Lovers & Lies
Lovers Undercover | Book One
NSA operative Cal Laughlin is deep undercover but he’s willing to blow it all for her…
Janey DeMarco has a serious crush on the new guy at work, but an office romance is doomed to disaster, especially in an office of spies. As the manager of her family's private investigation firm, she knows everyone's secrets...except Cal's. Her longing to delve into his mysterious past rivals her burning desire for him.
Cal’s blood runs hot for Janey, but his job is to discover if her parents, Grace and Frank DeMarco, national intelligence legends with impeccable records, are responsible for his former partner's death by drug runners.
Fueled by a magnetic attraction. Janey and Mal’s seduction burns red-hot, but when they’re thrust into a dangerous assignment, their secrets could be more deadly than any weapon.
Read an excerpt ...
Chapter One
The woman’s voice wrapped around Malcolm Laughlin like humidity on a ninety-degree day, making him unseasonably warm on a cool April morning.
From the adjoining office, Janey DeMarco’s husky tone soothed. “No, don’t panic. I can talk you through this. You have to slide off the cover on the tower to remove the hard drive.”
He had no idea who she was talking to. Didn’t matter. Her voice mesmerized—calm, logical, competent. Mal stifled a groan. Sexy as hell.
With a rising sense of dread, he stared blindly into the monitor in front of him. He tried to shut her out, to imagine himself anywhere but the Philadelphia offices of DeMarco Investigations.
A nice arctic oil field or Mount Everest, maybe.
“No. Not the modem. Don’t mess with the cards. I need you to pull the hard drive.” She paused. “What do you mean, should you unplug the machine first?” Now her voice showed the slightest hint of agitation. “Oh for—Damn it, Nic, haven’t I taught you anything?”
Her brother. She was talking to her brother.
“You can’t just—no, don’t—Stop! Just stop.”
She laughed then, a rich, melodic sound that completely erased the irritation.
Goddamn, she had a great laugh. Gave him a hard-on every damn time. Luckily for him, in the month he’d been here, she hadn’t had much to laugh about.
Mal used his forearm to sweep a clear spot on his desk. Ignoring the pile of folders that fell to the floor, he doubled over, resting his forehead on the cool, polished wood.
“Yes, I know you don’t normally do this, but—No! You can’t just pull the plug! You have to shut it down first.” She paused again, as if to take a deep breath. “Nic, work with me here. I need that hard drive.”
Ah, hell. Another groan twisted his insides into knots.
Gallagher had said three weeks, in and out. No problem.
Well, he’d been here four, and he hadn’t found a damn thing. This case was not as cut and dried as he’d been led to believe.
“Damn it, Nic. I can’t believe you let it go this far. You should’ve called me earlier—”
And the DeMarcos were not what he’d expected. He’d imagined The Sopranos. Instead, he got Ozzie and Harriet with a little La Femme Nikita thrown in for flavor.
It was confusing as hell, and confusion generally pissed him off. He liked to have all his facts in a row. Who the players were. What their roles were.
These damn DeMarcos wouldn’t stay in their boxes. Whenever he thought he had them figured out, they threw something new at him.
“No, you can’t do that. No… You could wipe the drive.”
Mal knew his limits. Knew his strengths and weaknesses. He was controlled, meticulous. He could be a cold-blooded son of a bitch who didn’t take shit from anybody. And he never, ever, let his libido dictate his actions.
“All right, put her on,” Janey said. “Toni, honey, it’s going to be okay. You’ll have your term paper by the end of the week, even if we have to make Nic rewrite it. I swear, everything will be fine.”
A goddamn term paper. Jesus. He was screwed.