Dare Me Read Free

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I’ll accomplish two crucial goals at one time.  It’s win-win.”
    Macy speared him with a spiteful glare.  “You think it’s
impressive to hinge the success of our mission on me having sex with you?”
    He grinned.  “Flowers and poetry don’t move you, my love. 
They never have.  But dangle the carrot of another successful mission in front
of you and you can’t resist.”
    Macy pressed her lips tightly together and from inside the
pockets of her jacket, he could see her fists straining against the leather. 
Like him, Macy was a professional liar.  She could fool the best that the
world’s intelligence agencies offered.  But so could he.  Even from the
beginning, they’d learned that lying to each other was a complete waste of
time.  He’d managed to feed her a mistruth only once since he’d known her—and
that decision had cost him her love.
    Love he was determined to get back.
    “Macy, you must admit,” he continued.  “I’ve taken good care
of myself over the years.  I’m not unattractive.  I can’t imagine you’d
consider sleeping with me such a huge sacrifice.”
    She arched a dark red brow.  “Are you so hard up?”
    “No, just hard.”
    “That’s crass,” she sniped.
    “No, that’s honest.”
    Without response, she stepped into the foyer, moving around
the partitioning wall so she could see fully into the house—and escape his
close scrutiny.  From the street, the cottage appeared relatively small, though
he had no doubt she’d studied the blueprints during her mission prep.  But now
that she was finally inside, she would recognize the impressive scope of the
layout.  The nooks and crannies built into the walls—the overflow of antiques
that filled nearly every space.
    On his orders, nothing had been removed from the house and
every piece of bric-a-brac had been x-rayed, examined, catalogued and then
returned to its original home.  Even the precise arrangements of the
knick-knacks, chairs, settees and claw-footed tables had been studied for
patterns that could lead them to the code.
    But so far, the Arm agents had come up empty.  The code,
likely a collection of letters, numbers and symbols, could literally be
anywhere in the house.
    He followed Macy as she assessed the scope of her mission,
stopping when his groin nearly brushed against her backside.  He took a moment
to close his eyes and inhale the subtle scent of her perfume, a cool aroma
tinged with sharp lemon, refreshing mint and soothing chamomile.  When he
opened his eyes, he realized how close he’d leaned in.  His nose was less than
an inch from her hair.
    He wanted her beyond reason.  At one time, he’d questioned
the depth of his need, even railed against the connection that floated only a
step below obsession.  But now, he accepted how his love simply ran deep and
that a man like him could stop at nothing until he won back the woman who owned
his heart.
    “I refuse your offer,” she said coolly.
    “You have no alternative.”
    “I could kill you.”
    “Then my men would kill you.  Neither the Arm nor T-45 would
have the code, all because you don’t want to face what we once had together.”
    “What we once had died the day you betrayed me.” To her
credit, her voice remained steady and strong.
    “Maybe.  Are you courageous enough to find out for sure?”
    Macy glanced over her shoulder, her eyes narrow slits of
blue.  “I know for sure, the same way that I know I’ll find the code.”
    She stepped away again and tapped her large stud earring.
    “This is Rush, reporting in.”
    As the agent monitoring her message replied, she brushed
past him.
    “Patch me directly to Marshall,” she ordered.  “We have a
problem.”
    * * *
    The burn of his stare scorched the back of her neck, but
Macy refused to turn around.  She’d once thought Dante couldn’t be any more
arrogant and confident than he had been ten years ago when they’d first met—he
the master agent and she the rookie