Delores Fossen - Mommy Under Cover

Tessa didn’t know how she could argue with that and still appear to be a woman desperate for one of Dr. Fletcher’s babies. “All right,” she said.

Riley’s gaze snapped toward her. “All right?”

“You heard what Dr. Fletcher said,” Tessa reiterated, adding a nervous laugh. She didn’t have to fake the nervous part, either. “The insemination’s necessary, and the end result won’t be…well, an ordinary baby. So, of course, we’ll do it.”

All that was left was to convince headquarters—and Riley—that the success of this mission hinged on her agreeing to this simple procedure.

No easy task.

Especially since the procedure would be performed by a killer.

Riley stood in the marbled foyer of the estate and waited while Tessa ran the detector wand over every inch of her clothes.

Not once, but twice.

When she finished, she passed the detector his way and Riley did the same.

No telltale soft beeps, which he hoped meant Fletcher hadn’t managed to attach some type of monitoring device to either Tessa or him.

Other than a phony, laughter-punctuated conversation in the limo about the upcoming joys of parenthood, Tessa and he had yet to talk. Really talk. Unfortunately that would have to continue a while longer, even though he had some questions. Well, one question in particular. They also had to give a situation report to their mission commander.

Another potential problem.

The commander had no doubt monitored their limo conversation to ascertain if they were indeed safe, but since neither Tessa nor he had mentioned the insemination, no one back at headquarters had a clue as to what they were up against.

Soon, they would.

And this mission could be terminated.

The possibility sickened him. He desperately wanted to bring Dr. Barton Fletcher to justice, and that wouldn’t happen if the mission stalled. Of course, if it didn’t stall, there was that whole other issue.

A whopper of an issue.

A potential baby. A real one.

Oh, man.

Talk about the ultimate complication. That was something they’d definitely have to get straight.

He damn sure hadn’t signed on to this ops to become a parent.

“Wanna play in the shower?” Tessa asked, making it sound like a carnal invitation to her husband instead of a required security measure for her partner.

“I’d love to.”

Translation? Let’s wash any potential transmitter chips off before we talk.

Tessa took the modified suitcase from beneath the antique table in the foyer and started to shed her clothes. Riley turned his back to her and did the same.

Tossing in an occasional seductive laugh and more of those mumbled sweet nothings, they stripped down to their underwear and put their clothes in the suitcase. After they were in the shower, the rookie SIU agent, Chris Ingram, who was posing as the butler-housekeeper-chauffeur, would whisk the suitcase away so it could be analyzed.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Tessa purred. She headed toward the stairs. “I mean, after your, uh, little donation at the clinic?”

“The donation in no way lessened my appetite for you, darling.”

From over her shoulder she gave him a “good one” nod. Probably her idea of placating him.

It wouldn’t work.

He was still riled about that “all right” response she’d given to Fletcher about the insemination. They should have pressed the issue, then and there. They should have found a way around it, then and there. But instead, Tessa had closed down the discussion with her little “all right.”

And this from the woman who just that morning had raked him over the coals about bending rules.

What the heck had she been thinking anyway?

Riley intended to find that out as soon as they finished showering, but a confrontation with her was still minutes away. Minutes to think about how they were going to get out of this one.

He was still in the middle of his own personal but silent gripe session when he glanced at Tessa on the steps just ahead of him. Specifically he glanced at her underwear. Sturdy cotton. White, at that. No provocative lace or silk. No barely there swatches. No padded, push-up anything. Just a plain white bra and a pair of panties.

Hell.

And what was he doing noticing that?

Riley cursed.

Obviously he’d let the gripe session cloud his mind. This was an ops, he firmly reminded himself. And the woman he was gawking at was his partner.

He quickly got his mind on something else.

They walked through the master suite and into the bathroom. Their weapons and other assorted communications equipment were there; all the items they might need over the next few days. Agent Ingram had even hung some of their clothes and had placed their luggage in the adjoining dressing room.

Tessa turned on the shower full-blast and, without removing her underwear—something Riley was truly grateful for—stepped inside the steamy spray. Since there was a showerhead in each corner, and since the space was large enough to accommodate an NBA team, Riley got in, too, to save some time.

He kept his attention focused elsewhere—on the ornate mosaic tiles, on the beveled glass of the shower door they’d left open.

On anything but Tessa.

He was pretty sure she was doing the same thing. Well, she was until she shifted to her right and bumped into him. How that happened, he didn’t know. After all, it wasn’t as if they ran short of space. But it happened. Her slick, wet, right butt cheek swished against the front of his slick wet boxers.

Man, she couldn’t have touched him in a worse place. That particular part of him was having a tough time accepting that showering with an attractive woman wasn’t anything less than foreplay.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Me, too,” he mumbled back.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Why are you sorry?” she whispered, her nearly silent words muffled even more by the shower.

“Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

He watched that register. Frowning, then scowling, and finally shrugging, she turned off the water. Tessa stepped out and snagged a couple of thick, white, terry-cloth robes from a nearby rack. She tossed him one.

“Start explaining,” Riley demanded before he even caught the robe.

Thankfully she didn’t ask for clarification. Riley was dead certain Tessa knew exactly what he meant. Well, hopefully she did. He didn’t intend to discuss their shower and his reaction to it. Nope. It was time to settle some business.

“If I’d refused the insemination outright, Fletcher would have canceled everything.” As if she’d declared war on it, Tessa latched onto her shoulder-length blond hair and squeezed it. Hard. The water snaked down her nearly naked shoulders and arms before she put on the bathrobe. Finally. “And you know it as well as I do.”

“I don’t know any such thing. But what I do know is that it didn’t solve anything by you agreeing to a procedure you can’t have.”

She picked up a comb from the vanity and raked it through the tangles in her hair. “I’ll figure a way around it.”

“And if you can’t?”

“I’ll figure out a way, okay?” But this time her words weren’t quite so calm or so quietly spoken.

“Oh, yeah. That’s really convincing.” Riley caught onto her arm and whirled her back around to face him. “Once we’re inside that facility, Tessa, you might not be able to refuse it. Hear me? If you do, Fletcher might get suspicious and try to kill you.”

Which couldn’t happen. It couldn’t. He refused to lose another partner. Just the thought of it turned his stomach.

“So, what are you saying? You want to call off the mission?” Tessa asked. That was obviously a rhetorical question since she didn’t give him a chance to answer. “You want to let Fletcher walk because of a contingency that may or may not arise?”