Over the Line (23 page)

“What are you doing here?” Briefly she wondered if she was hallucinating, or dreaming. But no. He leaned in and kissed her cheek and she could smell his skin, all soapy musk. Definitely not an apparition. Her heart rate made a definite uptick.

“I could say the same of you. I was literally thinking about you as I arrived here, and an hour later, here you are. It’s like I picked up a genie on my travels.”

“I don’t understand…” Harry shook her head, almost in a daze.

He took a swallow of his beer. “I want to make a comment about all the gin joints in all the world, but I guess I stumbled into yours, not the other way around.”

Harry bit back a smile. “You know you didn’t have to come here. If you’d wanted to take me out for a drink you could have just asked.”

“But this is so much more fun than just asking Simon for your number, isn’t it.” Crazy. Surely this was too much of a coincidence.

“Seriously, what do you do that would bring you here?” she asked, still wondering about being asleep, or dreaming… or hallucinating, come to that.

He looked serious for a second. “I can’t really tell you.” He looked at her as if he were trying to gauge her reaction to his non-response.

“Do you work for the government?” She frowned, trying to make sense of the whole situation. “Wait. You must do something like that. Didn’t you help with the attack at Sadie and Simon’s aborted wedding? I was stuck in the bathroom most of the time, but I think I heard… that
was
you, wasn’t it?” Sadie and Simon’s wedding, the day after the rehearsal dinner where they’d met, hadn’t exactly gone off smoothly. In the end it didn’t happen at all. Armed gunmen had stormed the house and that kind of put an end to any thoughts of a romantic wedding. Not to mention the bride’s brother had been shot.

“Funny.” He nodded slowly, taking a deliberate pause. “I was there, all right. Just in time to see you running off with the brother of the bride.”

Urgh. She cringed. “Yes. That wasn’t my finest moment. It really wasn’t what it looked like.”

“So you weren’t completely devastated at the thought that you might lose him?”

She paused. “I wasn’t devastated. James being shot… shocked me. But I realize now that it was just that: shock. I thought it was something else, but it wasn’t.” Hell. She looked at her glass.
In vino veritas
. She wanted to admit that she hadn’t really felt anything after the initial shock dissipated. But she also didn’t want him to think of her as that… cold. She changed the subject. “So
are
you with the government?”

“I am. Do you trust me now?” He gave that player smile that had so intrigued her at the rehearsal dinner.

She relaxed into the corner between the vinyl cushion of her booth seat and the wall. “Not even slightly,” she said. “And you can get me another red wine, if you’re up.” She looked at him, still seated.

A split second later he realized what she meant and he jumped up. “I’m up. I’m up.”

Harry felt a frisson of pleasure rush through her as she watched him at the bar. Of all the gin joints, indeed. Maybe this would mean they could actually seal the deal this time. And she was only in Iraq for two weeks, so she wouldn’t have to declare everlasting love or anything unsavory like that. No awkward conversations explaining that she’d already met, and lost the love of her life, that she wasn’t looking for love or commitment, white picket fences or happy families. For a second she remembered the feel of his hands and eyes on her, being practically naked for him in the garden, in the rain.

He returned with her wine and this time sat opposite her. He jumped straight in. “You told me you’re an archaeologist, right? What are you excavating here?”

“Nothing. We’re just doing some forward prep work for a foundation that finances student archaeological digs. Obviously the students have a finite time in which they can work and get credits outside of the classroom, so occasionally my company takes the job of surveying and prepping a site for them.” Slowly, she swirled her wine about the glass, thinking about the shard of metal that they’d found just setting up the trailer on the site.

He cleared his throat. “Have you found anything interesting? Anything to report?” The question was breezy, casual even, but she immediately knew who he was and why he was there.

Ah-ha. “What kind of thing do you mean?” she asked, probing.

He leaned back in his chair and smiled.

“You’re my liaison?”

* * *

Bingo. And boy was he up for a bit of liaising. “I guess I am. You haven’t told anyone about your discovery, have you?” Instinctively his eyes flickered from one barfly to the next, checking their level of interest in either Henrietta or him.

“God, no. My assistants and our security guard know, but they know better than to tell anyone. Anything we find, be it ancient or modern, is kept secret until it can be secured from looters or other… interested people. It’s an absolutely normal protocol in my line of work.” She frowned.

“That’s good. That’s the same SOP as we have. No one talks about anything until we can secure it.” He drank some beer.

“I thought maybe I’d have a couple of weeks before someone came,” she said.

“Normally it would take that long, maybe longer. Usually there is a whole process to go through before we set boots on the ground. But I have an Iraqi visa, and I was in Kuala Lumpur at a conference, so they just diverted me here on the way back.”

“You’ve been to Iraq before?” Her fingers slid around the glass, barely touching it, and he felt it as if she was tracing those designs on his skin. His dick twitched in his pants.
Really?
Shit, he hadn’t slept for thirty hours and he was still interested?

“Of course. We had a war here not so long ago. You?”

“Once before. I was part of a dig close to Ur, southeast of here.”

“I know Ur. The ziggurat, right?” He remembered the huge, stepped, pyramid-like building outside town.

She grinned. “Wow, a soldier who knows the ziggurat. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I’m an airman,” he said, “And yes, it was. Agatha Christie wrote some of her books there, right? While her husband excavated?” He could swear her face fell a little when he said he was an airman. Strange. Most women heard that and thought “fighter pilot.” He’d gotten a lot of ass because of
Top Gun
.

“Yes, she did,” she replied absently.

He steadied her hand that was now tapping on the table by placing his on top of it. “Are you okay?” Her skin was velvet under his fingers. He wanted to relive that night in the garden, her wet body driving him crazy. He thanked God he’d been given this second chance to possess her, to close the deal once and for all. The opportunity to get her out of his system, because hell had she been in his system since he’d met her.

“I’m fine. Just tired.” She looked up and smiled. “I am happy to see you, though. How long are you planning on staying?”

“Depends. Maybe just tonight. I need to send details of the”—he looked around—“apple, back to HQ.”

“Apple?”

“First thing that came to mind. Maybe something to do with how tempting you look to me.” Did he just say that? Well, she was tempting, looking like she’d just got out of bed, with her messily braided blond hair, and a sweatshirt with a neck just baggy enough to allow him sight of a pristine white bra strap.
So she did wear a bra sometimes
. She looked innocent, and he knew she was anything but. Still, he wanted to corrupt her in the worst way. Her angelic looks just made him want her more.

Her eyelids lowered a fraction as she held his gaze. He loved that she didn’t demur, or deny his attraction. Try to negate the complement the way women sometimes did.

“Do you want to… come up and see my apple?” she asked with a barely perceptible wink. Her mouth twitched as if she was hiding a smile.

“Yes. Yes I really would.”

“I’m in room twenty-three. Give me a few minutes, okay?”

Dangerous Territory: An Alpha Ops Novella

Flirting with danger is reporter Grace Grainger’s modus operandi. But she’s learned the hard way not to grow attached to the soldiers she’s embedded with in Afghanistan. To escape from her pain and loneliness, she fantasizes about the hot night she spent with a gorgeous stranger three years before in D.C. Grace never thought she’d see him again—let alone need him to rescue her…

Air Force Master Sergeant Josh Travers knows journalists are nothing but trouble. So when he has to risk the lives of his team to save some reporter who’s been separated from her patrol, he’s not happy—until he recognizes her stunning eyes and delicious curves. Josh has never wanted a woman like he wants Grace. Even in an Afghan cave with a sandstorm and enemy troops closing in, he can’t deny the desire. This might be the end for both of them—or one hell of a beginning.

* * *

Fasten your seatbelt—Emmy Curtis returns with the third book in her high-octane Alpha Ops romantic suspense series. If you love authors like Suzanne Brockmann, Pamela Clare, Julie Ann Walker, or Cindy Gerard, you won’t want to miss this one.

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