Catch Me If You Can (The Mancini Way) (8 page)

"I'm extremely attracted to you." There it goes again that little telltale sign that I was getting to her, it showed in the quick inhalation of breath and the pulse in her neck that went suddenly into overdrive.

"That's rather blunt don't you think?"

"Like I said I treasure honesty and straightforwardness in others so how can I give less of myself? That blush is very becoming by the way and very rare if not refreshing." It's going to be a joy to explore just how deep that innocence ran; I can’t wait to feel the heat of that blush under my tongue.

"Well thank you for the compliment but I'm sure you've said that to plenty of women before."

"Not those exact words no, may I speak frankly?"

"I thought you already were." She smiled a little uneasily at me.

"I like women, some more than others; I like the way they look, smell, taste but I don't fuck every woman I like and I don't necessarily like everywoman I fuck, you I'd love to fuck."

"Are you trying to shock me or is this your usual style? And if it is let me just say it leaves much to be desired."

There's that fire; you want to spit in my eye don't you beauty? No worries by the time we're through with each other you'll be begging me to mount you. I guarantee it.

"So you don't like the direct approach; I take it you prefer the game playing, beating around the bush, doing the dance?"

"I prefer not to be treated like an object..."

"I would think being told you're highly desirable would be taken as a complement."

"But that's not quite what you said now is it?"

"I thought it was I just said it in a more upfront way, my intentions are on the table so there's no guessing involved you know exactly where I want this little encounter to go it's up to you if you bite or not." Hopefully the day will come when she'd forgive me for treating her so crassly but I have to admit to being just a little pissed that she was sitting across from me dreaming up ways to trap me. Cat and mouse games aside, what she was doing was deceitful job or not; at least that's how I see it, these people were mad as fuck that they couldn't catch me by using legal channels so they've resorted to immoral tactics like entrapment. I find their dealings sometimes no better than the criminals I fought so hard to bring down. That's why I refuse to work with certain organizations, why I shunned them, because of their unethical practices. Like this young woman they'd sent into my lair, the lion's den if you will with only her body and her wiles; they can spout all that bullshit about her mind but the bottom line is they're using her body, the whole package to lure me in like I'm some green boy. As if I'm some incompetent fuck to be led by my dick. I wouldn’t be surprised if they expected her to fuck me if it came to that to achieve their goals, the question is was she willing to sacrifice herself for them?

She wants to play the game let her deal with the embarrassing questions; she already thinks I'm the lowest form of life there is, preying on innocent children so why should my less than stellar approach be such a surprise?

Now I've placed her in a dilemma; if she got up and stormed off that would end our acquaintance and she wouldn't gain anything; game, set, match; but if she stayed she ran the risk of giving me the impression that she was interested. I do have to give her points for keeping a cool head though, there were a few moments there when I was sure she wanted to throw her drink in my face.

Denise came back with the appetizer platter and a new glass for Cierra, it hadn't escaped my notice that she seemed a little out of sorts I'll have to have a word with her about her attitude around the customers. Cierra didn't seem too impressed by her either as I noticed a slight change in her body language.

"So what's it going to be?" I questioned as soon as we were alone again.

She took a deep swallow before lifting her eyes to mine; my gut clenched, there was definitely something going on behind those eyes of hers but even more than that was the pull I'd felt from the first moment I laid eyes on her photograph. She had something in her that pulled at the heart of me and regardless of the reasons for her being here I’m not going to stop until I'd explored all the possibilities. Let’s hope we both made it out unscathed.

"I'm not sure how to answer your question I don't think I've ever been put in such a position before."

"What you're not accustomed to dealing with straightforward people? I find that hard to believe in this day and age with the way the world is moving."

"Straightforward is one thing Mr. Mancini I'm not sure that that's the word I'd use to describe what you are."

"Fair enough, you can of course choose to get up and walk away but then we’d never know what might’ve been would we?" She made me smile, all that banked fire just screaming to be released. Once the facade has been dropped and the pretense out of the way I'm going to revel in that fire in fact I'm looking forward to being singed by it.

Cierra

This isn't going at all the way I’d expected it to, I'm not some impressionable schoolgirl to be taken in by a pretty face or to be swayed by a suave tongue; but I must admit that he has something. There's a quality about him that pulls at you, draws you in, that to the point no bullshit what you see is what you get attitude. Maybe that's how he's been able to elude the authorities all this time maybe his charm and charismatic personality leads others to look the other way; turn a blind eye to his true nature because as to date we have yet to find anyone who's willing to point a finger at this man; well except for a few of his bevy of ex-flings but their testimonies were so transparent even a first string law intern could destroy it in a court of law.

My inclination is to get up and walk away but what would I achieve? I'd have to engineer another chance meeting in the near future and that just smacked of desperation. The one thing Hank Mancini isn't is stupid, I have no doubt he'd see through anything I came up with; so I was left with only one choice; capitulation. I gritted my teeth as I thought of the best way to give in without seeming to be, if I stayed there’s no doubt that he’d think I was interested in what he was offering; which has no place here Cierra you’re doing your job remember? It doesn’t matter what he thinks; but it did. I cleared my throat and faced him head on, I’m sure the heat in my face was rather obvious but there was nothing for it unless I decided to hide behind my hair until I settled down again. I chose an olive from the tray the disgruntled server had brought with our drinks and popped it into my mouth to stall for time, didn’t want to seem too eager after practically calling him a pig. I’ll have to watch that in the future if he insisted on being this way, so…disarming.

Mancini

I'm just a little disappointed that she's giving in so easily she hasn't said anything as yet but her body language and that look in her eyes are enough of a giveaway. I'm sure her superiors have instructed her to take any and all necessary steps to get close to me but how far am I willing to let this go? How far is she? The fact that I wanted her changed things; this is the first time in a long time that they've tried to get someone this close to me; sometimes it'll be a plant in one of my places but most of the time they had me under a microscope; that's when they had me under twenty four hour surveillance. This was a new tactic though and I hope she finds it just a little unsettling that they were all but prostituting her to serve their own purposes.

"Well, you still haven't answered my question Cierra, what's it going to be?"

"Is this how you usually pick up women, what if I'm not interested?"

"Are you?" I watched her squirm in her seat as she kept eye contact; the longer this went on the less guilt I felt for treating her this way. It didn't enter my mind that I was being just a tad bit irrational, after all she didn't know me outside of what she'd read in some files and even then what she knows is half-truths; but somehow it irritated the fuck out of me that she was here for this purpose; that she was making me fall for her when to her I was just a job. Of course she didn't know that I knew who she was; that led me to ponder how different things might've been if we'd met under less deceitful circumstances; Just a man and a beautiful woman.

"Why don't we just play it by ear Mr. Mancini?"

"Hank, I'd like you to call me Hank."

"Fine, Hank why don't we take it slow? I'm not interested in rushing into anything and anyway a man like you should be more careful about picking up strange women.”

“A man like me?"

"You know, wealthy, single, you are single aren't you?"

"I wouldn't be propositioning you if I weren't."

"I'll take your word for it, so what do you say we take things at my pace?"

I watched her pretty much the way I imagined a predator watches the prey that he’s trapped; we were playing two separate games here or at least I was. One was to best the secret agent at every turn, and the other was to lure the woman into my bed. I’ve never been one for easy task.

"That's not gonna work; I'll agree to taking things a little slow for now but it'll be at our pace that's only fair after all it involves both of us."

"Yes but you're the one who wants something from me."

"And if you didn't want something from me you'd be long gone." Touch that Ms. Stone.

“Though I find you rather brash I must admit to being slightly intrigued so I guess I’ll keep you company a little while longer.”

I bet that took a lot for you to admit.

Chapter 9

Cierra

He didn’t seem too surprised by my answer. Cocky bastard! He just smiled at me and took another sip of his drink. I snagged another olive from the platter more for something to do with my hands than anything else while he watched me over the lip of his snifter. No wonder he had such a reputation with women if he treated them all to his brand of potency. Even knowing what I knew of him or what was suspected in any case, I still find myself inexplicably drawn to his magnetism. He was without a doubt the most gorgeous human being I’d ever met and there was no doubt that had I been that girl in another time I might have indulged my stupid girl heart but there was no way. I had a job to do and if I did it well the man sitting across from me will be sitting in a jail cell for a long long time.

“That’s big of you Cierra, so tell me something nonthreatening about yourself since my questions seem to bother you so much.”

“There’s not much to tell. I’m new here from a small town in Georgia.”

“Where in Georgia?”

“Why? I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.” And for a man of your resources I’m sure it wouldn’t take you long to unravel the truth if you went looking.

“You’d be surprised at what I know, try me.”

Shit, we’d come up with a fictitious place of course but somehow I didn’t trust this, somehow I just knew he’d go looking.

“It’s a little place called Blythe.”

“You’re right, never heard of it.”

We talked for the next few hours about inconsequential things and I began to relax a little. Once he stopped with the panty dropping innuendos, Hank Mancini was a very intelligent and quite enigmatic man; a very dangerous combination given the circumstances.

Mancini

We ended the night with the understanding that we'd take the time to get to know each other and see if there was anything there to explore. It was a bone for her no doubt, I'm sure she was thinking she’d survived her first face-to-face with the monster and though she hadn't learned anything incriminating she'd found an in; one I’d given her because obviously I'd lost my fucking mind. Sniffing around a damn federal agent. Way to go Mancini she'll probably end up fucking you in more ways than one.

I watched her walk away after rejecting my offer to at least see her to her car; special agent Stone has a first class ass.

Cierra

I spent the next day going over everything I knew about Hank Mancini when I wasn’t replaying the events of the night before over and over again in my head. I still couldn't shake the feeling that we were missing something; I couldn't reconcile the straightforward plain speaking sex symbol of the night before with the child trafficking criminal we'd been after for a decade. Maybe it's because the others who came after him before were men, that's why they missed it or it could be that as a woman I looked at things a little differently; hopefully it had nothing to do with my disgusting and unprofessional attraction to him. It's as well that I wouldn't be giving my report face-to-face or the blush that I was sure covered my face at just the thought of him would be a dead giveaway. I was due to call Director Durant for a briefing in a few minutes and the truth is I have nothing; at least nothing new to add except my suspicions that we were on the wrong track somehow and it was too soon to go there. I couldn't very well tell my superior that I found myself drawn to a suspect for the first time in my short career and I somehow couldn't see him doing the things we thought him guilty of.

I stared at the picture I'd taken with my butterfly pin last night; my heart did that funny little thing it seems to do only for him which is becoming a little worrisome for me. I can't do my job effectively if I'm sidetracked by this unwanted attraction. Wouldn't it be just great if I lost all credibility my first time out in the field because I couldn't see pass his handsome face and winning ways?

"Who are you really Hank Mancini and why can't I get you out of my head?"

Chapter 10

Mancini

“The fuck?" I awoke from a deep sleep where I'd been caught in a dream of twists and turns; she was in turn chasing me and running away, enticing me with her beauty. Each time I drew near she evaded my touch laughing all the while until I finally brought her down in the garden of all places. That's when I woke up just when things were about to get interesting.

A cold shower was in order but that'll have to come after I had done some more research on the woman who'd invaded my dreams. If she was going to follow me even into the dream world I'd better get a better handle on her.