Overnight Male

There was something about the light of day that made everything scarier. More threatening. Less comforting. At least in the dark she knew where she stood. Daytime exposed too much ugliness, revealed too many sights to consume and digest and make sense of, released too many people who assumed too many roles. At night, everything was pretty cut-and-dried. People who populated the nighttime never worried much about making a good impression or keeping up an appearance. At night, not many people bothered with artifice. Daytime dwellers often had people to impress. Schedules to keep. Jobs to protect. So they often had much to hide. It was harder to trust those people.

Joel Faraday was just such a daytime dweller. But that wasn’t why Lila had trouble trusting him. It wasn’t even because she couldn’t be positive he wasn’t the leak. No, with him, it was the same as it was with everyone else. She didn’t trust him because…Well. Because he was human. And, she supposed, because she was human, too.

Before moving her hand to the doorbell, she first ran it briskly over the front of her white linen shirt and beige linen trousers—and immediately chided herself for taking even that small effort with her appearance. Flat beige skimmers completed the outfit. She’d pinned her hair atop her head when she showered and hadn’t bothered to take it down once she was dressed, nor had she bothered with jewelry or cosmetics. Not her typical attire or appearance by a long shot, but she liked to dress for comfort when she traveled. She’d slip into character once they arrived in Cincinnati. For now, she didn’t have to be She-Wolf. For now, she could still be Lila Moreau if she wanted. So for now, she would dress and act and talk however she wanted.

She adjusted her carry-on over her shoulder, pressed her finger to the doorbell and waited for Joel to answer. And waited. And waited. And waited. She was bent over with her bag open and was wrapping the fingers of one hand around her lock pick and the fingers of the other around her .32 when he finally opened the door. Her gaze lit first on his bare feet, then moved up long legs clad in faded jeans, then up more, over a pin-striped white oxford button-down in the decidedly unbuttoned—and untucked—position. Again she was assailed by the elegance and power of that half-naked torso dusted with dark hair, and again she was hit by the splash of heat in her belly that immediately spread outward. It only burned more fiercely when her gaze finally landed on his face and she was reminded yet again what a beautiful, beautiful man he was.

The adjective should have diminished his masculinity. Using it twice should have doubly diminished it. But the potency of the man’s virility was nearly overwhelming. His features were too ruggedly carved, his dark eyes too turbulent, his muscles too finely sculpted for anyone to ignore the sheer maleness of him. At the same time, the way he was put together was nothing short of a work of art.

What was strange was that Lila’s regular partner, Oliver Sheridan—at whose wedding she would appear as best man, by God, she vowed again—was also a very attractive man. His fiancÉe, Avery Nesbitt, obviously agreed, because even when Oliver, using the name Dixon at the time, had dragged her kicking and screaming—literally—out of her safe life and into a potentially dangerous undercover role with OPUS, she’d fallen head over heels in love with the guy. Of course, that had been due to more than his looks, but still. He was a great-looking guy. Yet not once, not even for a second, had Lila ever felt even a flicker of sexual attraction toward—or even a sexual awareness of—him. So why such an immediate captivation with Joel? Hell, she and Oliver even got along well, whereas a definite spark of tension had sputtered between her and Joel from the very beginning. There was no reason she should be reacting this way to him. But she was. Really badly, too.

And, dammit, since when had she started thinking about him as Joel?

“Hi,” he greeted her now in a voice that was more than a little brusque.

A strand of wet hair fell over his forehead, indicating he’d been in the shower when she rang the bell. This in spite of the fact that they were scheduled to be leaving for the airfield in—she glanced down at her watch—less than fifteen minutes. And they still had a few things to go over before their car arrived, things they couldn’t discuss in the presence of anyone else, even a driver or pilot for OPUS.

“Oversleep?” she said by way of a greeting as she zipped shut her bag and stood to face him.

“A little,” he confessed with clear embarrassment.

She nodded. “You sure you’re up for a field assignment?” she asked. Not just because it was a good question, but also because she knew it would bug the hell out of him.

Okay, okay. So maybe part of that spark of tension was her fault, she admitted. She couldn’t help herself when she was around Joel. Something about him begged to be bugged. She’d provide the same service for anyone who had usurped her power. It was the least she could do.

“I’m sorry I overslept,” he said with barely a trace of apology. “It won’t happen again.” He took a step backward and pulled the door open in a silent invitation for her to enter. As she did, he continued, “Look, I just need to shave and finish dressing. And, okay, maybe pack a few more things. Help me with that last, and I can be ready to leave in ten minutes. Fifteen max.”

“Good,” she said. “Because the car will be here in twelve. And we still have a couple of things to go over.”

“Come upstairs,” he said as he closed the door behind her. “We can talk while I shave and finish dressing.”

They did both in ten minutes, Lila leaning in the doorway of first Joel’s bathroom, then his bedroom as he completed his morning ritual. She’d never done that before—watched a man go about his morning routine—and something about sharing the experience with Joel now, even though she didn’t know him well, made her feel as if the two of them were sharing some strange kind of intimacy. She especially enjoyed watching him shave, and not just because he removed his shirt to do it to keep from messing it up.

Still, the way the muscles in his left arm bunched and relaxed with every stroke of the razor across his face was rather intriguing, she had to admit. And the spicy scent of the sandalwood shaving soap he used was more than a little sexy. But it was the act of standing there talking business in such a personal setting that really seeped into her awareness. In all the times she’d opened her eyes in the morning after a sexual encounter, she’d never hung around any longer than it took to get dressed and bolt. There had been times—rather a lot of them, actually—when she hadn’t even woken her partner to say goodbye. Sex and intimacy had nothing to do with each other as far as Lila was concerned. But she hadn’t realized that something as simple and nonsexual as this could be intimate, either.

When Joel finally emerged from the bathroom capping his toothbrush holder, Lila was tossing the last of his things into his bag and getting ready to close it. She paused long enough for him to toss the toothbrush into the bag, then finished with a soft zzzzip that punctuated their race for time quite nicely. They both seemed to realize it, chuckling as one at the sound.

“Nicely done,” she told him.

“Couldn’t have managed it without you,” he conceded.

She didn’t say what should have been the obvious next remark. So Joel took it upon himself to say it.

“We make a good team.”

Lila said nothing in response to that, either. The team thing remained to be seen. So she drove her gaze around the room, looking for something that might change the subject. Ultimately, her gaze fell on the collection of childishly executed artwork. There were primitive sketches of stick people and stick animals, a few more progressive ones of houses and trees and suns, and a handful of portraits that actually weren’t half-bad. Provided they’d been drawn by someone under the age of fifteen. Which, judging by the rest of the exhibit, they most likely had been.

“Who drew all the pictures?” she asked, jutting her chin up toward the one nearest them.

Joel’s features softened at the question in a way that made his entire face seem as if it was smiling. That should have diminished his masculinity, too, she thought. But somehow it just made him even more potent.

“My sister’s kids,” he said. “She sends me a lot of their work. Since she became a mom, she thinks everyone needs the influence of children in their lives. Makes them more human, she says. The grown-ups, I mean,” he hastily qualified. “Kids, any kids, she thinks are already pretty much perfect.”

“Well, except for the part about them being odious little miscreants,” Lila said.

He laughed at that, as if she’d made a joke. Funny thing was, she hadn’t been. She didn’t much care for children. She supposed they had their purposes—mostly to serve as warnings to always use birth control—but she didn’t want any in her own life. She studied Joel more closely, trying to discern if he was being sarcastic or maudlin when he talked about the alleged perfection of his nieces and/or nephews. Neither, she finally decided. Weird as it seemed, he was just being matter-of-fact. He actually agreed with his sister.

Huh. How about that.

She asked, “So are you one of those people who doesn’t think life can be complete without the Dutch Colonial in the suburbs, the two-point-five kids and the dog named Sparky?”

He smiled in that should-have-diminished-his-potency-but-didn’t way again. “Well, the house could be a Tudor and the dog could be named Pal and life would still be complete, but…” He left the sentence unfinished, but the gist of his feelings came through just fine.

Lila was surprised by the little stab of disappointment that jabbed her chest when she heard him voice the sentiment. So what if Joel Faraday had bought into that suburban myth of home, hearth and riding mower? she asked herself. So what if he was the settling-down kind? So what if he wanted a traditional life with a traditional partner in a traditional community? What did she care? If that was the sort of thing he wanted, it just hammered home how ill suited the two of them were. Because that kind of life would strangle her.

And why the hell was she even thinking in terms of the two of them suiting each other in the first place? That was beyond nuts. Nobody suited Lila. And she sure as hell wasn’t looking to suit anyone herself.

He started to speak again, even got as far as saying, “But the thing is—” when the doorbell chimed, heralding the arrival of their driver. By the time they were seated in the back of the big black Town Car, however, Joel must have forgotten what he’d intended to tell her, because he never revisited the topic. Instead, he started a new one.

“So since you and I are going to be working together so closely for this assignment—”

“You mean living together?” Lila interjected, already knowing that the plan OPUS had outlined would involve their sharing living space. She’d read the entire dossier through last night and knew all the particulars of their undercover operation—at least, the particulars to which OPUS had decided she would be privy for now. There was no telling what Joel knew that she didn’t. He was, after all, the one in charge.

Talk about your odious little miscreants.

“Yeah, that,” he said. And if she hadn’t known better, she would almost have sworn he sounded a little flustered about the prospect of shacking up, even as a job requirement. “So maybe we should know a little more about each other’s habits ahead of time.”

“Like what?” she asked.

He looked at her in a way that indicated he didn’t like her asking him the question he’d intended her to answer first. But he replied anyway, “Like the fact that I’m the early-to-bed and early-to-rise type, but I suspect you’re not.”

“Oh, really?” she asked. “So what happened to Mr. Early-to-Rise this morning?”

Joel expelled an exasperated sound. “Okay, so today Mr. Early-to-Rise overslept a little.”

“Actually, he overslept quite a bit.”

“He hasn’t been getting as much sleep as usual,” Joel continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “People keep breaking in to his house in the middle of the night and trying to cuff him.”

Lila smiled. “Some people are so rude.”

“Aren’t they, though?”

“If I were you, I’d want a piece of someone’s hide.”

He arched his eyebrows at her suggestively, opened his mouth to say something in retort, then seemed to think better of it. Which was a shame, because Lila found herself looking forward to that retort. Among other things.

Ultimately, he only said, “I think I’ll just settle for alerting the authorities.”

“Oh, good idea,” she said. “The authorities always know the right thing to do.”

“Anyway,” he said, circling back to the original topic, “as I said, something tells me you’re not the early-to-rise type.”

She grinned. “Wow, you’re really good at this fieldwork. I can see why they gave you this assignment. That was a brilliant deduction.”

“Hey, I work for an information-gathering arm of the U.S. government,” he told her with clearly affected self-importance. “It’s my job to make brilliant deductions.”

She waved off his concern quite literally. “Don’t worry about it. I’m highly adaptable. I can match my hours of operation to yours with no problem.”

He eyed her thoughtfully. “Something about the way you said that indicates you’d rather not.”

This time Lila shrugged off his concern literally. “I prefer to work at night—big surprise—but when the assignment calls for daytime activity, I don’t have a problem with it.”

“You’re just not as happy working during the day.”

“Happiness isn’t a word that appears in my job description,” she told him.

“But you’d still be happier if this was one of those nighttime infiltration things, wouldn’t you?”

There was no reason to deny it, so Lila relented. “Yeah. I’d be happier if it were. But—”

“Why?” he interrupted before she could finish.

She hesitated before replying, just long enough to let him know she resented his interruption. Finally, though, she said, “Because I work better at night.”

“I beg to differ,” he contradicted.

Lila gaped at him. She wasn’t used to people contradicting her, especially as immediately and absolutely as Joel just had.

He obviously understood the reason for her silence, because he told her, “I’ve studied the particulars of every assignment you’ve carried out for OPUS, Lila, and statistically speaking, you’re always very effective regardless of what you’re doing or when you’re doing it.”

A thrill of something warm and fluid purled through her when he addressed her by her first name. She told herself she should be offended at the familiarity and his lack of protocol. Then again, she’d only a short time ago been giving herself permission to drop protocol until they arrived in Cincinnati, and she herself had been thinking of him not as Virtuoso, but as Joel. Besides, she kind of liked the way her name sounded when it was spoken in that deep, velvety baritone.

Then the essence of what he’d told her finally gelled. “You’ve read over every one of my assignments?” she asked incredulously. She hadn’t kept track, but considering the years she’d put in with OPUS, the total number must be staggering. And God knew how many pages were devoted to each.

“Once I knew we’d be working together, I needed to familiarize myself with you,” he said. Immediately he corrected himself, “I mean…with your methods. How else was I going to do that if not by reading about your standard M.O. when you work?”

“You could have learned about my standard M.O. by looking at a handful of my most high-profile assignments. Then you could have looked at my personnel file for anything else you wanted to know.”

He schooled his features into what Lila supposed was meant to be a bland expression. But it was in no way convincing. Her sarcasm of a moment ago had been warranted—he really wasn’t equipped to be working out in the field. What the hell was OPUS thinking, letting him tag along?

“Your personnel file,” he said, “is off-limits to everyone except a few people who are a hell of a lot higher up the ladder than me.”

Lila couldn’t help the derisive chuckle that escaped her at that. “Right. And God knows they never leak any information about me to anyone else in the organization. I mean that whole rumor about me having tried to murder the Big Guy must have started with the lunchroom ladies in the OPUS cafeteria.” She sighed and lifted a hand to rub her forehead in an effort to relieve a fast-approaching headache. “Look, um, Virtuoso, don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”

“I’m not doing—”

“Virtuoso,” she said again.

“Joel,” he corrected her. “Please call me Joel. I know it’s not protocol, but we’re not in Cincinnati yet, and I feel like an idiot whenever someone uses my code name. It just seems like such a Hollywood affectation.”

“Is that why you don’t call me by my code name?” she asked, trying to change the subject. And also wanting to know why he called her Lila when, professionally speaking, he shouldn’t.

He grinned. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

Although she noticed he didn’t answer her question, she let it go. “Then don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” she repeated.

“I’m not.”

She met his gaze levelly. “Don’t pretend you didn’t read over my personnel file, too. It makes perfect sense that they would give it to you. Even if they didn’t give me yours.”

She told herself she did not sound petulant when she uttered that last comment. The reason she hadn’t been given any more information about Joel than the essentials of name, rank and serial number—at least, technically speaking—was that she already knew the most important thing about him: That he’d never been out in the field. And also because—dammit—he was the one who would be in charge of the operation, feeding her whatever information she needed as she needed to know it. Clearly, anything personal about him was nothing she needed to know. At least, the higher-ups at OPUS didn’t think so. Nor did Joel, evidently, because he certainly wasn’t talking.

And why that bothered her so much, Lila would just as soon not ask herself.

She continued, “I’m sure you know every intimate detail of my background and personal life. At least, the parts that OPUS knows.” Which, granted, was pretty much everything, she had to concede. But there was no reason Joel couldn’t think she had one or two secrets she was keeping to herself.

He studied her in silence for a moment longer, as if he were going to continue the charade. Finally, though, he admitted, “Okay, I know everything OPUS knows about you. But you don’t strike me as the sort of woman who would worry about other people discovering all the skeletons in her closet.”

She chuckled at that, too, though with genuine good humor this time. “Ah, no,” she admitted freely. “The skeletons in my closet got tired of the crowded conditions and made their break a long time ago. There’s not much left in there to discover.” Quickly, before he had a chance to comment on that, she added, “Still, you get to know everything about me, and I know almost nothing about you. So much for our partnership.”

She emphasized the first half of the word deliberately, hoping to goad him. Goading people had always helped Lila keep them at a distance, which, she told herself, was the only reason she was trying to goad Joel. To drive the wedge between them a little deeper. It wasn’t because she was hoping it would present a challenge that made him offer up some snippets about himself, too.

He eyed her in silence for a moment, long enough to let her know he understood exactly what she was doing. Then he asked, “What do you want to know about me?”

She arched her eyebrows in genuine surprise. If OPUS hadn’t given her information about Joel, then she wasn’t supposed to have it. Anything he might tell her about himself that she wasn’t already privy to would be in violation of the organization’s rules. Not a huge violation, especially if he only told her things like how he’d come in third in the fifthgrade spelling bee or how his favorite food was Mallomars. It was still a violation. And it surprised Lila that he would overstep the rules by even that much. Maybe archivists played by their own rules, but their rules weren’t generally in violation of OPUS’s. Joel especially seemed like the type of guy who would abide by regulation.

In spite of that, she said, “Where did you grow up?”

“Falls Church, Virginia,” he told her readily.

“You’ve lived your whole life in the D.C. area?”

He nodded. “My father was a Virginia senator until he retired a few years ago.”

Lila’s mouth dropped open at that, but she said nothing.

“He still does a little advising for the current administration,” Joel continued matter-of-factly, “but mostly he and my mother enjoy their respective retirements, usually on another continent.”

“Respective retirements?” Lila echoed. “What did your mother do for a living?”

“She edited the Washington Sentinel. Her family owns it. Among other things. They’re big in the publishing world.” Before Lila had time to digest that, Joel was adding, “My grandparents lived in D.C., too. My grandfather worked for Eisenhower, and then Kennedy. The house I live in now belonged to him and my grandmother. She left it to me when she died, since my sister and her husband already had a place in Tysons Corner and she knew I wanted to stay close to home after I graduated from Georgetown.”

Lila’s head was spinning by now, thanks to the rarefied atmosphere she’d just entered. Senators, presidents and newspaper families were the sorts of creatures she never had much chance to meet, but to Joel, they were a part of everyday life. Falls Church, Georgetown and Tysons Corner were all very refined, very affluent areas. Certainly Lila was no stranger to the lifestyles of the rich and powerful. But she’d been a part of them only as an outsider looking in. And only when she was working on assignment. Never in her life had she been a part of that environment for social reasons. To Joel, there was no other life.

“You come from money, then,” she said, stating the obvious.

“I do,” he admitted. Again without hesitation, but also without apology or vanity. It had been Lila’s experience that rich people usually copped to their wealth in either one way or the other. To Joel, however, it seemed to be a part of his makeup, the same way his lungs were.

“Must be nice,” she couldn’t quite keep herself from saying.

“It was,” he told her. But once more, he spoke without any kind of inflection. “Still is.”

“And you have a sister. Anyone else?”

He shook his head.

“She’s older?”

He nodded.

Well, goodness, this conversation was offering Lila all kinds of insights into Joel’s background and character. If this kept up, she might even find out what his favorite color was, and that would really violate regulation.

She grinned. “If you could be any vegetable in the world, what would you be and why?”

That, finally, got a reaction out of him that wasn’t matter-of-fact. Not a big reaction. Mostly just the squinching up of his eyes so that he was looking at her as if the sun had gone into total eclipse and thrown the planet into complete darkness, but hey, it was something.

Even so, his voice remained unchanged from its usual straightforward delivery when he replied, “One of those bags of salad that’s already washed and ready to serve.”

Lila’s smile broadened. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“But that’s not actually a vegetable, is it?”

“Of course it is,” he insisted. “And it’s a damned interesting one, too.”

“Okay, so why would you be that?”

He gazed at her blankly. “Are you kidding? Salad already washed and ready to serve? That’s like a party just waiting to happen.”