or keeping up an appearance. At night, not many people bothered with artifice. Daytime dwellers often had people to impress. Schedules to keep. Jobs to protect. So they often had much to hide. It was harder to trust those people.
Joel Faraday was just such a daytime dweller. But that wasn’t why Lila had trouble trusting him. It wasn’t even because she couldn’t be positive he wasn’t the leak. No, with him, it was the same as it was with everyone else. She didn’t trust him because…Well. Because he was human. And, she supposed, because she was human, too.
Before moving her hand to the doorbell, she first ran it briskly over the front of her white linen shirt and beige linen trousers—and immediately chided herself for taking even that small effort with her appearance. Flat beige skimmers completed the outfit. She’d pinned her hair atop her head when she showered and hadn’t bothered to take it down once she was dressed, nor had she bothered with jewelry or cosmetics. Not her typical attire or appearance by a long shot, but she liked to dress for comfort when she traveled. She’d slip into character once they arrived in Cincinnati. For now, she didn’t have to be She-Wolf. For now, she could still be Lila Moreau if she wanted. So for now, she would dress and act and talk however she wanted.
She adjusted her carry-on over her shoulder, pressed her finger to the doorbell and waited for Joel to answer. And waited. And waited. And waited. She was bent over with her bag open and was wrapping the fingers of one hand around her lock pick and the fingers of the other around her .32 when he finally opened the door. Her gaze lit first on his bare feet, then moved up long legs clad in faded jeans, then up more, over a pin-striped white oxford button-down in the decidedly unbuttoned—and untucked—position. Again she was assailed by the elegance and power of that half-naked torso dusted with dark hair, and again she was hit by the splash of heat in her belly that immediately spread outward. It only burned more fiercely when her gaze finally landed on his face and she was reminded yet again what a beautiful, beautiful man he was.
The adjective should have diminished his masculinity. Using it twice should have doubly diminished it. But the potency of the man’s virility was nearly overwhelming. His features were too ruggedly carved, his dark eyes too turbulent, his muscles too finely sculpted for anyone to ignore the sheer maleness of him. At the same time, the way he was put together was nothing short of a work of art.
What was strange was that Lila’s regular partner, Oliver Sheridan—at whose wedding she would appear as best man, by God, she vowed again—was also a very attractive man. His fiancÉe, Avery Nesbitt, obviously agreed, because even when Oliver, using the name Dixon at the time, had dragged her kicking and screaming—literally—out of her safe life and into a potentially dangerous undercover role with OPUS, she’d fallen head over heels in love with the guy. Of course, that had been due to more than his looks, but still. He was a great-looking guy. Yet not once, not even for a second, had Lila ever felt even a flicker of sexual attraction toward—or even a sexual awareness of—him. So why such an immediate captivation with Joel? Hell, she and Oliver even got along well, whereas a definite spark of tension had sputtered between her and Joel from the very beginning. There was no reason she should be reacting this way to him. But she was. Really badly, too.
And, dammit, since when had she started thinking about him as Joel?
“Hi,” he greeted her now in a voice that was more than a little brusque.
A strand of wet hair fell over his forehead, indicating he’d been in the shower when she rang the bell. This in spite of the fact that they were scheduled to be leaving for the airfield in—she glanced down at her watch—less than fifteen minutes. And they still had a few things to go over before their car arrived, things they couldn’t discuss in the presence of anyone else, even a driver or pilot for OPUS.
“Oversleep?” she said by way of a greeting as she zipped shut her bag and stood to face him.
“A little,” he confessed with clear embarrassment.
She nodded. “You sure you’re up for a field assignment?” she asked. Not just because it was a good question, but also because she knew it would bug the hell out of him.
Okay, okay. So maybe part of that spark of tension was her fault, she admitted. She couldn’t help herself when she was around Joel. Something about him begged to be bugged. She’d provide the same service for anyone who had usurped her power. It was the least she could do.
“I’m sorry I overslept,” he said with barely a trace of apology. “It won’t happen again.” He took a step backward and pulled the door open in a silent invitation for her to enter. As she did, he continued, “Look, I just need to shave and finish dressing. And, okay, maybe pack a few more things. Help me with that last, and I can be ready to leave in ten minutes. Fifteen max.”
“Good,” she said. “Because the car will be here in twelve. And we still have a couple of things to go over.”
“Come upstairs,” he said as he closed the door behind her. “We can talk while I shave and finish dressing.”
They did both in ten minutes, Lila leaning in the doorway of first Joel’s bathroom, then his bedroom as he completed his morning ritual. She’d never done that before—watched a man go about his morning routine—and something about sharing the experience with Joel now, even though she didn’t know him well, made her feel as if the two of them were sharing some strange kind of intimacy. She especially enjoyed watching him shave, and not just because he removed his shirt to do it to keep from messing it up.
Still, the way the muscles in his left arm bunched and relaxed with every stroke of the razor across his face was rather intriguing, she had to admit. And the spicy scent of the sandalwood shaving soap he used was more than a little sexy. But it was the act of standing there talking business in such a personal setting that really seeped into her awareness. In all the times she’d opened her eyes in the morning after a sexual encounter, she’d never hung around any longer than it took to get dressed and bolt. There had been times—rather a lot of them, actually—when she hadn’t even woken her partner to say goodbye. Sex and intimacy had nothing to do with each other as far as Lila was concerned. But she hadn’t realized that something as simple and nonsexual as this could be intimate, either.
When Joel finally emerged from the bathroom capping his toothbrush holder, Lila was tossing the last of his things into his bag and getting ready to close it. She paused long enough for him to toss the toothbrush into the bag, then finished with a soft zzzzip that punctuated their race for time quite nicely. They both seemed to realize it, chuckling as one at the sound.
“Nicely done,” she told him.
“Couldn’t have managed it without you,” he conceded.
She didn’t say what should have been the obvious next remark. So Joel took it upon himself to say it.
“We make a good team.”
Lila said nothing in response to that, either. The team thing remained to be seen. So she drove her gaze around the room, looking for something that might change the subject. Ultimately, her gaze fell on the collection of childishly executed artwork. There were primitive sketches of stick people and stick animals, a few more progressive ones of houses and trees and suns, and a handful of portraits that actually weren’t half-bad. Provided they’d been drawn by someone under the age of fifteen. Which, judging by the rest of the exhibit, they most likely had been.
“Who drew all the pictures?” she asked, jutting her chin up toward the one nearest them.
Joel’s features softened at the question in a way that made his entire face seem as if it was smiling. That should have diminished his masculinity, too, she thought. But somehow it just made him even more potent.
“My sister’s kids,” he said. “She sends me a lot of their work. Since she became a mom, she thinks everyone needs the influence of children in their lives. Makes them more human, she says. The grown-ups, I mean,” he hastily qualified. “Kids, any kids, she thinks are already pretty much perfect.”
“Well, except for the part about them being odious little miscreants,” Lila