A Breath Away. Wendy Etherington

hummed from the feel of his fingers. Men—especially male clients—didn’t overwhelm her. They didn’t affect her personally.

      He braced his hands at her waist. “We could continue what we started.”

      To her surprise, Jade was tempted. She held nearly everyone at a distance, so she rarely took the time to indulge in sex. She was definitely aware of the hard ridge of male flesh pressed intimately between her legs. She already knew his hands promised magic.

      Their physical attraction was as obvious in the room as the bed they were lying on. Her stomach fluttered with need. Her fingers tingled. All she had to do was lean down, press her lips to his…

      “Bad idea,” she said, jerking back.

      As she climbed off him, his eyes darkened with seemingly genuine regret. “Perhaps another time.”

      She didn’t comment and glanced at the clock on the bedside table: 4:00 a.m. It was time to get back to business. “You want to tell me who shot you and why?”

      “If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you, would I?”

      “Why do you need me? Why don’t you trot back to Washington and let the NSA deal with this?”

      He rolled off the bed and gained his feet with a grace that she was certain had gotten him through more than one second-story window undetected and unscathed. “I’ll tell you everything over coffee.”

      Somehow I doubt that.

      Watching him stride from the room, Jade’s gaze slid down his lean body, covered in tailored black pants and a black ribbed turtleneck, and wondered if he’d really given up his former profession.

      How many people had he made a fool of in his murky past? How many beds had he crawled into? Was his present just as devious? She knew that less than half of the rumors about her were accurate. Was it the same for him? What was his real story?

      He intrigued her more than was wise. In her line of work, she had to maintain a professional distance in order to serve her clients well. In her private life, space was just as welcome. But the moments of personal intimacy she’d just shared with Tremaine already had her thinking of him as something more than a client, and she couldn’t quite shake the lingering tremors of desire.

      Not good. Not good at all.

      Was she really crazy enough to help him?

      Apparently, since she sighed and stalked after him.

      She did, however, double-check to be sure her ammunition clip was fully loaded first.

      2

      REMY EYED JADE “The Arrow” Broussard over the rim of his coffee mug and again marveled that the hard, determined woman now pacing in front of him had been melting in his arms only moments earlier, her fiery hair tangled around his fingers, her voice husky with sleep.

      He wondered if she knew as much about him as he did about her. He wondered if her nickname was well-earned. Because of her deadly sharp shooting skills and her tendency to be a rule-follower—at least by the slippery NSA standards—he’d been as surprised as anybody when she’d suddenly resigned two years ago to follow her partner, Frank Williams, into the private sector. Remy reflected on the way she’d leaned into his touch. She’d relaxed quite a bit since leaving government work.

      A handy convenience for him.

      “I don’t appreciate you dragging my cousin into this,” she said when she finally stopped pacing, planting her hands on her hips and glaring at him.

      “I needed protection. I asked a trusted advisor for guidance.”

      “One who just happens to be my cousin. You had to know.”

      He’d known. His friendship with Lucas had just been a happy by-product of his deep-seated need to find out more about the lady currently scowling at him.

      In fact, he could admit—at least to himself—that he had a miniobsession when it came to Jade Broussard. Ever since he’d seen the first NSA case file involving her, he’d researched her, wondered about her and even sought out her cousin in the hopes of someday meeting her.

      After last night’s shooting, she seemed the obvious choice to help him solve a lifelong mystery. She’d single-mindedly gotten revenge for her family. Maybe she could do the same for him.

      “I certainly check out all my advisors before taking them on,” he said finally.

      “Do you ever give anybody a straight answer?”

      He smiled faintly. “Not if I can help it.” Just for the thrill, he let his gaze slide down her body, which was surprisingly curvy for such a fierce and serious woman. “Surely, it’s the same for you.”

      “Very few people ask me questions,” she said.

      “Too intimidated?”

      “I imagine.”

      “You’ll have a hard time affecting me the same way, Jade.”

      Her shoulders jerked at his use of her first name. She clearly didn’t like the intimacy. She liked their attraction even less.

      Ironically, he relished her presence.

      After talking himself out of contacting her for so long—deciding she wouldn’t want anything to do with a former thief—having her close was an interesting kind of torture.

      She would never understand what had driven him to his former life. Yet, despite the philosophical distance between them, his blood sizzled hotter every minute they were together. He had to curl his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her.

      He’d snuck into her bed to rattle her, to see if the effect she had on him from a distance would strengthen when they touched. But even he hadn’t anticipated being knocked so far off balance. He hadn’t expected the temptation to be so strong.

      “I want some answers from you, Tremaine,” she said as she resumed pacing. “I want them now and I want them straight, or I’m dumping you and going back home.”

      “No compassion for an old colleague?”

      “No.”

      “I was shot, you know.”

      “Whoopee. Been there myself a few times.”

      Though he’d known this, he raised his eyebrows. “Who got the jump on you?”

      “An electronics thief who wanted to turn Miami Beach into his own personal illegal superstore for assorted bad guys. Still have the scar on my upper thigh.”

      That would have been Romildo Ramirez. “And how did he make out?”

      Her gaze raked him. “Not as well as you obviously did.”

      “Just a scratch for me, I’ll admit. But still a rather rude end to a lovely dinner.”

      “Who’d want to shoot you over dinner?”

      “That’s what I want you to find out.”

      “Dinner with whom? About what?”

      All business, this one. Something else he’d known—a quality that was good for his case, though maybe not for his libido. “Is there any chance of you calling me Remy?”

      Her vivid green eyes flashed. “No.”

      “We’re going to be pretty…intimate over the next couple of weeks.”

      “We’re going to be close professionally. Close and intimate are two different things. Dinner—who and what?”

      She didn’t trust him at all. Smart woman. “I was having dinner with a female friend. A personal female friend,” he clarified, though he was sure she’d figured that already. “She enjoys my taste in wine and new restaurants. My interest in art, frankly, baffles her, but then we don’t often go