Ace indicated the way to the door with a tilt of his head. “Are we taking him up on it, Rhea?”
Rhea took a deep breath as she fought an urge to run in the other direction, but this wasn’t about her Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
and Ace and his obnoxiousness. It was about stopping a cold-blooded killer who didn’t care whom he hurt.
For that, she was willing to do anything. Even put up with the most arrogant male in existence.
She looked at Tee. “I do get to beat Ace, right?”
“He’ll be your slave for training. I say make him cry for mercy.”
Ace looked completely undaunted by the prospect. “Beat me, hurt me,call me Ralph.”
“Yeah, call you Ralph. I’ll be lucky if I don’t ‘ralph’ from the sight of you naked all right.”
“Ooo,” Ace said in an appreciative tone.“Swift on the uptake, Stevenson. I’m impressed.”
Before she could respond, Ace returned to his cube and grabbed his jacket. Rhea went ahead and shut down her computer while Joe headed back to his office.
Tee opened up the folder again and sorted through the papers until she found one in particular, which she handed to Rhea. “This is the dossier for Bender. Memorize it while you learn to beat the crap out of him.”
A distinct, evil glimmer in her eye said Tee would enjoy being in Rhea’s position. “If you want this so badly, why aren’t you doing it?”
“Because he doesn’t have a thing for short Vietnamese women.Wish that he did though.”
“Me too.The thought of going in, in nothing but a teddy doesn’t appeal to me.”
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“Don’t worry. We’ll cover you.”
And they would too. BAD always took careof her own . “I know.”
Tee stepped back as Ace rejoined them.
“You two have a nice night and get friendly.” Tee handed a small business card to Rhea. “First thing in the morning, I’m having the instructor meet you at your house where I’m sure you’ll feel a little more comfortable. In the meantime, I want you two to get into character early. This is the address for an adult store here inNashville . Head over and stock up on toys.”
Ace gave that wicked grin of his as he gave Rheaa once-over that made her stomach tight. “I’m definitely up for it.”
Rhea was completely unamused by his humor. “You better be down for it.”
She took the card from Tee,then looked up at Ace. “You are really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.So what’s first?” Ace asked playfully as he took a step toward her.“Dinner or sex?”
“Excuse me?”
He took the card from her hand, letting his fingers brush hers in a warm caress, and smiled like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.“C’mon, Rhea. Have you ever been to an adult store before?”
Hardly.Kinky sex had never appealed to her at all, and she’d heard enough tales from her odder friends to know she had no interest in haunting adult stores for the aids they provided. “Have you?”
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He looked completely unrepentant. “I’ll plead the Fifth to that.”
“I knew you were a pervert.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault the customers took me along whenever my dad made them watch me.”
Rhea shook her head as Ace stepped back,then led the way from their offices toward the elevator bank.
Ace’s father, Alister Cross, was a renowned director who had won several Academy Awards. Ace’s grandfather, Osker Krux, owned one of the largest movie studios in the world, and Ace’s younger brother was an Academy Award–winning special FX guru. Ace himself had once been a stunt double before he’d gone on to work for the Secret Service.
“You know, I’ve never understood why you’re a BAD agent anyway. Why didn’t you follow your family’s business?”
He shrugged. “Movies are boring. Actors arefake and I figured if I wanted to live my life on the edge, I might as well be doing it for real. Why take a chance on dying from a blank gone bad when I can dodge real bullets intended to kill me and save the world?”
In a weird way that made sense to her, and she actually managed a grudging respect for him.
“What about you?” he asked as they waited on the elevator.“What made a respectable CIA agent follow Joe to a shadow agency that has no known ally?”
“I respect the hell out of Joe and Tee and their agenda, and I didn’t like all the rules of the CIA.” That’s what BADwas best at. No rules to bind their hands. Each agent was licensed as a civilian contractor.
They were funded under the Treasury Department and hidden away as a federal insurance agency, which in an ironic way they really were. Only “insurance” took on a whole new meaning for them.
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In reality, they were an antiterrorism special task force that no one other than the president knew about.