“Why did you agree to join me for dinner?” Jonas asked as they sat across a candlelit table from one another. “You know I’m only here for a brief stay.”

      “You offered me a drink,” Alyx replied. “The invitation to dinner was mine.”

      So it was—a thank-you for helping Dylan help E.D. It struck Jonas, as he’d eyed the steak and lobster plate a waiter suddenly placed before him, that he was tangled in his own web. He’d come after Alyx unabashedly only to find himself snared, and yet the time between ordering and drinking a half glass of shiraz had been one of the most provocative yet awkward times he’d spent with a date. He would ask her a question about herself and if she answered, it was with a single word, “yes” or “no,” then asked nothing in return. He’d never felt so inept. Every clever word, his gift for disarming and charming, was a total flop.

      It was those smoky gray eyes; they reduced him to ash pudding one minute, then invited a lava-hot heat wave without so much as a blink in the next. He felt as though he was trying to gauge traffic in thick fog. No, it was her scent; he’d fought intoxication for the better part of two hours and had yet to identify it, although he held the office record for guessing what female staffers and agents were wearing. Leave it to this unique woman to refuse to share someone else’s creation.

      “Okay, seriously,” he said at last. “Why did you invite me?”

      “Perhaps for the same reason you invited me.”

      He had to put down his glass. Could she possibly mean it? He’d been fantasizing about a couple of hours of no-strings-attached sex. Someone as cool, confident and professional as her couldn’t possibly—then, for a second, he saw the diamond-bright shimmer of amusement in her eyes before she lowered a romantic sweep of velvety lashes with the elegant shyness of a geisha.

      At the risk of knocking over her glass, he reached across the table to gently lift her chin to search her eyes.

      “Why the surprise?” she murmured with a slight arch of one eyebrow. “Wait—don’t tell me. You’re one of those males who beat a hasty retreat the second you sense conquest?”

      For all of his admitted experimental youth, Jonas hoped he’d never been that much of a jerk. “It’s been a struggle, but I’ve almost managed to evolve a step above the penned farm animal.”

      “Then eat up, Agent Hunter. We can’t have you losing your strength.”

      Things grew decidedly more amiable after that and, in the end, the night was unforgettable. She drove him to her stunning brick home and immediately asked him if she should open another bottle of wine.

      “Would you care for any?” he countered.

      “Maybe later.”

      “Exactly my thought.”

      He took that response as a welcome and initiated a kiss; within seconds Alyx took it—and him—to a different realm. Almost immediately he sensed that he was in deeper waters than he’d expected or intended, but her touch, her taste made her too much of a temptation to resist. When she led him to her bedroom, there was no question about not following. She turned her back to him and murmured, “Unzip me?”

      He first touched a kiss to the side of her neck. “I think you’re my fantasy come true,” he murmured.

      “You’re off the clock, G-man. Stop thinking so much.”

      Surrendering, he’d done just that, dropped back onto her bed and let her take him to a place he’d never been before.