Chapter One
Maddy Guthrie felt a rush of heat, but her mouth was dry as she stared into the sea-green eyes of the man standing a few feet away. He was tall and dark and dangerous. A man she’d admired for his jungle-cat reflexes, his steel-trap mind, and his tough body, honed to the physical specifications of an Olympic athlete. Only Nick Connors was no athlete. He was an ex-CIA agent she often worked with on special projects. And he was here now because she desperately needed his help. Wetting her parched lips, she said. “I don’t know you well enough to make love with you.”
“Sorry, it’s just become part of the job,” Nick Connors answered, his voice even, his piercing green gaze leaving her face to travel appraisingly over her body, then come back to her eyes. That gaze sent a shiver of reaction over her skin, reaction that was part fear and part hot anticipation, if the truth be told. Their working relationship hadn’t stopped her from conjuring up fantasies about him. Wild, erotic fantasies. But she’d never dared imagine sharing them with anyone—least of all him. Now she raised her chin. “Wait a minute. I’m the Winston Security Chief. I called you in on this assignment. That means I’m the one giving the orders.”
He gave her a small shrug. “This mission is more dangerous than anything you can imagine. If Reynard thinks we’re not really lovers, he will chop us both into little pieces and feed them to the fish in his pond.”
He made the statement a challenge, and she’d never backed away from a challenge, never wavered from a course of action once she had determined it was the right thing to do.
She knew Nick had the same courage of his convictions. Which was why he must feel duty bound to give her a jolt of reality.
He stood before her, so calm and self-contained. His arms relaxed at his sides, his stance easy. She’d seen that pose before, when he was waiting for the other guy to make the first move. On previous occasions, she’d been standing next to him. Now they were facing each other—opponents instead of allies.
No, she corrected herself. Not opponents. They were still on the same side. Only the stakes had changed dramatically.
She raised her eyes, daring to probe his secrets. Did she detect a hint of emotion below his calm exterior? Something he didn’t want her to see? She wanted him to feel something, to let her know that this step was as awkward for him as it was for her.
He didn’t give her that reassurance, so she thought about the reason she was here in this plush suite of rooms with him: A seventeen-year-old girl was in terrible trouble, and she, Maddy Guthrie, was the one responsible.
As if Nick were reading her mind, he said, “I told you to stop blaming yourself. Winston’s daughter planned her escape carefully. She laced your soft drink with a potent sleeping pill. She’d already bought a bus ticket to New York. She had a suitcase stashed in the garage. From my point of view, it looks like somebody helped her. Someone on the Winston staff.”
“Nobody would do that.”
Nick shrugged. “I think you’re wrong.”
Maddy took a steadying breath. If there was someone that misguided working here, then she had to find out who it was. But not now. At the moment, the important thing was to get Dawn back. “What matters,” she said aloud, “is that Stan Winston trusted me to guard his daughter, and she slipped away when I was supposed to be on duty.” To herself, she silently added, my first screwup in seven years.
She’d worked security at Winston Industries since the summer she was a college senior and her father had asked her to help catch an upper-level manager who was selling crucial documents to a rival. She’d caught the man red-handed photographing a cost analysis and escorted him at gunpoint to her father’s office. From that moment on, her career path had been set. She’d taken courses in criminal investigation, self-defense, covert operations. And she’d risen rapidly through the ranks of the security force. Now she ran the operation. But on this job, she needed Nick Connors’ help.
Nick had already done what she couldn’t. Through some lucky breaks, his network of paid informants, and by calling in every favor that was owed him, he had found out where Dawn was. On Orchid Island in the Caribbean, held captive by Oliver Reynard, a man who had hated Stan Winston for years. As soon as the girl had set foot in Manhattan, she’d been scooped up by some of Reynard’s men and whisked off to his island stronghold. She’d been there for five days, five days during which God knows what might have happened to her. Maddy gave an involuntary shudder and saw Nick’s expression change as he caught the slight movement of her shoulders.
Lifting her chin, she looked him square in the eye. When Nick had discovered where Dawn was being held, he’d told Maddy point-blank that the rescue operation was too risky for her to go along. She’d dug in her heels, sure of her moral and emotional obligation. She was the one responsible, and she was the one who was going to make this come out right. As soon as she got some things straight.
“Okay, I know invading Orchid Island is dangerous. I know we’ve got to play carefully scripted parts. But why do we have to … to... go all the way now?” she asked, fighting a surge of panic, thinking she sounded like a teenager being pressured in the back seat of a car on some secluded lover’s lane. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from adding, “I mean, when we get there, nobody will know what we’re doing or not doing in the privacy of our room.”
His well-shaped lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “I’m afraid you can’t count on that. If Reynard is a fanatic about anything—it’s security. There’s as likely to be a camera and recording equipment in our room as anywhere else.”
She tried to swallow around the sudden thickness in her throat.” But making videos of guests in their private rooms is … illegal … and immoral.”
“Exactly. The perfect description of Orchid Island. If you add, treacherous, perilous, insidious, and awash in overcharged sexuality, you get the whole picture. Once you go to a place like that, you surrender all semblance of privacy—and safety.”
She conceded he knew what he was talking about. After leaving the CIA, he’d started his own security business. He had access to all kinds of covert information about the island that Reynard ruled like a medieval tyrant. Enough information for them to rescue Stan Winston’s daughter, she hoped.
Nick was speaking again, his voice hard as glass. “The men who come to Orchid Island as Reynard’s guests are there for two reasons. They want to do business with him. Or they want to relax in a no-holds-barred environment. When they bring their women, they like to show them off to the rest of the guys. Dress them up for his cocktail parties in barely-there silks and expensive jewels. Outfit them in designer tee shirts and shorts for daytime. Parade them around like expensive trophies. It’s part of the cachet of being there. And we’ve got to fit the pattern Reynard is expecting. If he finds out we’re on his turf to rescue Dawn, he’ll have us killed as easily as he’d swat an insect.”
The words chilled Maddy. Intellectually she’d understood the dangers. But until a few moments ago, she hadn’t realized exactly how far Nick Connors was planning to take their charade.
His eyes narrowed as he cut into her thoughts. “You called me in to help you get onto the island. That’s the easy part. Once we’re there, your life will depend on following my lead. Or adhering to my explicit directions without question. You’d better show me you can do that—under the most difficult circumstances you can imagine. Because if you can’t, I’m going to have to find another partner who can.”
Follow his directions. Under the most difficult circumstances she could imagine.
Did that mean he was really going to insist on the ultimate intimacy between them as a condition to getting her onto Reynard’s turf? Or was he just testing her—seeing how far she was willing to go? Yes, maybe that was it. He was going to push her to the limit, then let her off the hook at the last minute. Because he couldn’t be planning to take her to bed. Not with the cold calculation he brought to his job.
Well, if testing the limits was his game, she would play it.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked, thinking that there was still time to bail out.
“I want you to come into the bedroom.”
He turned and walked through the door at his back as if there were no question in his mind that she would follow him. Pretending that her insides hadn’t turned to jelly, she did as she was told, and found herself in a room that might have been transported from one of New York City’s most opulent hotels. The Pierre or the Park Lane—places where she’d accompanied the Winston family. But this wasn’t a hotel. It was a guest suite Stan Winston maintained on the top floor of the Winston Building in midtown Manhattan. She’d been here before, doing security checks. But never had she dreamed of using one of these bedrooms for her own intimate purposes.
The room was furnished with antique chests, Chippendale-style wingback chairs, a muted Oriental rug lying on the polished wood floor. But it was the king-sized four-poster bed that caught her eye as she followed Nick into the chamber and came to an abrupt halt five feet inside the door.
He moved behind her, and she forced herself not to flinch when she heard him lock the door behind them.
He crossed to the high Victorian mantel, turning to face her, studying her with that unnerving green-eyed stare that was like a laser beam cutting all the way to her bones.
It was all she could do to keep herself from babbling then—from asking if he’d thought about who might have helped Dawn sneak away from the estate. If he knew how soon they could leave for Orchid Island. How they were going to get away once they found Dawn and freed her. But she managed to keep all those questions locked in her throat. Maybe because she knew that if she tried, her voice would come out thick and shaky. Maybe because her training and her pride wouldn’t allow her to show him her raw nerves.
She stood there with her chin tilted slightly upward and her hands at her sides.
He made her wait long, agonizing seconds before he murmured, “I think we’ll start with a striptease. Take off your skirt and blouse and pantyhose. Take them off for my pleasure; then fold them neatly and lay them on the chair over there.”
She knew this man. Had worked with him. Joked with him. Felt a deep connection between the two of them. But there was a line neither one of them had crossed—because both were sticklers for rules. And rule number one was—no dating the people you worked with. Involvement like that could confuse your objectivity, distract you from cool calculations. Make you take chances that could cost you your life. She’d told herself he’d wanted to break that ironclad rule with her. She had certainly wanted to. And suddenly here they were together in this room, breaking every rule of morality and self-preservation she’d ever set for herself. When she had dreamed of being with him, the scene in her mind had always started with an intimate candlelit dinner—at his apartment or hers. After dinner, there would be good brandy. Mood music. They might dance slowly, intimately. Finally, he would gather her to him and lower his mouth to hers for a kiss. She hadn’t expected the kiss to be tender. But she’d expected passion. She had pictured him as a bold and skillful lover. A man who would give his partner pleasure as well as take it. Now she wanted the reassurance of that kiss. Well, more than the kiss, actually. She wanted the traditional preludes to intimacy that she had imagined. “Are you going to back out?” he asked, his tone mocking her.
That was enough to firm her jaw, to firm her resolve. If he thought she couldn’t carry off this performance, he was dead wrong.
She fixed her gaze on the Renoir painting over the mantelpiece—thinking it had to be a real Renoir, since Stan Winston would have insisted on the genuine article.
And she was the genuine article, too, she told herself as she reached for the buttons at the front of her blouse. She was a trained security operative who knew every nuance of her profession. She’d played roles before. Been in tight spots. And she’d always come out the winner. Still, her fingers felt wrapped in layers of gauze as she slid the buttons open, thankful in some corner of her mind that she’d worn her peach-colored bra and panties, the ones that went so well with her blond hair and warm skin tones.
It seemed to take centuries to remove the blouse. Finally, she had it off. Because she needed to clutch onto something, she crumpled the fine material in her hands, then turned and started toward the chair in the corner of the room.
“I told you to fold it neatly,” he said, his voice hard, demanding obedience.
She blinked, looked at the tangled mess of fabric in her hands, then did as he asked, smoothing the soft silk with her fingertips, watching him from the corner of her eye, knowing he was following every tiny movement she made.
The skirt was easier. Only one button and a zipper. When she reached for the fastening, another sharp command stopped her hands.
“Turn around and face me. I don’t want to look at your tush—although it’s nice enough in its own way. I want to see your breasts jutting toward me when you reach behind you to pull the zipper.”
Her face heated as she turned, his vivid description echoing in her mind. He was right, groping behind her for the zipper thrust her breasts toward him as though she were begging for his touch. She tried not to think about how she looked, tried to keep her mind blank, as she folded the skirt on top of the blouse, then kicked off her slingback pumps and bent to roll down her pantyhose. Keeping her eyes cast downward, she laid the stockings neatly on top of the other clothing.
Then, before he could give another harsh command, she turned back to face him. Still, in her lacy bra and panties, she felt too vulnerable and exposed to look him in the eye. She didn’t need to see his gaze on her, taking in details. She felt it scorching her. And the tight points of her nipples were as embarrassing as her state of undress. God, this was turning her on. And she couldn’t hide it from him. She was almost naked, but he was still fully clothed in a crisp cotton dress shirt, a rep tie, beautifully tailored gray trousers, polished dark shoes. Only the navy blazer he’d worn earlier was missing. “Come here,” he ordered.
The ten feet of space between them had been a protective barrier. Now she had to will her legs to move as she took a tentative step toward him. Fixing her gaze on his broad chest, she crossed the room and came to stand a foot from him. She had been able to stop herself from speaking earlier. Now words of protest tumbled from her lips. “This is wrong. We shouldn’t be doing this. We don’t have to go any farther.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, you would be correct.”
“We don’t know each other.”
“We’ve worked together off and on for over two years. But there’s so much about you that I don’t know…”
“You can study a dossier on me tonight.”
“I don’t want a dossier. I want us to talk. I want this to be normal.”
She knew the moment the words were out of her mouth that they gave away her fear, her uncertainty.
“Stop delaying the inevitable. I’m not going to take the chance of bringing you to Orchid Island without having... had you.”
“Why not?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Because our lives depend on how convincing we are. Our relationship can’t come across as a journey of exploration. I’m going there to offer Reynard a smuggling deal he can’t refuse. I pulled strings and spent a lot of Winston money getting an invitation to the house party Reynard is giving in two days. He’ll be watching us carefully, making sure I’m what I’m supposed to be: a filthy-rich crook who’s brought his honey along. He and his pack of security men have to think that you and I have been lovers for months.”
“But we could have just... become intimate. I mean, why do we have to make it look like we’ve been together for months?”
“Our relationship has to be solid in every way—emotionally, sexually. You’ve got to seem important to me. Reynard has a reputation for hitting on women guests. He’s also got a reputation for being... rough when he gets them in his bedroom.”
She lifted her chin. “I can take care of myself with a man like that.”
“But then you wouldn’t be playing the role of my sweet little cookie. Which would mean you’d get us both killed. Maddy; I mean it. The penalty for messing up is death.”
The words and the sharp tone of his voice made her chest go tight. He gave her an appraising look. “If I’ve made the job sound too risky, you’re still free to back out. I can find a replacement.”
“No.”
“Then let’s get on with the audition. “She squeezed her eyes closed. For a moment, the temptation to call the whole thing off was almost overwhelming. Then she reminded herself that this was her mess. She was the one who had let Dawn Winston slip away. If there was one controlling factor in this whole episode, that was it.
“I don’t want your eyes closed like a fifteenth-century virgin bride waiting for her husband to ravish her. I want you looking at me like you’re enjoying what you’re doing. Like you want to please me.”
Her lids snapped open. She focused on his crisp white shirt, then the vertical line of his tie. Willing her hands to steadiness, she reached to the knot between the points of his collar, the slick fabric slipping under her fingers as she struggled to loosen it.
She undid the tie, leaving it dangling around his neck as she turned to the shirt buttons, her fingers as clumsy as they had been with her blouse. She could feel his warm skin through the fabric. After pushing the shirt open, her fingers skimmed the thatch of dark hair that covered his chest. He didn’t move, but she heard him draw in a sharp breath. For the first time she felt a glimmer of hope—hope that this performance wasn’t as cold and calculating as he made it seem. Feeling bolder, she continued her exploration. She had wondered about his chest. She’d known it would be broad, had wanted it spread with crisp hair. Now she winnowed her fingers through that thatch, pressing her fingertips to his warm skin. She could feel his heart beating. Fast. Fast and deep. And that accelerated heartbeat added to her sense of confidence. He might have been standing here giving her orders, taunting her. But he wasn’t indifferent to her. No, somewhere along the line, he had become involved in this scene on a very personal level.
Her fingers found his flat nipples, circling them, and he made a sharp sound in his throat, a sound that emboldened her. She fought to keep a smile off her face as she undid the buttons at his cuffs, then pushed the shirt off his shoulders, pulled each arm through its sleeve. “Do you want me to fold your shirt and tie neatly and put them with my clothing?” she asked silkily.”
“Just get to the main event,” he answered in a rough voice. “Take off the rest of my clothing so I can feel the length of your naked body pressed to mine.”
Her nerves jumped again. But she wasn’t going to stop now. Didn’t want to stop. Couldn’t stop.
Reaching toward his waist, she undid his belt buckle, then the clasp at the top of his slacks. Before she worked the zipper, she slid her hand down his fly, feeling how hard he was through the barrier of his slacks.
Again, he reacted with a sound of pleasure that it seemed he was helpless to hold back.
She wanted to say his name, wanted to tell him that she knew this performance had gone beyond the boundaries of cold necessity. She wanted to make this real.
But she kept the words locked in her throat.
She couldn’t tell him what she felt. Or what she hoped for. But as she rocked her hand against his erection, she felt heat gather in her belly.
He made a sound of protest when she moved her hand away, but he had forgotten about giving her directions as she found the zipper tab, pulled it down. Skimming her hands down his flanks, she slipped his slacks and his briefs off together.
She had him naked in seconds, standing before her, his body lean and fit, his penis hard and thick and jutting toward her. He was large, potent, male. He swore under his breath, gathered her to him, his head dipping so his mouth could capture hers—at last. She opened for him, feeling his lips, his tongue, his teeth even as his hands went to the catch of her bra and snapped it open. He swept the garment off her, then caught her breasts in his hands, kneading, stroking, circling her nipples, making them throb with pleasure.
She had imagined this. Dreamed of it. The reality was far headier. Her sex felt wet and swollen. Her brain felt ready to explode.
When he dragged her panties down, she kicked them away. He stared at her, his eyes traveling over her body, from the tight points of her nipples to the blond triangle of hair at the apex of her legs. She was thankful then for the long hours she’d spent in the gym. Long hours that had tightened her muscles, flattened her stomach, brought her to the peak of physical conditioning.
“God, you’re magnificent,” he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl. “I knew your body would be like this. Feminine curves, with underlying strength. But I always wondered if you were a natural blond,” he said thickly.
“You thought about making love with me?”
“Men think about making love with women,” he said dismissively. “It’s a natural reaction.”
He was deliberately telling her not to make more of his words than their face value when she wanted him to tell her his sexual fantasies about her had been as vivid as hers about him. But he didn’t give her the chance to speak. His hand was between her legs, testing her, stroking her with sure, knowing fingers—bringing her a jolt of pleasure that made her cry out.
She tried to read the look in his eyes. Pure male satisfaction? Or something more personal? Before she could decide, he backed her toward the bed, came down on top of her. Raising up on his elbows, he stared down into her eyes, and she would have sworn the look that passed between them was the look of long separated lovers finally together in a blazing moment of reunion.
Then he plunged into her, going deep, stretching her to the limit of her capacity.
She took him, took all of him, her hips rising even as his pressed forward. It was as if they had done this a hundred times, a thousand, moving to a remembered rhythm as he sank into her, then withdrew, each long stroke carrying her upward on a rising wave of pleasure. There was no thought of closing her eyes now. She kept them focused on his face, on the rigid planes, the taut lines. Raising her hand, she stroked the dark stubble on his cheek, caressing him, tracing the upper curve of his lips. He opened his mouth, took her finger between his lips, sucked it, then worried it between his even white teeth, while his hips moved in a rhythm that was driving her to the point of no return.
She felt him holding himself back, saw him watching her face, attending to the cues she gave him, listening to the sounds she made as his body plunged above her, in her.
And only when a hot, pulsing climax made her cry out, did he take his own satisfaction.
Afterwards Nick didn’t stay with her. He didn’t hold her and kiss her because that would give too much away.
Instead, he climbed out of the bed, scooped his clothing off the floor, and headed for the nearest shower. But he couldn’t stop himself from turning and gazing at her lying on the bed. She was looking stunned and sated and besotted.
He knew he had to wipe that expression off her face, so he said, “That was an excellent performance, but there’s still plenty of stuff to go over before our flight to Orchid Island. You can use the shower in the bathroom off the lounge. Then get dressed.”
The devastated look that flashed across her features almost sent him climbing back into bed with her—to gather her close, to stroke his lips against her silky blond hair the way he’d wanted to do all along. Instead, his fingers closed around the pair of slacks in his hands. “I’ve arranged to have dinner sent up. You’d better hurry and get dressed. You don’t want to run into the waiter in your birthday suit.”
Before he could say anything that would hurt her more deeply, he turned and bolted into the bathroom. Closing the door behind him, he stood with his back pressed against the hard wood panel, breathing hard, absorbing the enormity of what he’d just done. Then he tossed his clothing onto the dressing table and crossed to the shower.
Moments later, he was standing under the hot spray trying to wash away the wonderful smell of her skin that still clung to him. From the first moment he’d seen her two years ago, he’d wanted her, wanted her with a passion that bordered on madness. But he had never let her know that he felt anything beyond admiration for the way she did her job.
Her work was her life. That was the way her father, Spike Guthrie, had raised her. It had been an entirely satisfying life for her, until five days ago, when that stupid idiot, Dawn Winston, had drugged her and bolted from the safety of her father’s home.
As soon as Maddy had called him in and explained what had happened, he’d told her that Dawn’s disappearance wasn’t her fault. The girl had planned everything with the utmost care. She’d counted on Maddy’s friendship. But the words had rolled right off her like spring rain off a rubber slicker. Seeing the panic and the misery on her face, he’d felt duty bound to give her a chance to set things right.
Then he’d started having second thoughts. He’d warned her of the dangers. But he wasn’t sure she’d listened hard enough to that part. Just now, he’d tried to make the job so distasteful that she’d back out.
Instead she’d done every damned thing he’d asked. Including have sex with him.
No, he corrected himself. It might have started out as having sex. It had ended up as making love, because he had been helpless to do it any other way.
God, he had just fulfilled his most compelling private fantasy—making love to Maddy Guthrie. And she’d been as warm and passionate and giving as he’d always hoped she’d be.
But his old friend, Spike Guthrie, wouldn’t have seen it in those terms. Spike Guthrie would be coming after him now with a machete—if the tough-as-nails security chief had still been alive.
Spike would have hated him for this. And Maddy would hate him, too. Unless he kept this relationship where it had to be kept. Strictly impersonal. Because if he knew anything about Maddy Guthrie, she was her father’s daughter. Tough on the outside. Vulnerable on the inside. Dedicated to her job at Winston Industries and to upholding the tradition her father had established.
Still, his mind started spinning a private fantasy. Maybe after this was over, he’d be free to have her where he wanted her, in his bed—on a regular basis.
He cut off that line of thinking before it could even get started. Mentally, he’d been down that road before. Sleeping with a colleague was unacceptable. Shutting off the water, Nick stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel, already arranging his features into the set lines he knew he had to present to Maddy when he saw her next.
