Thank God Olivia’s self-control was totally back in check. She’d handled Rodgers touching her in the sparring gym without an iota of panic. So they kept it up—went three rounds on the mat every night, which made her even more sexually frustrated. And now a month had passed since Rodgers joined the team. Olivia was about to lose her mind. How she had thought getting up close and sweaty with Mr. Sexy was a good idea, was beyond her. It didn’t matter that she’d wanted proof that she was ready to roll. She hated that he was better—a fact she’d never confess to a soul. Just as she would think she was getting the upper hand, he’d lay her on her ass. There she’d be, staring into the most delicious pair of teal-blue eyes she’d ever seen in her life. Blast his eyes and blast his he-man strength. Olivia always tried to learn from people more skilled, always tried to challenge herself, to push harder, but when it came to Commander Rodgers, she needed to cut ties and walk away.

It didn’t help matters that she’d caught his interested glances as well. As much as she wanted to believe he was an unfeeling sailor, she didn’t buy her own ruse. No, she never missed a single nuance—the way his tongue slipped over his full bottom lip, the way she’d catch him watching. She had to laugh at the way he’d quickly shift his gaze as if he didn’t want her to know he’d been checking her out. She chuckled. The man was too adorable. The worst part? The way his stubble grew in by four o’clock every afternoon, making him look tastier than a Bakewell tart.

She’d eat a hundred tarts if she could push the SEAL from her mind.

But no. Logan’s presence was everywhere, day in and day out. In the sit room for the briefings in the morning. In Command when a mission was going down. He was an ace. Sharp and deadly, he’d be a good asset in the field—just not with her.

He’s too distracting.

Damn, he was there at meals and at movie times. And it didn’t take a soothsayer to tell her Mr. Sexy was every bit as attracted to her as she was to him. They both needed an assignment away from ICE to cool their jets. Maybe Olivia could finagle a quick jaunt to the Caribbean for a holiday. She hadn’t had a decent toss in the hay in… Dear God, more than two years.

Olivia was pretty discrete about her flings, but who could go for years on end without seeing a little action? No wonder tensions were flaring, especially hers.

And the next time Dr. R asked her to describe episodes triggering horrific moments of vivid recall, she would strangle him. She never should have hinted at her goddamned demons—though he had access to her MI6 record. They had tried to fix her, too. But that didn’t stop them from using her to get inside and deliver critical intel. What went on in her mind was nobody’s business. Anyone who had been to hell and back had night terrors. And she’d been visited by Satan more times than she could count. Olivia didn’t need a shrink to tell her why her mind was so messed up. Her latest stunt, living with a rotting terrorist and enduring him slobbering all over her was enough to send anyone to the looney bin. She needed to prove to herself that she could actually enjoy having sex again. And how the hell was she supposed to do that isolated in a Cold War bunker in Iceland?

Fortunately, ICE didn’t have any regs against imbibing in a stonking piss-up. They practically encouraged it, stocking a bar in the employee lounge where everyone congregated after work when there was nothing else to do but sip gin and tonics and talk about the day’s training so no one had to talk about themselves.

And tonight, she sat on a stool while Stephan made her another gin and tonic. Stephan was a German recruit, buff with blond hair—nowhere near as sexy as Rodgers.

“What has the CO thrown your way these days?” he asked.

She squeezed her lime over her cocktail. “More of the same.” Operatives never talked about their missions unless they were in the sit room. Stephan needed to learn to keep his mouth shut.

The glass doors swung open and in walked Logan. “You mixing the drinks tonight, dude?”

Stephan gave a cheeky wink. “Caught me just before I went off shift.”

“Great.” Logan glanced at Olivia and snorted. “Give me one of those Icelandic Stouts.”

“Beer?” she asked. “Don’t you ever drink anything with more kick?”

“Not when I’m at sea.”

Stephan levered the cap off a bottle. “Why did you say at sea?”

Logan shrugged, reaching for the beer. “Being stuck underground is just like being on a ship running maneuvers in the Pacific for months on end.”

Resting her elbows on the bar, Olivia arched her eyebrows. “From what I saw of the USS Washington, ICE is a lot posher than a Navy ship.”

Logan took a long pull, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Doesn’t matter. The isolation is still the same. Days consist of rigorous training, eating and more training. There’s a bit of light R & R like the bar here. But as time wears on, so do the sailors. And after a couple of months, they’re itching to step ashore so bad, they’d sell their eye teeth.”

“Sounds about right.” Olivia sipped her drink.

“So, have you got any idea when we’ll be deploying?” Stephan rephrased his question to Logan.

“Not sure.” The commander pulled up a stool, looking like he planned to stay for a few rounds. “Garth told me Anders Lindgren is paying a visit next week.”

“He told you?” Olivia balked. “What am I? Not trustworthy enough?”

Logan cringed. “Sorry. In the men’s locker room—he’ll probably inform the team in the morning.”

“Right.” She shot him a look.

Stephan stepped out from behind the bar holding a cold one. “I’m done for the night. See you pair tomorrow.”

Logan raised his bottle. “Good night, dude.”

“It’s early yet.” Olivia waved the German back. “You sure you don’t want to hang out for another round?”

“Nein—else I won’t make it through Rodgers’ ball-buster workout.” Stephan flicked his wrist and headed for the doors.

Hoping there was someone else in the bar, Olivia glanced over her shoulder. Nope. They were alone. She fixated on the back wall and took a long sip of her gin and tonic.

Beside her, Logan tapped his fingers against his beer before he drank it down. His hair had grown a bit. Black and mussed and too damned sexy. She never should have told him to grow it.

“Want another?” she asked, her voice sounding huskier than usual.

“I’ll get it.”

She hopped to her feet. “I think you need something stronger than beer. How about I make you one of my favorites?”

He arched a single eyebrow. “What would that be?”

“Hot sex between the sheets.” She’d asked for the drink in countless bars in London and never once had her cheeks burned. Why now?

“Don’t Brits say bed linens?” Thank God Rodgers didn’t seem to notice.

“Not always, and sheets sounds naughtier.” There. She wasn’t about to let him make her feel self-conscious.

Her little jibe must have done the trick, because Logan’s face blushed while his mouth opened and closed. Shifting his gaze away, he swiped a hand over his lips. “I’ll bet it’s full of sugar.”

“You afraid of a little sweetness?”

“Not really.” He frowned as if trying to think up an excuse not to try the concoction. “What’s in it?”

She filled a mug with hot water and grabbed a brandy snifter. “A shot of vodka, Kahlua, Baileys, Grand Marnier, layered in a snifter and heated over a cup of boiling water.”

“Sounds like froo froo.”

“It’s to die for.” She poured in the Kahlua, then used a spoon to layer the Baileys.

“I’ll bet.” He leaned on the bar and watched her work. “You’ve made that often?”

“Mm hmm.”

“It’s amazing you don’t weigh five hundred pounds.”

She chuckled and, after floating the shot of vodka, she tossed the spoon into the sink. “I would if I didn’t work out all the time.” Slowly, she turned the snifter over the cup of hot water careful not to shake it too much. “So, where’re you from, cowboy?” she asked like they’d just met. Though she tried to keep from getting to know her teammates too well, a little small talk couldn’t hurt. And she was curious.

“I grew up on a ranch in Montana.”

“Truly?” She handed him the snifter. “So you are a real-life cowboy?”

He picked up a swizzle stick and stirred it, destroying the layers she’d so painstakingly made. “In the flesh.”

She bit the corner of her mouth and watched his bicep flex through the sleeve of his off-duty t-shirt as he took a sip.

“Mm. That’s too good to be alcohol.”

Olivia waggled her eyebrows. Now that she knew she could make him blush, she might toy with him a bit. “That’s why it’s called hot sex between the sheets. After a couple of those, the sex is hot no matter who you’re with.”

He gave her a look lacking a damned blush, one of those looks that could make any woman melt like butter in the sun. Then he burst out with a laugh. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

She made an X on her chest. “Honest.”

Nodding, he took another drink then slid the snifter across the bar. “You going to help me with this?”

Olivia raised her gin and tonic. “This is number four.”

“Come on,” he urged. “You obviously have a sweet tooth.”

Her mouth watered when she looked down and inhaled, catching the tempting aroma. “Maybe just a sip.” The sugariness spread across her tongue like silk. “Mm. It’s sinful.”

“That’s why I stick with beer.”

Taste buds bursting, she couldn’t stop herself from another sample. Damn the gin and tonic. “So, what’s Montana like?”

“Lots of mountains, warm in summer, cold in winter. Tons to do.”

“Such as?”

“Fishing, hiking, bronc riding.”

“Horses?”

“Quarter horses.” He swilled their drink. Obviously, he suffered from a sweet tooth as well.

“Do you train them?” she asked.

“When I’m home. I run a couple hundred head of cattle and a few brood mares. I like to break the yearlings, but keeping them fed, trained and groomed is pricey.”

“Who takes care of the place when you’re gone?” She pulled the cork on the Kahlua to make another hot sex between the sheets.

“My best friend—he was wounded in Iraq. He’s got a bum leg, but that doesn’t prevent him from doing much.”

“You trust him, then?”

“With my life.”

Olivia placed the new drink in front of him. It would be nice to have a friend like that. “You got any family?”

“Nope.”

“Parents gone?”

“Yep.”

“Mine, too.”

Licking his lips, he gently swirled the snifter. “Ooo, you do have a past.”

“Everyone has a past. I just don’t like talking about mine, is all. Don’t like thinking about it, either.” Her skin grew hot. She didn’t talk about her past ever, not even when she was well on the road to complete inebriation. “So, since you have such a great place, why are you here?”

He drank, tipping his head back, clearly savoring the taste before his Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow. “Up until a month ago, I was content to be a Navy career man. I guess it’s in my blood. As soon as some jihadi asshole decides to start terrorizing innocent people, I can’t help but charge in with guns blazing.”

She smiled, her head swimming a bit, making her lean on the bar. “My tactics might be a tad subtler, but I’m not really happy unless I’m chasing a scumbag.”

“Ah, so that’s how to get through to you, set you loose on a mob of heartless guerrillas.”

“Exactly.” She leaned a bit further over the bar, reaching out and brushing her fingers along his jawline. “That’s amazing.”

His eyebrows slanted over those mesmerizing eyes—way too intense. “My beard or the fact I really ought to shave twice a day?”

“Both.” She wasn’t about to admit how the prickles against the pads of her fingers shot straight down past her midsection. Damn, she needed a one night stand, and not with the sexy man grinning at her from the other side of the bar. It was late, she was drunk, and making googly eyes at her co-worker. “I need to call it a night while I can still walk back to my suite.”

Logan drained the dregs of the snifter. “Me, too. I think you should change the name of this cocktail to ‘sleeping potion number two’.”

“Why two?”

“Because after two of those, you’re toast. Might as well give up and head for your bunk, ’cause you’d be useless for anything else.” His gaze dipped with his next blink as if he’d checked out her boobs and tried to look discrete about it. Or else he was checking out her boobs and trying to talk himself out of hot sex with or without the sheets.

Damn.

Olivia couldn’t stay there another moment, thinking about the hot sex she definitely would not be enjoying with her fellow spy. “Goodnight.” She started for the door.

“Wait up.” Logan pushed away from the bar and followed. “I’ll see you home, my lady.”

“I’m fully capable of walking myself to my own door in this highly secure, clandestine facility.”

“I know.” He opened the door for her and gestured with a bow. “But your suite is only four down from mine.”

“You noticed?”

He grinned, his white teeth contrasting with dark, masculine stubble. “Who wouldn’t?”

Things suddenly went quiet, amplifying their shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. Olivia rubbed the outside of her arms, awkwardly aware as if she were a schoolgirl being walked home from her first date. Regardless of the alcohol swimming in her head, she felt like she should be wearing heels and holding hands. But that was plain wrong.

They were both wearing t-shirts, workout pants and tennis shoes—the off-duty, casual dress. There wasn’t anything sexy about t-shirts, except perhaps the way Logan’s stretched across his pecs. Lord save her, the man could make a sack look hot.

Nearing her door, she slowed her pace and turned. “Thanks. It’s not often a real cowboy sees me home.”

“Ma’am.” He tipped his fingers to his forehead. “Unfortunately, I left my hat and spurs at the ranch.”

A new rush of heat shot between her legs. “Spurs?” She leaned against the wall for balance.

“Yes, ma’am.” He rested his hand beside her head, one hip shifting to take his weight.

“Chaps, too?” God, she shouldn’t have asked. The mere thought of Logan Rodgers wearing nothing but a cowboy hat, chaps and a pair of snakeskin boots with spurs set her knickers on fire.

“Mm hmm,” he growled with a hint of a drawl. He picked up a lock of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “This your natural color?”

“That’s nothing to ask a lady,” she said, willing herself to conquer her damned lust.

“It’s pretty.”

“Oh…,” was all she managed to say as Logan’s gaze shifted to her lips with a flutter of long, black eyelashes. Before Olivia could object, soft lips met hers together with a brush of the rugged stubble she’d been admiring since he stepped into the lounge.

Everything melted. Her body responded with a surge of desire she’d been bottling up for months. Not months. Two years. Overwhelmed with a flood of passion, she slid her hands to his waist and pulled his body flush with hers.

Hard maleness pressed against her. Logan’s cock was rigid and straight up and like a steel rod rubbing right above the place where she needed him. The one place on her body she might have trouble controlling after a few gin and tonics and a hot sex between the sheets. Worse, she wanted him. Thick and fast and deep. Holy hell, fast and freaking deep. Now! If only she didn’t need to bend down for the retina scan, she’d open the door, yank down her pants and fuck him before they made it to the bedroom.

Pinning her to the wall, Logan kissed like he’d been starved for a good romp as long as she. A deep rumbling moan rolled through her mouth while she rubbed against him harder. Frantic. Good God, she wanted to come, to give in to her own desires for once. She needed a real man. For chrissake, the last man she’d made love to was a terrorist.

A noxious beast.

Fuck!

In a nanosecond, Olivia froze.

A chill shot across her skin.

Her eyes flew open with her gasp as she regarded the American while ice replaced the fire that had been pulsing through her veins. “I can’t.”

“What?” his voice ratcheted up. “Is there a rule—?”

“You know as well as I, work and play don’t mix.” She hastily used the scanner, her hands shaking.

“Yeah, but…” his voice trailed off.

“Night.” She slipped inside without looking at his face.

“Olivia?” he growled through the door. “What’s wrong?”

Ignoring him, she ran for the bathroom.

By the time she flipped on the light, tears streamed from her eyes, making black mascara bleed down her cheeks. Her eyes stung as she clenched her teeth, trying to regain control. To push the demons to the locked recesses of her mind.

Dammit, who was the woman staring back in the mirror?

Olivia Hamilton was passionate and vibrant and a seizer of opportunity. A confident twenty-nine-year-old woman who saw what she wanted and went after it. She wasn’t a victim. All her life she’d taken charge, regardless of the circumstances. All her life she’d been at the top of her game, calculating, risk taking, spying and winning.

But she’d just freaked out. One goddamned memory flash and she’d turned into an ice sculpture.

All along on the last mission, she’d sworn she’d lost her soul, living a lie in Kahlil’s clutches. But it was over. He’d been blown to hell and it was time to bury the past in a lead box where it no longer haunted her. She couldn’t lose it like that. Not ever.

This fucking cannot happen.

Without a goddamned shrink, she’d taught herself to compartmentalize the nightmares. Bomb blasts no longer shut her down. She could overcome this, too. Kahlil was dead, and she had to take charge and regain control. To-freaking-day!

Worse, Olivia liked Rodgers. The man was cracking hot. Beyond that, she respected him. Maybe she even admired him. For the first time in eons, she actually liked someone who was her equal—even better than her equal, someone who could handle her and her domineering quirks.

She gaped at herself in the mirror and thrust up a finger. “No, no, no!”

Christ, she couldn’t deal with working with a man she liked. Her life was a cocked-up mess. Rodgers could be nothing more than a colleague.

No more kissing, and no more knock-out cocktails.

She ran hot water into the basin and doused a facecloth. Rubbing off the smudges, she ground her teeth with renewed resolve. Her entire life centered around the job. Being a spy defined her, gave her purpose. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

***

After the door shut in his face and Logan listened to Olivia’s footsteps hasten away, the realization of the magnitude of his mistake sank in. He dropped his hands to his sides and leaned his forehead against the wall. What the hell was he doing? He’d gone to the lounge for one beer, dammit. He never should have allowed Olivia to make that godawful drink. The last thing he needed was for the duchess to rail against him before their first mission.

He glanced to his crotch. He’d been hard for weeks, and things weren’t getting any easier with Miss Universe shooting him pouty looks every chance she got. They all needed to get out of ICE and around some normal people. Logan had seen Stephan and another recruit talking a few days ago and, come to think of it, they were standing pretty darned close.

If he didn’t watch out, the place would turn into a soap opera. The US Navy had a gazillion regs forbidding coworkers from dating, yet it still happened. Humans still behaved like humans regardless of the rules.

Heading for his suite, he decided he’d have a word with Garth in the morning. Olivia needed a turn at a psych farm and there had to be some scumbags out there Logan could nail. Mike Rose was still in the field chasing the load of uranium—that’s what the sit room updates were about every morning. Maybe the Scot needed help. Maybe they needed someone like Logan to establish some priorities.

With luck, he might even get to blow up some shit.