was incredibly good-looking and there were always girls around him. Lots of girls. That should have warned me.”
Sierra poured more champagne. “What happened?”
Setting the chocolate aside, Zoë took a long swallow from her glass. She’d never told anyone the whole story, not even her therapist. “For a while everything was wonderful. The sex was great, so great that I suppose I fell a little in love with him. Then the semester ended, and he said he’d had a good time.” Zoë glanced away for a moment and folded her hands in front of her. “He told me that he’d recommended me to a couple of his fraternity brothers and gave me their phone numbers.”
“Did you call them?” Sierra asked carefully.
“Not right away.” Zoë could feel heat rise in her face as she met Sierra’s eyes again. “But I…missed the sex. And I wanted very much to be modern and cool. I thought that I’d been naive to think that Bradley and I would be a couple for very long. I went out with several of his fraternity brothers before I learned that I wasn’t the first girl Bradley had passed along to them. It was something he did all the time. He even had a rating system for sex.” She smiled without humor. “I’d gotten one of the highest ratings.”
Sierra shrugged. “Well, I say good for you.”
“You’re not shocked?”
“I’m impressed by your gutsiness and disgusted with Bradley and his friends.”
Zoë leaned forward a little. “Everyone in the frat house knew what I was like in bed. He’d described in detail things that we’d done together. I assumed the two young men I dated afterward had added to the data.”
Sierra took her hand and squeezed it hard. “You were young and naive, and they were all pigs!”
Zoë felt a little band of pain around her heart ease. “Yes, they were. The next year when I came back to school, I had completely reverted to a nerd, and I buried myself in my studies.”
Sierra studied her for a moment. “I can understand that. What’s a bit harder to figure out is why you’re still hiding from men and sex.”
Zoë opened her mouth and then shut it. Sierra was right. That’s exactly what she was doing, what she’d been doing for years.
“I did the same thing for a very long time. Until I met Ryder.”
“Jed Calhoun is not Ryder.”
“I’m betting he’s not Bradley the jerk either.”
“I don’t know anything about Jed.”
“He’s Ryder’s friend. They went to college together. You can tell a lot about a man from the kind of friends he makes and keeps. Plus, it wasn’t too long ago that your research skills saved my life. If you want to know about Jed, I’ll bet you could find out a lot.”
“I don’t know…”
Sierra squeezed the hand she’d been holding. “Now I’m going to give you some advice my sisters and I got from my father. Sometimes in life, you just have to take a risk.”
2
ZOË SLAMMED DOWN on the brakes of her silver Miata and glared over the steering wheel at the water of the Chesapeake Bay. The directions Sierra had given her to Ryder Kane’s houseboat had seemed simple enough, so why couldn’t she find it?
The sun was glinting playfully off of the water, mocking her. Two days had passed since she and Sierra had talked and gotten a little buzzed on champagne, and she’d reached a decision about Jed Calhoun. She was going to give in to her wild side and have sex with him. But just one time. She had to do something to ease the yearning inside of her. It hadn’t faded one little bit during the past two days. She just hadn’t expected to have to act on her decision today.
The opportunity had presented itself when Sierra had called her two hours ago and asked her to bring the latest research notes out to Ryder Kane’s houseboat and told her that Jed would be there.
Zoë pressed a hand to her stomach. If she’d had more notice, she might not be this nervous. And she might not be lost. This was the second time she’d taken a wrong turn and the second time the road had dead-ended at the water.
Was she subconsciously getting lost because she was having second thoughts?
No. Zoë gripped the steering wheel hard. She wasn’t eighteen anymore, and she didn’t have unrealistic expectations about sex or men. She hadn’t made her decision in a fit of passion or rebellion or even while she was still affected by the champagne.
And she wasn’t wearing rose-colored glasses. She’d run a check on Jed Calhoun, and he wasn’t married. Her boss at the CIA had been, and she’d learned her lesson about steering clear of married men like Hadley Richards. If she’d just been a bit more worldly, she would have known that having business lunches with him and delivering reports to his hotel at night might give the appearance of their having an affair.
That was the reason Hadley Richards had given her when he’d asked for her resignation. Zoë felt the swift pang of regret that she always felt when she thought of having to leave her job at the CIA. She’d really liked the work, and up until she’d handed in her final report on Lucifer, Mr. Richards had been so enthusiastic about the jobs she’d done for him.
Even now, she wondered if she could have handled the situation differently. Of course, in private, Hadley Richards had apologized profusely. After all she’d only done what he’d asked her to do. He’d blamed the urgency for the work she’d been doing on Lucifer for his lapse in judgment. But he’d been firm about his request for her resignation.
Zoë dragged her thoughts back to her current problem. She was not that naive young woman anymore. And she’d discovered quite a bit about Jed Calhoun. He was rich, or at least his family was. His grandmother had founded a very successful cosmetics company which was still family owned, and it was currently being run by his parents and his sister. Jed hadn’t gone into the family business. Instead, he’d elected to work for his government.
She hadn’t been able to completely satisfy her curiosity about that aspect of his life because most of his files were classified. The one thing that had caught her attention was that he often used disguises, and that made her think of Lucifer again. Probably all CIA agents were skillful at using disguises.
She’d decided that it was good news that he worked for the government. He was probably in between jobs and he’d be gone before long. She’d also decided that since the chemistry between them was so strong—especially for her—it was highly likely that when they did make love, she could get him out of her system once and for all. Like a flash fire, what she was feeling would burn itself out and be gone.
She was banking on that, and there were plenty of narratives in the data she’d been collecting for Sierra that supported this theory. One round of hot, sweaty sex and she’d be free. One round and she could cross the man right out of her notebook. She could have her well-ordered life back.
She’d made a calm, well thought out, rational decision to have sex with Jed Calhoun, and she was not having second thoughts. Of course, if she’d had more time, she could have made the transition from nerd to sexpot a bit more fashionably. Instead, she’d barely had time after Sierra’s call to change into a pair of new jeans
