JENNIFER LABRECQUE - Nobody Does It Better

Bloody hell. He’d never sat about wanking his tool while on assignment and he wasn’t about to take it up now. He deliberately looked away, willing his cockstand back down.

He’d go one better than a cold shower. He’d ring Mason with an update.

“Everything’s in place?” Mason said. “You had time to set up?”

“Yes. She made contact on her mobile. She says everything is set to proceed as normal tomorrow. She referenced a Ming who’s to be picked up tomorrow and she warned he would try to get out.”

“We’ll see what we can find on a Ming. Any other names? Other references?” Mason’s voice sharpened with impatience.

Wouldn’t he have said so? Gage merely said, “No. What about her case? Find anything of interest?”

“It’s clean. We destroyed it, ripped out the seams in her trousers and knickers, even took the locks apart, nothing. Not that we really expected to find much. Anything of consequence will be on her.”

Perhaps in her backpack, or in the pouch she’d carried in her bra but not immediately on her now. The Gorgon was too seasoned to hide anything in her case, although sometimes, the best course of action was the least-anticipated move.

In the next room, the shower stopped. He quickly disconnected the phone.

Listening to the sound of her toweling herself dry, Gage prided himself on his professionalism. There was no need to watch her until she left the washroom. Unfortunately, he seemed singularly incapable of not seeing her in his mind’s eye.

Water splashed in the sink and the accompanying sound of her brushing her teeth echoed in his earpiece. The water ran a bit longer and a quick glance at the screen revealed she was rinsing out her knickers, the hotel towel wrapped around her, sarong-style. In short order, she unlocked his door from the inside, indicating it was free for him to use it, exited the washroom and immediately locked her bedroom door behind her.

He watched her via the monitor as she hung her clothes in the wardrobe and her knickers on a hanger to dry. She retrieved a pair of glasses and a small notebook and pen from her knapsack, placing them on the bedside stand.

Gage had monitored other operatives numerous times and always with a clinical detachment. Why then did it feel so intimate to watch her perform these routine tasks?

The Gorgon stood before her bedroom mirror and finger-combed her tangled hair. “My kingdom for a blow dryer,” she muttered before turning away in disgust. Gage grinned. Poor Gorgon. But that’s what one got when one made a living selling secrets.

She pulled off the towel and draped it over the chair back. “I guess I’ll just have to wear the sheet if there’s a fire in the middle of the night,” she said to her reflection, wrinkling her nose in an innocent way. But Gage knew better. He knew the bad guys weren’t always all bad and he knew the good-guy’s hats were more often gray than white. Still, it struck him as…well, rather cute. One didn’t expect the Gorgon to display a cute side when she was alone in her room talking to herself in the mirror. That’d get him in for a bloody evaluation in no time. Yes, Mason, the Gorgon displays a cute side to her when she’s alone . For chrissakes, puppies and kittens were cute, not sodding spooks. Actually, it’d almost be worth it just to watch the look on Mason’s face at the thought of his number one agent slipping over the edge.

THE GORGON GASPED HER pleasure. The blond man—was his name Raymond?—tugged harder at her nipple held between his fingers and alternately sucked and nipped at the one in his mouth.

“Do you like that?” Tightening his grip on her massage-oil-slicked thighs, the dark-haired Trevor worked his cock in and out of her harder and faster. She slid her hand up and down Raymond’s engorged penis in the same rhythm, scraping her nail lightly against the sensitive ridge on the underside.

Rule one: Don’t limit sex to good-looking, well-endowed men. Often the less-attractive ones, or those with smaller dicks, were more grateful and thus much more easily manipulated. They also tried harder to please.

Rule two: She was in charge…and they knew it. No one came until she came.

Rule three: Never let them know her real name or her number. She contacted them . It kept it simple and it kept them needy. Even the ones with girlfriends or wives came, no pun intended, when she called. Sometimes, the men even brought their significant others along. She, the Gorgon—she rather liked thinking of herself by that name—had an appetite for things the wives and girlfriends often didn’t.

And rule four: Sex was better with three on the playing field.

On the hotel nightstand, her phone vibrated. It’d be him with an update. She’d instructed him to text rather than call, telling him she had a meeting. Paranoia, possessiveness and insecurity on his part all worked to her advantage, but he wouldn’t like it if he knew what she was doing now.

“Hold that thought, gentlemen,” she said, unhanding Raymond’s cock. He was the less gifted of the two in the size department. She had plans for him after the commercial break.

She slid up the four-hundred-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and flipped open her phone. She downloaded the text message and quickly scanned it.

A slow smile curved her mouth and the sexual excitement she’d felt with Raymond and Trevor intensified. Everything in Europe was going precisely as she’d planned. Carswell had been unleashed on the unsuspecting Holly Smith. She flipped her phone closed.

She got off on this spy business. She’d kind of miss it when she retired. She’d have to find something else to occupy her. And this news definitely called for a celebration. She rolled to her knees and turned to Trevor, where he waited at the end of the bed. “I think it’s time we switched things around, gentlemen.” She crawled the length of the bed on her hands and knees, her breasts swinging free and heavy. Braced on one hand, she wrapped her other hand around Trevor’s cock, teasing her tongue along the tip. He quivered in her palm and her smile widened.

She paused to glance over her shoulder at Raymond. “You’re invited to the party, too. But use the back door.”

Yes, this called for a celebration, indeed.

GAGE LOUNGED ABOUT IN his bed the following morning, content to do nothing. A bit of a lie-in had always been one of his guilty pleasures. His hard-ass grandfather, the Colonel, had considered it heretical and it hadn’t gone over well at boarding school, either.

Better still if it was a lazy rainy day and he had a spot of feminine company between the sheets.

He stretched and bunched the pillow beneath his head. It wasn’t as if he could do anything until the Gorgon made a move. Thus far, she’d made an early-morning visit to the loo, which he’d not watched once he ascertained there was nothing in her hands.

She nabbed her mobile and dialed, hugging one naked arm around her naked waist right below her naked breasts. Why didn’t she put on some bloody clothes? All that nakedness was damned distracting. Naked was a good look on her.

“ Buon giorno .” She identified herself and gave her room number. “Has my suitcase arrived?” She paused. “You’re sure? Thank you. Grazie .”

She disconnected the call with a snap of her mobile. “Damn it to hell.”

She revisited the wardrobe, feeling her knickers, obviously far from dry judging by her grimace. She sniffed delicately at yesterday’s clothes and recoiled. “That’s just gross.”

Note to self. The Gorgon wasn’t a morning person. And she also had the most delicious voice, dropping sharp consonants and rounding itself around vowels, lengthening them in a Southern drawl. He’d never considered himself much of an auditory person, but her voice sent a rush through him. Christ, she even made swearing sound sexy. Not a far stretch at all to imagine her in her lovely naked state whispering a bit of naughtiness in his ear…

She rooted around in her knapsack and punched in a series of numbers on her mobile phone.

In all the spy films, the phone was always being monitored and recorded. But until he found a private moment with her mobile, he was privy only to her end of the conversation. She identified herself and her flight number to someone on the other end. Ah, she was following up with the airline. He settled back against his pillow. This should prove entertaining.

“My luggage didn’t make the flight from London to Venice yesterday. It was supposed to be delivered to my hotel this morning. What? There’s no trace of it?” Her voice escalated a notch. “How can you have lost it? It was checked through in Atlanta. I was assured it would be sent to my hotel. Yes, I understand you can’t send it if you can’t find it. But how about you understand this— I need underwear! ” Well, now that she’d destroyed Gage’s hearing in that ear… “I washed out my lone pair last night and they haven’t dried. I don’t want to wear wet panties.”

She might be the enemy, but she was magnificent when riled. Her aqua eyes flashed like a stormy sea and her breasts quivered. For chrissake, where was his bloody detachment that had served him so well all his life?

“Does that sound like a good vacation to you? It doesn’t to me. Listen, if I didn’t want to wear underwear, I would’ve left them at home in the first place. I don’t appreciate your attitude. What’s your supervisor’s name? Maybe they can introduce you to the concept of customer service.”

Gage took satisfaction in the fact that her missing case had inconvenienced the Gorgon. One had to relish the small victories as they arose.

She disconnected the call. Gage noted the time. Quarter past eight. Grinning, he shoved back the covers and strolled into the washroom, clicking the lock on her door and locking her out of the washroom.

“Crap,” she muttered in his ear—well, his earpiece—but it might as well’ve been in his ear.

His grin broadened and he turned on the shower.

“Ugh. Yuck.”

Apparently she’d elected to wear the wet knickers. He pushed the sexual connotation out of his mind. Ah, the Gorgon was going to be in rare form when he met her this morning. Might as well go for broke.

A passable tenor, Gage’s voice always improved with the acoustics of a tiled washroom. He burst into a shower rendition of La Bohéme, from act one.

“I have descended into the bowels of hell,” the Gorgon’s voice muttered in his ear.

Gage sang louder.

HOLLY HAD BEEN DETERMINED to put her bad-day karma behind her yesterday…until she’d rolled out of bed naked this morning and discovered still-damp panties, no luggage and a rude airline-customer-service representative.

The only good thing to come of that conversation? She knew her luggage wasn’t showing up today. The woman on the phone had actually seemed delighted to tell her if it hadn’t arrived by now, it wouldn’t make it today.

In the next room, the shower and the singing stopped. Thank God. The voice wasn’t particularly unpleasant, but she wasn’t in the mood to be serenaded this morning. Yet another grand reason for having requested a private bathroom.

Missing luggage necessitated a change of itinerary. She was more thankful than ever that she’d arranged a private tour guide. She’d specifically requested a woman, slightly older than herself and a Venetian native. Holly would feel comfortable with a woman and she’d look less like a tourist, gaining insight into what it was like to live in Venice. She’d been introduced, via the Internet, to her assigned guide, Signora Ciavelli. Forty-seven, with a slightly round face and dark hair sprinkled with a bit of gray, she’d looked kind and capable in her photo.