Jule McBride - Naughty By Nature

Everybody had an opinion about whether or not U.S. businesses should extend maternity leaves from three months to six—including an unidentified extremist. He felt longer leaves would encourage women to be in a workforce where he said they didn’t belong, and he’d begun sending letter bombs to dissuade the ex-senators. The first, a red heart pasted to a white lace doily, had exploded beside a mailbag on David Sawyer’s porch in Connecticut; the second, a white heart mounted on red felt, was discovered by a trained dog at Samuel Perkins’s home. Because it seemed likely that a third bomb would be delivered to the Vernes, Morgan had been called in to tweeze open the mail and dust for prints.

In addition to becoming privy to the senator’s wild daughter’s private erotic correspondence, he’d established mail-opening protocols for whoever would replace him tomorrow, as well as set up state-of-the-art security that could be operated from switches on a wall in the kitchen. Listening to the continued ringing, he frowned. “C’mon, Lucy. Don’t disappoint me.”

He was about to hang up when a sleep-scratchy female voice came on the line. “Who’s this?”

“Sorry,” he murmured, straining to hear her barely audible words. “You asleep, sweetheart?”

Her soft, raspy voice sent warmth swirling into his groin. “Morgan?”

“You sound different.”

“Different?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, his chest tight. “Sexy as hell.”

“I’m not usually sexy?”

“Oh, but you are. That’s why I thought I’d take a chance tonight. See if you wanted company.”

“Uh…sure.”

He chuckled with satisfaction, the heat in his groin spreading to his limbs. “It wasn’t appropriate to call you before now,” he explained, “not while I was working here, but tomorrow morning, I’m being transferred back to headquarters.” After that, who knew? Maybe he and Lucy would hit it off tonight and keep seeing each other. That would be nice. At thirty-four, Morgan was the oldest of the Fine clan—there were five kids—but he was the only one who hadn’t yet found a life partner. “I can be there in five minutes,” he added, his voice husky with anticipation. “Can you keep the sheets warm?”

“Do you know where to find me? I’m—”

“I’m with the Secret Service,” he teased. “I know everything.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

After hitting Disconnect, he replaced the receiver, not feeling too surprised at his success, given how Lucy had been flirting with him. He glanced through an adjoining door into the bedroom he’d been using. His packed duffel bag was beside the antique four-poster bed. By eight a.m. he’d be back at headquarters. He hoped that catching whoever was sending the bombs would mean a promotion for him into administration, out of the field. He’d seen what happened to men who waited too long to take desk jobs. They got tired and couldn’t keep up the pace.

Lifting the letter to Vanessa, he began slipping it into its envelope, taking in the masculine, caramel-colored stationery and crimped, no-nonsense print that read, My fingers were itching to pull down all those russet Botticelli curls.

Morgan knew the feeling. But the poor guy didn’t know what he was getting into. Doing double duty as Vanessa Verne’s bodyguard during his stay here had sure opened Morgan’s eyes. He could almost hear her voice. Morgan, could you just check the clasp on my necklace? If you could just help me with this itsy-bitsy top button…

She was six feet tall in silk stockings, all sharp angles and long limbs. Not particularly busty nor conventionally pretty, she reminded Morgan of how sixteenth-century royalty was portrayed in Hollywood movies. She looked like the actresses in the big-costume productions made by Merchant and Ivory that his mother and three sisters went so gaga over.

Spiral curls the rusty color of autumn leaves cascaded to her waist, and her skin was the color of cream. Everybody said she had flair. Panache. Because her penchant for wearing oddly matched but tasteful vintage clothes made her stand out among Washington’s elite, Morgan had been surprised to find that, at home, she dressed like his sisters, in tight stretch pants, bulky sweaters and wool clogs from L.L. Bean.

“You’re tall enough for me, Morgan,” she’d commented during the Presidential Kids fundraiser, where he’d accompanied her as a guard. “Most men aren’t.”

Before he caught himself, he’d winked and said, “I’m not most men, sweetheart.”

It was the closest he’d come to flirting. While she’d dazzled him with a hundred-watt smile that made his heart pound, he’d realized she was right. Even with gold high heels encasing her slender feet, he was taller. Where her gown made her glow, however, his gray suit made him melt into wallpaper. Every time she’d smiled at him, he’d suddenly felt too huge, too dark and too male. Not that she minded. Between his name, his short, tousled black hair and dazzling dark eyes, people generally took him for what he was, black Irish. And around Washington, his watchful demeanor and physical stature quickly pegged him as an agent. Vanessa had obviously liked the overall package.

But Morgan hadn’t given in to temptation. Except for that one slip, he’d been curt, even cold. He was determined to leave here with his job intact.

Not every man had.

Feeling relieved his duty would end in eight more hours, he rose and headed down a long hallway toward Vanessa’s bedroom. Naughty by nature, one tabloid had called her. Just last month, she’d been caught in a compromising position with her Russian tutor, Ivan Petrovitch. When a tabloid photo alerted INS, Petrovitch had been deported, and after that, his wife left him because of the affair with Vanessa.

What a mess.

And everybody in the Secret Service still talked about Kenneth Hopper. Hired by the senator to keep an eye on Vanessa when she was flunking out of school after her mother’s death two years ago, Kenneth had barely stopped her elopement to a gardener. Ever since, he’d been pulling embassy duty overseas.

Fortunately, Morgan was the kind of guy who learned from others’ mistakes, so he’d steered completely clear of Vanessa. Halting his steps, he glanced down. Seeing no light shining from beneath her bedroom door, he leaned to slip the love letter through the crack. As it left his fingertips, he wondered who the writer was and if the besotted guy was aware of Vanessa’s bad rep. Morgan had been to the Blues Bar himself, an artsy, smoky joint in Georgetown where saxophones wailed until the wee hours, so he figured the writer was the kind of guy who usually hung out there, rich and looking to meet manor-born types.

As he headed downstairs, Morgan sifted through the male faces he’d seen at the Presidential Kids fundraiser. Which man had written the letters? And why didn’t he sign them? “Forget about it,” Morgan muttered. Unless the guy was sending explosives, he wasn’t Morgan’s problem.

Frowning, he realized it was pitch-black in the stairwell leading to Lucy’s suite. He figured she’d at least turn on a light for him, but maybe she’d fallen asleep again. Or maybe she didn’t like having sex with the lights on. Some women didn’t. Or maybe she figured Morgan could find his way in the dark since he’d memorized every inch of the house for security purposes. Pausing at the top of the stairs, he peered into the inky darkness. “You in here?”

That scratchy, sexy voice floated toward him. “I don’t know. Let’s see if you can find me.”

He grinned, letting the rustle of covers guide him while he visualized the brass bed he couldn’t make out in the dark. By the time his thigh hit the mattress, he’d pulled the shirt tails from his slacks and loosened his tie. Chuckling, he tumbled into bed, and a stunned second later, she’d grabbed his shirt tails and ripped his shirt off. Gliding his hands over the duvet, he got more aggressive, too. He massaged her feet, then her calves, then her thighs. When she didn’t protest, he began to explore.