Overcast skies left a gray gloom blanketing the still wet streets as Beck found a parking spot a few blocks from DelRay & Associates. Construction across the street had turned the whole block into a mess.

His windshield wipers flapped annoyingly, the rain slowing to a soft mist. He turned them off, peering around to make sure no one had followed him. He’d had a reporter show up on his doorstep right after he’d gotten Jackie’s phone call. Another had been on the first’s heels. Word was out, and he’d be headline material on the eleven o’clock news, sure as shit.

Man, the world could sure go ass over apple cart in twenty-four hours.

It hadn’t been hard to ditch the press, but he felt sort of guilty leaving Tink. They weren’t supposed to trespass, but everyone knew reporters would do anything for a story.

Get to Jackie.

Shutting off the car, he glanced down the street. No one waited on the concrete steps to ambush him, so he locked up and jogged down the street. Who had left Jackie the photo of Byron Lockhart and what did it mean?

Lockhart wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t an emotional guy either. From his reaction at the station, Beck wondered if the show had been authentic or if the Director was a damn fine actor.

Because he wasn’t the only one thinking Byron made a better suspect. Jackie had immediately latched on to the idea.

Beck took the stairs two at a time and found the front door locked. Good. He knocked twice.

“DelRay,” he called, making sure she knew it was him.

A buzzer sounded followed by the clunk of a disengaging lock. He entered the office, locked the door behind him, and glanced around. The place was certainly more upscale than he’d expected, considering Jackie could barely dress herself. “I’m here.”

“Last office on the right,” she called.

The soft lighting and fancy paintings were a nice touch. She must have had a designer.

He had no trouble finding her door with the brass nameplate, Jackleen DelRay, Attorney.

The door was cracked an inch, and he pushed it all the way open, only to pull up short. Jackie stood at her desk with her shirt off, her generous breasts spilling over the edges of a sports bra and jiggling with abandon as she scrubbed at a shirt lying on the blotter.

She glanced up and didn’t even flinch, continuing to scrub furiously. “I spilled coffee. Figured you’d give me grief if I didn’t at least attempt to clean it up.”

Beck stood in the doorway, unable to blink or even look away. He remembered those luscious mounds, how they’d felt in his hands, how her skin had tasted under his tongue. Everything in him, including the not-so-small mini-Beck inside his pants, screamed for him to get her under him again.

Bam, right there on the desk. He’d brush the heaps of files and that girly Glock off to the side and free those puppies from the tight nylon bursting at the seams.

But this wasn’t Jackie DelRay, law student from the University of Pennsylvania, ready to go for broke on top of her big cherry desk. This was former Assistant United States Attorney DelRay, a mature, confident, successful woman who was now his lawyer.

So screwed.

Or not screwed, actually, he laughingly thought.

Knowing her, this little exhibition was payback. She wasn’t seriously flashing those ginormous boobs at him because she’d spilled coffee. She was reminding him of what they’d shared twelve years ago and all the regret that came with it.

Mission accomplished.

Mini-Beck pressed against his zipper, as hard and unforgiving as Jackie the pit bull. Digging deep for a shred of sensibility, he wheeled around and turned his back to her. “Please put your shirt on.”

He heard a soft laugh. “Oh, come on. My bathing suit has less material. Besides, it’s not like you haven’t seen this before.”

“I’m serious, Jackie. You’re my lawyer. I can’t be ogling you, no matter how much I want to.”

Another chuckle, then the sound of soft footsteps before something slapped against his back. “Here, put your eyes on this while I fix my shirt.”

He glanced back to where she held a photo and a pair of latex gloves. Too bad his gaze strayed to her breasts, because once more she was too much temptation for him after the past twenty-four hours had brought him so low. “You’re evil, but you know that, don’t you?”

She tried to appear innocent, but jutted out her chest anyway. “Me? What did I do?”

She knew exactly what she was doing. “I’m only a man, Jackie.”

“You are indeed. I’ve been known to bring a man to his knees if necessary. That doesn’t make me evil.”

“Keep talking like that and flaunting your rack at me and you’ll find yourself on your back begging me to make you come. You remember what that feels like, don’t you?”

Something changed in her eyes, like she might actually be considering it. Mini-Beck cheered.

He reached out and fingered a lock of hair that had pulled loose from her ponytail. His thumb brushed her clavicle and she sucked in a soft breath. “I don’t have much to lose at this point. Might as well enjoy myself.”

She didn’t pull away. “We had this conversation. I told you I’d get you off.”

“You better put your shirt on or you’ll be getting me off in more ways than one.”

Her chin came up, eyes sparking with challenge.

“Is that a threat or a promise, Agent Pearson?”

Was she really doing this right now?

Two could play that game.

He caressed the line of her throat, dropped his finger to run it down her cleavage. Another intake of breath made her chest rise. “You know from past experience, I don’t make threats, and I am a man of my word.”

The photo and gloves hit the floor and she launched herself at him, arms going around his neck as he caught her in his arms. Her legs fit perfectly around his waist and he carried her to the desk, ready to make his fantasy a reality.

Their lips met, the kiss as hot and feral as she was. Files flew off the desk, the gun skittered to the edge—and whoopsie daisy, Beck reached out and caught it before it went over. He wedged himself between Jackie’s legs and she moaned.

He kissed her long and deep, sucking at her tongue, then biting her bottom lip. Her hands were all over his back, his shoulders, pulling at his short hair as she bucked her hips under him.

His hands got their wish and he filled both with her glorious breasts. Dipping his head, he kissed, licked, and sucked at her skin, first the naked mounds above the cups of the bra, then her nipples through the thin fabric.

“God, yes,” Jackie said as if he’d asked for permission. “More. Harder.”

“Happy to accommodate.”

And then, from somewhere behind him, he heard a throat being cleared. “Um, Jackie?”

Jackie jerked and let out an “eep”, shoving at Beck to get him off her. His two-hundred and forty pounds kept her pinned, and he glanced over his shoulder, ready to kill whoever the asshole was in the doorway. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Hi, I’m Josh,” the kid said. “Is Jackie okay?”

Seriously?

The woman in question squirmed out from under him and slapped him on the shoulder as if he were in trouble. “Josh! What are you doing here?”

“I came to wrap up the paperwork on the Brengle case. I heard about”—he motioned at Beck, a confused frown creasing his face—“your new client. I was going to call and see if you needed any help, but it looks like you, um, have things under control. You do, right?”

“Of course,” Jackie said, quickly pulling on her shirt. Her fingers shook as she started buttoning it and she was breathing like she’d just run a mile sprint.

Beck chuckled, adjusting his pants and woody before picking up the fallen picture from the floor. “Jackie always has things under control.”

Jackie moved toward the door, motioning Josh away. Her shirt was askew from the uneven button job. “Everything’s good. We were just, uh, reviewing some details.”

Beck waved the photo, a wide grin splitting his face. “Yep. Details.”

She hustled Josh into the hallway and semi-closed the door behind her. Lowering her voice, she must have given the kid an earful before she blew back in and leaned on the door with a look of pure embarrassment on her face. “That’s my junior partner.”

Jackie DelRay embarrassed? This was one for the books. “He needs to work on his timing.”

She made a face and pointed to the photo. “Check out the lineup and tell me if you recognize anyone besides Byron.”

His gaze stayed on her curvy ass as she walked to the desk, her jeans stretched tight across her butt cheeks. His fingers itched to cup them, but she loved playing cat-and-mouse games with him and he needed to take a step back from all of this.

He really did.

So why did that suck so effing much?

Rubbing his forehead with one hand, he forced his gaze to the floor. He was a fool to let her under his skin, but sometimes it felt damn good to do something so bad.

She’ll be the death of me.

All the work of leaving his past behind and rising above what he’d come from. All the hours of pressing to be the best he could, instead of the worst. His intelligence could have helped his family’s criminal enterprise considerably, but instead, he’d made it his mission to help people his family might have actually played a part in hurting.

So no matter how bad he wanted Jackie – and forget that his career with the Bureau was probably over – he couldn’t let a few hours of sex sabotage his life.

Because falling for his attorney would do that. She had no more intention of creating a long-term relationship with him than she did with a dormouse and he’d already fallen for her once. Big, big mistake. If he did it again, she’d use him, chew him up, spit him out, and break his heart.

Losing that would be worse than losing his job.

Jackie snapped her fingers at him. “Earth to Beck. Where did you just go?”

“Where do you think?” he groused, taking a seat in a blue upholstered chair across from her. He studied the picture, squinted. “Byron looks like a kid in this photo. This must have been taken twenty years ago or more.”

“The Director is fifty-three, so twenty years ago, he would have been thirty-three. Hardly a kid.”

“Running the FBI has aged him considerably.”

“Power can do that.” Jackie rocked her office chair, noticing her misbuttoned shirt and starting to redo it. “What about the others?”

Beck studied the photo again but the soft lighting made it a challenge to see details and the photo was grainy. Jackie had a desk lamp, so he pushed out of the chair and went around to her side to turn it on.

The brighter light didn’t help much, Jackie leaning forward to study the photo with him. She pointed a finger at one of the men who stood in the background, his head half turned as if he really didn’t want his picture taken. “Does that guy look familiar? I swear I know him.”

Beck zeroed in on the guy. He stood in a group with a bunch of other partygoers, a shadow falling over him. “Wait, is that…?”

Twenty years had aged him too. And farther behind him, Beck saw another indistinct figure. A woman staring at the man. She was behind a fancy column, only part of her face showing, but the look on it made him think she was totally crushing on the guy.

“Who?” Jackie demanded at Beck’s pause. “Who is he?”

Beck straightened, setting the photo on the desk. “We need help with this.”

“What do you mean? What kind of help?”

“I have a feeling I know who left this for you but the reason why might be a problem. Especially now.”

“Stop being evasive. Who the hell is that guy and what does it have to do with your case?”

“That”—Beck tapped the woman’s half-hidden face — “is Annabelle Lockhart. And that” — he tapped the man’s face, forever frozen in time—“is currently the President of the United States.”

---

Jackie pushed through the front door of her flat with Beck following. She’d lived in the first floor unit of the Georgetown brownstone for five years now and despite the rising rent, had no intention of leaving. Minutes from her office, the location served her well.

Like now.

As much as she hated to waste time coming home to change, her shirt was a dead loss. She bypassed the living room and adjoining kitchen/dining area on her way to the bedroom. Moving fast, she took off her trashed shirt and tossed it into the basket on the floor of the laundry room. Really, it was just a closet big enough for a stackable washer/dryer, but it saved her from making trips to the laundromat.

“I’ll just be a second,” she said. “Help yourself to whatever. Not that you’ll find any food. Or, well, much of anything. There’s some energy drinks in the fridge if you need it.”

“Do you know what that stuff does to your body?”

The derision in Beck’s voice would bring a lesser woman down. Her? Not so much.

“Listen, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, some of us are just regular people. We eat carbs and – heaven forbid – sweets. And when we haven’t slept in days because we’re springing hot FBI agents from lockup, we need a boost.”

She entered her bedroom, moving straight to the closet where she grabbed a pair of casual slacks and a pullover that wouldn’t wrinkle the second she put it on. Belt. Most times she’d skip it and just pull the shirt over her slacks, but with Mr. Vogue in tow, she needed to be put together.

“Ha!” Beck said. “When you have a heart attack from your crappy diet, don’t blame me.”

“Ha!” She jammed her feet into a pair of leopard print flats. At least her shoes would match this time. “I take full responsibility for my heathen ways.”

She crossed the hall to the bathroom, took one look in the mirror and nearly cried. Between the pale skin, dark circles and her thick hair bursting free of her ponytail – and not in that cute way women purposely did – she looked like an escapee from a mental institution. Changes had to be made. Big changes.

Ones that would leave her feeling rested and not constantly in a rush that limited time spent on her appearance.

Sleep.

That’s all she needed. A good eight or fifty hours.

Dealing with her hair first, she tugged on her ponytail holder, ran a brush through the long, in-need-of-a-trim strands, and twirled them into a chignon. No muss, no fuss. Her mother would be proud that some of her lessons still stuck.

Makeup came next. She’d need an entire team to fix her, but she could triage it. While dabbing concealer over the dark circles around her eyes, she contemplated Beck’s case.

“Hey, hot stuff,” she called, “who is it we’re going to see?”

“He’s a former profiler. Left the Bureau a few years ago.”

After announcing one of the men in the photo was none other than the pre-politics president, Beck had phoned his boss, Taylor. They’d agreed to bring in Justice Greystone, and by the hero worship in Taylor’s voice, the guy had to be something special. Or at least an FBI agent’s version of it.

Jackie slapped on a little liner, narrowly avoiding stabbing herself in the eye. “And we’re going to see him why?”

“He knows people. A lot of people.”

Dang it. Smudged it. This was why she hated makeup. She snatched a small sponge from her toiletry bag and worked it across her eyelid to smooth out her mistake. Good enough. “Who does he work for now?”

“I have no idea.”

A quick swipe of lipstick finished her mini-makeover and she popped back into the hallway where Beck stood leaning against the wall. She gestured for him to follow her to her office. “Wow,” he said. “Look at you. I like your hair.”

Go, Jackie. Maybe there was hope for her yet. “Thank you. Justice Greystone. Is he a spook?”

“Former Fed. He recently helped Taylor find her missing sister after nearly twenty years.”

Jackie flipped the office light on and the three lamps illuminated the muted gray walls and white tray ceiling. She turned back. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Alrighty then. I like him already. Let me grab my notes and we’ll head out.”

Whoever this Justice Greystone was, if he had contacts at the FBI – or anywhere else – who might help them identify the third man in the photo, Jackie was all for it.

She swung around her desk leaving Beck standing just inside the doorway beside the Italian, ultra-modern white sofa that cost her way more than any sane person should pay. But, oh, that leather. So soft.

Beck’s perusal of the room stopped at the scraped oak bookshelves stuffed with her novels and legal books.

He let out a low whistle and she cocked her head. “What?”

“It’s...nice,” he said. “Bright and airy. Clean lines. Good energy.”

“Thank you, I think. You seem surprised.”

He met her gaze and held it. “I am.”

Why did men have to be so honest? Idiots. The bunch of them. “What did you expect? A cardboard box as my desk and a couple bean bag chairs? I spend most of my life in this room. I want it nice.”

At some point she’d have to ruminate over why her desire to have a nice office was met with such shock. Then again, most of Beck’s interaction with her, aside from that one crazy, lust-filled night – hell, even then maybe – revealed her to be...intense.

Tough.

Hard.

Dammit. Why did being good at her job mean she was a bitch? She was about to ask Mr. Wonderful that very question, had even opened her mouth and yet...no. Why bother? Asking would lead to a conversation. A personal one where maybe they’d confide in each other. Connect.

And she couldn’t have that. No way. Not with the secrets she held. She’d already been torn up once by him. Of course, he didn’t know that and she wouldn’t risk him seeing anything but pit bull Jackie. Being a strong-willed man, he’d avoid an emotional connection with her. In her experience, alphas couldn’t handle her. Not with their need to prove their manliness. Somehow, it all came down to her not being needy enough. And when the fuck did that become such a bad thing?

She looked away. Had to. The man was just too damned beautiful and she was a woman sorely lacking male attention. As evidenced by the fact she’d thrown herself at him and then succumbed to the humiliation of her partner finding her half naked in their client’s arms.

Lord, Jackie.

She set her hand on the lone folder atop her desk. Unlike her law office, she preferred an uncluttered space at home. Here, even when working, she strived for peace. A break from the chaos that came with criminal defense work.

She ran her finger under the edge of the folder and flipped it open revealing...nothing.

Wait.

What the hell? She’d left an entire page of notes in there.

She stepped back, checked under the desk.

Beck came closer, his movements swift. “What is it?”

“After your arraignment I came home and made notes. I left them in this folder. They’re gone.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I took a fresh folder from the drawer, wrote your name on it and shoved the notes in. Done.”

“The paper isn’t in your briefcase?”

Men. Unbelievable. “No, Beck.” She held her hands out, spreading her fingers wide. “Why would I put notes in a folder and then not take the folder? I know what I did. The notes were in here.”

A sound, something in the hallway, brought her gaze up. Having lived here for so long, she knew it’s habits. The clunk of a pipe, the hum of the air conditioner, the rattle of the hot water heater, all of it a safety blanket for her mind.

That sound? The swish?

New.

Moving on instinct, she walked to the doorway. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

If she knew, she wouldn’t have asked. She stepped into the hall and peered right, checking the back door. Maybe an animal outside?

She waited a full second. Silence. Whatever it was, it was gone now.

Swish.

Or not.

She spun back and found a man dressed in jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt that covered every inch of his thick arms. He wore a baseball cap pulled low, almost covering his dark brows, but his eyes shifted. Left, right, left, right. She recognized the panic. Had seen it hundreds of times on defendants. That squirrelly anxiety inherent with guilt.

Tingles and a weird numbness shot down her arms, freezing them at her sides. Her self-defense instructor warned her about this. About paralyzing fear.

The intruder lunged, shoving her sideways. She slammed into the wall, cracking the side of her head before bouncing back and colliding with Beck, who locked onto her arms. Somehow, he was still moving while keeping her upright. “You okay?”

She nodded. He released her and took off, giving chase as the man unbolted her back door and slipped through.