Gadfly
by loxley85
URL: http://www.bluecatsgraphics.com/pean/fanfics/114/

At first glance, the setting may have looked romantic. The thought occurred to Special Agent Cady as she surveyed the remains of dinner at the small table in her kitchen: chop sticks set down after eating their fill of take-out Thai food; a small porcelain pot of green tea still warm and fragrant; red linen napkins to further accent the Asian flavor of dinner, along with a petite arrangement of unknown blossoms —at least unknown to Cady— that he had bought to grace the table. Even the lights were dim, and three well-used candles flickered tiredly together at the end of the table. The man who sat across from her, white-blond hair occasionally highlighted in the candlelight, expensive tailored suit, silk handkerchief arranged perfectly in his breast pocket, and one slim, elegant, long-fingered hand thoughtfully tapping the table as he looked at her, was every bit the well-bred, well-heeled suitor. To the casual observer, they might have looked like quite the romantic pair.

On the other hand, this was Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast sitting across the table from Special Agent Anna Cady, and anyone who knew him at all would know that the glint in his eye had nothing to do with romance, and the expression on his face was not because they were discussing serious plans for their future. The glint in his eye indicated annoyance, to put it mildly, and the expression on his face had everything to do with that annoyance not being assuaged by a friendly, ice-breaking dinner.

She pushed her plate away and leaned her elbows on the table. “You can let up now, Wish. I get it, okay? It’s not like I did anything that anyone would have noticed.”

“Cady, backing up to me in a crowded elevator and putting your hand... never mind. The details as to location are unimportant at this time. But it was extremely childish, not to mention grossly unprofessional.”

She grinned in spite of herself. “Well, if you had been in front of me I would have squeezed a different body part.”

The look in his eyes would have frozen the water in the tea kettle at the point where it started whistling.

“Besides, the squeeze I gave you got quite the reaction,” she added.

“Irrelevant and immaterial, Counselor,” he said. His voice was like ice.

“Are we resorting to professional name-calling, Doctor?” She raised her eyebrows at him in mock surprise and smothered a laugh as his expression grew even sterner, if that was possible.

“Your hand groping up my suit coat at lunch—”

“No one was around.”

“—and your hand on my inner thigh during the presentation on street tactics—”

“The room was completely dark, I didn’t leave my hand there for more than a second, and you already know all there is to know about street tactics. And then some.” She leaned sideways for a moment and blew out the faltering candles.

“You are missing the point.”

“Only because I’m trying to.” Cady got up from her chair and went to straddle him, and he rose just as quickly and stopped her. “A bit prickly tonight?”

“I would say you’ve had your fair share of touching me throughout the course of the day.”

“True. But I didn’t get to do this.” Before he had a chance to stop her, she pulled his face to hers and kissed him fully on the lips.

He turned his head away and grabbed her hand, moved smoothly to an arm-bar which she escaped and went to counter. Pendergast accepted the counter and then pinned her in a different way, his elbow locking hers and his hold pushing her slightly backwards. “What now, Cady?”

“You could use your handcuffs.”

He stared at her a moment, then let her go. “That is not the reason I agreed to dinner with you tonight.”

“Oh? So how do I change your mind?”

He sighed as he looked at her.

“Pendergast, I haven’t seen you since you came to check on me after Feversham that one time. How long ago was that, anyhow? Ten months? Nearly a year?”

“We have both been busy.”

“Of course we have. So let’s you and I get busy tonight. It’s just the usual.”

“The ‘usual’?” he repeated.

“Usual for one our meetings. You know, titillating, gratifying, fun. At least it’s fun for me. You’ve never said as much, but I’ve never heard you complain.How about if—”

She didn’t get any farther. Pendergast pressed her back to a wall without warning and put his mouth against hers. His kiss was so deep she stopped breathing for a while and had to remind herself to draw air, even as his tongue worked against hers, smothering any hope of reply and flash-starting the undercurrent of excitement she always had in his presence. She pushed against him and had the satisfaction of him pushing her back, pinning her, refusing to let her go. It was going to be like that.

She maneuvered her leg behind his to break his balance at the knee and still kissing him, began to take him down. He allowed her to reach a certain point, then reasserted himself and they wound up with his back against the wall and Cady half-pinned, half supported by his arm. She moaned as his other hand slipped up the front of her shirt, and she tried again to wrestle away from him. He was ready and pulled her into him, effectively trapping her other arm. She protested wordlessly into his mouth, her breathing getting still heavier as he continued to kiss her, and he released her arms and put his hands on her hips, long fingers spanning her waist, stepping between her legs and bringing her closer until they had full frontal contact. She grabbed his belt, pulled him more tightly to her and felt him react, felt his breathing become more ragged, and knew in that instant that she wanted him in the naughtiest way possible.

She broke the kiss and pushed him back. “Wish, if one of us doesn’t get tied up tonight I swear I will be annoyed with you for the next two weeks.”

He favored her with his cruel smile, the one that was really just him turning up the corners of his mouth slightly. “My dear woman, you can be as annoyed as you like and I will never know, seeing as how I will be elsewhere.”

“Oh, you’ll know. I’ll follow you onto crowded elevators and—” Cady broke off in a yelp as his hand found the sensitive spot beneath her ribs. “Believe me, you’ll know.”

He shoved her back against the wall, pinned her arms, immobilized her despite her struggles. Then he put a hand into his pocket and took out a coin. “Call it,” he said as he tossed it into the air.

She looked at him in disbelief. “What?”

“You said one of us would get tied up tonight. Call it.”

She smirked at him. “Tails.”

He had put the coin down flat on a neighboring shelf, his hand over it. Now he moved his hand and they both looked. Tails. “It appears I am to be your victim yet again,” he said, irony laced through the simple statement. “Will that satisfy you?” he added.

“I’m sure I’ll find a way to make it work.”

She had him strip down to his boxers, dragged a chair from the kitchen into her bedroom, and sat him down. Then she pulled his arms behind the chair back and bound his crossed wrists together. She affixed each of his ankles to a chair leg, leaving his thighs wide apart. Standing directly in front of him, she took off all of her own clothes except her thong and then straddled him, settling herself in the gap between his legs and putting her arms around his neck. “I am going to drive you crazy,” she promised, and leaned forward to kiss him, her breasts just brushing the bare skin of his chest. He kissed her back aggressively and she found herself once more losing her breath to him as he worked her mouth with his. “Whoa!” She pulled her head back and regarded him. “What are you up to?” she asked, suspicions rippling through the back of her mind.

“What could I possibly be up to?” he asked, the buttermilk drawl so thick it should have drawn flies. “You have tied me up hand and foot to this chair, rendering me quite helpless, as it were.” Was there just the slightest bit of mockery in that tone?

She snorted. “I know you better than that.”

He gave her a small smile in response. “Would you like to recheck the knots?”

Instead she rose and produced her infamous blue scarf. “I have something else in mind.” She fixed it firmly between his jaws and he neither protested nor struggled. He even obliged her by opening his mouth to accept it, which didn’t do much to allay the wariness she had voiced mere seconds earlier. But she settled back onto the chair, and this time, as she kissed him through the scarf, she put her hand between his thighs and began to caress him, delighted when she felt the tell-tale stirrings against her fingers. “Something’s waking up,” she whispered. She nipped his chin gently, then began to mouth his jaw line, tonguing the lobe of his ear ever so softly, and then moving on down the length of his neck, using her lips and just the barest hint of her teeth. He sighed and nuzzled into her, wriggling his legs and shifting his hips to push against her hand.

“Ah,” she said with satisfaction. “So we begin.” She slipped off the chair onto her knees and began to kiss her way down his front, tracing his scars, nibbling at his ribs and then lower at his hips, but never stopping her hand movements as she felt him begin to squirm against her. His breathing was growing deeper and she felt his thigh muscles tightening as she drew closer to the middle of his waist band. “Anticipation is everything,” she whispered. She put her mouth over him, still outside the fabric, and pressured him up and down his length, using just the hint of her tongue, playing with him, feeling him grow harder against her lips. He was struggling to move his hips forward now, legs straining against his bonds. She glanced up and saw his shoulder muscles tightening as his arms flexed. Trying to wiggle his hands free, was he? She smiled to herself and continued to play with him. She wanted to bring him to the edge and then back off so that she could bring him there all over again. From the way he was writhing into her and from the occasional muffled sound emanating from behind the blue scarf, she was getting close.

She stopped and looked up at him, shaking her head. “Not yet,” she said mischievously. She again put her mouth between his legs and began to nuzzle and nip the insides of his thighs, savoring the feel of the fine blond hairs against her tongue, savoring the taste of his warm skin. She worked her way up his left thigh, enclosed him briefly in her mouth when she arrived there, and then withdrew to work her way back down his right thigh. He groaned and did his best to push his hips forward, struggling against the knots that held him back.

“Wish,” she whispered. “You’re making me so hot.” She used her hands and her mouth now, gathering him to her, licking, stroking. “Oooh, I can feel that against my hand. You’re really close, aren’t you?”

For answer, he strained toward her, a small moan escaping from him as he squirmed beneath her touch.

“I ought to stop now,” she said, freeing him from his shorts and licking the tip and the sensitive underside. She closed her eyes as she mouthed him, relishing his warm and personal scent, the very tang of him when she closed her mouth around him just for a second. The taste on her tongue was both sweet and salty, and she realized even with her eyes shut how close he really was to his release. She withdrew from him with reluctance. “I’m going to stop and make you wait for a bit before we go any further.”

“And I’m going to make you pay dearly for that.” His drawl was soft, slow, and menacing, and when she looked up in astonishment, he smiled coldly. “As well as for everything else you’ve done to me today.”

She gasped as he grabbed her arms in his hands, his movements so fast she had no time to react, and pulled her up to him. Then he dragged her down to sit in his lap and held her, struggling, with one iron arm while he freed first one ankle and then the other. “You ought to have checked those knots, Cady,” he whispered. “Especially since you bound my hands together.” He stood up and turned her around, forcing her onto the chair he had just vacated and then straddling her to hold her in place despite her ferocious struggles. He pushed her arms behind the chair back, leaning into her, and reached over her shoulders with his amazingly long arms to tie her wrists together, ducking away from her attempts to nip him sharply in the neck as she tried to escape. Then he took a second scarf and used it to affix her bound wrists to a slat in the chair back. Once he had her securely anchored, he stood up, careful to swing his leg across her lap so that he stood at her side and not in front of her. She was kicking pretty wildly, in good-natured frustration but also as a matter of principle. She might not be able to stop what he was about to do (and would she want to?), but she never gave in without a fight.

He knelt down to capture her legs and forcibly tie her ankles to the chair legs. It was only a matter of seconds until she was in the same position he had been in a minute or so earlier.

She twisted against the scarves, knowing even as she did that she would not get loose without his help, moaning in anticipation as he turned the chair slightly to face the bed and then came to stand before her. “Wish!”

“What can I do for you?” There was a dangerous glimmer in his pale eyes and Cady felt a delicious shiver as she looked at him, having a fair idea of what was in store for her. “Or perhaps it would be more accurate to ask, what can I do to you?”

He picked up yet another scarf and wound it into a thick band as she watched, struggling to get free. She resisted him, trying to turn her face away even as he wedged the cloth deep into her mouth, winding it once more across her lips and around her head before tying it off firmly.

“Now, what was that you said about making me wait?” He sat down on the bed opposite her and lowered his head to nuzzle her breasts, nibbling delicately at the undersides, moving his lips gently against her nipples. Cady groaned and arched against him, and for answer, he began sucking oh, so softly, alternating between breasts, drawing strangled moans and muffled cries from her. He ignored her wriggling and thrusting and moved down her belly to her pelvis. “You have the most wonderful skin, Jemimah,” he whispered. He tongued her lightly just at her panty line, then began to move south as she whimpered and bucked into him. He looked up at her and favored her with his most charming smile. “As you say, anticipation is everything.”

She groaned and twisted, pulling against the scarves in a rising mix of agony and pleasure.

“Perhaps you just need to reach a better stopping point,” he said. He put his mouth between her legs and began to use his lips, his tongue, parting her, teasing her through and around the fabric of her thong, using warmth and softness, deep pressure and then just the whisper of a touch against her. He ran his tongue up and down her sensitive inner thighs, sometimes moving back to her throbbing center to suck and nuzzle, sometimes just brushing her with his lips and then wandering away again.

In a matter of seconds she was frantic for release, squirming and writhing, uttering desperate, beseeching moans through the gag in her mouth. He ignored her, continued to play, continued to stroke, until she thought she would explode, and then he suddenly stopped. “Fair’s fair, after all. I expect that now is the right time to make you wait,” he said and looked at her to verify his observation.

She cried out against the scarf, pleading, even demanding, and he placed one warm hand on her belly and gazed at her as he stroked up and down the front of her, fingers reaching dangerously close to her core, and then brushing softly away again. “Despite my attempts to stifle you, I can still understand what you’re saying. Or at least interpret it, and quite accurately, I might add. And my dear Jemimah, such language.” He shook his head and moved his hand further down, placing it between her fettered legs, fingering, stroking, slipping a finger inside once or twice, and she tugged and twisted more strenuously with each thing he did to her. “Shall we move on?”

He took a bottle of lotion from her nightstand, poured a small quantity into one hand, and then rubbed his hands together as he knelt before her. “I don’t want this to be too cold,” he explained as she watched him, wide-eyed and trembling with expectation. He placed his hands, lotion-filled and palm down, on her breasts, beginning a slow, sensuous massage with careful attention to her nipples and the sensitive undersides just above her ribs.

The smooth and silken touch of his hands and the warm lotion he stroked into her skin, rubbed into her nipples with questing fingertips, ratcheted her level of need yet higher, and she squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her head back, her body arcing up of its own accord. He changed the direction of his hands and began massaging her horizontally, his touch going from one rock-hard nipple to the other and back again, and the fiery sensation that flowed from the caress of his fingers to every taut nerve between her thighs tore from her a low-pitched moan that escalated into a smothered high-octave screech. She writhed beneath his ministrations, thrusting up at him from her hips, legs shifting continually as she tested the bonds that held her ankles fast.

Pendergast removed his hands from her breasts and placed them on her thighs, thumbing along the insides of her legs, rubbing, massaging, his eyes glittering as she squirmed and twisted, moaning non-stop as she watched him tease her, touch her, unable to do a thing about it. And then he smiled at her and again lowered his head between her legs.

She shrieked his name along with several obscenity-filled pleas as he once more assailed her with his nuzzling, his gentle probing, and her words were reduced to loud, muffled noises. She arched up under him, wiggling, writhing, thrusting up against his tongue. Just a little more pressure and she would be there, she was so close to the moment. Just a few more strokes of his tongue, a few more sweet nibbles from his lips...

And again he stopped.

She wailed in protest, a wordless muted howl, thrashing frantically against the chair as she was left hanging at the edge once more. The abrupt loss of his unremitting stimulation left her throbbing and aching and she struggled vigorously inside the knotted scarves, desperate for release. She tilted her head back to look at him, pleading with her eyes, if not her sealed mouth, and wriggled her legs back and forth as far as she could.

“Cady, if I were cruel, I would probably just get up and walk away for a little bit so we could both cool down. Maybe get myself a cup of tea.”

The vehemence of her answering splutter left no room for interpretation. She nearly came up off the chair despite her bonds.

“However,” he continued, “I am not a cruel person, regardless of what you may be thinking.” He again sat down opposite her, regarding her, stroking her hip, his conversational tone belying the tension, even desire, she could see in him. His hand was trembling as he touched her. “And I’m not certain, looking at you now, that I would be able to cool down or even enjoy my tea. Perchance I have already made you wait long enough?”

She groaned loudly, begging him to just shut up and do it, although of course she had no words. As she watched, squirming and writhing, struggling to free her hands or work the gag from her mouth, he stood up slowly and stripped off his boxer shorts. “Hurry...!” She shouted the demand, although that, too, was no more than a loud and abbreviated moan.

After a moment, he bent down in leisurely fashion and untied her ankles, then went around behind her and undid the scarf that held her to the chair. She launched herself to her feet and he scooped her up, squirming and kicking, wrists still bound, gag still firmly in place, and deposited her face up on the bed. “A familiar position,” he murmured.

Cady screamed that familiar could go to hell, what about my hands, but her speech was neatly blocked and Pendergast merely ignored the muffled frantic noises she made as he removed her thong. She fought to wrap her legs around him and he stopped her. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he drawled, and wrestled her down again. Despite her loud and largely unintelligible arguments, despite her railings and thrashings against his iron grip, he pulled her legs wide apart and tethered her ankles in such a way that one end of each scarf was knotted tightly around her leg and then the scarf stretched out with the other end tied just as tightly to the footboard. She had some movement, but not much. Still struggling, she realized suddenly that what he had done was to lengthen the distance between her feet and the footboard that anchored her, enough distance to accommodate their difference in height... He meant to take her while she was still fully trussed-up.

Her eyes widened at the realization and she perceived just the smallest smirk on his face when he saw that she understood his intention. She tried to kick her legs out, achieving about two inches of movement in either direction, uttering frenzied inchoate objections.

“’Titillating,’ did you say before?” he asked wickedly, climbing onto the bed with her and straddling her hips, pushing her shoulders flat while remaining on his knees. He ran his hands up the full length of her torso, his fingers light and sure, and her heated skin all but rippled under his touch. “And ‘fun’? I believe that was a word you used earlier.”

He gazed down at her as she squirmed beneath him and when he had made her wait just a split-second longer, he finally lowered himself atop her. The warm weight of him, bare skin to bare skin with just a hint of sweet friction as she writhed up into him rendered her beyond crazed. After a few moments of nuzzling the scarf in her mouth, touching his lips to her own muffled ones, shushing her each time she moaned against him, he released her from her gag. “And what have we learned about making me wait?” he asked, still teasing.

“Just shut up and kiss me.” She strained upward and touched her lips against his, and he put his mouth over hers, silencing her with the depth of his kiss. He entered her then, and her entire body shuddered with the relief of him as he filled her, eased her deepest ache, his weight and movement triggering her ultimate response. Free of the gag, she interrupted his kiss and opened her mouth against his neck and nibbled, sucking, nipping, exciting herself still further with his scent and the salt of his skin. His entire body was solid and sturdy and so firm as to be nearly unbearable, his chest hard on hers, his hips tight up against her, his hands strong beneath her, cradling her back, her buttocks, caressing and pulling her yet closer to him. She moved without conscious thought, willing herself to melt into him, simply dissolve entirely in the heat of pure desire. She pushed up to him, thrusting as far as her tethered legs would allow, and he responded with glorious pressure, with mounting, relentless force, with the most basic and simple and necessary power that can be shared by a man and a woman, and she cried out as she at last, at last, reached her peak and the strength of it tore her apart. Had her hands not been bound, she would have clawed his back to shreds, and the thought was fleeting as the momentum surged through her, stole her breath, pushed her heart to hammer strongly enough to explode from her chest.

She felt his arms tighten around her, wondered briefly if he might break her upper arms or her ribs as his embrace grew ever harder, and then she heard him expel the breath he had been holding, heard him groan so softly as he joined her at the crest, and she turned her head and sought out his mouth with hers. She kissed him and kissed him more, unable to get enough of him, moaning deep into him with the effort. She wanted her arms around him, wanted to be able to place her hand at the back of his head and press his mouth still harder against hers, but her wrists were still tied and the knots held stubbornly. She moaned once more in longing, twisting valiantly to keep his mouth locked against hers until the last of the frenzied waves had died away, leaving her shaking and weak in his arms. He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers, somewhat out of breath. They lay in that position, exhausted, for some time.

Eventually, Cady wriggled under him. “You turned the tables on me, you devil,” she said, still somewhat breathless.

Pendergast raised one pale brow at her and picked up the scarf he had taken from her mouth. “Calling me names? I can always reapply this, you know.”

“At your own peril.”

“There would not be much you could do about it, Cady.” He kissed her nose. “As for turning the tables, I decided it might be better to have you annoyed at me for an hour at most, instead of two weeks.” He brushed strands of hair from her damp face, stroking along her cheek and her jaw line with warm and gentle fingers.

“Wish, if you had remained tied up, I wouldn’t have been annoyed for two weeks. I would have been quite satisfied. After all, I won that coin toss fair and square.”

“You did. And I took the initiative from you fair and square.” He rolled onto the bed and looked at her. “And if I untie you now, am I in trouble?”

“Not for at least fifteen minutes. I need to get my circulation back. Not to mention my breath.”

“Excellent. In fifteen minutes, I can be dressed and on my way.”

“Wish!”

“My dear woman, you are like a gadfly, full of torment and teasing and even the occasional sting.” He bent down and bit her in the belly, and the force of his jaws brought her up in an agonized arch.

“Again,” she said, breathless. “Do that again.”

He smiled at her sardonically. “So it is only fitting and proper that occasionally I turn the tables on you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“And you’ve done it. More than once, as I recall. Can we untie me now?”

He bent his head once more and this time kissed and mouthed the same spot on her belly, using his tongue, using his lips, studying her while she squirmed in response. Then he got up off the bed and freed her ankles.

She flexed her legs in relief and then stared at him when he stopped at the side of the bed. “My hands?” She pushed herself upright and worked at the knots behind her back in frustration, shoulders twisting with her exertions.

“Are we going to behave ourselves?”

“Are we what?” She tried to get up and he pushed her back down.

“Ah, ah, Cady, I’m asking you a question. Please answer me directly, and no finger-crossing if you please. Are we going to behave ourselves?”

She grinned at him, arms still working reflexively against the scarves. “Define ‘behave.’”

“Hmmm. I thought as much.” He sat down beside her and began to stroke the length of her arm, fingers trailing softly from shoulder to forearm and back up again. “’Behave’ would entail your most professional behavior during the rest of this seminar. No more caressing me on the sly. No more hands up my suit coat or quick squeezes in the elevator. Agreed?” He fixed her with his most serious no-nonsense stare, eyes like slate.

Cady sighed, wriggling under his gentle touch. “You sure know how to take all the fun out of one of these seminars, you know that? All right. Agreed. Now untie me, please.”

“Happily.” He undid the knots and helped her massage the feeling back into her wrists and arms.

They had tea in the kitchen after clearing the forgotten dinner from the table, sharing a slice of Bavarian chocolate cake and a small scoop each of hazelnut gelato. Pendergast took his leave some time before midnight. Cady fell asleep shortly after, smiling to herself as a last waking inspiration occurred before conscious thought slipped away.




The final session the next day was unarmed close-quarter combat practice: take-downs, locks, pins, escapes. Neither Cady nor Pendergast anticipated a problem with the practice and both were right. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye where he worked with five other agents at a mat in the corner, while she went through drills with her own group of coworkers at a mat across the room from him. She was relaxed and energetic, and she was also biding her time.

The class ended in the afternoon and the agents began drifting away to the locker rooms to shower, change, and make plans for dinner. As she had expected, Pendergast remained at the mat in the corner, working through various kata, doing deep-breathing and stretching exercises. They were nearly alone in the gym when he finally picked up his towel and went to the men’s locker room. After a moment, Cady followed him around the corner.

He was standing with his back to the door, sorting through his locker when she slipped into the room. She heard voices from the far end of the area past the stands of lockers: two or three agents in the showers, comparing notes on nearby restaurants. Pendergast turned his head and watched her approach, pale blue eyes blank.

“You do realize, Agent Cady, that this is the men’s locker room?”

“Oh, I sure do. Intelligent observations like that got me into the Bureau.”

He turned his back to her and resumed picking through the contents of his locker, and she came to stand behind him. The agents in the shower continued to talk, although the sounds of running water had ceased. They would be coming back to their own lockers any moment.

“And why are you here?” He didn’t bother to look at her.

“I wanted to ask if you thought my behavior today was professional enough.”

At that, he glanced over his shoulder and quirked his mouth into the briefest of smiles before turning away from her again. “Quite professional, Cady.”

“Good.” The voices of the other agents grew louder. They were already walking toward the lockers, although still out of immediate sight. Perfect. “In that case, I just wanted to leave you with this one final thought.” She grasped his sweat pants, filling her hands with the fabric, and gave them a swift, vicious tug, bringing his pants as well as his boxers down around his ankles. Scarcely pausing, she ducked her head and hurriedly sank her teeth into the smooth, porcelain skin of his left buttock, and then placed an equally deep nip on the right. The underlying gluteus maximus was firm and unyielding and she moaned slightly. She gave him a swift lick of her tongue to explore the fine, white-blond hairs that had not been evident on her initial quick inspection of his backside, applying the least bit of suction with her lips, and then scampered from the room. She turned her head once as she ran and had a fleeting impression of the open-mouthed astonishment on Pendergast’s slightly pink face as he rushed to pull up his pants, as well as the three agents looking after her in surprise, then laughed out loud her entire way to the women’s showers.

He was waiting for her in her apartment when she got home, severe in his black suit, tie knot impeccably pushed tight to the collar, one long leg crossed over the other as he sat on her sofa, arms folded across his chest, hands curled into fists. He did not stand up at her entrance.

In body language, Cady realized as she looked at him, he was shouting at her. And they both knew it. Their eyes met and she bit back an amused smile. “Agent Pendergast. And what brings you here?” She shut her door and locked it behind her, noting that his holstered Les Baer had already been placed upon her coffee table.

He regarded her with his pale eyes when she looked at him, the expression on his face pure granite. “I’m afraid there will be consequences for today, Agent Cady. I was able to explain your hasty exit from the men’s locker room with some plausible story about confusion and embarrassment on your part. But there are some actions that can not be allowed to go unanswered.” His voice was hard and cold.

Just the way she liked it. She shivered eagerly. “Somehow, Wish, I knew I could count on your immediate retribution.”

“Quite so.”

Ever the gentleman, he waited for her to put down her purse, kick off her shoes, and take off her jacket. Waited until she had removed her holster, her weapons, her handcuffs, and her belt. Even waited while she went to her scarf drawer and brought some of the contents into the living room for easier access, should either of them feel that scarves had become necessary. And when she finally stopped and looked at him, chin lifted in silent challenge, he stared at her a long minute more before giving her the faintest smile of acknowledgment, not unlike a bow before a sparring match, or a salute with a fencing sword. Then he locked his gaze to hers, rose slowly from the couch, stretched, and removed his suit coat, eyes glittering at her like a hungry tiger’s the entire time.

And that was when the real close-quarter combat drills began.