LITMIR.BIZ

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But—” But it wasn’t a suggestion. Even if it had been voiced as one, Lucia knew that from Corbett Lazlo a suggestion was as good as an order.

      “Master Liu tells me you haven’t been to your last two sessions.”

      “I might have had one or two other things on my mind,” she said stiffly. “Tracing those e-mails—”

      “—is high priority, but no excuse for letting yourself get soft.” His eyes traveled over her body in dispassionate appraisal.

      Soft. She felt the look as if he’d touched her.

      She shook off the feeling, gathered her defenses. “Oh, all right. Although,” she added in a grumbling undertone as she turned to go to the locker room to change her clothes, “I don’t see why it matters, when you won’t let me work in the field anyway.”

      Corbett’s voice, sharp as the sound of icicles breaking, stopped her in her tracks.

      “I doubt an assailant is going to have the courtesy to wait while you don your workout clothes. Come—as you are. Now.”

      She turned back slowly, chin cocked in futile defiance. “Not fair. You’ll have the advantage.” She nodded toward him. He stood relaxed and confident in the center of the mat, feet a little apart, baggy workout pants riding low on narrow hips, arms folded on his well-muscled chest. The way he looked at her, staring down the length of his aristocratic nose, he reminded her of Yul Brynner as the King of Siam, except for the thick silver-streaked mane of hair, the slick of sweat and the patches of red on his upper body where Master Liu’s blows had hit home.

      His lips curved in a small, arrogant smile. “Then you’ll have to fight harder to overcome it, won’t you.” He made an autocratic cupped-hand gesture. “Come. I’m waiting.”

      Oh, how she wished her heart wouldn’t race so. And pound, sending waves of heat into every part of her body. Thankful for the café-au-lait skin that at least partly camouflaged blushes, Lucia locked eyes with the man who was at once the nettle in her garden and the love of her life. Slowly, she reached for the top button of her jacket and simultaneously stepped out of her flat-heeled shoes. Corbett Lazlo’s eyes followed her fingers downward, pausing when they did at the cleavage beneath her pale blue silk blouse. Did his eyes flicker slightly, or was it only wishful thinking? She freed the last button and let the jacket drop to the floor on top of her shoes.

      As she stepped onto the mat, she felt the thump of her pulse in her throat, heard the rush of it inside her head. And beyond that the quiet voice of Master Liu: “You must train your mind, as well as your body, Lucia. Your body is only the weapon. Your mind must choose when and how to use it.”

      Quiet descended. Her focus narrowed. She saw only a pair of ice-blue eyes, heard only the whisper of her own life forces: blood, adrenaline and that intangible something Master Liu called chi. I am weightless. Invincible.

      There. The slightest flicker in those diamond eyes. She feinted so that the blow only grazed her side, and her mind ordered her body not to feel it. She whirled and aimed a kick at Corbett’s glistening chest, which he blocked easily. She heard a soft chuckle of approval as she twisted around, regained her balance, shifted on the balls of her feet to meet the counter attack.

      The battle was short but hard fought. Neither asked for nor gave any quarter, and it ended, as it always did, with Lucia flat on her back, pinned to the mat by Corbett’s hard hands and lithe body.

      Eyes closed, she fought to block the bombardment of her senses: the crazy rhythm of out-of-sync heartbeats, the scent of clean man sweat, the feel of healthy male hide, warm and slick, salty-sweet to the tongue….

      Of course, the last was only her imagination. She fought for the courage to say something flippant and flirty, knowing it was a lost cause. Breathing hard, she had to settle for, “Someday I’m going to beat you.”

      Corbett’s deep voice vibrated from his chest to hers, hinting at a smile. “I’m looking forward to it.”

      Lucia opened one eye. “If I beat you—when I beat you—then will you give me a field assignment?”

      The thin, sensual lips, suspended enticingly out of reach above hers, twitched the smile into oblivion. “I have better uses for your talents. Speaking of which—” he raised his head to glance at the large clock on the wall above the door “—hadn’t you better be off? I should imagine you’ll need some time to dress for our…date this evening.”

      Lucia looked into his eyes, and it was anger she did battle with now—anger mixed with helpless longing. She masked them both, she hoped, with a teasing smile and an airy, “Oh—a date? Is that what we’re calling it?”

      A small pleat of frown lines appeared between Corbett’s black eyebrows. “You are accompanying me to a holiday ball at the British embassy, my dear, in full formal regalia. What else ought we to call it?”

      Lucia snorted, deliberately inelegant. “That’s only because there’ve been two attempts on your life in the past few months, and you’re hoping the assassin will strike again so the army of agents you have planted all over the scene can nab him. You can hardly put one of your usual…um…debutantes in the middle of a takedown operation, now, can you?”

      She enjoyed a nice sense of satisfaction when he looked taken aback and didn’t reply. Knowing the victory would be only temporary, she seized the moment to twist out of his grasp and regain her feet, pleased with the toned muscles that made the motion as smooth as that of a trained gymnast. Call it a date, if you like, she thought as she scooped up her jacket and shoes. I prefer to call it my first field assignment.

      She slipped around the screen, nearly colliding with the man just entering. Adam Sinclair stepped out of her path with exaggerated care, grinning broadly. “He’s all yours,” Lucia said tartly, and she sailed out the door with her nose pointlessly in the air.

      Adam found Corbett sitting in the middle of the mat, gazing at the screen, knees drawn up, arms propped on top of them.

      “She’s right, you know,” he said to his best friend and long-time partner as he offered him a hand up.

      Corbett grunted and stooped to pick up a towel from the mat. “You heard that, did you? How long have you been lurking?”

      “Oh, I came in as you two were in the heat of battle—just in time for the takedown, as a matter of fact. Wasn’t about to intrude on that little scene. From where I was standing…”

      Corbett made a soft sound that in anyone less dignified would be called a snort. “For God’s sake, Adam, I’m Lucia’s employer, her teacher.”

      “She’s hardly a schoolgirl. Face it, Laz. She’s a grown woman, and a damn gorgeous one, at that. And any fool can see she’s got it bad for you.”

      “She’s got a bit of a crush, maybe, and if you think I’d be such a bloody jackass that I’d take advantage of that—”

      “God forbid!” Adam held up both hands in mock surrender.

      Neither man spoke again as they walked together through the maze of gleaming corridors, not until they were inside the elevator, a private one to which only a very few people had access. Corbett pressed the pad of his thumb against a glass plate and gave the voice command for the ninth floor. As the elevator purred silently upward, he said without turning, “Everything’s in place for tonight, I assume.”

      Adam allowed himself a wry smile. “Since you have to ask, I take it you’re concerned.”

      That remark earned him a heated reply. “Concerned? Why on earth should I be? This idiot, whoever has been taking potshots at me, must be a bloody poor excuse for an assassin. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you now, would I?”

      Adam shrugged. “You never know, he might get lucky this go-’round—third time’s the charm, and all that.” He

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