Page 98 of But For You

“I’m not following.”

“Do you have to convince Kevin that you want him so he will lead you to Salcedo? Is that what you’re supposed to do? Are you supposed to romance him so you can get into his home and check around? How far do you have to take it?”

He was scowling.

“Just tell me.”

“You’re getting all this from watching TV, right?”

“Don’t patronize me,” I warned him.

“I’m not, just tell me what you think I’ll be doing!” he said, his voice rising as he took a step forward.

I took one back. “You’ll start by showing up at his work and saying that you have to see him.”

He kept coming.

“Then you’ll tell him that you’ve been thinking about him and you can’t stop,” I said, even as my eyes raked all over his body. I looked at him the way I knew Kevin Dwyer had and would. Beautiful man, beautiful body. Even the scars only added to his allure.

“Is that what I’ll say?”

I took a shaky breath, having walked myself back into the wall. Sam stopped in front of me, not crowding me, just standing, staring down into my eyes.

“Sam? What will you have to do?”

“I dunno,” he said, but his eyes weren’t posing a question; they were deviant and hot. “What should I do to catch Salcedo? Turner? How far should I take it?”

My mouth was dry, there was a lump in my throat, and I was having trouble breathing.

“Jory?”

“Kiss him?”

“I should kiss him?”

Oh God, what was I supposed to say?

“What does your boss want you to do?”

“My boss?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” he said, lifting his hand to take hold of my chin, his thumb sliding over my bottom lip, “my boss—because he’s kind of brilliant—doesn’t want to see my Valentino impression. Instead, he wants Kevin’s place bugged—which we did already—wants him followed everywhere he goes, and wants me and the rest of my guys to basically put the fear of God into him and see how long it takes before he fuckin’ cracks.”

It took me a second to parse his words.

He rolled his eyes.

“Sam!”

“Really? You think deputy US marshals sex people up?”

It sounded really dumb when he put it like that.

“We hunt down fugitives. We put them in jail, or we protect them. We do not run sophisticated con operations where we have sex to get state secrets. That’s the CIA!”

“Sam!”