Surrender to Temptation (Agent Lovers Series Book 1) (25 page)

When Gray walked into the kitchen the next morning he found Jeff at the stove making breakfast.

“How’d you sleep?”

“That’s a really stupid question given the commotion I heard coming from your room last night. Where’s Liz?” Jeff peered over his shoulder at his brother. “Is she even still alive?” He laughed when he saw the indignant look on Gray’s face.

“Are you making fun of me again? Maybe I really should finish what I started.” Gray threatened Jeff playfully with clenched fists then took the glass carafe from the warming plate and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Who me? I would never do something like that!”

“What would you never do?” asked Chris who had just come into the room. He walked over and helped himself to coffee too.

“Make fun of Gray.” Jeff laughed again, proving himself wrong. When he got a powerful blow between his shoulders for it, he laughed even harder.

Liz and Jennifer appeared together in the hallway to the kitchen, completing the group. After glancing at the now empty coffeepot, Liz headed for Gray, took his half-full cup out of his hand with a bewitching smile, pulled the creamer out of the refrigerator and poured a generous portion of it into the dark liquid. Then she put the cup to her lips and drained it in a few gulps. With an appreciative sigh she set the cup on the counter Gray was leaning against. “I needed that.”

“And what do I get for compensation?” he asked her quietly. “That was mine, you know.”

With her index finger, she tapped her puckered lips, furrowed her brows and appeared to think about it for a moment. Then she shrugged her shoulders in a helpless gesture and spread both arms out, palms up. “I’m afraid I only have one thing to offer in return.” Gray reached for her with a quick movement, pulled her to him and looked her deep in the eyes. Liz grinned back at him. It was obvious that she was enjoying this little game. She pretended to scowl at him. “Fine. There you go!” She pressed a quick kiss on his lips before turning away. She raised herself up on tiptoes and peered over Jeff’s shoulders. “Mmm! What smells so good over here?”

“Our breakfast.” Liz reached around him with one arm and snatched up a strip of crispy bacon out of the pan. Jeff looked at her reproachfully. “You couldn’t just wait a little longer?”

“I’ve never been a very patient person.” She blew on her plunder to cool it and then ate it with gusto. While she was still chewing appreciatively, she noticed something in Jeff’s back pocket that drew her attention. “May I?”

“You’ll get your breakfast when everyone else does, so please wait!” he said, assuming she was after more bacon.

“I didn’t mean that! I was asking about what’s in your pants.” Surprised Jeff looked first at Liz and then at Gray, who straightened up and threw him a withering glance.

Fierce jealousy pulsed through Gray’s veins. With an effort he struggled to maintain self-control, reigning in his natural impulse to defend his territory. He took a deep breath. He wouldn’t allow Liz to flirt in such a shameless way with his brother—especially right in front of him! Just as he was about to set her straight, Gray watched as she casually reached into Jeff’s back pocket and pulled out a box. A wave of relief flooded through him. She had only been eyeing Jeff’s cigarettes.

Without acknowledging, or even seeming to notice, the brothers’ exchange of glances, Liz helped herself to Jeff’s lighter, pulled a cigarette out of the box, then put the box back in Jeff’s back pocket. She then went into the yard, apparently to enjoy the pilfered cigarette in quiet. But Jennifer didn’t give her any peace. She followed right on Liz’s heels, talking insistently and gesticulating wildly. When she got to the point of ticking off the side effects of smoking on her fingers, it got to be too much for Liz. She held out the glowing cigarette, which she’d only smoked half way, to Jennifer. “Here. Take it. Satisfied?”

“Yes. Very, actually.” Jennifer snatched it from Liz’s fingers and ground it out on a rock in the grass.

“What a waste!”

“Phew!” Jeff said. He, Chris and his brother were looking out the window curiously, watching the little confrontation in the yard. “For a minute, I thought you were going to push my face into the hot pan, Gray.”

“The thought did occur to me.” Gray ran one hand through his hair, tore his gaze away from Liz and Jennifer and gave his brother a frank look. “In all honesty, not just a minute, either.”

Chris held a hand over his mouth and chuckled while Jeff swallowed visibly, his eyes wide. “Then it’s a good thing all she wanted was a cigarette,” he mumbled in relief, turning back to the pan on the stove.

***

Almost four weeks had passed since Liz and Jennifer had been recovering from their injuries and had surrendered to the passionate coupling with Gray and Chris. And nothing, nothing at all during that time indicated that Jennifer’s misgivings would come true.

“What’s wrong?” Gray asked with raised eyebrows as he handed Chris a glass of ice tea and sat down in a chair next to his friend. The ice cubes clinked gently against one another. “I can tell something’s bothering you.”

“Do you really have to ask?” Meaningfully Chris looked over at the two women who were reclining in the sun on lounge chairs on the other side of the pool.

“Did you have a fight with Jennifer?”

“No.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“They’ll be going to the doctor in four days.”

“I know. So?” Gray looked at him without understanding.

“Don’t tell me Liz has agreed to something more long-term? I asked Jennifer again this morning if she could picture having a relationship with me and not just this fling she’d planned. But she said no again and used the job as an excuse, even though I told her, like I have a bunch of times, that I can handle her job.” Chris’s head drooped; he stared darkly at the ground and kicked a pebble off the patio onto the adjacent grass.

Why had this happened to him of all people? He had always hoped that when he really and truly fell in love, that the feelings would be mutual. Jennifer had been honest with him from the beginning and yet he still felt caught completely off guard. She wasn’t looking for a committed relationship—those were her words. She said she would only have him as a temporary lover.

Temporary lover! Now, that was harsh. At first he’d reluctantly accepted her position. But in less than two days he’d realized that he wasn’t prepared to ever be separated from Jennifer. Chris didn’t want her to leave him—to dump him—as if everything that had happened between them meant nothing.

He loved a woman who wanted him only in a very limited way, and who, in all probability, would be leaving him within the next few days—and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. His feelings of helplessness were driving him crazy. For the first time in a long time, Chris had no idea how he should behave, or what he could do to turn this no-win situation around.

Gray gave him a smile of encouragement, even though Chris knew he was worried about the same thing. “I’ve heard something like that from Liz,” Gray admitted. “But the fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”

“Do you know what the worst part is?” Chris said. “I love her.” He swallowed hard. “If I didn’t, her rejection wouldn’t hurt so much.”

“You were caught off guard, too? And I thought it was just me.” Gray laughed softly, but it wasn’t a happy laugh.

The problem wasn’t going to be solved as easily as Gray had thought. Four weeks ago, when he’d admitted to himself that he loved Liz, he’d had no idea how hard it would be to get her to stay with him. Trying to chip away at her resolve, he brought the situation up whenever he was alone with her. But she always either switched topics or pulled away from him, so there had been no opportunity for him to bring the subject to a satisfying conclusion. And the only conclusion that would satisfy him, in his opinion, was for Liz to stay with him and give their future together a real chance.

“You love Liz, huh? Oh well…” Chris sighed heavily. “Misery loves company, and it looks like we’re in this together.”

Gloomily the two men stared into the glasses in their hands and watched the ice melt. Before long, Jeff joined them. His good mood dissolved when he saw the two men’s grumpy faces.

“What’s wrong with you two? Did you have a fight with your women?” he asked in a low voice. He nodded toward Jennifer and Liz. Both men shook their heads. “Don’t make me squeeze it out of you! What’s wrong?” he demanded as he sat down next to his brother.

After a brief hesitation, they poured their hearts as he listened attentively. Once they had again fallen into a gloomy silence, Jeff shook his head, grinning. Love really did make people blind. Neither one of them recognized the obvious solution. Jeff decided it was time for him to give them some coaching in matters of love. “So, as I understand it, you both want them to stay with you—preferably forever. Is that right?”

“Yes,” the other two told him.

“And you really love them?”

“Yes.” They answered simultaneously again.

“Then why don’t you just ask them if they’ll marry you?” Jeff suggested quietly. “Women respond well to that, I’ve heard.”

“Weren’t you listening? They don’t want committed relationships with us. They won’t even consider it,” murmured Chris. Gray nodded in agreement. “There’s no way they’d say yes if we dropped to our knees and asked them to marry us.”

“But you can imagine being married to them?” Without having to even think about it, both men nodded affirmatively. “Well then, it’s settled!”

“Nothing is settled,” Gray objected.

“Sure it is! Sometimes women fail to recognize what’s best for them.” Jeff felt quite confident in his experience with the opposite sex. He nodded toward Jennifer and Liz. “Especially those two. They wouldn’t have gotten involved with you if they hadn’t felt something for you. You can count on that. You know the saying: All’s fair in love and war? You two are pretty smart. You’ll think of something. If you have to, fight dirty. I know I would. They might scream at you, throw dishes or lock you out of the bedroom for a while. But sooner or later, they’ll admit how much you mean to them and let you back in. What’s important right now is that they’re not able to give you the slip." Grinning, Jeff looked from one to the other for approval.

“What you’re suggesting sounds like macho blackmail.” Gray didn’t like the idea of having to resort to sneaky ploys to get Liz to commit. But what choice did he have if he didn’t want to lose her?

“It’s not really different from what we’ve been doing this whole time,” Chris pointed out. “There’ve already been fireworks; think about Gray’s dishes, not to mention his Mercedes. Where did any of that get us? Isn’t this whole thing a little asinine?”

“Yes. And?” Jeff leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “If I want to act macho, I will.” He looked from Gray to Chris, who was already deep in thought, and back again. A broad grin spread across his face. “My advice wasn’t free, by the way.” Gray and Chris looked at Jeff as if he’d suddenly grown another head. “If your first child is a boy, Gray,” he said, “you can name him after me. That’ll be thanks enough.”

“Liz?”

“Hm?”

“Do you get the weird feeling those three are up to something?”

“What are they going to do? Throw us in the water again? God yes, they probably are—those jerks.”

“I don’t mean something like that.” Jennifer took off her sunglasses and looked at Liz. “Chris asked if I could picture having a relationship with him. And the way he said it, I got the feeling he had something more long term in mind, not just a short fling like you and I talked about having with these guys.”

“So what did you tell him?” Liz sat up on her lounge chair and tucked her legs under her so that she sat cross-legged.

“I told him it wouldn’t work because of my job. I know that if we stay together, at some point he’s going to try to get me to quit, even though he swears he doesn’t have any problems with it. And even though it’s hard for me to say it out loud—and even harder for me to admit it to myself—I have to confess, I really like him a lot. Chris doesn’t make me as nervous anymore and I like being with him. But it wouldn’t be good over the long haul.”

“Gray asked me something similar. Several times! My answer was pretty much the same as yours, but he still keeps bringing it up. It doesn’t matter how often I say no, he simply can’t accept it. It’s like he’s trying to wear me down.”

They watched the men in silence for a while and tried to read from their expressions what they were discussing. But they couldn’t detect anything suspicious.

“I owe you an apology.” Liz looked at her friend and grinned.

“For what?”

“You were right when you said that Gray didn’t just want a fling with me, and you were right when you said they’d try to talk us into more. Sorry! I should have taken your warning more seriously.”

“Forget it. We shouldn’t stress out about it so much. Our doctor appointments are in four days and then we can go back to work and get back to our old lives.” She added with a mischievous grin: “A life that doesn’t involve getting constantly bossed and ordered around.”

“You know what?” said Liz. “I can’t wait. Woo-hoo!” The women broke out into peals of laughter.

After Jeff had given them his take on things, Gray and Chris spent the next hour working on an airtight “battle plan.” They knew what they wanted and they weren’t going to let anything get in their way. But they hadn’t accounted for the possibility of getting a call from Townsend that evening.

After Gray had taken the unexpected call, he hung up and told Chris that they’d just gotten a new assignment. Extremely bad timing, considering what they had planned. Unfortunately, another team wasn’t available, so they had no choice but to run the new mission.

“So now what do we do with Jennifer and Liz?” Chris furrowed his brows.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jeff said. “I’ll keep an eye on them while you’re gone. And if that’s longer than three days, I’ll call the doctor with some excuse about why their appointments have to be postponed.” Jeff gave them a conspiratorial wink.