Jonathon Vale had been dealt some crap assignments in his long tenure at the Agency, but at least they’d been exciting. Deadly, maybe, but exciting. And, frankly, he preferred that to what he was doing now. Instead of ferreting out terrorists or keeping the world safe for democracy, he was trudging through foot-high snow as far as the eye could see and freezing his ass off for the sake of a glorified babysitting job. Forced to ditch the helicopter a few miles back as the area surrounding his destination was too heavily forested to land nearby, he’d walked the rest of the way, past endless trees laden with the same sparkly white stuff he was busy slogging through. Maybe he should have been enjoying the serenity of the frosty wooded wilderness, but he was bored out of his mind and cold as hell. The sooner he got this over with, the better.

It was a waste of a trained agent’s time. This Dr. Veronica Barrett was just some kind of a research scientist, one who lived out in the middle of fucking nowhere, by the way. If the Agency wanted to talk to her, they should have sent her a plane ticket and been done with it. But because they’d overheard a reference to her project in the wiretap chatter that morning, they were suddenly worried for the obscure academic’s safety. So here he was, going to the ends of the earth—well, North Dakota anyway, but same difference—to whisk her back to headquarters.

The Agency could be so paranoid sometimes.

The sight of a house and a barn up ahead was a good sign. He knew it must be Barrett’s spread because she was—again—out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Who else’s would it be?

By the time he reached the barn, he could see through a window that Dr. Barrett was using it as a laboratory. She was inside there now, moving around from makeshift table to makeshift table, adjusting spouts and reading gauges. Since the space heater in the corner presumably warmed the structure, she had flung her coat on to a chair and had only those funny leggings women wear, boots and a long frumpy sweater to protect her from the elements.

She looked a hell of a lot different from the picture in her file. In the black-and-white photo, she had seemed pretty nondescript. Regular features, hair pulled back, a distant stare.

In person, she was a flat-out beauty, with long legs and a fluid way of moving, her blonde curly hair tumbling around her shoulders and down her back.

It was disconcerting. Like Kate Upton playing a professor. If it hadn’t been so cold out, he would have said his dick was getting hard.

But at least the assignment was looking up on the boredom front.

The only footprints in the snow leading from the house to the barn were one small set, which must have been hers. He rounded the perimeter of the barn, just to make sure, but the snow was pristine. Except for him.

Almost out of habit, he took his gun from his inside jacket pocket and stuck it in the back waistband of his pants for easier access before coming through the unlocked barn door. He tried to be as quiet as possible so as not to startle her.

Without looking up, she said, “Hi there. I’ve been waiting for you to get here.”

Okay, she wasn’t startled.

“Dr. Barrett?”

She finished pouring some solution into a test tube from a greenish bottle and set it down. Only then did she give him her full attention. “Yes. That’s me. Give me a minute to finish taking these readings then we can go back into the house and get started.”

He had no idea who she thought he was, but she seemed to have been expecting him. He knew she hadn’t been warned by the Agency. They never warned a ‘charge’ in this kind of situation that they were about to be taken in. They claimed it prevented leaks, although he thought it was just that paranoia again.

Whoever she thought he was, though, years of undercover training ensured that explaining the truth was never his first impulse. Getting more information was.

“I hope I’m not too late,” he offered.

She consulted a funky, man-sized watch on her slender wrist and shook her head, looking back at him. She had the deepest blue eyes. “Not at all. We’ve got the whole night. I mean, if we need it. But it doesn’t really take that long, when all’s said and done, does it?”

He hesitated. “It shouldn’t,” he decided upon.

“Good.” She added in a mutter, “I need to get back to my work, which somebody on a Caribbean beach doesn’t quite get.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. I hope you didn’t have to walk too far. Taxis won’t come all this way.”

“Ah, no. It was fine.” Not.

He planned on telling her who he was in the house, not out here. Theoretically, there was more security that way, but he really just hoped it would be warmer. He was still fucking freezing. In the house, maybe she could get him a cup of coffee or something. Then he’d explain everything, and she could come back outside for whatever instruments or notes she needed. Only the portable ones, of course. They had a long walk back to the helicopter.

After a little more fussing with her dials, she said, “All set.”

She grabbed her parka and without a word headed back to the house, and he followed.

It was a clapboard two-story number with green shutters that would have looked more at home in New England than in this neck of the woods. She climbed the snow-strewn porch and opened the back door, not locked he noticed, into an old-fashioned kitchen. The big potbelly stove in the corner kept the small room warm and he closed the door behind him while she hung her coat on a hook. There were pictures of lighthouses along the cherry blossom wallpaper and a loaf of what smelled like freshly baked bread on the stove.

“Well.” She turned to him. “Let me get a glass of wine then we should probably get this going. You know, I hadn’t decided what I was going to do here. But when I saw you, I thought why not? I love the rugged type, all tall and built. So this is great. You have such gorgeous eyes and dark hair too. I like dark hair.”

While he was trying to digest that bizarre line of conversation, damn if she didn’t walk right up to him and yank his head down for a kiss. A long, open-mouthed kiss that he couldn’t avoid.

Really.

She tasted like mint, and with the aggressiveness of the kiss, her tongue was in his mouth and her hand on his ass in no time. He gasped, not that she seemed to notice, what with her enthusiastic French kissing and his cock hardening and jamming into her stomach in response to her sweet hand on his behind. She nudged him closer, right up against her, moving sensuously, and with one last, oh so very hot sucking of his tongue, pulled away.

The shock that must have been on his face was undoubtedly comical, but she didn’t seem to notice that, either.

She smiled, in a sexy way that he was going to have trouble putting out of his mind. “I just wanted a taste first, but then this is your show,” she said. “I do need a little wine, though, to relax me.”

Damn. She seemed pretty relaxed to him. He cleared his throat as she turned to the refrigerator, opened it and took the wine out.

In life, it was all about timing.

And her timing couldn’t have been worse.

After that kiss, he was mighty sorry about it, too.

He waited for his erection to subside for a minute so he could get what he needed to say out. Concentrating on baseball scoring was helping a little. If that didn’t work, he was going to Latin conjugations. That always did the trick.

She poured her glass of wine, white, and he declined any with a shake of his head.

“So I want you to go ahead and do, er, whatever it is you do to get it all started.” Leaning back against a kitchen counter, she gestured with the wineglass vaguely in his direction. “As I said, you’re in charge.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and, obviously not thinking herself in any danger, she followed the movement with her eyes only.

“Is that a condom?” she asked as he was extracting what he needed from his pocket. “Because I have those upstairs.”

He froze, but then decided he was so not going there and just flashed his I.D. “I’m Agent Jonathon Vale. I’ve been sent by the Agency to get you, Dr. Barrett.”

She looked at the I.D. “I hope Mattie didn’t ask for any specific scenarios, because we have really different tastes. But if this is just what you usually do, I guess that’s fine. No handcuffs, though, please.”

Veronica Barrett’s birthday present was hot. Really, really hot. When her best friend Mattie had called yesterday from her tropical vacation to wish Veronica a happy birthday, the news of what she had gotten her as a present hadn’t been exactly welcome. But with six feet three inches of raw male in front of her now, Veronica was rethinking the whole concept.

“Read the email,” Mattie had instructed with authority in her tone from some Caribbean beach, a margarita no doubt clutched in the hand that wasn’t holding the cell phone.

“The one that says ‘don’t open until I call you’?”

“Yeah.”

She had clicked on it. “Ah okay. It says, ‘For Ronny. One hot guy.’ And the date. Tomorrow’s date, not the next day. God, Mattie, you didn’t fix me up for my birthday, did you? Because I got to tell you, not only is tomorrow not my birthday—”

“It’s the day after, I know. And I didn’t fix you up. I got you a guy. I didn’t book him for your actual birthday on the off-chance that by some miracle you might already have plans for that day.”

“Book him?”

“Yeah. I got you a male escort.”

“Tell me that doesn’t mean what it sounds like.”

“It means exactly what it sounds like. He escorts you to bed. Just like female escorts do with guys.”

Veronica had laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I’m not. Why shouldn’t women be able to go to one when we want good, mindless sex? Just like guys.”

“I’m too busy for your usual nutty conversation, Mattie. Thanks, but I can’t take you up on it.”

“Too late. It’s a done deal. He’s coming to you. Coming to you,” her friend had snickered. “Get it?”

“Yeah. I get it, Mattie. And not that I don’t appreciate it, but, well, I don’t appreciate it. So please undo whatever you did.”

“I can’t. I booked it with my agency. It took a lot of pull for them to find someone in that region. Most of their clients are based in New York, like me. Anyway, I ordered tall, dark and handsome since I know you go for that type. Supposedly.”

“Philip was, er, dark.”

Veronica’s last boyfriend, Professor-Too-Boring-For-Words, had been a world-class douche-bag. He’d recently run off to Vegas with a stripper.

“I cannot believe you have an agency for this,” she’d added as an aside.

“I have an agency for everything, Ronny. You know that. But don’t worry—it’s very upscale.”

“All your agencies are,” she’d muttered.

“It costs a fortune, but it’s worth it. The guy they sent me was totally hot. It was great. Just what I needed at the time. And just what you need now.”

“All I need now is to figure out this equation I’m struggling with so I can—”

“Exactly what I’m talking about, Ronny. Give it a rest for one minute and enjoy turning twenty-seven. You’ll still get the Nobel Prize if you take a day off once and a while.”

“I don’t need a boy-toy, Mattie. I’m not even interested in sex right now.”

“Given who you were having it with last, I can’t say I’m surprised. But this’ll be different. These guys know what they’re doing. And believe me, every girl needs a boy-toy. Especially when she’s on the rebound. I have to go now. Happy birthday, Ronny! The guy’s going to show up tomorrow afternoon sometime, not sure exactly when, but it might take him longer to make it up to your, er, retreat. I can’t cancel it. So make the best of it, hon. I know you’ve got it in you. Call me and let me know how it was. Bye!”

“Wait! Am I supposed to tip?” Veronica had cried into the dial tone.

If she was supposed to tip, the guy wasn’t earning it just yet. He held out that phony badge and kept his face deadpan, not sweeping her off her feet with passion or anything. But, God, he was gorgeous. Broad shoulders, narrow hips. His black hair was shorter than the academics she was used to dating, but it was long enough to give it a little wave and all she wanted to do was run her fingers through it. Preferably while his tongue was in her mouth. And she didn’t want to waste any time with sophomoric playacting about secret agents and damsels in distress.

“I’m not into bondage,” she added for his benefit and for the first time got the ghost of a smile out of him. His teeth were white against his tan.

“That’s good to know.” He raked his fingers through his hair and put the badge thing back in his coat.

“Let me take that.” She went to divest him of his leather bomber jacket and for a second thought he might not let her. But then he slipped something from behind him into the inside pocket—too quickly for her to see what it was—and shrugged out of the coat.

“Sure.”

It felt heavy as she hung it on the hook and she wondered if maybe he had some tools of the trade in his jacket pockets, dildos or what not. If he did, he could leave them there. She wouldn’t need anything extra with this guy. With his coat off, and in a black shirt to go with his black jeans and boots, he looked even cuter than he had with his tough leather on.

He’d look cuter still naked.

“Do you think I could get a cup of coffee or something?” he asked. “I’m still shivering from my walk.”

“Oh, absolutely,” she said, even though she wasn’t sure coffee was going in the right direction here. “Don’t mind me. I have sex on the mind.”

There was that smile again. Even wider now. “Uh, thanks for sharing.”

Maybe not all his clients were as upfront as she was.

She fixed him a cup of coffee from the pot she always kept on the warmer and poured herself another glass of wine, downing it as he sipped his brew, one hip against the counter.

She checked her watch. “Not that I’m trying to rush things, but could we go upstairs now?”

He glanced down her body. As far as she knew, it wasn’t required that the client look particularly good in this kind of arrangement, but his focus was making her wish she’d taken a little more care with her dress. She’d gone out to the lab to do a couple tests to take her mind off her nerves and next thing she knew he was there and she didn’t have time to change. Anyway, if she had to dress up, how was this any different from a real date? In other words, a lot of trouble. Who was working for whom here?

“You want to go upstairs?” he asked.

“Well, that’s where the bedroom is.”