Aegis Security 02 - Sinful Surrender Read Free Page A

as far from “hippie” as they could get.
    The bartender headed by, and Brian held up a hand, stopping the guy. “My friend here would like a drink.” To Grace—no, Samara —he said, “What’ll you have?”
    “Oh, um.” She clenched the small clutch against the bar, her fingers repeatedly tightening and releasing, a nervous gesture he definitely caught, and looked over the bottles along the wall. “Ah…how about… a white-wine spritzer.”
    She’d been drinking a martini before. She clearly didn’t know the follies of mixing alcohols, especially wine.
    While the bartender turned to make her drink, Brian’s interest was piqued even more. “So, Samara . Ever notice how people don’t have traditional names anymore? Tandi, Jagger, Philippa, Jax. Whatever happened to names like Joan and Rick and Darcy and Steve?”
    Her cheeks brightened, as if she knew he was catching her in a lie. “Darcy isn’t a very common name. I’ve only met one person named Darcy my whole life.”
    “Is she traditional?”
    Grace— Samara —considered for a moment. “No, not really. She writes romance novels.”
    “Definitely not traditional.” And the woman wasn’t backing down . Interesting .
    The bartender set her drink in front of her, and she reached for it quickly.
    “What about you?” Brian asked. “What do you do?”
    “Me?” Grace took a very large sip of her drink and winced like she hadn’t expected it to taste the way it did. And Brian found himself smiling. She was so far out of her comfort zone, it was amusing to watch. “Um, I, ah…I write the back-cover copy. For romance novels.”
    No, she didn’t. She wrote music, not anything for any kind of romance novel. She was definitely playing this one high and tight, and he wanted to know why. He was also enjoying himself. More than he had in weeks. “Would I know any of the books you’ve written copy for?”
    Unease crossed her features, and she took another large sip. “Do you read romance novels?”
    “Only the ones with whips and chains.”
    Her eyes shot open, and shock made her mouth open in a tiny, sexy O, one that made him think of—oh yeah, not good— sex .
    Blood gathered in his groin, and heat rushed through his veins.
    A heartbeat passed, then, slowly, her eyes narrowed. “You’re playing with me.”
    No. But he suddenly wanted to. His gaze ran over her again, and this time it hovered on her perky breasts, her cleavage barely visible behind the black cocktail gown. Instead of being on display like every other chick in the bar, she was cocooned in a classy little package. One he itched to unwrap.
    “I might be.”
    Her face relaxed. “Then, no, I guess you wouldn’t.”
    She set her glass back down, working for calm when he could tell she was anything but. “What about you, Brian? What do you do?”
    What did he do? Two could play this fantasy game. “I’m part of the US men’s ski team.”
    “Oh, wow.” Her eyes widened and held his with awe and surprise. Dark, really sexy eyes, he noticed now. Not a thing like Ryder’s, except for the color. “That’s amazing. You must be really good.”
    He was good at a lot of things. And he had a wicked urge to show her. Which…totally went against every one of his gut reactions where young, cute girls like her were concerned. He also didn’t like how gullible she was, believing his bullshit so fast. “Yeah.” He frowned, conflicting emotions warring inside him. “I do what I can.”
    “Unfortunately, I’m not much of a skier. I stick mostly to the green dots.”
    Angled toward her, he propped his elbow on the bar and tried to keep his eyes off her breasts and firmly on her face. “So, Samara, if you’re not much of a skier, what are you doing in Vail?”
    “Oh, I—” Her gaze skipped past him, and her whole body tensed.
    Brian went from horny men’s ski team member to Aegis operative in a split second. Every muscle tightened in anticipation of some kind of ambush. “What? What