“How will I know you can hear me?” she asked.
“If I lose contact for any reason, I’ll send Bruce to pull you out. Fake an argument or something so that you can walk off and still come back believably.”
Yes, words, keep talking, Wilcox. Keep thinking about the facts.
He secured the final end with the mic piece more toward her shoulder, but facing Willow’s mouth. If he’d had more time, he could have had it sewn into her clothing instead of taped to her body. But this development of going to the mansion had been dropped on him without enough time to get it done. This would have to do.
Willow placed a hand over his, inches above her breast. “Are we going to talk about this?”
“We have been.” He met her gaze, wishing he hadn’t when the warmth in it beckoned.
“You’re changing the subject.”
“No,” he said, slipping his hand free. “I’ve been discussing the case. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
She smirked as though she found what he’d said to be funny. “I’m talking about the unspoken conversation clogging the air.”
“Enlighten me while you get dressed.” He stepped away from her.
She sighed softly. “I get it. You’re afraid.”
There it was again. That moment where he got a glimmer of her youth in the taunts. It helped ground him, reassure him that not making a move on Willow Harper was both professionally and emotionally sound decision making on his part.
He smiled benignly. He pulled out his receiver and closed his bag of tricks. Kane walked back to where she stood, still mostly naked but now wearing his wire. He lifted her chin with a fingertip and looked into her upturned face.
“Ms. Harper, I’ve been around long enough to recognize a sexual offering when I see it. I’m not taking the bait.”
She gasped.
He lifted the receiver and flipped the on switch. “Say something.”
Her green eyes spat fiery darts and she fairly trembled with anger. The confidence he found so sexy seemed to chip in the shadow of his words.
“If there’s one thing I know well, Agent Wilcox, it’s how to recognize
wood
.” She flicked her eyes at his groin. “You may be mature enough to know when sexual tension is present, but you’re a long way from knowing exactly what to do with all your willing parts.”
“Keep talking,” he told her, needing to hear how the reception came in as her clothes interacted with the wire.
He watched her seethe and found himself captivated all over again. God, she was gorgeous when she was pissed. She didn’t seem to have any idea how sexy she was when she stopped trying to be.
“And furthermore—”
“Awesome,” he intoned. “There’s a furthermore.”
“
And furthermore
,” she snapped. “I’m not
offering
anything. There’s no
bait
to be taken. I wouldn’t want you if you were the last tadpole in the pond. Like a boring
fed
would tempt me. Ha!”
He ground his teeth.
Willow closed her shirt. Kane nearly groaned his protest when her black lace trimmed breasts disappeared from sight, but bit the inside of his cheek.
Facing him, hands on her hips and lips puckered, she looked positively edible.
“You aren’t finished with me yet,” he prompted. He needed to check the connection now that she had tucked in her shirt, but damn if he didn’t want to see her riled up some more.
“Yeah, I am. I’m more than finished with your sorry fed-ass.”
“So what you’re saying is, rejection isn’t something you handle well?” he egged her on to check one last thing. And because he fucking loved how she let go and ranted.
Willow’s snarl sounded adorably feminine. She stomped toward him and poked him in the chest repeatedly as she spoke. “I’d have to put something out there for your behavior to qualify as rejection. You are so full of yourself. I bet you think women fall all over themselves when you walk in the room with your blond hair and broad shoulders, don’t you? You think that every woman you meet is going to drool over your crooked smile? Well, this woman isn’t.”
Kane grabbed her finger, wrapping a fist around it. He swung the arm holding the receiver around the back of her neck and hauled her close, claiming her lips with crushing force as he gave in to the thing he’d been dying to do since he’d first laid eyes on her.
Willow’s mouth firmed momentarily, stiffening in defense until he gentled. Then a muffled complaint was her only protest before her lips parted. She took his kiss and answered it with her own angry possession. Their teeth clashed, and instead of nipping her lip in soft reprimand, he gave way, invading her mouth with his tongue.
As suddenly as he’d started it, he ended it. Kane grabbed his bag. As he stepped out of the office he called out, “Your wire is working. Get that proof.”
The silence at his back was deafening. He winced but kept walking. If he threw this investigation over a kiss, eighteen months of research and legwork went out the window. And just for a moment, he thought kissing Willow Harper might actually be worth the loss.
Chapter Four
Willow’s knees gave out from under her. Actually, all of her gave out as her faery curse reduced her to nothing more than a pile of singed sawdust. That kiss had knocked her off her faery ass. She didn’t even know what started it. One minute she was yelling at him through a bruised ego, the next his stony silence turned into an erotic make-out session.
And
poof!
He’d dusted her. Thank goodness he hadn’t turned around.
Sage entered his office and took one look at her piled self on the floor. He grinned and squatted low. “This ought to be a good one.”
He dragged over an office chair and waited.
She didn’t know if he could read her mind in her wooden state, but she gave it a try, sending him every mental picture of Bruce that she could. If Sage would just send him in, Bruce could have stabilized her faery faux pas and made her human again. Sage seemed immune. He loosely crossed his legs. Propping his chin on his fist, he grinned at her.
He was so going to pay for this.
Finally, the feeling of being completely undone subsided. Her dusty self pulled together until she became a person again. She sat on the floor glaring up at her brother. “You could have called Bruce in.”
“I could have, but this was too amusing.”
“Sometimes you really suck as an older brother.”
Bruce wandered in. “Did I miss something?”
Sage shrugged. “Apparently Agent Wilcox packs one hell of a kiss.”
She felt her cheeks burn.
“Oh yeah?” Bruce asked. “Think he’ll be interested in a threesome?”
“I think he’s pro-girl,” Willow muttered.
“Hey, I can share,” Bruce assured her.
“I’m not sure he can. Besides, I don’t really know what happened. Or if it will happen again.”
Bruce grinned and sent a wink to Sage who was chuckling.
“But you want it to,” Bruce deduced.
“Not if he’s going to be an asshole.” Willow plucked at the wire taped to her body. She was relieved to see that it was still in place.
It had behaved like everything else that she was wearing at the time of a transformation. It had dematerialized and rematerialized the way it had been on her body. At least, she didn’t have to call Agent Wilcox to retape her. She didn’t think she’d live through the humiliation of knowing he thought she’d taken it off on purpose.
Like I’m trying to get naked for him again, or throw myself all over him. As if!
She mentally shied away from the reality that getting naked with the sexy agent would definitely be a bonus.
Fortunately, her relationship with Bruce was fluid. He was a full faery after all. Sexy, and sexual to the core. He wanted it however he could get it, from whomever was offering it. He had no qualms about sharing partners or keeping their relationship monogamous. It’s one of the reasons they’d hooked up in the first place. The other was his talent to keep her humanoid in the face of her faery talent for turning into wooden objects. He’d saved her ass a dozen times, at least.
“If he’s an asshole, I’ll take him,” Bruce teased. “I wouldn’t mind gettin’ in there.”
She smirked. “If he were even interested in that, I’d bet money that he’d be a top.”
“That’s okay. I’m versatile.” Bruce sent her a goofy grin, but his black faery eyes twinkled with mischief.
“Damn, where were you when I was single and looking to fuck?” Sage joked.
“I’m not your type anyway.” Bruce tipped his head. “You and Dill both liked guys you could control, until you met the ones you couldn’t. I’m not a permanent relationship kind of faery.”
Sage grew serious. “Where does that leave my little sister?”
“Enjoying life,” she snapped. Willow caught Bruce’s arm and dragged him with her to the car. “I have to pack and get over there. If you think discussing sex with someone’s older brother is a good idea, then you really don’t know humans very well.”
“What’s the big deal? It’s just bodies enjoying bodies for however long it lasts. He and Dill weren’t virgins when they met Joe and Mason.”
“It’s different for little sisters. Human males don’t like hearing that the women in their lives have sex.”
“That’s stupid.”
She snorted. “I agree. But humor me and don’t discuss it with them.”
* * * *
He’d fucked up, Kane decided. Kissing Willow Harper hadn’t done anything but make him want to keep kissing her, and a host of other things he wasn’t supposed to be wanting.
And there was that weird discussion the wire had picked up after he’d left, Kane still had to decipher. Bruce was a faery? Kane had thought for sure that derogatory term had gone the way of the 90s. And what self respecting homosexual man slept with women? It just didn’t make sense.
He glanced at Bruce, who was sleeping on the floor of the service van which held the receiving equipment. A lot of help he’d been. Other than looking at Kane with his unnerving black gaze, Bruce had slept and eaten through most of the stake out.
Kane found himself thinking of the unintentional transmission again. The prodding from Sage and Bruce that Willow wanted him? Well, that was more intriguing than Kane cared to admit. And grudgingly, so was the admission that Bruce wanted a threesome with him and Willow. Kane had never been attracted to men before, but Bruce had a magnetic quality about him. Kane just couldn’t take his eyes off the other man, unless Willow happened to be in the room. But sex? The three of them?
Gotta quit thinking about it, Wilcox
.
Kane adjusted his earphones, listening closely through a long winded discussion about the best make up brands, from Austyn. After nearly thirty six hours, Willow had failed to obtain any information about the missing artifacts. She seemed just as irritated.
For the second time this hour, Kane heard her excuse herself to the bathroom. She’d taken to covering the wire with something when she actually had to go, but otherwise, she used it as private time to tell him what her thoughts were about where the investigation was headed.
“So, here’s the problem.” Willow began her one-sided conversation with him once he heard the sound of the door closing. “Austyn is completely missing the point of my fantastic acting. I’ve only made a couple of brief forays into the mansion that don’t involve bathrooms and food, aside from that initial grand tour. I still think there may be something to searching her dad’s study, so I’m going to give that a try as soon as I can shake her for long enough. If I’m lucky, I’ll run into her dad and try that seduction thing you were so hyped about.”
He heard her sigh.
“I hope you’re getting all this, because you haven’t sent Bruce around to check on me yet. Which means—”
Her line went dead. Kane taped the earphones. He fiddled with the frequency in minute degrees trying to find her again. This had happened two other times, in different parts of the house. Finally, he gave up and waited. If it didn’t fix itself in five minutes, he was sending Bruce in. Bruce, who’d previously convinced him to let the wire work itself out. So far he’d been right. Kane pulled one ear piece off his ear.
Sure enough, the transmission picked up again.
“A toilet paper dispenser? Really, people? That’s just twisted,” she snapped. “I’m so going to have a talk with Mom after this. There has to be something her people can do.”
Kane frowned. What toilet paper dispensers and her “mother’s people”, had to do with this mission was beyond him.
Bruce’s satiny voice spilled over his right ear. “Anything yet?”
Kane jumped. “Goddamn it, Bruce. Make some noise next time.”
“Jumpy?”
Kane spared him a wry look.
Bruce squatted next to his chair, looking up at him with a smile and those endlessly black eyes. Once again, Kane found himself sucked into their depths, searching for a pupil that couldn’t be found, and captivated by his masculine beauty.