something to make him suspicious, so she willed herself to relax and take it. His hands... He had wonderful hands. They were at the small of her back, seemed to have found the spot where every bit of tension in her body had gathered. He took his knuckles and worked the tension away.

  Was she afraid of him? Desperately.

  But what about the other her, the one she was pretending to be? Would she be afraid? Surely she would. After all, they were strangers, alone here in the middle of nowhere.

  “I...” As his hands slid higher, midway up her back, she had to stop and breathe, to think. “I feel safer here with you than I did in town. Do those men know where you live?”

  “I don’t think anyone in town knows where I live. You were nodding off through a lot of the ride, but it’s more a dirt trail than a road. I haven’t had any visitors in the time I’ve been here, although that doesn’t mean someone hasn’t found the place while I’ve been away.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Why do you live this way?”

  “I like my privacy,” he said easily, his hands sliding higher, onto her shoulders now, then her neck. “Why can’t you go to Red Rock, Geri?”

  As she lay there, as relaxed as she could possibly be and half-naked on his bed, he made his move, flipped her over like a rag doll and pushed up her shirt until it was bunched just below her breasts.

  Geri didn’t make a sound, told herself not to panic, not to react too quickly, because then he would know that her training in self-defense had been extensive. The trouble was, if he wanted to kill her, he might act so quickly that nothing she did in response could save herself.

  But Alex didn’t hurt her at all. He wasn’t undressing her, either. Instead, he was staring at her right side, at her rib cage. He touched her lightly there, and she flinched. then knew what he had found. She’d covered her side with some body makeup, because the leather outfit showed so much of her midriff. The makeup must have come off in the shower, but it wasn’t a problem. She had a story to tell, after all. This fit rather nicely.

  “Is it the bruises?” he asked, his voice col
d with fury. “Is that why you’re out here by yourself and would rather take your chances with me than in some little town along the interstate where the man who did this to you might be looking for you?”

  He sounded like he was ready to go to war for her, if that was what it took to protect her, which surprised her. She wasn’t the kind of woman who normally brought out a protective streak in men. In the field, what she lacked in strength and height, she made up for in quickness, cleverness, agility and sheer determination. The men she worked with saw her as an equal, not someone to protect.

  “Tell me,” Alex said. “Who beat you?”

  “A man,” she said. That wasn’t a lie.

  “What else did he do to you?”

  “Just bruised my ribs,” she claimed.

  He took her arm and gently placed it above her head, then fitted his hand to the faint bruises there. It was a nearperfect match. “And grabbed you here and wouldn’t let you go?”

  Geri nodded.

  “What else?” he insisted.

  He gave an entirely credible picture of concern, laced with an undertone of anger she truly didn’t understand. They were just bruises. She’d certainly had worse.

  “What else?” Alex demanded, sounding as if he could tear somebody limb from limb quite easily.

  “You don’t even know me,” she complained, knowing she was dangerously close to forgetting all the lies. She was so tired of them. She just wanted to know who he was.

  “And that’s supposed to make a difference? I get mad at the idea of any man hitting a woman.”

  Geri frowned and took a breath. He was driving her crazy, refusing to be what she expected, refusing to fit into that neat little picture she’d painted of him—traitor, murderer, all-around rotten guy. Why the hell would he care if she’d been beaten up in Mexico while trying to find him? Why in the world would that make him mad?