Free On Her Six (Under Covers) by Christina Elle

goddamn scramble?
    All he’d been thinking about was her reaction last night, those light-colored eyes opened wide, and how he’d like to see that sweet expression as he drove into her. Hard. Her perfectly arched eyebrows had risen so high they’d almost disappeared into her hairline, and her soft lips formed an ideal round shape. Yeah, she’d be beautiful lying under him sated and exhausted.
    No, goddamn it. The point of last night had not been to arouse her. Or himself.
    Flashing a group of women—older women at that—wasn’t something he did on a regular basis. But he’d needed to do something to get the lot of busybodies flustered. His bared male form had certainly done the trick. The wrinkled biddies quickly left their perch by the window not long after he started his unorthodox workout. Thank Christ it had been eighty degrees last night. If it had been a frigid winter night, he wouldn’t have dared it. He’d wanted to shock the old biddies, not freak the shit out of them with a case of shriveled dick.
    He picked up the demolished heap of plastic and carried it to the front yard.
    Crushing the plastic in his arms, he dropped it on the edge of the curb for trash collection the next morning. He spun and headed for the backyard.
    At the fence, his hand rested on the latch. He stole a glance next door.
    No movement near the windows.
    No prying eyes peering out.
    He opened the gate and entered his yard.
    Odd. For a woman so determined to learn more about him, she wasn’t doing a very good job. He’d expected more from—what did she call herself?— A proud employee of the Baltimore City Police Department? Not much of a cop if she didn’t know how to carry out a discrete investigation.
    A branch cracked beneath his foot as he took a step and then froze. An investigation… Was that what today was? Something to test his reaction? Learn his weaknesses?
    No. Now he was being paranoid. If Heinrich hired someone to run surveillance on him, it wouldn’t be a handful of elderly females led by a pain-in-the-ass woman. No matter how tempting the ringleader may be to him.
    Her apology and embarrassment was real. Her face lit up into thirty shades of red, and her eyes were wide like a cartoon character’s. She hadn’t intended to drop the air conditioner on him.
    Even so. He grinned wryly. Pretty good aim if she had. Another inch or two to the left and he’d be pleading his case for entry into the pearly gates.
    He glanced back up to the window he assumed was her bedroom.
    The image of her hanging out of it wearing just a thin, low-cut tank top sent him reeling. That kind of distraction was the last thing he needed. He reminded himself again that he wasn’t in Baltimore for vacation, though he needed one. Bad. It was so easy to think about the sweet-looking blond next door rather than the mission at hand.
    Damn it, he was doing it again. Letting a woman get in the way of his work. Just like he had with Lorena.
    Beautiful, exotic, and tempting. The first three words that came to mind when Lorena walked into that bar in Buenos Aires. He’d literally lost his breath when she locked onto his gaze and smiled.
    “Damn idiot.” Ash kicked the fence post hard enough to make it rattle. A searing pain shot up his calf, but it only fueled him. He deserved the punishment.
    He needed to find out as much as he could about this group of women. Between Blondie with her handcuffs in the trunk and the state-of-the-art equipment the group had been using last night, he suspected there was a hell of a lot more to the story. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone and dialed the agency. Giles, the computer guy who could hack into any computer anywhere, answered.
    “Ash, this is a surprise. How goes it?”
    “Not bad. How’ve you been, Giles?” He cradled the phone on his shoulder as he bent to retrieve the hammer and a nail.
    “Ah, can’t complain. Director Landry locked me in this hole they call the IT department, but I