The Spy Who Wants Me (Paperback)

Chapter One

The stocky, overly tattooed man, who looked more like a thug than the mastermind in one of the biggest acts of technological piracy to hit the East Coast in a decade, flew backward. Elle dropped into a fighting stance as Harley hit the wall with a thud, but he just kept sliding until he was nothing but an unconscious heap of cheap leather and ratty blue jeans.

Man, you'd think with all the money he had made on his nefarious dealings, the man could afford a few nice additions to his wardrobe.

Hadn't that been easier than she'd thought it would be? Apparently, dressing like a biker didn't mean a man had the fighting skills to last fifteen minutes in a seedy bar, much less in a physical confrontation against her.

With a cynical twist of her lips, she dusted her hands off, and then smoothed down the fabric of her short, black Vera Wang dress. The perfect designer for a woman in Elle's profession. If only Madame Wang knew. Elle had been happy to discover that several items in the sexy line had been designed in a way to give a girl maximum movement. In her opinion, being a federal agent didn't mean she had to run around looking like a female version of the Men in Black.

Besides, she'd learned early that a heightened fashion sense coupled with the looks she'd gotten from her mother encouraged others to underestimate both her intelligence and her lethalness. Just as Harley had done.

As she looked at the ungainly mound the insensate man made, satisfaction coursed through her. Sometimes, it was nice to be underestimated.

Flipping open her phone, she called in the cleanup crew. If she hurried on the paperwork, she'd have a full week to relax before starting her new assignment in California.

As she shut the phone, her gaze snagged on the hand holding the cell—more specifically on the middle finger of that hand. Amusement turned to irritation and she glared at Harley.

As if he could feel her ire, he groaned and tried to move.

Examining the damage with annoyance, she ignored him. She'd broken a nail. Well, fudge. She'd just gotten a manicure too. This case had been one irritation after another, but this really irked her. It belied the simplicity of the collar.

She hadn't even broken a sweat taking the guy down, but she had chipped her nail and that was almost as bad as getting a substandard haircut. Elle might be a federal agent with a bad attitude and more than one black belt—not of the accessory variety—but she had her little vanities like anyone else.

Worse, the broken nail meant she had misjudged a hit. And that really pissed her off. It wreaked havoc with her perfectionist tendencies, making her wonder if she was off her game.

Harley chose that moment to try to crawl away. Elle growled.

Harley froze and then looked up at her with eyes still unfocused from his blackout.

"Going somewhere?" she asked.

He told her to do something anatomically impossible, if slightly intriguing. But she wasn't in the mood to be intrigued. Or pushed.

Without another word, she stalked over to him, crouched down and flipped him on his stomach with one smooth move. To the accompaniment of another not even remotely sexy male groan, she brought his wrists together and secured them with a zip tie.

"Bitch," he said with venom.

She frowned, considered and then shook her head. "I've always considered myself more of a cat person."

He turned his head and spat at her. Spat. At. Her.

Disgusting.

And he'd barely missed the perfectly shined black patent leather boots that added such lovely height to her five feet, ten inches. She reined in the urge to smack his head into the floor. She was not an animal. And he was a lucky SOB, no doubt about it.

But at this rate? She was going to be in a bad mood until next month, which was really going to mess up that week of relaxation she had planned.

Maybe she should go ahead and spend it with her family.

* * *

Dr. Beau Ruston looked down at the pictures in the dossier open on his mentor's desk. "She looks like a Russian supermodel."

Man, did she. Attractive was too tame a word for the beauty with chin-length straight black hair and eyes such a clear gray they could be silver in the photos. Stunning might work. Captivating. Sexy as hell.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so caught by a woman's appearance. Full lips set in a perfectly shaped face looked both kissable and ideal for giving a man's cock the ultimate pleasure. His own was hardening at the mental image. And wouldn't his granny have had his guts for garters for thinking like that?

Thoughts of how his deceased grandmother would have reacted helped to dispel his growing arousal, but nothing would diminish his sense of awe at Elle's appeal. Almond-shaped eyes looked flat and deadly in one picture and full of mischief in another. He wanted to know what they would look like in the heat of passion.

Good night! Did he have a one-track mind, or what? He'd been accused a time or two, but not about sex-about being able to think of nothing but his projects. He'd had two serious relationships in his life and a handful of girlfriends. Every single one of them had complained about how he got caught up in his work, even the ones he'd dated from the company.

He'd never fantasized the kinds of things rolling through his mind right now about any of them during work hours. Yet this woman had him by the balls and wasn't letting go and these were mere pictures.

How the hell would he handle her in person? Maybe she would disappoint his libido and be no more exciting than one of his female lab techs. He had this really bad suspicion it would be the full damn opposite though.

"Ukrainian."

"Uh ... what?"

"She's not Russian," his boss, Frank Ingram, said. "She's Ukrainian. Or rather, her family hails from there. She was born a U.S. citizen."

"Whatever. She looks way too beautiful to be a secret agent under cover as a security consultant." On top of her classic beauty, she was tall and willowy, with an innate sensuality that piqued his desire even through pictures not intended for that purpose.

"And you look like a pro football player, but you are one of the finest minds of this century."

"I was a football player. The two are not mutually exclusive."

"Nor are beauty and deadliness. As history has shown time and time again."

Deadly was right. The dossier said that Elle Gray was not only trained in mortal hand-to-hand combat but also a weapons specialist who could throw a knife an impressive distance with an accuracy of centimeters. On top of that, she had an impressive university degree.

"She's not all brawn; she's got brains too," Beau mused.

And that made her all the more dangerous as far as he was concerned.

"Yes," the older man said with obvious approval. "A degree in chemical engineering is no small feat even for the most dedicated student."

"Which will make it that much easier for her to accurately identify our projects," Beau replied. Was he the only one who saw a problem with that?

"No doubt that's why she was assigned to this particular endeavor."

"So, why are we letting her come?" Beau asked.

"Mr. Smith believes it's the best course of action," Frank answered as if that was all that needed saying.

"Obviously, but why?" Was it a case of keeping their friends close and enemies even closer?

"Our security was compromised."

"I'm aware of that," Beau replied. After all, it had been on his project.

"Mr. Smith believes we need to take measures to be certain that doesn't happen again."

"By bringing a spook in to spy on the company?" Beau was really starting to feel like he was operating on a whole different plane from his boss and the mysterious man who had started and continued to fund Environmental Technology Research and Design.

"Cover for her real job as a TGP agent, or not, Ms. Gray is in the top of her field."

"Security was compromised by a dirty guard. How can she prevent that from happening again?" It was a question that had haunted Beau ever since plans for the antigravity project had made it into the wrong hands.

"I have no idea. Security isn't my area of expertise. However, Mr. Smith believes she will be able to do that and more. Whatever measures she deems appropriate will no doubt be an improvement on what we have now."

Beau's gaze again flicked to the pictures spread out on the desk. Was she really that good? "We had our security set up by one of the best companies in California," he felt compelled to point out, even if it made him sound a tad defensive.

"Ms. Gray is considered the best both nationally and internationally. We are lucky to get her."

"She's a federal agent."

"She's also the best of the best at security design and consultation."

Something about what Frank said before niggled at Beau until he asked, "Her agency has international jurisdiction?"

Frank steepled his fingers in a familiar gesture. "Let's just say the CIA isn't the only federal agency with their fingers in extranational pies."

Beau shook his head. "Amazing."

He wasn't surprised that the government had black ops that the average, or even not so average, citizen didn't know about. What stunned Beau was how calmly Frank and Mr. Smith apparently accepted not only their existence but also their interference at ETRD.

"Mr. Smith is quite pleased we've managed to procure Ms. Gray's services."

"So you have said, but I find that hard to believe. She's coming in to spy on us on behalf of the government." Didn't that bother Mr. Smith and/or Frank even a little?

"It's not as if she works for the FBI or the military," Frank said, with a small shudder. "She's under the aegis of The Goddard Project. Truthfully, Mr. Smith was surprised it took them this long to show a material interest in what we're doing here at ETRD."

"The Goddard Project?" What the heck was that anyway? "I've never heard of them."

"Very few have. I'm not convinced that even every president has known of their existence."

"But Mr. Smith does?"

"He knows a great deal the rest of the world is ignorant of."

"How?"

Frank shrugged. "I make it a practice not to ask that particular question and suggest you do the same."

Beau couldn't help his curiosity about the enigmatic benefactor who had started ETRD. Frank was the only employee of ETRD who had ever met with the man in person. Though Beau had spoken to Mr. Smith on the phone, even that kind of interaction was kept at a minimum.

"But you do know what The Goddard Project is?" Beau asked.

"It's a black-ops agency with a dual directive of protecting technology from falling into the wrong hands and making sure our own government does not overlook potentially beneficial scientific breakthroughs. It was started after Robert Goddard's rocketry technology was stolen by the Germans during World War Two. Technology our own government had not only ignored but dismissed as unimportant. It wasn't just the egg on our faces when we interrogated a German prisoner of war only to find out that the scientific discovery had been made initially on our own soil, but the very real threat of them utilizing it against us that convinced the powers that be at the time that we needed to take measures to make sure that kind of thing never happened again."

"As much as I may dislike it, I can understand that. But I still don't get why you and Mr. Smith see being spied on by this highly secret organization as an improvement over falling under the scrutiny of any other federal agency."

Frank straightened the papers and photos into a neat pile and closed the file. Beau had to stifle the urge to protest his loss of the sight of the supermodel-gorgeous agent.

Something must have shown on his face because Frank looked at him strangely.

"You were saying?" Beau prompted.

"TGP only steps in if it's absolutely necessary. According to Mr. Smith, they've done a lot for research and technological development over the decades since the war."

"If he's so enamored of them, why not just make a report of our projects and turn it in to TGP?" Beau asked. Then they wouldn't have to send a woman whose very picture knocked his libido right on its ass.

"If we did that, we wouldn't be getting the services of Elle Gray." Frank gave a faint smile. "And it's the principle of the thing. If they want information, they can work for it. We're not a government-funded facility, and on our side or not, we aren't giving tacit approval to their oversight by providing a work manifest."

Beau's lips twisted with distaste. "Politics."

"Unfortunately, they are a part of life."

"It's a good thing we've got you to handle them around here then. Left up to me, we'd probably end up in World War Three."

Frank chuckled. "It wouldn't be quite that bad, I'm sure."

"Don't bet on it."

The older man shook his head but said nothing.

"So, what makes me so special that I get to know the true nature of Ms. Gray's work and the other eggheads around here don't?" Beau asked.

Frank frowned, looking troubled. "We can't be sure the dirty guard was working alone."

Beau had been worried about that very thing—when he should have been sleeping. "The coincidental departure of Bigsley less than twenty-four hours after you announced a security consultant was being brought in implies he wasn't."

"Perhaps." Frank put the file away in the safe behind his desk and then locked it. "Gil Bigsley's disappearance is suspect, of course, but was it voluntary? And was it related to the leak on your project, or something else?"

"Presumably, this TGP agent will figure that out."

"I believe that is Mr. Smith's hope, yes."

"You still haven't explained why you told me the truth, only why you haven't told anyone else."

Frank's smile was warm, reflecting his role as both friend and mentor in Beau's life. "You're not under suspicion."

"But the others are?"

Frank didn't answer, but he didn't need to.

"Why aren't I?"

"I could say because you are as close to me as a son."

"Would that be the truth?"

"For me, yes."

"But it wouldn't be enough for Mr. Smith."

"No. However, the fact that if you had been conspiring with Eddie, he wouldn't have set up his partners in the north to sell plans that don't work is quite compelling."

"My honor saved by the incompetence of the criminal mind."

"Your honor was never in question with me."

"I appreciate that, Frank."

"You're a good man, Beau, and Mr. Smith knows that."

"I would have said the same for my coworkers."

"So would have I ... before. Now, we can't afford not to be cautious. Some of our projects are far too close to positive resolution for us to risk them falling into greedy hands."

"It's why we work here."

"That's definitely true for you ... and hopefully the others as well, but we have no guarantees."

"Right. So, I'm supposed to keep an eye on Elle Gray?"

"Nothing too cloak-and-dagger, but yes."

"You do realize this is all just a little more James Bond than I ever thought I'd get."

"We play the cards we are dealt."

Beau relaxed back into the plush leather chair facing his mentor's desk. "Why do I get the feeling that Mr. Smith is dealing from the bottom of the deck?"

"Do you?"

"On occasion. Speaking of cloak-and-dagger, the man keeps himself well hidden."

"And that worries you?"

"Maybe."

"Believe me when I say that if Mr. Smith is dealing from the bottom of the deck, he is only doing it for our best interests."

"Or so he says."

"He doesn't have to say it. I know it. And while you may not know Mr. Smith, you do know me. Do you trust me, Beau?"

Tension filled Beau. Trust wasn't something he easily extended to others. He'd learned that just because circumstances dictated you should be able to trust someone didn't mean you could. In fact, it was the people closest to you who were most likely to betray you. They were the ones in a position to get away with it.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Spy Who Wants Meby LUCY MONROE Copyright © 2009 by Lucy Monroe. Excerpted by permission of BRAVA BOOKS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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