Her Perfect Mate (4 page)

Landon hoped it wasn’t the same something that told John he’d be okay with killing his partner. He’d

never failed at anything and he wasn’t about to start now, even if he didn’t want to be here.

Kendra smiled. “Come on. Todd and I will introduce you to your partner.”

It was about time. Landon gestured toward the door. “Lead the way.”

Landon expected Todd and Kendra to take him to another conference room, so he was surprised when

they led him into what looked like a workout room. Mats covered the floor and a heavy bag hung from a

hook in one corner. Weights and workout equipment filled a good portion of the room. A woman was

seated cross-legged in the center of it, her eyes closed, her hands loosely resting on her knees. At their

entrance, she gracefully uncurled herself from the floor and got to her feet.

She was wearing a pair of black workout pants like his ex-girlfriend used to wear when she went to

yoga class, and a form-fitting tank top. He couldn’t help but notice her curvy, athletic body, expressive dark

eyes, and full lips. With little makeup and her long, dark hair pulled up in a ponytail, she looked like the girl

next door. Only more exotic than any girl he’d ever lived next door to, that was for sure.

He didn’t care how tired and irritated he was, this was a woman he definitely wouldn’t mind stopping to

appreciate. Hopefully, one of his new training officers would introduce them before she left to give them

the room.

“Landon, meet Ivy Halliwell, your new partner,” Kendra said. “Ivy, Captain Landon Donovan, Special

Forces.”

They were going to have to pick his jaw up off the floor because Landon was damn sure that’s where it

was after hearing that announcement. No way this walking wet dream was his partner. She looked like she

couldn’t hurt a fly, much less do any kind of covert ops. They had to be messing with him.

“Your first mission is to put her on her ass,” Todd said.

He’d had some big what-the-hell moments in his life—most of them within the past twenty-four hours

—but this had to be the biggest.

Landon narrowed his eyes at the man. “Excuse me?”

“Take her down.”

Was this guy serious? This was his new partner and they wanted him to kick her ass? Ivy was about half

his size and looked like she should be walking down a fashion runway somewhere, not trading blows with

a trained combat killer.

Landon shook his head. “Forget it. I’m not going to take a swing at her, much less put her on her ass.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “You want entertainment? Maybe I should put you on your ass.”

Kendra must have thought that was funny because she hid a smile behind her clipboard.

Ivy wasn’t so subtle. She laughed outright. And damn if it didn’t have a sexy sound to it.

“That’s chivalrous of you, Donovan,” she said. “You putting Todd on his ass is something I’d like to

see, but he isn’t going to let us leave this room until you learn the lesson you’re here to learn. So, let’s get

this over with.”

She didn’t wait for a reply, but instead slowly circled around Landon on her bare feet. He instinctively

turned to follow her. She moved with the sure-footed grace of a cat, making him think she was probably

well-trained in one or more martial arts.

“Well?” she demanded.

He assessed her stance. “You’re not ready.”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “Tell you what. I’ll make it easier on you. I’ll hit you first. How’s that sound?”

“That implies I’d let you hit me.”

She shrugged her slim shoulders. “Oh, I’ll hit you all right.”

He laughed, but the sound was cut short as she twisted in a blur and her leg came around in a spinning

heel kick that would have taken off his head if he hadn’t backed away just in time.

“Shit,” he muttered. He was way too tired for this crap. “Stop screwing around, okay? That kick would

have done some damage if you landed it.”

Ivy didn’t heed his warning, though. Instead, she immediately followed up with the same kind of a

kick, this time in the other direction. Landon quickly backpedaled to avoid her foot, only to smack against

the wall. He dropped to one knee, instinctively thrusting out with his hands to both knock her away from

him and put some space between them. But instead of falling back, she moved out of the way, avoiding his

hands. For a moment he didn’t realize what she’d done. Then it struck him.

She’d darted sideways while she was in mid-kick. That shouldn’t even be physically possible.

Ivy landed lightly on her feet, a smile curving her lips. “I knew I could get you to take a shot at me,

even if it was lame. Then again, I didn’t expect much from another oversized grunt like you. I don’t know

why they keep pairing me up with guys like you all the time. Can’t they find anyone with a brain?”

Landon rose from his crouch and moved to the center of the room. When she came at him again, he

didn’t want a wall getting in his way. “Guys like me? You’re trying to insult me now? Think that’s going to

get me to take a punch at you? What are you, a masochist?”

Her smile broadened. “I already got you to do that. And I’d only be a masochist if you ever got your

hands on me.”

He snorted. “Lady, that wasn’t a punch. You’d know it if I wanted to hit you.”

“All talk and no action,” she scoffed. “Isn’t that the Special Forces motto or something?”

Landon knew what she was trying to do and it wasn’t going to work. She must have figured it out, too.

She gave up on the verbal jabs and resorted to real ones, coupled with those damn spinning roundhouse

kicks again.

He stripped off his camo overshirt and threw it across the room, so he could get down to serious

business.

He blocked most of her strikes with his hands and the others with his shoulders, biceps, and thighs. He

sure as hell felt them, but he got the feeling she wasn’t hitting him nearly as hard as she could.

His plan was to lure her in close enough to get his hands on her. That way, he could put her down

without being forced to throw a serious punch. She might be agile as hell, but if he connected with anything

real, he’d break something. His best bet was to get his hands on her and pin her to the floor so he could end

this stupid game.

That was easier than it sounded. Ivy was faster than lightning and could twist her body into a pretzel to

get out of his grasp. He had her in a perfect jujitsu take-down position several times only to have her spoil it

by not going down like she should have. He even planted his knee in her stomach and yanked her

backward with him in a throw that should have landed her hard on her back, groaning in pain. Instead, she

turned the move into some kind of gymnastic flip and came down as softly on her feet as if she stepped off

a street curb.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two training officers taking notes as they watched. Kendra was

actually smiling. Landon clenched his jaw. What a couple of asses.

On the other side of the room, Ivy spun around to face him. Eyes narrowing, she ran directly toward

him. He automatically braced himself for another blow, but at the last second she darted to her right,

jumping at the wall and rebounding off it like she was an extra in some Jackie Chan movie, then ricocheting

back at him, her right leg coming around in a roundhouse kick.

Instead of getting out of the way like any sane person would have, he moved closer, getting underneath

her swinging leg and grabbing her shoulders. He avoided her foot, but ended up taking a knee to the left

side of his rib cage. It hurt, but it got him inside her defenses. He was going to get a grip on her, and this

time she wasn’t going to get away.

That’s when he realized her kick had only been a distraction. He’d been so busy watching her feet he

hadn’t even noticed her open hand coming toward him. He did a double take. She was going to
slap
him?

His mind registered surprise for half a millisecond before her hand angled down to sweep across the front

of his T-shirt.

Landon felt the fabric tug and swore he heard a ripping sound. He even felt a sting. But he ignored it.

Tightening his grip on her shoulders, he spun them both around, letting the momentum from her rebound

take them down to the floor.

He twisted at the last second, taking the impact of the floor on his right shoulder before yanking her to

his chest in a bear hug. If he’d been trying to kill her, he would have crushed a hell of a lot harder. Instead

he squeezed just enough to let her know he could hurt her if he wanted to.

They came to a stop with him on his back, Ivy pinned to his chest. She didn’t fight him, simply laid

there with her face close to his neck, breathing deeply. Landon couldn’t help but notice how soft her body

was against his, and how nice it felt to have her on top of him.

His cock noticed, too.

Shit
. This was going to be embarrassing.

“Okay, you two,” Todd said. “I think we’ve gotten everything out of this demonstration I intended.”

It took a moment for the words to register—probably because all the blood had left his head to rush to

another part of his anatomy. Landon reluctantly loosened his hold on Ivy. He waited for her to get up, but

she stayed firmly planted on top of him, which alarmed him. He thought she would have jumped up the

moment he released her. God, he hoped he hadn’t hurt her with that take down.

He gently tilted her chin up with his fingers. “Hey. You okay?”

Ivy blinked at him, her beautiful eyes filled with something that looked almost like wonder. Then she

gave herself a little shake. “I-I’m good. You?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Good.”

She gazed at him for a moment longer, then quickly pushed to her feet. She crossed the room to slip on

a pair of flip-flops she had left there. When she turned back to him, her face was the perfect mask of

composure he’d seen when he first walked in.

“No hard feelings, I hope?” she said as he stood. “That’s just the way the DCO likes to introduce me to

my new partners. I don’t know why.”

He knew why. The DCO realized the fastest way to get a man to appreciate the talents of his female

partner was to have her kick his ass. At least she hadn’t done it to him.

“Not at all,” he said. “I suppose we can call this match a tie.”

Her lips curved. “You think so?”

Reaching out, she flicked his shirt with her fingers, then turned and walked away.

Remembering the bizarre open-handed swipe she’d given him across the chest, he looked down to see

four diagonal tears in his T-shirt. He pushed the material aside, frowning when he found four identical

scratches on his chest. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he got scratched by a cat—a big cat. They

weren’t deep or bleeding, but there was no mistaking what had made them—fingernails. Ivy’s fingernails.

Not exactly standard-issue hand-to-hand combat technique. He got the feeling nothing about this place

was standard issue. Especially his new partner.

Landon scooped up his camo overshirt and walked over to where Ivy was talking to the two training

officers. Her face was still flushed from their wrestling match, but if it wasn’t for that, he’d never know

they’d been rolling around on the floor a few minutes ago. She was back to being the girl next door again.

And when she looked like that, there wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t underestimate her. Given that, it was

okay to cut himself some slack for doing the same thing.

“There’s some administrative paperwork we need to take care of before you leave, Landon, but then

you can take off early,” Todd said.

Landon would have preferred to have a long conversation with his new partner about her fighting

technique than do mounds of paperwork, but he silently followed the two training officers back to the

conference room. One thing was for sure. He’d be smart not to take anything, including Ivy, for granted

until he learned more about the DCO and what his part in it was going to be.

Chapter 2

Ivy hated that they’d paired her up with another combat killer. She thought they would have learned

from that mistake after the debacles with her two previous partners—both of whom had been military. But

the DCO seemed so enamored with the training military guys brought to the table that they simply didn’t

understand why these guys couldn’t work with a woman like her.

It was true Landon hadn’t tried to humiliate her like some of the others had, but she wasn’t holding her

breath that the chivalrous treatment would last long.

Ivy adjusted her crossbody shoulder bag as she stepped off the Metro at Pentagon City and fell in with

the rest of the people making a mad dash for the escalators. Outside the station, she turned right and headed

toward the grocery store where she regularly stopped on her way home.

She grabbed a cart and wandered through the aisles, letting her mind do some wandering of its own—

right to Jeff Peters, Navy officer and her first partner at the DCO. For about the first year, she and Jeff had