He sucked in a sharp breath as she continued. “I also know it is not the right thing to do and it would interfere with the mission. Therefore, I shall set my desires aside and focus on the task at hand.”
“Just like that?” He sounded surprised.
“Just like what?”
“You can turn off your feelings like a light switch? No random imaginings of getting naked with me? No speculation on what making love with me would be like? No trouble keeping your gaze from going places it shouldn’t? You can just decide to set all that aside, and it’s done?”
She blinked, startled. She hadn’t really considered if the actual execution of her plan would be hard or not. She’d only gotten as far as it being the right thing to do.
He leaned forward abruptly, startling her. He popped her lap belt and dragged her across the space between them and onto his lap. She should’ve broken his wrist, but somehow she ended up sprawled across his thighs, his mouth slanting down toward hers, his hands plunging into her hair, and she let him.
Somehow she ended up arching toward him, her body taut with need. Somehow her mouth ended up plastered against his, her hands moving frantically across his chest, her entire being vibrating with uncontrollable need. Somehow the buttons of his shirt opened beneath her fingers, her palms flattened against his hot flesh. A moan escaped her throat and she all but crawled inside him. She turned in his arms until she faced him, straddling his hips with her thighs. How her own shirt fell open, she had no idea. But when his hands closed upon her throbbing breasts, she didn’t think twice about pressing more deeply into his hands, about writhing on the hard bulge between her legs, about making a good-faith effort to extract his tonsils with her tongue.
Jeff murmured laughingly, “Honey, my hat’s off to you if you can turn this off on command. There’s not a chance I can do it.”
Whether it was a sigh or a sob that escaped her lips, she wasn’t sure. But she knew she wanted him worse than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. Beneath his clever hands she danced, responding to every touch, every caress, every stroke and pluck upon her aching body. How her pants got unzipped, she had no idea, but she couldn’t fail to notice when his fingers invaded her most private space, driving her half out of her mind. Pleasure completely overtook rational thought, spinning her up and out of herself, to a place of heat and light and tingling sensation that took her breath away.
And Jeff was there, all around her, between her thighs, against her breasts, kissing her neck, breathing her in. And it felt…so…good.
Eventually thought stopped altogether, and she flung herself into the drowning glory of the moment.
“Honey, you’re killing me,” he muttered.
She pulled back to stare at him. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
He responded with a pained laugh. “I thought you were the one who was supposed to be able to turn off this thing between us. Don’t count on me to be all noble and stop it. I’m not that strong.”
What was “this thing” between them, anyway? She struggled to form intelligent thought, but the current of her lust was incredibly powerful and sweeping her wildly forward toward oblivion.
“What have you done to me?” she managed to whisper.
“Bluntly put, I believe I’ve turned you on. And Lord knows, you’ve done the same to me. Ain’t it grand?”
She laughed ruefully and pressed her forehead against his. Grand didn’t even scratch the surface of it. “We’ve got to stop, you know.”
“Yeah. I know. Here I go, setting you off my lap, buttoning up our shirts and thinking serious, mission-related thoughts.” He didn’t move a muscle as he uttered those words, other than to run his fingers through her hair, smoothing strands of it lightly across her breasts.
How had her hair gotten out of its usual French braid?
“Okay, your turn to do something,” he muttered.
“Right. I’m climbing off you. Going back to my own seat. Meditating until my mind is clear.” Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, the outline of his ears, the shape of his mouth.
“We’re formulating our plan of attack for Barbados now,” he mumbled. “First order of business…take you to our hotel room and get you naked…”
She nodded soberly but couldn’t keep the twinkle out of her eyes. “And then we talk to the police and come up with a brilliant plan to trap the Ghost while lying in bed together watching the sun rise.”
He laughed. “I love the way you think.”
Gradually, sanity was beginning to return to her. She sighed. “And then the Ghost gets away, we fail at our mission, and we let down General Wittenauer and American citizens who are counting on us.”
The laughter in his eyes dimmed. “There is that.”
She looked deep into his cobalt-blue eyes. “What are we going to do?”
He sighed. “I suppose we’re going to try it your way for a while.”
His big hands spanned most of her waist as he gently lifted her off his lap and placed her back in her own seat. Abruptly abashed at her earlier boldness, she fixed her clothes and re-braided her hair. She ventured a gaze over at Jeff, and he was studying her inscrutably. Had he really succeeded at shutting down his lust? What was the world coming to when a fun-loving good ols’ boy had more discipline than a highly trained martial arts master?
He murmured, “Working with you is going to be a royal pain in the ass, you know.”
“Why?” she blurted.
“Because we’ve got to set this thing between us aside for now. And I’m going to spend every waking minute wanting to put my hands on you again and hear you make those sounds again and taste you again…”
She gulped. Oh. Yeah, that.
Okay. So deciding not to have any feelings for him and not to react to him hadn’t worked out so well. Time for Plan B. They might not be able to control what they thought or felt, but at least they could control what they did. And they both obviously lost all self-discipline once they touched each other. From here on out they were simply going to have to observe a strictly hands-off policy. No kissing, no handholding, no casual brushes against each other. Yup, it was going to suck rocks. But what other choice did they have?
Chapter 7
They pulled up in front of police headquarters in their rental car a little before midnight. She observed while Jeff did the talking. He was very smooth and managed to extract a few details about the latest theft, but the police held their cards close to the chest.
Kat and Jeff wandered toward the exit, and when no one was paying attention, ducked down a side hall that brought them to the evidence locker. Jeff flashed her a Special Forces hand signal to fall back. One eyebrow raised, she did so, fading into the shadows well down the hallway.
And then his tactic became clear. He bellied up to the check-in window and plied his considerable Southern charm on a female evidence officer, who in short order was hanging over the gate and flirting right back at him. Kat had to give him credit. The woman was putty in his hands in a matter of minutes.
Almost as fast as she’d succumbed to him, dammit.
Kat barely registered the additional details he coaxed out of the woman. If that woman leaned much farther forward, she was going to fall out of her uniform. Jeff must be getting an eyeful of the woman’s ample cleavage. Only one painting taken last night from the Valliard place.
Oh, and now the chick was fondling her top button, toying with the idea of “accidentally” slipping it free. Hussy. The Monet was, indeed, stolen sometime in the past twenty-four hours.
If that woman licked her lips one more time, Kat was going to lick them for her-with her knuckles. The police strongly suspected the Ghost based on the complete lack of evidence left behind.
Jeff pocketed the slip of paper with the woman’s phone number on it and turned to sashay down the hall. Kat fell in behind him, closing on his six like a dutiful wingman.
Not that she felt the least bit dutiful at the moment, however. Equal parts fury and humiliation swirled in her afterburners, making for an explosive mix. Had she fawned all over him like that? Had he flashed her a smile and a suggestive look or two over dinner and then watched her fall into his arms on cue? He was insufferable to behave like that! And she was a fool to have fallen for him like some gullible groupie.
