Absolute Pleasure. Jamie Denton
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“What we do after hours is our business,”
Duncan said, slipping his fingers beneath the hem of her shorts.
His lazy smile widened when he ran his finger along the inside of her thigh. Sunny shifted, easing her legs slightly apart. He took her hands and placed them behind her, narrowing the space between them. Holding her immobile, he dipped his head and kissed her.
This was what she would be giving up, and she wasn’t sure she had the strength. Was she really willing to risk everything she’d worked for just for a few nights of what promised to be unbelievably memorable sex?
She tore her mouth from his. “Duncan, what if we get caught?”
He lifted his head to look at her. Desire burned in his gray eyes. Oh hell, the way he was looking at her, she decided she didn’t care about tomorrow. No way was she letting this man out of her sight until they finished what he’d started.
“Forget I said anything….”
Dear Reader,
When FBI agent Sunny MacGregor first appeared in my RITA® Award-nominated Blaze novel, Seduced by the Enemy (#41, June 2002), I was unprepared for the impact she would have on my life. Not only did she demand her own story, she also made it clear from the beginning nothing less than perfection would do for her hero. Despite all who’d applied, in the end only one proved himself worthy of Sunny—Duncan Chamberlain, a hotshot insurance recovery expert who knows the meaning of absolute pleasure.
The writing of Absolute Pleasure was a nonstop thrill ride for me, but not without a few bumps in the road. If a writer is lucky, she’ll have a few special people in her corner to help navigate the roadblocks. Thankfully, I am extremely fortunate in that regard. Not only did my very wise husband keep a steady supply of dark chocolate on hand, but without the constant encouragement and unwavering support of my editor, I never would have had the courage to write this very special story.
I hope you enjoy Sunny and Duncan’s romance, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please write to me at P.O. Box 224, Mohall, ND 58761, or via e-mail at [email protected], or visit my Web site at www.jamiedenton.net.
As ever,
Jamie Denton
Absolute Pleasure
Jamie Denton
This book can only
be dedicated to Phyllis, for reasons she will understand.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
1
“HEY, MAC!” Agent Caruso called from the back of the white surveillance van. “I gotta know, exactly how hard-up does a woman have to be to pay a half-a-mil to get laid?”
Special Agent Sunny MacGregor surprised herself by seriously considering Agent Jack Caruso’s question as she left her car and walked toward the pair of agents assigned to the Seducer’s last known crime scene. Although she wouldn’t exactly place herself in the same category as the victim she’d come to interview, she had been stretching the limit on abstinence since she couldn’t immediately recall the last time she’d invited some guy to join her under the covers. Still, that didn’t mean she’d ever be desperate enough to actually pay someone to have sex with her. At least she hoped not.
“I’m here to work the case,” she told Caruso when she reached the open doors at the back of the van. “Not judge the victim.” She did have an opinion on the subject, but one best not divulged to a pair of field agents assigned watch-dog duty outside the arched wrought-iron gates of the Wilder estate.
Caruso’s rookie-agent partner, Walt Weidman, climbed out of the van. “I need to see your ID, Mac.”
“For the love of Pete, Weidman,” Caruso complained. “This is her freakin’ crime scene.”
Weidman ignored Caruso. “Sorry, Mac,” he said apologetically. “Rules, you know.”
She slipped the black leather ID holder from the pocket of her navy linen blazer and handed it to Weidman. “Don’t let Jack get to you,” she told the rookie. “He’s always a pain in the ass until he’s downed a couple of thermoses full of that ink he calls coffee.”
“Yeah, and then he’s just a wired pain in the ass.”
She hid a smile and glanced around the well-kept grounds before turning her attention to Caruso. He sat on a padded bench in the van before an instrument control panel monitoring the immediate vicinity and keeping in contact with another van with two more agents at the rear of the estate. “See or hear anything unusual?”
Caruso reached for the pack of cigarettes on the seat beside him. “I’ve been in cemeteries at 3:00 a.m. with more action,” he complained. “The lab techs left about an hour ago. They didn’t tell us dick, either.”
Sunny bit back the reminder hovering on her lips that smoking was strictly prohibited inside a government vehicle. Surveillance could be dull as dirt under the best of circumstances. Watchdogging a nonviolent crime scene was dead work, occasionally handed out as punishment for agents on the shit-list of someone higher up the Bureau food chain. Since she’d worked with Caruso in the past during her own days as a field agent in the D.C. office, she figured he, rather than Weidman had ticked off her old boss, Gib Russell, big time.
Caruso flicked the lighter. Weidman handed Sunny her ID and shot the older, seasoned agent a disapproving glance. “Do you have to do that in there?”
Caruso blew a plume of blue smoke in Weidman’s direction as he climbed out of the van. “Go read a manual or something,” Jack groused. To Sunny he said, “You want to talk pain in the ass, spend an hour with Whiny Wally. Makes me look like Sister Mary Sunshine.”
Caruso shielded his eyes from the harsh glare of July midmorning sunshine and squinted in Sunny’s general direction. “And who did you piss off to get stuck with this piece of crap case, Mac?”
Sunny slipped a recently permed curl behind her ear before straightening her shoulders. “I requested the assignment.”
Caruso drew deeply on his cigarette, then shook his head and emitted a raspy chuckle. “You still a glutton for punishment? They have therapy for that sort of thing, you know.”
SEDSCAM, Bureau-speak for the Seduction Scam Investigation, remained an unsolved nonviolent crime under the Criminal Investigation Division’s jurisdiction. So far, a grand total of seven thefts had occurred nationwide. Just because Sunny had asked to run the investigation didn’t necessarily mean she suffered from masochistic tendencies. What she really wanted was to garner the attention of the head of the Investigative Support Unit.
The crunch and