Catch Me If You Can (The Mancini Way) (13 page)

“Why so ominous?”

“Am I? I thought it was adhering to a known school of thought, it's a very dangerous thing to believe everything you hear without first getting the facts for oneself."

"And what are the facts?"

"A bit personal don't you think especially after you made a point of telling me how intrusive I was the other night?"

Mancini

I watched her as she fiddled with her glass, she was even more beautiful tonight than the last time she’d sat across from me like this and it was difficult keeping the memory of her asleep in her bed at bay. I wondered as I sat there if I would be spending yet another night keeping watch over her as she slept.

"Okay Hank since that’s too personal why don’t we stick to the mundane? So how was your day Hank, did anything particularly interesting or are you over your hometown already?”

Very slick agent Stone very slick indeed; this line of questioning could only mean that her agency had gotten a whiff of something in the air, too bad they were too lax to pick up the scent.

"Not especially no, you?"

She smiled at me as she prepared to lie, out of the side of my eye I saw one of the dicks in a suit shift in his chair; what didn’t they trust their brightest and shiniest new star to handle even a simple sit down? Or was this a case of boys not wanting the girls to play on their team? Under the guise of studying my surroundings I took in their locations, I was pretty sure that I'd found them all when I first entered but you never know. I had no fear of them doing anything here and now, they had nothing on me after all and the business of the night before could in no way come back to me. The young girls that had been rescued were even now being looked after in a secure location and for some stupid fuck reason I'd asked Wilson for a much-needed vacation. The older man had been stumped to say the least, after all he's been asking me for years to take it easy but I never accepted the invitation to take some time off not until now. There was always something that needed doing somewhere, always a fire to put out. This time I decided to be selfish, I wanted to focus all my time on the woman who had drawn me out of my bed in the middle of the night. The one who refused to leave my thoughts for longer than a moment or two. I would be no use to anyone anyway if this kept up so it was best to get it out of the way; not that I planned to spend my days mooning over the beauty no, I still had my businesses to oversee, at least they weren’t a matter of life or death for some innocent soul. Besides I needed to shake up some things in a few of my places anyway. At least that’s the excuse I was giving myself.

"By the way I have some free time coming up and I would love to take you out on my boat."

I could see that threw her a little she wasn’t expecting that but I was sure the Fed in her would grab at the opportunity to get that much closer to me. Another coup for her I'm sure they’d see it as that, nothing wrong with making her look good in front of her peers, how she handled failure at the end of the day was an entirely different matter. I was caught in a very precarious position here, I wanted her, if that want went beyond a nice hard fuck remained to be seen, if it was just an itch that I needed to scratch, no problem, but if it was more than that then we had a problem. There was no doubt that she would be disappointed in her failure to catch me in her web, but how would she deal with that failure? Would it stand in the way of a future for us granted that’s what I decided I wanted after all?

"That sounds lovely, thanks for the invite." She took a sip of her wine as she watched me over the rim and just for a second I saw the woman behind the badge, the real woman and what I saw in that split second was enough to make me want to reach over the table and take her lips. Not yet Hank, she's skittish yet; suddenly my spur of the moment decision to take her out on the water seemed like the best idea in the world, a whole day spent out on the water just her and I, her peers wouldn’t be able to follow us there it would be too obvious if they followed us out to sea too close, of course there was all types of technology that would allow them to spy from afar but I had ways around that.

"Then its settled I'll pick you up around nine in the morning."

"Wait what, that soon? I thought you meant in a couple of days I might not..."

Yeah and give your people time to come up with something, some way to keep tabs on our day? Fuck no, this day wasn’t about our business this was totally personal.

"I'm sorry but it has to be tomorrow I have things lined up all week so, unless you want to cancel...?"

"No, no, tomorrow's fine, I just… I guess I can find something suitable to wear out on the water."

"What's so hard? All that’s needed is a swimsuit and maybe a wrap if we stay out late and it gets chilly."

"You’re probably right."

Wait did she have a suit? I hadn’t even thought of that, I’m sure she hadn’t planned for a day on my yacht then again maybe they were so sure of her progress that they'd planned for even that.

We enjoyed a poignant silence while the server brought our meals over; I took the time to study her more fully under the watchful eyes of the men that were scattered around the room. I wondered what they would do if anything if I reached over and kissed her? Were they here to protect her or to keep an eye on me? It pissed me off to think that if I truly was what they suspected me of that they’d send her into danger, I had no doubt they would let her get on that boat with me tomorrow because for them it was all about the end result, it didn’t matter that they could be putting her life in danger after all they saw me as a predator, yet they'd sent an innocent little lamb my way.

We exchanged bullshit small talk or more accurately we lied to each other over scampi and later tiramisu and coffee, well I had coffee the agent had tea. I was in turns fascinated and pissed at her, she had an amazing mind and when I wasn't baiting her and she relaxed her guard just a little she was sweet and funny. I was heading into dangerous territory when her tinkling laugh touched off something inside me. I wanted to… no- planned to taste those lips of hers before the night was over.

My smile at one of her references to something in the news was genuine. I too was learning to relax in her presence. As soon as I'd made up my mind where I wanted us to go it had all become so simple. I wanted her under me, the sooner the better and I was about to pull out all the stops to achieve my goal. Was it fair of me to plot her seduction, knowing what she was here for and what that would do to her rep as an Agent? Maybe not, but neither was it fair of her to come into my life to deceive, and entrap me with her beauty. Hopefully once the dust had settled we'd both have licked our wounds and were able to move on.

Tonight I was allowed to walk her to her car, which turned out to be a town car service.

"It doesn’t make sense to drive in the city when everything is right there." That was her explanation, which I let slide as it made sense though I was well aware she had a rental in the parking garage not far from the brownstone.

I kissed her lips softly just a peck and felt the halting of her breath before pulling away slightly to look into her eyes. I couldn’t resist running a finger gently down her soft cheek.

“So soft." I hadn’t meant to say the words out loud and I for sure hadn’t meant for her to hear the need in my voice.

'I'll pick you up in the morning, sleep tight beauty."

“Good night Hank." Was that a hint of sadness I heard in her voice, maybe just a little remorse for her deception of me? Or sadness at the evening coming to an end.

I walked away with the sure knowledge that I was going to once again be standing over her bed in the dead of night.

"Fucking sap." I hadn’t even kissed her yet and already she had her hooks into me.

Chapter 14

Cierra

I woke up with that same feeling again, the feeling that Hank had been here in my room. I couldn’t explain it to myself but it was an overpowering feeling I relived that moment from the night before when he'd ran his finger down my cheek, the look in his eyes as he did it. If I didn’t know better I would swear he actually felt something there for that space in time, what that something was I don’t know. I had to get up and get moving, nine o'clock will be here any minute and I still had yet to give Durant my report, I'm sure the others had probably given him their surveillance tapes and our recorded conversations and he was probably even now chomping at the bit to give me instructions on how to use my new in to draw Hank even farther into the web I was setting for him. The more time I spent in his presence though the more convinced I became that we were barking up the wrong tree. He just didn’t fit the type and since I was now considered the brightest new star in the profiling stakes I would think they would take my word for it but somehow I didn’t think so, someone high up in the agency had made it their mission in life to destroy this man and they were willing to use the agency to do it, did I want to piss this person off so early in the game with just a hunch going with just my gut, or do I play the game and see where it takes me?

My conversation with Durant was short and straight to the point. He didn’t quite come right out and tell me to crawl into Hank’s bed if that’s what it took but the implications were there. I didn’t have time to dwell on that though as Hank would be here soon so I got up and got myself ready with butterflies in my stomach. "It's not a date Cierra, this is your job, this guy could be one of the biggest criminals in the world why do you have to get all moony eyed and girl stupid over him?" Of all the men over the years that had come into my line of vision why did my libido have to choose him? And since I have no real experience with this nonsense how the hell was I supposed to deal with it? I couldn’t call up Gracie who was the only real female friend I had which was sad considering I'd only met her in the last year. I’d gone twenty three years of life pretty much alone, I hadn’t accumulated a lot of friends and acquaintances as I’d been too driven, too focused on one thing for much of anything else. My foster family was about the closest thing to that and we weren’t that close, not because the Taylors were horrible to me or anything like that, it’s just that by the time I’d been placed with them after two years in the system I'd already built up my shell. I'd started from the day I watched my family being buried and hadn’t stopped ever since. They'd been kind enough, an older couple Michele and Don who couldn't have children of their own, they’d seen that I was fed and had clean clothes and a roof over my head but I'd rebuffed every attempt of theirs to get close. I'd already had a family and lost them I didn’t need another one; besides I had a job to do and no one else played a part in that.

I chose a white one piece French cut bikini with a light blue silk wrap for later and covered it with capris and a light cotton button down, I slipped my feet into a pair of flats and hoped like hell they were good enough since I hadn’t come prepared with boat shoes.

By the time my doorbell rang I was a nervous wreck.

“Hel..." I didn’t get the word out because the man standing at the door looked me up and down and then forced me back inside.

Before I could ask him just what he thought he was doing, I found myself pushed against the wall and his mouth was covering mine. I think my mind left my body. Clichéd, I know, but true all the same. He consumed me, there was no other word for it, his tongue was in my mouth and then it wasn’t and he was drawing mine out, his hands, merciful heavens his big strong hands, one was in my back pulling me closer while the other held my cheek in place while he plundered. I think I remembered how to breathe but vaguely, there was a storm brewing inside my body one that I had no control over. He didn’t kiss me, I don’t think this is what I remember a kiss to be, no, this was more like a devouring. When he was through making me long for more he took soft little nibbles of my lips that were just as potent as the heated kiss had been.

"Fuck.”

"I'm sorry?" His harsh expletive brought me back from the dream world, he didn’t answer just studied me curiously as if trying to find the answer to something. His hand came up again and he rubbed my cheek with his thumb.

'You’re proving to be very dangerous little beauty."

"What, what does that mean?" My heart was beating out of time, had he somehow figured out what was going on was he onto me?

“Leave it for now baby, you ready?"

I nodded my head stupefied a man had just called me baby and he was still upright, what the hell had happened to me since coming to this city? No not the city, since sitting across the table from this enigmatic man.

All the way to the pier where his boat was docked I was on pins and needles but who could blame me? That kiss was… something, I could still feel the sensation of his lips on mine, his tongue, oh boy. Maybe I should've paid more attention in the past because I had no idea how to swim in these waters. As if I wasn't confused enough as it was that kiss just threw me into even more dangerous territory and what did he mean by that crack anyway how was I a danger to him?

"Why so quiet beauty?"

I turned to look at him from my seat in his high powered sports car, some European number that it would take me two lifetimes to be able to afford no doubt, the man did like his toys.

"Just trying to figure out what you meant earlier when you said I was a danger."

“I told you to leave it alone yeah? It’s noting for you to worry about."

"That’s easier said than done, now I’ll be worried about it all day so why not just tell me?"

"Soon, I promise for now let's just enjoy the day ahead, I hope you like seafood I packed us a lunch." He smoothly changed the subject.

"I love it thanks."

"So did you find another venue for your party as yet? I can ask around for you if you'd like."

Was it my imagination or did he say that kind of tongue in cheek?

"I’m still looking thanks but not to worry I’m sure I’ll find something soon."

"Let me know if I can help you out if things don’t work out the way you want."