The Spy Who Loves Me (2 page)

A
lmost two weeks later…

Finn rubbed his palms vigorously over his face, pulling himself out of his fantasy and trying instead to concentrate on the pile of work stacked up on his kitchen table. It wasn't easy. The work was deathly dull, the blonde across the courtyard so much more intriguing.

He didn't know one damn thing about her, but in the single week he'd been watching her, she'd sparked his imagination. She rarely closed her curtains, and her patio door was right across from his kitchen window. Fair game. Especially since he enjoyed watching her move a hell of a lot more than he enjoyed answering interrogatories.

The woman was spectacular. Tall, like a model, but not stick thin and flat chested like so many of the magazines liked to hawk these days. The kind of woman a man could get his hands around.

He imagined she knew her appeal, too, and used it to her advantage. Probably smuggling something into the country, using her feminine wiles to bribe customs agents, kissing them with poisoned lipstick if other means didn't prevail.

Not that he had any real reason to think that. From what he could tell, her life never veered from the normal. She worked out every night in a skintight black leotard, then popped a movie into the VCR. Every once in a while, she'd practice some kicks—like she thought she was Buffy or something. Once in a while she dressed up, and Finn could only assume she had a date. If so, she met him somewhere, because lover boy never came to her door.

Overall, pretty standard stuff. Compared to him, though, her life was a mile-a-minute thrill ride. His was a slow ride on a kiddie train.

Law school.
What the hell had he been thinking? He'd fantasized about pacing a courtroom, a modern day Perry Mason, and winning the day for truth, justice, and all the rest of it. Not hardly. Instead he was pulling seventeen-hour days trapped in a tiny office researching bullshit procedural points, answering discovery, and summarizing depositions.

Damn it all, he should have just been a bartender.

When he was younger, he'd have simply packed his bags, moved to Florida, and worked a few weeks as a scuba instructor. Or headed up to Silicon Valley and signed on with a couple of his buddies to design computer games. Or set out cross-country in his car, stopping to flip burgers for minimum wage whenever his cash ran short. But none of those options appealed anymore. Or, more honestly, they appealed, but they just weren't practical.

He was thirty-seven years old, and it was time to buckle down and have a life. The trouble was, he still didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up.

He frowned. That wasn't exactly true. He knew. But it was too late to do anything about it now. He'd made a choice, and from what he could tell, he'd made the wrong one. But he was stuck, trapped by three years invested in a career he didn't want, and thousands of dollars in student loans he needed to pay down. Until his weekly attempts to play the lottery paid off, he had no choice but to follow a paycheck. And that, frankly, was his own damn fault.

He snorted, disgusted with himself, and got up to inspect the contents of his refrigerator. Nothing except a bottle of Gatorade, a three-day-old burrito from Taco Bell, and a jar of dill pickles. Not exactly appetizing.

He grabbed his keys off the microwave, mentally debating between a full-blown grocery run and another trip to Taco Bell. Then he headed for the door, yanking it open with more force than he intended.

The woman on the walkway jumped, turning to press her back against the shrubbery that lined the sidewalk. “Oh!” she said. “You startled me.”

“Sorry.” He stepped outside, squinting against the bright light of day. “Amy, right?”

“Amber,” she said. “Amber Robinson.” She was decked out in sweatpants and a T-shirt topped with a hooded jacket. A backpack hung casually from one shoulder. She wore no makeup, and her long brown hair was pulled back from her face, a few tendrils, damp with sweat, curling around her hairline.

She'd lived next door to him for five days now, and he'd never seen her in anything but baggy jeans or sweatpants, her hair always pulled into a ponytail, her face usually shadowed by a baseball cap. She could probably be pretty, but she didn't seem like the type who cared.

“Going out?” she asked. Her voice held a sensual undertone that seemed out of place in such a laid-back woman. He wanted to say something clever, something that would provoke a response, just so he could hear those soft tones once again.

“Grocery run,” he said instead. Neither clever nor provoking, but it was the first thing he thought of. He considered asking her to join him for a coffee, but ruled it out. He had no time for socializing. And, he reminded himself, this woman wasn't his type. Instead, he gestured toward his front door. “I'm working at home,” he said, as if his lack of invitation required an explanation.

Her entire face lit up when she smiled. “You lawyers,” she teased. “They grind you into the ground.”

“No kidding,” he said, wondering when he'd told her his profession. Maybe in the laundry room…?

She aimed a thumb at her doorway, facing him as she walked backward in that direction. “I should be getting inside. Good to see you.” Her hand closed around her doorknob, and she turned just enough to insert the key. She leaned in as the door opened, then disappeared from his view.

Something akin to disappointment settled in Finn's chest, and he frowned. Clearly, he was working too much, not getting enough quality interaction with the opposite sex. Amber Robinson wasn't on his radar. Not even close.

No, if he was stuck in a boring job, he wanted excitement in the rest of his life, and particularly in his bed. An adventurous woman. One who could keep him on his toes, both in and out of the bedroom.

The woman in the window, maybe.

Amber Robinson?

Definitely not.

 

Amber clicked the door shut and locked it, the precaution automatic. She reached behind her to the waistband of her sweats, her fingers closing around the molded butt of her Walther PPK.

She slipped the gun free as she walked into her living room, tossing it onto the couch as a vivid curse slipped from her lips. She'd been careless out there, stupidly adjusting the gun when Finn had opened his door. Dumb and dangerous. She wasn't usually so sloppy—hell, she'd developed a reputation within Unit 7 as being dead-on perfect—and her lapse pissed her off.

“Temper, temper,” a voice chastised.

She whipped around, muscles tight, the knife she'd sheathed under her sleeve pulled out and ready.

From her bathroom doorway, Brandon Kline held up his hands, his eyes dancing with mirth. “Shit, Robinson, it's just me.”

“Dammit, Brandon.” She pitched the knife next to the gun. “Haven't I asked you nicely to please not break in? Someone might see.”

“Not to worry,” he said, moving to sit on one of her barstools. “I'm good.”

She frowned but didn't argue. He
was
good. They'd been recruited together—rescued by Providence from the hell of juvie hall—and had trained hard to become top operatives in Unit 7, a shadowy government organization that did everything from hostage rescue to out-and-out espionage. She'd known him for sixteen years, and she'd trusted Brandon to watch her back on more than one occasion. Significant stuff, especially considering there weren't many people in the world Amber would trust with her phone number, much less her life.

“So what's got your panties in a wad?” he asked, striding into the room.

“I just did a stupid thing, and it's irritating me.” She kicked off her running shoes, careful not to damage the camera hidden in the toe, then unzipped her warm-up jacket and threw it over the back of a chair. The T-shirt followed, then the sweatpants—each layer revealing more of the short, flirty red dress she'd worn to the U.N.–sponsored luncheon Brandon had sent her to.

Brandon raked an appreciative gaze over her. “You know, kid, there are times when I think maybe we should just get it on,” he said, a tease in his voice.

“Not a chance,” she answered, deadpan. “What if we fell in love? Neither one of us could live with the consequences.”

“Bullshit, babe. We already know where your loyalty lies. Mine too, for that matter. Hell, if we weren't so loyal we'd be out there freelancing.”

Amber frowned, avoiding Brandon's eyes as she reached under her skirt to tug her panty hose down. Everything he said was true. They'd joked about striking out on their own a number of times. Joining the ranks of freelance mercenaries around the globe. But neither had seriously considered it. For one thing, if she was on her own, she'd lose access to the Unit's seemingly endless resources. Amber wasn't stupid. She knew a good deal when she saw one. And the jets, disguises, and weaponry currently at her fingertips cost a pretty penny.

Not that there weren't other well-funded organizations that would be interested in acquiring her particular talents. But it wasn't just about the Unit's resources. The Unit was her life, her family. She'd never give it up. Not for anyone; not for anything.

“Besides,” Brandon said, his tone light as he picked up the conversation's thread, “me? Fall in love with you? Never happen.”

“Nonsense,” she said, shaking off the unwelcome bout of melancholy. “I'm irresistible.”

He laughed, and she stepped out of the damn constricting garment and tossed the panty hose across the room.

“I hate these things,” she muttered.

“But they do such nice things to the curve of your ass.”

Her mouth twitched, and she fought hard to hold back a smile. “See, this is why we can't have a relationship. No respect.”

“Who wants a relationship? I just want to get laid.”

At that, she laughed outright. She certainly couldn't argue with that. It had been months since she'd had sex. But she wasn't about to use Brandon to scratch that itch, and they both knew it.

“So how'd it go?” he said, the tone of his voice letting her know the teasing was over. Back to work.

“Smooth as silk. Everything's in place.” Translation, she'd tagged their target with the homing device.