I'm back! For everyone who read the first parts of my Seduced by Sin line, thanks for all your wonderful feedback and requests for more! I promise I will work on getting another installment of that story in here soon. The holiday season is always crazy for me and I just haven't found the time to write. I wanted to move in a different direction for a bit, so here is a little something new. Be forewarned, the first chapter or two have no sex, character must be built… I promise once I have the ground work laid, it will be there. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to vote!
Renee
*
Peering anxiously out the windows of her car, Joanna Saunders silently cursed her best friend's terrible directions. They were supposed to meet at the Williamson hotel for a costume party both had been invited to, but so far she hadn't seen any signs of life in this run down neighborhood, never mind a hotel as upscale as the Williamson.
As her car slowly circled the block, she looked at the weeds growing out of the sidewalk and the dark worn exterior of the buildings, feeling a shiver run down her spine. This wouldn't be a good neighborhood to get stranded in, that's for sure.
She drove a little further down the block, passing an old fashioned building, with a big display window that had been broken, large pieces of jagged glass still hanging from the edges. Finally, she saw a light; maybe she could find a phone to call her friend.
Pulling into a parking lot full of potholes, she noticed a partial lit neon sign that said:
LENNYS BAR
, only the second N and the R had burned out, so it looked like
LEN YS BA
.
"Great," Joanna muttered under her breath, "this place looks sooo safe compared to the rest of the neighborhood."
She grabbed her small black handbag and her keys, locked the doors of her Volkswagen Jetta and pulled her knee length, summer coat closed, making sure her costume was completely hidden. The last thing she needed was to have some rough rednecks catching a glimpse of her outfit. A skimpy leather top covered more than her bikini would, but was designed to push her full breasts out and made her feel exposed. The bottom piece was little more than a fancy long loincloth, designed to tease and tempt rather than for coverage.
Gingerly grasping the worn metal handle of the rusty front door, she pulled it open, her hopes of quietly using a telephone blown to bits when the equally-rusty hinges squealed like a bad horror movie.
Immediately, almost a dozen heads turned to take in the new arrival, all of them men. There wasn't a single other woman in the room, and none of the men who watched her step into the bar looked trustworthy. In fact, most of them looked downright scary.
Seeing a bartender at the far end of the beat up counter to the left, she quickly headed in his direction intending to ask about using a phone. Three big, rough looking characters where playing pool in the right hand corner by the door, eyeing her up and down.
Skirting around two rumpled older men with dirty bandanas on their heads, obviously bikers, Joanna ignored a slurred, "Hey baby, wanna drink?"
Leaning over the counter, she had the bartender's full attention; at a glance, she guessed he was probably in his early 30's, with close cropped black hair, a fair amount of stubble on his strong jaw. Wearing a clean black t-shirt stretched tight over his biceps and long legs in faded jeans, he came around the counter to talk to her.
"Hi, I was wondering if you had a phone I could use for a quick call? I was supposed to meet my friend and I'm hopelessly lost," she asked, keeping her voice low, with a hopeful smile.
**********************************
The moment Eric looked up from wiping down the bar and saw the gorgeous brunette walk in the door, he knew it was gonna be a long night. He could always sense when a situation was going to become dangerous, and Miss Tall Dark and Sexy had just blown to hell every chance of his getting out of here with the information he needed.
As it was, he'd be lucky if he could get the girl out without getting them both killed. Fuck, he was so tired of this cloak and dagger shit.
While he might look like your average, down on his luck and probably a convict, bartender, in reality Eric De Luca was an agent of the great U S of A, only unlike the agents of the FBI, NSA and CIA, no one would find his name in a file somewhere. His boss liked to call his men ghosts, for their ability to go where other departments couldn't, gather information and when needed, terminate a threat.
The non-existent agency he work for had recruited him when he was 19, he'd been busted for grand theft auto, assault and attempted manslaughter. His parents had been dead since he was 15 and he'd been in and out of the foster system for a year before running off to be on his own. He'd gotten into a fight with some drunk asshole who had insulted his mother, beat the shit out of him and put him in the hospital, then stole the guy's car and wrapped it around a streetlight.
Eric's contact, known only as Agent Grey, had visited him before his arranged transfer to lockup and offered him a deal. If he would clean up his act, complete their training program and prove himself as a soldier, he would receive a regular paycheck and continue to live as a free man. A year later, he completed his first mission and had never looked back.
This mission involved a highly classified area of a nearby federal research facility and more importantly, a leak that needed plugging. One of the biochemists had witnessed an assistant stealing information on an extremely dangerous virus recently developed as a biological weapon.
The research assistant had been caught but was later "persuaded" to tell authorities that this was not the first time he'd filched classified information. They discovered he had sold incomplete formulas to an international buyer and had arranged for a final payment in four weeks time when he would meet with his contact and provide the missing data.
Eric had been playing the bartender in this hole in the wall for three weeks now, his role low-key and purposely in the background; he thought he'd finally convinced the bar's regulars and his target that he was just what he appeared to be, a part of the woodwork, someone who would keep their mouth shut out of self preservation.
The plan had been to have the research assistant suggest this bar as a safe zone for negotiations, and so far each meeting had gone smoothly. An exchange had been arranged for tonight, all parties were to bring each piece of information, as they only made sense put together. Eric had orders to terminate the key player in the game, a man with links to Russian terrorists, and destroy all the stolen data.
Thinking on his feet was always something Eric did well, which was part of the reason he'd gotten this assignment. So after considering his options in the 3 seconds it took her to cross the bar, he chose the craziest one of all; with a heaping amount of luck, it just might work. Everything hung on the next moments….
Even as she asked quietly to use a phone to call her friend, Eric closed the distance between them and snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her body tightly to his. Her startled midnight blue eyes shot to his brown ones and her arms reached up to push him away, her mouth opening to tell him off, Eric pulled her head back and covered her mouth with his.
