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Part 1

Perhaps she had been possessed by demons temporarily. On reflecting back, Special Agent Anna Cady could not come up with any other explanation as to why she would have ever tangled, literally as well as figuratively, with Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. A momentary leave of her senses? Some sort of breakdown? Whatever it was, he had surprisingly responded in kind. Well, perhaps not so surprising. They had never treated each other with kid gloves.

It had been a bad day. A long, drawn out, annoying bad day, the kind filled with pressure from above, nasty sniping remarks from colleagues, constant questions about the last job she had been on from the AIC, and where was the rest of her paperwork? On days like this, Cady realized she was unfit company for man or beast by five o’clock. She left the building at the end of her workday without a word to anyone, marched the eight blocks to her apartment, looking forward to an evening of blue jeans, bare feet, chilled wine, and something absolutely mindless, be it book or movie on the box. So of course when she opened the door, feeling relief at last, and sailed into her bedroom—“What the hell are you doing here?” It was the first thing out of her mouth and even now, looking back, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

He had surprised her after all. She prided herself on how that could never happen, and yet here he was in black-suited glory, lying on her bed with a volume of Euripides for light reading. Euripides. Even that annoyed her.

He rose when she entered, marking his place with one long finger inserted between the pages. “Agent Cady, have I startled you?” He himself looked mildly astonished.

“Dammit, Wish, not now. Not tonight.” She dumped her purse in the corner and shrugged out of her jacket, tossing it carelessly on the chair by her vanity. She took off her holster and put that on her dresser. This was quickly followed by the second, smaller gun she retrieved from her jacket, and the knife on the garter that she removed from beneath her skirt. The folded knife she had clipped to the waistband of her skirt came off next. Muttering under her breath, she also removed the brass knuckles from a back pocket. Pendergast watched the ritual but made no comment. Ignoring him, she went to her armoire and grabbed a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, then proceeded to strip off everything except her thong and change into her at-home clothes. When her head emerged through the neck of her shirt, she met his nearly colorless eyes. He was studying her. “What?” She didn’t bother to control the irritation in her voice as she clipped the folded knife into her jeans pocket.

“I will leave,” he said, inclining his head.

And of course she didn’t really want him to go. She just hadn’t wanted him there in the first place. But now that he was here, if he left she would feel as irritated with him as she had when she first saw him. This was all wrong. “No, don’t.”

He turned at the door. “Don’t leave?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Dammit, Wish. We haven’t seen each other in how many months and here you are. No call. No warning. And the fact that you don’t even need the fricking key—”

He looked at her and waited silently, and that drove her insane.

“Say something,” she demanded.

“I have never called you save for work,” he said quietly.

“I know that.” She knew what he meant and it rubbed against her like something harsh and gritty. “And that’s just fine. It’s fine.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture and moved toward her bedroom door, where he still stood.

“I don’t suppose calling you for anything other than work would be very intelligent.”

“I know that,” she repeated through her teeth. She was face to face with him now. “Want to move out of my way?”

He studied her for a moment, then stepped slightly sideways.

“Jemimah,” he began.

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped.

“It is your given name. ‘Wish’, however, is not mine.” Was there just a hint of reproof in that statement? Just a wee bit of an edge in that cultured drawl?

Her head snapped up at that, temper hitting the first level of danger.

“Cady,” he said, just before she moved. “Your temper.”

“Pendergast,” she replied. “Your neck.” She reached up to put her hand across the back of his neck, sliding sideways until she was nearly beside him and pulling sharply forward to put him on his head. Just as smoothly, he moved one foot and ruined her throw, grasping her wrist at the same time, pinning it to his chest and moving his elbow downward to pin her arm against him. Reacting instinctively to the impending capture, she bent her knees and went for his legs, but he moved his left one at the last possible second and she came back upright immediately.

He grabbed her forearm. “You’re out of control.”

“Oh, and you’re going to take care of that for me?” Using her free hand, she levered her other arm out of his grasp and came back immediately with an elbow strike that he ducked. Pendergast had it over her in size, reach, weight, and strength. Cady didn’t think twice about giving him a low impact blow or two. She didn’t want to hurt him, really. She didn’t think. Anyway, if she hit him with full power she would hurt herself as well, on all that bone and hard muscle... The concept popped into her head and suddenly enticed her, the thought of his muscles, the thought of his warm skin, and that only irritated her more.

Even as her elbow was moving past his head, Pendergast was already recapturing that arm. He pulled her to him in a bear hug and she went completely limp and slithered down to the floor, free of most of his grasp. He bent over to follow her down and she pulled on his suit coat lapels viciously, intending to take him off balance and over onto his side. Instead he simply planted his hands on the floor on either side of her—his ridiculously long limbs allowed him to do that without losing his balance—and was now face to face and over her, pale eyes glimmering and intent as he stared at her.

Cady didn’t like the position. She went to break the straight line of his left arm on the inside, intending to then spiral him onto his back, but he was too quick for that. He simply bent both arms, push-up style, and collapsed himself atop her, pinning her to the floor. “Get the hell off of me.” She started to push him and suddenly his lips were against hers, and God they felt so warm, and so fine. He licked the inside of her mouth softly, probing just a little, tentative, sweet, gentle. She found herself kissing him back and then stopped and turned her head away in irritation. “What the hell do you think I am? Just someone you can play with whenever you damn well feel like it? Just pick my lock and walk into the bedroom and—mmmmm...” The rest of her diatribe was cut off when he began to kiss her again. She kissed him back, harshly, demandingly, holding him down to her by his suit collar and then just as abruptly pushed him away. This time he did not resist. She shoved at him again, and then backed away from him until she could get to her feet.

He remained on his knees, looking at her warily. They were both breathing hard. She glared at him and shook her head and went to pass him on her way to the hall.

He grabbed her ankle and brought her down, half catching her so that she didn’t quite slam into the floor. “What are you doing?” he asked, eyes cold and glittering. “What game are you playing with me now?”

“I don’t play games with you, Pendergast,” she stated coldly.

He actually laughed at that. “Oh, I beg to disagree, Cady. You have done nothing but play with me since our first assignment together.”

“Oh, really? And who never told me to back off? Who never shut me down? Who never walked away?” She stopped when he freed one of her hands that had been pinned between them and began mouthing, nibbling on her fingers. She closed her eyes as his lips worked past her palm and began moving up the inside of her arm. She shivered, well aware that she was getting goose bumps...DAMMIT! “And who’s playing games now?” She jerked her hand away from him and began trying to push herself out from under him.

He simply let himself become dead weight and again she was pinned to the floor momentarily. Even as his torso was pressing against her, she was already pulling her feet close to her, moving her heels as close to her buttocks as possible to get the leverage she would need to shift his weight when she bucked her hips...

She didn’t dislodge him completely—he was too good for that and she knew he would be—but she moved him enough to wriggle out sideways. He lay on his side, propped up on one elbow, and watched as she again got to her feet. She looked down at him, then turned and walked away.

“No,” he said.

She paused. “What?”

“No.” He was on his feet so swiftly she barely had time to take a step back. “This gets settled.”

“What are we settling? Oh, are we having relationship issues?” she added mockingly.

“My dear woman, you have to have a relationship to have such issues,” he answered dryly.

“You got that right. What we have here... What do we have here? Are we just fuck buddies?” she asked, emphasizing the word and hoping to make him wince.

He didn’t. He tilted his head as if thinking it over. “Are we even buddies?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.

He was provoking her, she knew that, and yet she had a struggle not to react to that one. She merely looked at him without answering, and he began walking toward her.

“What do you want from me?” she demanded as he got closer.

“What do you want from me?” he echoed. He put his hands on her shoulders and she actually surprised him when she palm-struck him in the stomach, just hard enough to draw a satisfying “Wumph” from him as he lost his wind.

The satisfaction didn’t last long. He shoved her back against the wall with some force and her head connected with enough of an impact to jar her momentarily. “Not kind,” he said, slightly breathless.

“And the horse you rode in on,” she snapped back at him.

He had her cornered and before she could duck away he put his hand under her jaw, tilted her head back and kissed her, a drawn out, exploratory, lingering thing that went on and on until her struggling got to be too much. He pulled back and dropped his hand, but there was a smugness in his eyes that drove her berserk. She was glad she had managed not to respond or moan during the kiss, although her heart had sped up considerably and she couldn’t help but feel that he was well aware of it.

“Prelude to a nothing?” she asked. His mouth twitched and she wasn’t sure if he was stifling anger or amusement. “What are we settling, Pendergast? Or is this just a one-time decision of fight or fuck?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, Cady, it appears we have been working at both.”

“Really? Did I leave a bruise?” She yanked his shirt out of his pants and tried to take a look at his abdomen, and he caught her arms and pressed them above her head and against the wall. Then he moved closer so that his chest was right up against her tee shirt. She could feel his heat washing over her, radiating, impossible to ignore. And she could smell that subtle, familiar, wonderful Aloysius Pendergast scent... Damn it to hell and twice over on Tuesdays.

“I came here,” he said quietly, “in quite good faith with the reasonable expectation that we might share dinner and a nice evening together. You, on the other hand, came here with an entire granite block on your shoulder, never mind the chip, and—”

He didn’t get any further as Cady wriggled free and keeping one of his hands pinned to the wall, used the leverage to catch him up and under the chin and bring him down sideways. He reached up with his free arm and yanked on her shoulder on the way down, and try as she did to maintain her balance, she tumbled on top of him before managing to roll over and regain her feet.

Pendergast remained on the floor, gazing up at her with colorless eyes.

“That’s it,” she said. “Game over. I think you need to leave.”

He rose after a long moment, dusted off his pants, straightened his tie and re-tucked his shirt, repositioned his jacket, and walked past her in the direction of the front door without another word.

She watched him for a few steps and then followed him, curious. Was he really going to leave? Just like that? Cady was nothing if not honest with herself. She felt torn that he would just go so easily, no more resistance, no more argument. On the other hand, wasn’t that what she had wanted? But she was still fluttering inside from his touch. Hell, the memory of his mouth against hers just a moment ago lingered and she pressed her lips together.

At the door, he stopped, back to her, and took a deep breath, letting his head flop back on his neck for just a moment. The fine, white-blond hair brushed against the black of his suit. He relaxed his shoulders, rolled his head back and forth a couple of times to stretch his neck, and then shrugged his shoulders. He placed a hand on the doorknob and twisted.

“Don’t,” she said for the second time.

He stopped and bowed his head, his back still turned to her. The long, slender fingers still grasped the knob. “Don’t what?” he asked in his quietest voice. Sad? Or angry? She wasn’t sure. At last he looked at her and there was absolutely no expression on his face, not anger, not sadness, nothing. They could have been complete strangers.

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