Free Prelude to a Rumor, Part One by Melissa Schroeder Page B

never going to accept his bisexuality.
    Sean pushed those thoughts aside and grabbed his wallet and car keys. He didn’t have time to worry about shit like that. He definitely didn’t want to keep Jaime waiting too long.
    Just thinking her name brought her back to the forefront of his mind, and he glanced at the connecting door. They had a suite of rooms at the hotel, one that provided them with much of the top floor. It also gave people the idea that they were married, or at least involved. Another glance in the mirror and he frowned. What was wrong with him? He was nervous about her on a level he didn’t understand. Maybe it was because he hadn’t been with a woman in a long time. He’d been working mainly with men in recent months, and several of them swung his way. Going out and finding a woman would have been a complication he didn’t need. But, Fate decided to drop what he saw as the perfect woman for the moment right into his lap.
    He walked over to her door and waited for a second, listening. Then, he rolled his shoulders, ordered himself to quit being an ass, and knock on her door. Hell, in a few short hours he had gone from interested into almost obsessive about his partner for the night. It wasn’t like him at all, but he had a feeling it had to do with the job at hand. Okay, it had a lot to do with the woman, but part of it was the mission. He tended to focus on things outside of the job so that he didn’t freak the fuck out. It was one of the games that Walter had taught him.
    He smiled. There had been very few positive male role models in his life. Walter Hughes had been one. He was the reason Sean made the money he did now and had the respect he had. Sean made a mental note to contact his old mentor to check in with him.
    Sean knocked on her door and waited. Nothing. No sounds from her room. He frowned and raised his hand to knock again just as the door whooshed open. For the first few moments, his mind went blank. Every bit of brain activity dissolved. It wasn’t a feeling he was accustomed to experiencing. For a former Army Special Forces and now well-known security expert, he normally could roll with any situation.
    “Sean?”
    He shook his head and brought his mind back to the present. Or at least somewhat. The woman was beautiful before, but she was stunning dressed as she was.
    She’d pulled her natural curls up into some loose kind of bun in the back of her head, leaving a few wisps around her face. The dress she wore was made of some kind of soft, body hugging material
    “Yeah, are you ready?”
    How fucking lame could he get? She nodded, and stepped out of her room. He waited for her to walk by him, then followed her out of their suite.
    “Make sure you call me Brett while we are around other people.”
    She slanted him a look as they walked side-by-side down the hallway. “What is it you Americans like to say? Oh, yes, this isn’t my first rodeo.”
    Of course it wasn’t. She was a seasoned agent and, if Lassiter trained her, there was a good chance she was almost as good as Sean. This was a complex and dangerous assignment. Letov was not a man to be fucked with, and while Lassiter liked to cut corners, he would never mess around with this situation. If he picked Jaime, she was up to the task.
    Still, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t make sure she knew where they stood.
    “Just don’t fuck it up.”
    She said nothing as they stepped into the elevator, but she slanted him a look that would have killed a lesser man.
    “And you might want to pretend that we are together.”
    She sighed. “Don’t worry, love. I can handle faking it.”
    “Ah, so that’s why you are in such a rotten mood.”
    She looked at him. “Why?”
    “Well, if you are used to faking it…”
    He let his insinuation sink it. He saw the moment it hit her. She frowned and stepped forward. Damn, she smelled good. Like want to lick every inch of her flesh good. She was definitely a treat he wanted to indulge