Wake Up Maggie (3 page)

No one had ever spoken to me like this. All I could do was stare up at him, completely dumbfounded.

“Do you think…” He cleared his throat. “Do you think we could put a bookmark here and come back later?”

“How much later?”

“Until we find Trinh Pham.”

“I told you not to say that name.” I pushed at him to get off me. Of all the things he could’ve said to me, that was the one thing guaranteed to douse my ardor. “Thanks for the cold shower.”

He sat back slowly, watching me straighten myself as though I’d vanish or something. “My job is hard enough as it is.”

I looked pointedly at his lap. “Not likely.”

“You distract me. I can’t get distracted.”

“Seems to me you don’t have a job anymore. You know I’m not a part of whatever it was Chuck Puckett was doing. You won’t tell the police I didn’t kill him, and I gave you all of the information I have on the Vietnamese Vixen. As far as I can tell your job here is done and maybe we should be too.” I was bluffing…badly. I couldn’t stop looking at him like he was a big ole giant bacon cheeseburger with peanut butter and jelly and I hadn’t eaten in days. Years, even.

“That’s the thing; my job with you isn’t over.”

“It’s not?”

He shook his head. “My job now is to protect you, make sure nothing happens to you.”

“Like a bodyguard?”

“Exactly like a bodyguard.”

I would have made a crack about the ways in which I’d like him to guard my body, but reality locked the words in my throat. It wasn’t enough that the tattooed tramp had banged then killed my boyfriend, leaving me to take the rap. I was now at the top of her hit list with nothing but Super Agent between me and death.

Chapter Five

When Super Agent had first proposed his staying in my apartment to guard me, I readily agreed, swept away by visions of foreplay days and fornicating nights. Boy, had I been wrong. He stuck to his no-nookie rule like he’d been sworn to the priesthood by the pope himself. Just when I began to doubt his interest, I’d catch him looking at me as though he’d mentally stripped me and was cartographically tracing my every slope and curve.

It was those looks that kept me awake at night, wondering if I’d ever get to touch the tightly packed muscles I knew lurked beneath those horribly baggy suits. After I accidentally on purpose caught him coming out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist, he stayed dressed night and day. I was pretty sure he was showering in those damn suits now.

To make matters worse we hadn’t heard a peep from the Mata Hari madam, and I was beginning to think Super Agent’s theory of me being on her hit list was as farfetched as me losing the extra twenty pounds I’d been carrying since the day I was born.

“Can’t I just go to the store and say hi to my friends?” I asked one bright and shining morning.

Super Agent glared at me over the top of his coffee cup. “No.”

“I can’t afford to stay home from work another day.”

“The press is still hounding you.”

“Not as badly as they were before. Besides the store has security.” My job as a beauty advisor for Estelle Landers Cosmetics wasn’t as glamorous as a special agent for the FBI, but it paid the bills and kept me ankle-deep in beauty products.

He looked back down at his phone and made a “we’ll see” noise. The majority of his speech had been reduced to noncommittal grunts and long-suffering sighs. I wanted to say it was my charm, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t. Our forced confinement was getting to him too.

“I’ll call my boss to let her know to put me back on the schedule.” I pulled out my cell phone to make my call. “Next week we’re having a gift with purchase, and I can’t afford to miss the extra sales money.”

“You’ll have to explain me.”

“Hopefully you’ll be gone by then.”

He raised his eyebrows at me.

Jeez. Such a Sensitive Sally. “You know what I meant.”

He returned his attention to his phone, leaving me to stare at the top of his head. Conversation over. All morning he’d been texting and emailing his thumbs to bloody stumps. Something was afoot.

My phone rang, and a quick look at the display told me this was a call I needed to take in private. As I slipped off the barstool and padded down the hall, I could feel Super Agent’s gaze on me. I’d never taken a call out of his presence and I could almost hear his gears spinning out questions three at a time. Two could play the I’ve-Got-a-Secret-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na Game.

I closed the door to my bedroom and went into the closet. “Hey, Jonas.”

“Hey. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you.”

“No worries. Were you able to find anything out?”

“I posted the image you gave me on a couple of forums and I think I may have found your guy. There’s an artist out of Amsterdam who recognized the ink. I’ll text you the deets.”

“Thanks, Jonas. I owe you.”

“When are you going to come in so I can finish you?”

Jonas still needed to fill in the color on my newest tattoo. “Probably next week.”

“Text me and I’ll fit you in. You know, now that you’re not with the senator anymore, we could go out. Dinner or something. What do you say?”

“I say I’ll text you next week.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not serious?”

I cut my gaze to the wall where Super Agent sat on the other side, stewing like an overfilled crockpot. “’Cause I’m not. Thanks again, Jonas. Bye.”

I disconnected the call and sat down amongst my shoes, waiting for Jonas to text me “the deets”. A couple of days ago Super Agent had put me in front of a sketch artist to get an idea of what Trinh the Trollop and her tattoo looked like. When he wasn’t looking I snapped a pic of both sketches to do some sleuthing of my own. Why not? No one in this mess had more at stake than me.

A
bing
later I had the name and phone number of the shop that had possibly inked Tramparella’s tattoo. Now all I had to do was figure out how to dial overseas.

Suddenly the bedroom door burst open. “What in the hell do—” Whoa. Super Agent sounded scary when he was pissed. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of that. “Maggie! Where are you?” Oopsie. Too late.

I slid the closet door open. He didn’t sound half as scary as he looked. His chest was all puffed up, and his shoulders looked a mile wide. Now I knew why he wore such horribly baggy suits. It was like he’d grown two sizes, his anger filling in the gaps between the sags.

It took him a moment to find me amongst the dresses and skirts. “Why are you in there?”

I held up my phone.

He offered me a hand up. I took it, fighting my way out of the closet one-handed. By the time I escaped, he was shaking his head and battling a smile. “You are the oddest woman I’ve ever met.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Don’t.” Uh-oh. Angry Agent was back. “I didn’t see any harm in you sending that picture because I didn’t think anything would come of it. But now… Stay out of this investigation. You have no idea who you’re dealing with here.”

I did a double take. What now? “You’re listening in on my phone calls and reading my texts?”

“We thought it best in case Trin—”

I pointed my phone at him. “Say her name and you’ll be gargling your balls for weeks. And who in the name of all that is private is ‘we’?”

“You’re not going to go out with that Jonas guy, are you?”

“What? That’s the take-away from this clusterfuck?”

“He’s been convicted of aggravated assault. You shouldn’t even have him as a friend, let alone go out with him.”

“You’re investigating my friends too?” My voice went supersonic, setting off car alarms and howling dogs.

“Well, yeah. It’s my job.”

“Your… You know what? You’re fired!”

“You can’t fire me.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I can kick your ass out of my house.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Maggie.”

“Miss Castro to you.”

“We’re back to that?”

I shot my arm out and nearly flung my phone. “Get out.”

“Fine. I’ll be next door if you need me.”

What the…? I propped my hands on my hips. “What do you mean, next door?”

“We rented the apartment next door.”

“
We
again.”

“I don’t work alone. We set up a temporary command center.”

Well, that explained Mr. Hands-to-himself I’d been living with. The walls in these old apartments were as thin as my patience with him at the moment.

“How many people do you work with?”

“Two or three, depending on what’s happening.”

“And they’re doing what?”

“We’ve got eyes on every corner of this building. As well as tracking the latest info as it comes in.”

“Inside my apartment too?”

“No. That’s why I’m here.”

I nodded.

He eyed me as if I were a coiled rattler. “What’s going on inside your head?”

“Oohhh,” I moaned loud enough to be heard through the wall, then whispered, “Nothing.”

“Maggie…”

“Oohhh, yeessss!”

“Stop it.”

“Don’t stop!”

“You’re pushing your luck.”

“Oohhh, yeessss.
Harder!
”

He covered my mouth with his, and suddenly I was back to the wall, his knee wedged between my legs. I gripped his shoulders and met him kiss for kiss. I didn’t remember wanting anyone or anything as badly as I wanted him. He broke the kiss long enough to pull my shirt over my head, then took a half step back and sucked in a breath. Exactly the reaction I’d hoped for when I’d put the purple lace bra on that morning on the off chance he’d finally break his vow of chastity.

“If you stop now,” I warned, “I’ll make good on my earlier threat.”

“Not a chance.”

Chapter Six

He took me hard and fast, right there up against the wall after we’d cranked up the TV and radio as cover. Thankfully it was an outside wall, or his friends next door might have thought we were having an earthquake. Angels sang. Fireworks went off. I might have even died briefly. All that pent-up sexual frustration was ten tons of dynamite packed tighter than a starlet in designer jeans.

One thing about Super Agent, he was incredibly thorough in his investigation techniques, leaving no spot on my body unexplored. The second time on the bed was where Super Agent really lived up to his nickname. I was pretty sure I saw God that time, and he whispered, “You’re welcome.”

We lay in the aftermath, sheets and clothes strewn all around. A fine sheen of sweat coated his body, highlighting the hills and lowlighting the valleys. He looked as though he’d been sculpted from fine stone. Whereas I looked like I’d been molded out of Play-Doh by an art-challenged toddler. My hair, unruly on most days, now lay in tangled ropes around us, but I hardly cared about any of that with the zing of multiple orgasms still jolting my system.

“You’re not going out with that Jonas guy,” Super Agent decreed, barely out of breath. I might have hated him a little for that except I couldn’t muster the energy for it. Or anything else.

I rolled my head to the side to look at him. “Who?”

“Damn right.”

I snorted a laugh.

“That was a good lead he gave you.” He sounded reluctant to admit it.

“You think?”

“Maybe.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

“How long have you had me under surveillance?”

He answered without hesitation. “Almost a year.”

I hadn’t expected that answer. It was much longer than I’d ever imagined. He’d seen me at my best and my worst. I considered all the things people did when they thought no one was watching. Except in my case someone had been watching and that someone was now lying gloriously naked beside me. Alarm bells jangled at the back of my brain. Unease crept cold over me, obliterating my warm afterglow.

He must have sensed my agitation. Rolling toward me, he studied my expression. “I hated seeing you with him. I knew what he was into, what he would drag you into. There were times…”

I waited him out. Not because I was anxious to hear what he had to say, but because I was just so stunned. I pulled the sheet up to cover myself, needing that barrier. I was overexposed. He knew everything about me, every detail of my life. I hadn’t thought about that until this moment, not all the way.

He reached out to touch my cheek and I flinched. He frowned. “Maggie…I’m sorry. I wish we’d met the normal way.”

“Normal. I don’t think I’d recognize normal if it walked up and introduced itself.”

He reached for me again, slower this time. I stayed still, but his touch felt different somehow. “When this is all over I want to take you out on a real date.”

I sat up, easing out of his reach, and fashioned the sheet so that only my head was uncovered. “Yeah, I think we might have jumped the shark here.”

He leaned up on an elbow. “What exactly are you saying?”

I tried to look at him, but all I saw was how stupid and impulsive I’d been. I knew nothing about this guy, and he knew everything about me. If I lived a thousand years I’d never learn all of the things about him that he’d known about me for months now. I didn’t have the staff, resources or access the FBI did.

I rose from the bed, gathering the sheet tight. “I think you should leave.”

Chapter Seven

Alone in my apartment, I tried to watch a movie, then read a book, then twelve other things that didn’t take my mind off Super Agent. In the end, I gathered up the spent condom wrappers, stripped the sheets from the bed, stuffed them in the hamper and had myself a good long cry in the shower.

Some people might have wondered why I’d stayed so long in my unusual relationship with Chuck Puckett. The thing was, it was easy.
He
was easy, predicable as sunrise. I was happy. Mostly. He treated me well, took me places, made me feel special. He was my best friend. I could tell him anything, and I never doubted myself with him. Well, not until
that
night anyway. The illusions it had shattered still dotted my life, like shards of broken glass.

Had I jumped so quickly into bed with Super Agent to make myself feel sexy and desirable again, or were my feelings for him real? I couldn’t be sure. It was all so tangled and twisted.