Dance with the Devil Read Free Page B

night air. It hadn’t snowed in the past couple of days, and gray sludge was banked against the shrubs lining the driveway. She’d be home before the arrival of the predicted snow flurries.
    â€œStill don’t bother to wear a coat. Stubborn woman.” He didn’t remove his own thick, black wool overcoat because he knew from experience she’d never wear it. Not even for the few minutes it took to traverse the driveway and climb the front steps.
    She was allergic to wool, wouldn’t wear fur and hated to be in anything bulky in case she needed to run like hell. “I’m warm-blooded.” She made a grab for the wrought-iron banister as her foot slipped on the ice-crusted sidewalk.
    Jack rested his hand on the small of her back to steady her. The heat of his touch sizzled right through the flimsy fabric of her dress and just for one, tiny, ridiculously small, infinitesimal, eensy moment, she enjoyed the feel of his hand on her again.
    God help her.
    â€œHot-blooded, you mean,” Jack murmured in her ear.
    He was right. She was hot-blooded. Ordinarily, she could ignore the cold, but somehow she couldn’t quite manage to ignore Jack. He was the matchstick to her dynamite. The gas to her flame. The— oh, stop it, she thought crossly.
    Jack hadn’t needed a cover. He was a wealthy playboy dilettante who couldn’t stand a too bright light shone on his activities. He had an…edge to him that was irresistible. Women dropped at his feet like flies and men were intrigued by just a hint of deep, dark secrets behind his midnight eyes. Men and women alike wanted to stand close to Jack’s dangerous flame. He was invited everywhere the rich, famous and powerful of DC gathered.
    Jack Ryan had never been the right man for her, Mia reminded herself grimly. No matter what her body told her, he was not the right man for her. He was commitment-phobic for one thing, and for another he had no respect for hard-earned money. And she’d always know that there was something he wasn’t telling her. She’d always been waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.
    While she’d never starved, or been homeless, she had a healthy respect for the security of a decent bank balance. Her father had split when she was six. The classic—gone out for cigarettes and never come back. She’d seen just how her mom had struggled to support herself and two kids.
    Mia wasn’t prepared to jeopardize her own hard-earned savings, or the stability and happiness of her future children, on a man who threw his money away, and kept secrets.
    She’d kept her head, and systematically gone about searching for the father of those children for years before she’d met Jack.
    And for several months she’d lost what was left of her brain.
    She’d worked in intelligence at the agency for five years before they’d agreed to put her in the field. Her first assignment with Jack, heisting a briefcase from a foreign diplomat at Grand Central station, had been a onetime thing.
    The job had gone so well, her nimble fingers so quick, the agency had made them a team. Jack had guarded her back and planned the jobs. Mia had been his “hands.” Her long, magic fingers could caress open any lock in less time than it took to say Uncle Sam. All those years in the trailer park playing marbles and, later, five card stud had given her dexterity. It had also given her a mistrust of the wealthy, and a healthy respect for her own self-preservation.
    They’d never discussed their pasts, Mia had realized when it was all over. They’d both thought their lives had started the first time they’d been intimate. A clean slate, a new start, a fresh beginning. For both of them. Boy, had she been wrong.
    She was already working at the bank, her cover, when she finally quit the agency. The transition had been relativity painless. Relatively.
    Light spilled from the open front door down the