Carnal Innocence

He picked up on the second ring. “McCormick.” Her father’s gruff voice held less bark than it had in years past, but Caitlin still found herself subconsciously anxious to please him.

“It’s me.”

The general’s tone never softened, but she knew there’d be a smile on his face. “How’s my best girl?”

Caitlin smiled at their secret code. “A-okay, Daddy.”

“Was your trip uneventful?”

Caitlin’s breath seeped out in a humiliated sigh. Uneventful. Was there any other way to describe her life?

But her father didn’t need to hear her complain. “I got home just fine.” Looking around her apartment, she despaired at how much work it needed, but he didn’t need to hear that, either. “I really enjoyed our visit.”

“Me, too.” He cleared his throat. Uh-oh. Prelude to fatherly lecture. “Be sure you call the doctor tomorrow. I’m sorry the chemicals we used to clean the boat got to you.”

“It was just an allergic reaction. A mild attack. I have an ample supply of all my meds,” she assured him. “My asthma is just fine. I’m fine.”

“Your mother used to take care of all that stuff when she was alive.”

“That was when I was a little girl. I’m twenty-seven years old now, Dad. I can take care of myself.”

Though straight talk and some TLC usually brought her father around to her point of view, some days—like this one—he made her feel as if she was stuck in a time warp. As if she was still that toddler who’d run out across the tarmac to welcome her daddy home from overseas, instead of an adult who still loved her daddy but who wanted the chance to make her own mistakes and earn her own triumphs without her omnipresent family waiting to oversee every choice she made.

After several more reassurances that her Memorial Day asthma attack had not been life threatening, Caitlin gave her father her love and promised to call again over the weekend.

“Unless you have a hot date…”

Caitlin laughed. She hadn’t realized hot date was in her father’s vocabulary. Without a division of troops to worry about any longer, the general focused all of his concerns on his three children. “Don’t worry, Dad. When I get serious about a guy, I’ll be sure you get to meet him.”

“Damn straight. I don’t want some sweet-talker like your brother Travis turning your head and gettin’ you into trouble.”

“Me? Trouble?” She wished. “I’m the most down-to-earth of all your children.” Not counting her rich fantasy life—that would remain her own little secret. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do. But you’re my youngest.” It was a needless reminder of how well her two older brothers and her father overprotected her. “You’re also the one I rushed to the hospital when Travis brought home that cat and you stopped breathing.”

He still thought she was that ten-year-old girl whose allergies and asthma hadn’t yet been diagnosed. Caitlin tried to remember this was love, not control, talking. “Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t let any man tell me what to do. I won’t let any man give me a cat, either.”

Her father laughed as she’d intended. “Good girl.”

Good girl. Responsible. Levelheaded. In other words…? Boring.

She needed to get a life. Maybe she just needed to live the one she had. She knew the one she wanted—one filled with adventure. One in which her father didn’t worry about her health. One in which her brothers didn’t request personal leave so they could check out her latest boyfriend to make sure he passed muster and minded his manners.

She wanted a life with the heady adrenaline rush of having her mind engaged in a creative challenge. A life filled with fascinating people. A life filled with great sex—okay, any sex—with a real, live, breathing man instead of one of her bad-boy fantasies. A life in which her body cooperated with her goals—where she’d push herself to her limits and then soar far beyond them.

An Olympic athlete.

A movie star.

An astronaut.

A spy.

“Yeah, right.”

She didn’t realize she’d muttered her frustration out loud until her father spoke. “What’s that, sweetie?”

Caitlin pulled herself to attention and covered her slip. “Nothing, Dad. I’d better go. I have some things to take care of here.”

“All right. Call if you need anything.”

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Caitlin pushed aside her gloomy spiraling thoughts. So she wanted independence and adventure, huh? Without alarming her father or putting half the Marine Corps on her tail?

Fat chance.

Maybe she’d best stick to her books.

Sure, she was doing her part to keep the public schools of Alexandria, Virginia, running smoothly. And her eighth-grade students could reconnoiter a sentence with the best in the country, uncovering subordinate clauses and adverbs long before they infiltrated high school. But what was she doing for fun and excitement in her life?

Caitlin picked up her roommate’s discarded sweater from the floor of the closet and sighed with fatigue. Today, it seemed, she was destined for nothing more laudable or exciting than cleaning up after Cassie.

She spotted the sticky residue of fast food on the plate beside the telephone on the entryway table and cringed. The leather-bound book that her roommate had used for a coaster caught her eye next. “Cassie!”

Caitlin picked up the paper cup and muttered an unladylike oath. The cup had been sitting there long enough to soften up and spring a leak. The book was now marked with a permanent circular tattoo. After trashing the cup, Caitlin thumbed through the pages, bemoaning the damage to one of her favorite stories.

“Sydney Carton, my hero.” She opened A Tale of Two Cities to the last page and read the final line. “‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done…”’ Caitlin closed the book and hugged it to her chest. “You got a bum deal, Syd.”

How many times had she rewritten the ending in her imagination? In her version, Dickens’s scoundrel of the French Revolution was rescued at the guillotine by a resourceful American woman. Let Charles Darnay have his sweet, good-girl heroine. Caitlin and Sydney always ended up in a little grass hut on the beach in Tahiti in her happy ending. Sometimes they ended up naked on the beach itself.

Caitlin returned the book to the hanging shelf above the telephone table. Being an English teacher as she was, the symbolism of closing the book on her fantasy life wasn’t lost on her. Was it really asking too much for fate to break her out of her rut?

Her gaze traveled down to the table, beyond the trash and burrito remains, beyond the telephone, and lighted on the folded sheaf of flowery notepaper propped up next to a stamped business envelope that contained their rent check. Unmailed. Caitlin jabbed her fingers into the blond hair at her temples and lifted the chin-length tendrils into fluffy disarray. Typical.

A muscle-tensing sense of impending crisis zipped from the roots of Caitlin’s kinky hair all the way down to her size-nine feet. “Definitely the worst of times.”

Cassie Kramer had the truest heart in the world, but her impulsive approach to life had left Caitlin in the mop-up and rescue position more than once during the course of their friendship. It looked as if today would be no different. She picked up Cassie’s note.

Her roommate’s handwriting was as flowery as the colorful daisies on the paper, and had been punctuated by a series of smiley faces. “Sorry about the rent check.” A frowny face added its own apology. Caitlin picked up the envelope she’d addressed before going to her father’s. Dropping their rent into the mailbox had been a simple enough request—one her scatterbrained roommate had somehow overlooked. But Caitlin would take care of it. With the leeway granted by their landlord, she could still get it to him by the fifth of the month.

Caitlin read on.

“I know the place is a mess, too. But I got tied up, so to speak.” Smiley face. “Tim and I discovered that panty hose will do the trick.” Another smiley face and two exclamation points.

Caitlin looked up and frowned. “Who’s Tim?” Despite her roomie’s diminutive height, she was generously proportioned and had a flirty, outgoing personality that men found irresistible. She was small and feminine and spontaneous, and men with sex and fun and adventure on their minds flocked to her.

Caitlin attracted a different sort. Standing nearly six feet tall in her bare feet, she found that a decent pair of heels left her towering over most men. Adding in the three bad-ass marines she called family, who loved her a little too well, didn’t help set the mood for potential lovers.

And then there was the problem of being boring to contend with.

Virginia Is for Lovers.

Her home state’s old tourism slogan mocked her. Maybe if she was Cassie Kramer…

Cassie could hang out until closing time at smoky bars on dance night and have her pick of the litter of available men. Caitlin could last an hour, maybe two, before her eyes stung and her lungs congested. There was nothing quite like hacking up phlegm to keep a man from asking her to dance.

Or to do anything else.

She was doomed to late nights at the library, with its purified air and rarefied patrons. While she loved her books, the fiction stacks just didn’t draw the kind of men Caitlin wanted to meet. There’d been a few nice ones there—graduate students, retirees, Jimmy the bachelor librarian.

But not one of them looked the part of the disreputable beast from her favorite fairy tale. Not one bore an air that even hinted at danger. They were all charming and sweet and courteous—and stuck in the same drudgery-filled life that Caitlin was.

Lucky Cassie. Damn lucky.

Caitlin read on. Cassie’s note might well be the most interesting part of her evening.

“Will you be a dear and give my note to Sean?”

She shook her head, wishing she could keep up with her roomie’s love life. “Who’s Sean?”

“He’s coming by tonight to pick me up—he called about some sort of weekend get-together. I thought I could go, but I can’t. I tried to call back but couldn’t reach him. It was sort of a mercy date, anyway. He’s a friend of a friend, you know?”

Caitlin chastised the piece of paper in lieu of her impulsive friend. “You could have just said no.”

“I’d apologize in person, but Tim came by unannounced and surprised me with a four-day trip to D.C. We might actually leave the hotel and see some of the sights!” Three smiley faces. One of them winked.

“You’ll take care of it, won’t you? Thanks. See you Monday. Cassie.”

At the last smiley face, Caitlin’s frown deepened. “You get a weekend of adventure in the big city and I get to be the Wicked Witch of the West to your mercy date?”

She picked up the Dear John note, hoping Cassie’s explanation would make everything clear to the hapless Sean, who thought he had a date tonight. Minus the smiley faces, this note was even more brief.

Sean—

Sorry to leave you in the lurch like this, but something came up.

Take care,

Cassie

“That helps a lot.” Caitlin’s sarcasm echoed in the foyer.

Cleaning house and breaking the bad news to mercy dates. Just the way she wanted to spend her Thursday night. She could feel the excitement oozing from her pores.

Resigning herself to her lackluster fate, she set the notes on the table, carried the plate to the kitchen, then went into her room to change into grubby clothes. With nothing more exciting than housework and paying the rent to look forward to, she entertained herself by making a big production of getting dressed.

Stripped to her bra and panties, she opened her closet and curtsied to the long dress hanging on the door. “Yes, my lord. I’ll go with you.” She pulled a hand-me-down T-shirt off a hanger and waved at the rest of the clothes. “Goodbye, Papa. I will go with this vile beast if it means keeping you and my family safe.” She pulled on the shirt and bowed her head to the long dress. “Lead on, Sir Beast.”

Caitlin waltzed to the bed. “Oh, no, sir, you mustn’t.”

She muttered the patronizing protest, then threw herself, spread-eagled, onto the bed. “My reputation, sir. I can never be yours. Well, maybe this once.” In a fit of coy giggles she rolled onto her side, reaching for the full-length body pillow she slept with. She hugged it tight against her breasts and squeezed it between her thighs.

As she closed her eyes and kissed the back of her hand, the beast who was her captor took shape in her mind. A big, tawny, catlike creature. Something more than a man, something less than handsome. Virile and uncivilized, rough and rugged—the veneer of his princely rank stripped away to reveal his animalistic need. His hands and mouth would touch, kiss and stroke her into surrender.

Caitlin rolled atop the pillow, increasing the pressure to the sensitive endings of her breasts and clitoris. She arched her back above her faceless captor and stroked her fingers along her neck, purring in response to the pretend touch of her beastly lover. She clutched at his imaginary mane of golden hair and ground her hips into the pillow. A tingling sensation fluttered between her legs and she reached for the culmination of this fantasy seduction.

He was so big. So dangerous. So bad.

And he was hers.

“Take me,” she begged, rolling onto her back and letting the pillow fall over her—the way her fantasy lover would fall down and consume her.

Caitlin tightened her thigh muscles and stretched her toes, urging her own release. Almost…just about…

The headboard rattled with the force of her kick. “Ow!”

An assortment of other choice words filled the air as the fantasy vanished and the throbbing pain in her little toe took over. Caitlin tossed aside the pillow and sat up to rub her foot.

“Perfect timing,” she moaned, feeling cheated of her happy ending.

The pain in her toe eased along with the desire for her fantasy lover. Someday, she wanted the real thing. She wanted to know what it would be like to come when a man touched her. Her sexual encounters thus far had been remarkably limited, and had never quite lived up to her fantasies.

Maybe because she’d never run across one of those bad boys she craved.

Maybe because her father and brothers scared off anyone truly interesting.

Maybe because… “Oh, hell.”

Housework was starting to look downright interesting compared to that line of thinking. Trained to do her duty, she got up and remade the bed, then finished dressing.

An hour later, the dishes were in the dishwasher, clothes were spinning in the washing machine and Caitlin was vacuuming the crumbs and dust from the carpet in the hallway. The swirling water-filter vacuum, specially designed for people with allergies like herself, roared loudly enough to drown out her imaginary duel with a dust bunny.

“Ha! Take that!” With all the style and aplomb of a musketeer, she stabbed the vacuum’s hose beneath the telephone table and sucked up the dusty devil.

Her plan was a simple one. Clean up. Practice her heartfelt apology on Cassie’s behalf. Then, after sending poor Sean on his way, she’d walk down to the corner to pick up some Chinese takeout and mail the rent check.

Dragging the hose and vacuum behind her like a ball and chain, Caitlin brandished the brush attachment and attacked an alien glob of refried beans that clung to the table leg. “You’re next, fiend.”

But before she eliminated the enemy blob from outer space, something gold and shiny caught her eye. “Ah. Hidden treasure.” Judging by the scatter pattern of discarded clothes and jewelry, one of Cassie’s escapades with Tim had taken place out in the hallway. Still envying the idea of casting aside decorum and seizing the moment, Caitlin bent over at the waist and plucked an earring from the wine-red carpet.

That was when she noticed the man standing in her foyer.

The beast.

Come to life.

Caitlin blinked, not trusting her eyes.

He was still there.

Framed in the open doorway, which was barely wide enough to contain his broad shoulders, he stood and stared at her. His green gaze swept her from tush to tennies. Still bent over, staring with a bit of shock herself, she noted he wore a tweed blazer that matched the tawny color of his close-cropped hair. Beneath it he sported a plain white T-shirt that didn’t look very plain at all stretched across that well-built chest. For an odd moment out of time, Caitlin wondered if it was the cut of his coat or the hug of his jeans that made him appear so big. So broad. So solid. So strong.

She licked her lips as her mouth went dry.

So hot.

“Are you real?” she whispered, unheard over the vacuum noise.

Her gaze fell on the plastic daisy key ring that dangled from his right hand. Cassie’s key ring. The one she hid in the flower box outside her window and invited guests to use. Oh God. He was real. Very real.

Since the mysterious Tim was with Cassie in D.C., and Caitlin herself had no love life to speak of, this “guest” had to be Sean.

Great. Just great.

Even upside down and looking through her legs, Caitlin could tell this man was no mercy date.

Cassie had dumped him?

3

NICE BUTT.

Nice legs.

I don’t get the whole upside-down thing, but…

Wow. Very nice legs.

He’d caught the woman wielding a stainless vacuum attachment as if she were dueling with a sword. Then she’d picked up something and started talking to it. Now she was studying him as if he was a rare scientific discovery.

Keeping his distance so as not to trigger any more of her apparent eccentricities, Sean cleared his throat and blinked, breaking the stunned stare that had captured both him and the woman with the endless gams.

She stood up in a flurry and faced him. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. He squinted politely, expecting her to repeat herself. She rolled her eyes heaven-ward, pursed her lips and muttered something unintelligible. She was all flustered in a way that was part preteen and part prude—and disarmingly refreshing in an adult woman.

Sean resisted the urge to smile. She reached down and flipped off the switch on the canister vacuum, filling the apartment with a startling silence. If she was a housekeeper for hire, then he would seriously consider spending some time at his town house, dirtying it up so she’d have a reason to come clean it.

But she smiled and extended a hand in greeting that told him she owned the place. His ogle-the-maid fantasy gave way to polite respect at the confidence she exuded.

“Are you Cassie?”

“I’m her roommate, Caitlin McCormick. You must be Sean.”

Stepping forward, he folded his hand around hers, testing the finely boned structure of it. Despite her height and athletic build, Caitlin McCormick was still very much a woman. Certainly not a preteen and hopefully not a prude. It’d be a waste.

He nodded, once, in greeting and in silent approval. “Sean Maddox. Cassie said to let myself in. Did I interrupt something?”

“What? Oh.” Her silvery gaze darted to the vacuum beside her. She glared at the inanimate object as if it were responsible for the creative housecleaning show he’d just witnessed. She snatched her hand away and brushed her palms against the hips of her cutoff denim shorts. “Just trying to make a dull job a little more interesting.”

“I see.” He didn’t, but it was the polite thing to say.

Enough pleasantries. The clock was ticking.

“Is Cass—?”

“Cassie’s not—”

They’d spoken at the same time.

He grinned, trying to ease her nervous laughter.

But she quickly recovered and started again. “Sorry. I’ve been out of town, ever since school got out last week.”

“You’re a student?”

“Teacher. Junior-high English.”

Lucky kids. Why hadn’t any of his teachers had a body like that? The cutoffs she wore revealed a mile of leg that even his nonadolescent libido responded to.

The delicate points of her shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh that wiped away his smile and replaced his body’s interest with suspicion.

“Here.” She handed him a piece of flowered stationery from the hall table. “Cassie left this for you. She got called out of town unexpectedly.”

Sean scanned the note. His suspicion curdled in his gut and flowed out into his veins in a frustrated temper. “Damn.”

Over the phone, Cassie had sounded like the perfect woman for his plans. No strings attached. Ready for fun. But he’d expected her to keep her word about this weekend. His mistake.

He’d gotten caught at Dillon’s office in Quantico and hadn’t driven into Alexandria, Virginia, until nearly an hour past the time he’d arranged to pick her up. He thought his invitation had made everything clear. He was offering her a free vacation at a high-class resort in exchange for whatever she wanted to offer. As long as the other guests believed they were a couple.

He hadn’t offered his heart and she hadn’t asked for it. But did Cassie’s easy-come, easy-go attitude mean she’d move on to the next man if one date didn’t show up on time?

“I know it’s a surprise.” The voice of Cassie’s roommate cut through his brewing temper. “She said she did try to call you.”

Damn. Now what was he supposed to do? Diego Marquez might walk if Sean couldn’t come up with some connection between Justice Rossini’s trip to Pleasure Cove and his subsequent retirement. Sean would have a hard time dealing with Alicia Reyes’s silent tears if that happened. And the San Isidrans wanted answers soon about their ambassador’s murder, or they’d send up their state police looking for answers themselves. He had to infiltrate Pleasure Cove Island. Tomorrow. “Damn.”

“You said that already. I’m sorry. I know Cassie left you in a bind tonight. But don’t hate her. She’s impulsive—not heartless.” The roommate tapped the paper in his hand. “She did apologize.”

“Apologize?” He glanced up and, standing nearly eye-to-eye, drilled her with the damning look he had in mind for Cassie. “What good does that do me?”

Surprisingly, the roommate stood her ground without flinching. “She told me you weren’t close, that she was doing you a favor.” He watched guilt play over the woman’s features, overshadowing her confidence. “I know it’s inconvenient, but your feelings shouldn’t be hurt.”

“Inconvenient isn’t the half of it. I need a woman. Now.” Sean gritted his teeth and swore again. Didn’t that sound pathetic?

He tipped his head back and hissed an angry breath through his teeth, disgusted with himself for trusting that his plan with Cassie Kramer would work. “Women can’t be trusted to go to the line on anything.”

Caitlin’s hands shot up in protest. “Excuse me. You got screwed out of one last-minute date. Don’t blame the rest of the gender because your timing’s lousy.”

“She’s really not here?” Sean crumpled the note in his fist and began to stalk through the apartment, searching rooms, checking to see if this was all a lie and Cassie was hiding from him.

“Hey!”

Wasn’t that just like a woman? Leaving when you needed her most. This assignment was all about this weekend. She could have dumped him Monday, no problem. But tonight?

The roomie with the dynamite legs hurried after him, trying unsuccessfully to stop him from looking into the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, matching him stride for stride. “Could I have that key back? I don’t think you’ll be needing it anymore.”

She tried to block his path into one pigsty of a bedroom, but he pushed past her. Empty. He crossed the hall and entered a bedroom whose soft blues and tans and wrinkle-free perfection could have come from the pages of a magazine.

He felt her hand at his elbow then. “This is my bedroom. Get out.”

He whirled around, easily pulling free of her tugging grasp. “I had plans.”

Somehow he’d cornered the woman in the doorway. She’d have to brush against him to move past. But Sean rudely held his ground, letting the soft heat of her body seep into him across the breath of space between them. The faint tang of household cleaner blended with the salt-tinged ocean scent of the woman herself. She’d been out on the water recently. He breathed the observation, in and out, her fresh scent filling his head and calming his burst of anger.