Page 9 of Cyn
“You seem surprised by my visit. As an intelligence agent, I didn’t think I’d catch you so unaware.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Hold that thought.”
She reached over and grabbed her phone off her nightstand. Bringing up her texting app, she texted her uncle.
“WHAT THE FUCK???”
“Am I to understand from your choice of words that Joe has arrived?”
“I repeat,WHAT THE FUCK????”She added that fourth question mark to drive her point home.
“Treat him like Joe, the other Joe. Old Joe,”Franklin said.
Cyn raised her gaze and looked at New Joe. He hadn’t moved much and was still casually watching her.
“Old Joe didn’t show up in my bedroom like he belonged there. Not that that’s a bad way to wake up, but still…”
“I’m pleased you noticed.”
That gave her pause. Again, she looked at Joe. She wouldn’t put it past Franklin to try his hand at matchmaking. He was almost as bad as her parents when it came to wanting her to spawn some offspring. While her parents wanted babies to spoil, Cyn was pretty sure that Franklin would take great delight in grooming the love child of one of his agents and a police officer into some sort of super agent.
Not wanting to continue the conversation with her uncle, Cyn dropped the phone. “Sorry, you were saying…?” she asked Joe.
One side of his mouth tipped up. “I was saying that for a spy, I seemed to have caught you unaware.”
She tipped her head and kept her eyes locked on his as she answered. “There are at least seven different ways I could kill you before you even realized what I was doing. And that’s without going Mata Hari on you. I may have been asleep, but I’m never not prepared.” Not entirely true, but close enough. There were actually eleven ways she could kill him. “Now why don’t you run along downstairs and let Dan get you a cup of coffee or something. I’ll meet you down there in a few minutes.”
Joe shook his head. “No can do.”
“Generally, I rather enjoy Americanism, but not that one. Is there a reason you are unable to trot downstairs for coffee? Surely, my uncle—or yours—didn’t order you to stick to my side?”
A thoughtful expression came over his face, but it was fleeting. She’d barely caught it before it was gone, and he lifted a shoulder in response. “Dan led me up here. I have no idea how to get back downstairs or, for that matter, to the kitchen.”
She stared at him. It had been so long since she’d had anyone in her home that didn’t know it as well as their own. And she had to admit, his point was valid.
She let out a huff and her fringe—or bangs as Joe would call them—fluttered. “Fair enough, but you might want to turn around lest I offend your delicate sensibilities.”
Again, his brows went up.
Fine, he’d get an eyeful then. She shot him a “you asked for it” look, but secretly, she wasn’t too sad he hadn’t shied away from the challenge she’d laid at his feet. From their short acquaintance, Joe Harris seemed like a man who prided himself on being unflappable.
It was going to be great fun to test that theory.
Chapter Four
Not one to back down froma challenge—and yes, that was what Cyn Steele had issued—Joe remained at the door watching. The woman in question threw off her ridiculously puffy down comforter and slid from underneath, wearing nothing but a loose tank top that barely covered her ass. Her very fine ass.
Yeah, he’d noticed. He’d noticed a lot of things about Cyn Steele. Her hair that, in the dark of his car the night before had looked dark brown, actually held deep red highlights. Her driver’s license probably identified her eyes as blue, but in reality, they were more like a slate gray. Even that description wasn’t quite right, though. There was something almost arctic in them—not that she was cold, but her eyes reminded him of the way ice could catch and reflect light. And then there was the rest of her. Coming in at no more than five-foot-two, Cyn wasn’t just on the short side, she was petite all around. Her bone structure was so fine that he was pretty sure his hands could fit around her rib cage.
He heard the water in her bathroom turn on and as he listened, he pulled out his phone and texted his uncle.
“What the fuck?”Yeah, he’d had no idea when he’d accepted the job as chief of police for Cos Cob that he’d also be inheriting a role his uncle had played for the Fearless Foursome—as Uncle Joe had dubbed them—the past twelve years. That bit of news had come to him last night after he’d finally gotten home from checking in with the coroner and logging evidence. A nondisclosure agreement and a note from his uncle telling him he needed to sign it had been in his email inbox.
Joe hadn’t been about to sign something that he knew nothing about, so he’d called his uncle and demanded some answers. Some his uncle had given, but some he hadn’t—not until Joe agreed to sign the agreement, which read more like a document related to the Official Secrets Act in the UK than a standard NDA. Figuring what the hell, he’d signed the document and then learned all about Cyn Steele and her three friends. He didn’t quite know how it worked having four foreign agents living and working in the US, with approval from the US government, but he’d leave that for his uncle and his uncle’s friend, Franklin, to figure out.
“You talk to Cyn?”
“Waiting for her now. Why didn’t you tell me she had no idea I was replacing you? In all ways.”
