The individual agents answered to Joe, and he answered to the head man alone.
No one else knew they existed and they all liked it that way.
The elevator doors opened.
Ace stood back to let her enter first. She didn’t speak again until they were enclosed inside and he’d pressed the button for the lobby.
“Besides,” she said, continuing their conversation, “I like the different kinds of agents we have. You guys are a lot more fun than the other agencies.”
He laughed at that. “Yeah, we’re not your average crew.”
Rhea smiled as she watched Ace from the corner of her eye. Even though he worked her last nerve into an apoplexy, she had to admit he was incredibly sexy standing there with his hands in his pockets while he looked up at the floor numbers overhead. Something about him was absolutely irresistible.
Too bad he knew it.
His presence wasmammoth in the elevator, or then again, anywhere. He was one of those rare men who possessed an aura that was intense and all-encompassing.
As much as she had tried to stay angry at him for his pomposity, there had always been a tiny part of her that was attracted to him.A really tiny part.
When he was silent and serious, he was actually breathtaking, which had always made her wonder just how many hearts he’d left broken.
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“So tell me, Ace. When was the last time you went out with a woman on a date?”
He looked at her. “A real date oran I
’m-pretending-to-be-someone-else-and-am-prying-you-for-information date?”
“A real date.”
He let out a low whistle.“Probably a year. What about you?”
She sighed wistfully at the painful truth.“Three years, at least.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Our job doesn’t exactly lend itself to dating, does it?”
“No. I’m never sure what to say when they ask me what I do for a living. Most guys are heavily intimidated by the thought of dating a federal agent.”
He snorted at that. “I tell women I’m a federal agent and they laugh and think I’m handing them a line.
So I usually make up bullshit about being a salesman or something.”
The door opened. Rhea walked across the lobby as she continued to smile while thinking of Ace in a bar with some giggling woman who had no idea just what the man was capable of. He was incredible in the field. He could speak a dozen languages fluently and held no fear of anything.
While in the Secret Service, he’d been shot three times and had brought countless criminals to trial. She was actually amazed that Joe had been able to pry Ace loose from their clutches. He’d been a celebrated hero to his group.
“You want to ride with me?” he asked.
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She shook her head vigorously no. “You can ride with me. I’ve seen the way you drive.”
“What?” he asked, his face a mask of innocence. “I have a perfect driving record.”
“Only because you charmed your way out of the last three tickets you got,” she reminded him.
“Those were minor speeding offenses.”
“Sure they were. And I’m a three-armed alien.”
Her words seemed to only amuse him. “Fine, Cha-Cha. You drive.”
She frowned.“Cha-Cha?As in Shirley ‘Cha-Cha’ Muldowney?”
“You know racing?” he asked as if surprised by her knowledge.
Rhea nodded. It wasn’t something she ever really mentioned to anyone, but then the topic seldom came up. “Are you kidding? She’s the first and only female Top Fuel Champion in NHRA history. When I was a kid, I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. My father was an old friend of her crew chief Connie Kalitta, and I actually have her autograph. Oh, I love that woman!”
“Then why is it you now drive like an old lady?”
She scoffed at that.“Old lady, nothing. I can J-turn a bulletproofLincoln limo with the best of them.”
Ace chuckled at her reference to agent training where they all learned how to handle a variety of vehicles under stressful circumstances. One in particular that all BAD agents had to pass was the ability to jump into anything available and drive it out of any possible danger including heavy artillery fire, grenade and Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
bomb attacks.
He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You still drive far too cautiously for my tastes.”
Rhea shivered at the unexpected sensation of his breath on her skin and did her best not to think of other, much more intimate things that would cause him to be so near her.
And she had the distinct impression that he wasn’t really talking about the way she handled a car.
Unwilling to go there, she led him to the parking deck where she had her red Mustang parked.
Ace didn’t say anything as they got in and headed out.