Bad Attitude (B.A.D. Agency #1)(11)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

“You’re not leaving so soon, are you?” Joe asked her.

Syd wrinkled her nose. “No offense, it’s not really my cup of tea. Besides, we’re going to go over some details back at the office.”

Joe looked to Steele. “So he’s in?”

Steele nodded.

“Good man.” He pulled a wallet out from his back pocket, then handed it over to Steele. “By the way, I charged the tickets to you.”

Steele scowled. “How? I don’t have a credit card.”

Joe indicated the wallet with a tilt of his head. “Look inside.”

Syd narrowed her eyes at Joe’s arrogance. “Come on. Be honest, you had to have some doubt about whether or not he’d join us.”

“None whatsoever. I wouldn’t have brought him to the offices if I’d thought there was any chance he’d opt out.”

Just once, she would love to see Joe be wrong about something. But at least this time, she was grateful he understood people so well.

Syd indicated their vacated seats with her hand. “Since we’re leaving, you two want our seats?”

Joe looked delighted, while Tee had a look of ultimate distaste.

“You two have fun,” Joe said as he brushed past them to head down the stairs.

“They will,” Tee muttered as she moved toward them. “Meanwhile I’ll be in hell.”

Syd shook her head at Tee’s dire tone before she handed Tee the iPod.

“Bless you,” Tee said gratefully as she took it.

“Why did you come if you hate it so much?” Syd asked.

Tee looked at Joe, who was walking down the stairs. When she spoke, it was the perfect imitation of a Southern drawl. “I might not like the music, but that there’s the best view in town.”

Syd laughed at Tee. “One day, my sister, you have got to tell that man how you feel about him.”

Tee gave her a meaningful stare. “I can look, but we both know I can’t touch. Work is work, and pleasure is pleasure.”

It was true. She more than understood Tee’s feelings about work and play. Unlike Tee, she’d been burned enough to know exactly why work and play didn’t mix. It was a lesson she’d more than taken to heart.

Giving her a quick hug, she left Tee to move closer to the stage with Joe.

Syd followed after Steele, who tossed his drink and popcorn into the garbage can. She followed suit before they left the auditorium and headed for the parking lot outside, where she’d parked her Honda.

While they walked, she noticed that Steele was holding the wallet like a lifeline. His grip was tight and, at the same time, almost loving.

“What did Joe give you?” she asked.

“My life back,” he said in a reverent tone. He handed the wallet to her.

Syd opened it to see what had gotten into him. As soon as she saw the contents, she fully understood.

There was a Tennessee driver’s license with his name and picture on it, two credit cards, and a little over a hundred dollars in cash. It looked just like any other guy’s wallet, and that was probably what had struck him most about it.

How long had it been since he’d been just another normal guy on the street?

She smiled at Joe’s thoughtfulness. “We take care of our own.”

Steele didn’t say anything as she returned the wallet to him and he slid it into his back pocket. Not since his initial arrest, over two years ago, had he felt this human. With what Joe had given him, he could leave and never look back. It was a lot of trust.

He wasn’t about to betray it.

And in that moment, he realized something. Joe was right. For the first time ever, he understood what it meant to live. To have a life. He could eat when he wanted, leave when he wanted. Do anything and not have to answer to anyone. There were no armed guards eyeing him nervously right now. No isolation chamber when he stepped out of line. No one to fight for everyday necessities. No gangs to deal with. Nothing.

God, it felt good.

“You okay?”

He glanced down at Syd and offered her a hesitant smile. “Yeah. I think I am.” He paused in the parking lot and pulled her to a stop.

And then he did something he hadn’t done since the afternoon he’d taken that shot at his CO…

He acted on pure impulse.

Pulling her close, he dipped his head down and kissed that full, lush mouth of hers that had been beckoning him since the moment he first saw her. Steele closed his eyes as he tasted her for the first time. It’d been way too long since he’d last held a woman, and he couldn’t remember any tasting better than this one. Her mouth was salty and sweet from her soda and popcorn, but most of all, it tasted like Syd.

Passionate. Fiery.

Most of all, it tasted of lust.

Syd fisted her hand in Steele’s dark hair as she inhaled the innately masculine scent of him. Maybe she should be offended by the way he’d kissed, but she wasn’t. Part of her had been wondering far too long what he tasted like.

Now she knew.

He was all man and all skill. No one had ever kissed her like this. And it made her wonder what else he was good at…

He pulled back with a most unabashed grin. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”

“I thought snipers never acted on impulse.”

“That’s only when we’re after something we intend to kill.” He brushed the hair back from her face, then cupped her cheek in his palm. He traced the contour of her bottom lip with his thumb.

“I thought you did want to kill me.”

“You have your moments…but this isn’t one of them.”

Syd wanted to melt at the gentleness of his touch. But even as she softened, a long-buried memory leapt forward, reminding her of why she couldn’t allow herself toever consort with her coworkers.

She pulled back immediately. “We need to start prepping you on the details of the case.”

Steele wanted to curse as he felt the wall come up between them. It was arctic and irritating.

Damn.

Just go find another woman. All you need is a one-night stand.

Even as that thought went through his mind, he knew better. Sex might take the edge off him, but he didn’t wanted sex with just anyone. His body was aching for Syd-the-viper. How stupid was he? The last thing he needed was to trust a woman who had already shown herself to be less than trustworthy.

What was wrong with him? Had he lostall reason?

He sighed irritably as she approached a silver Honda Accord. The car was extremely sedate and practical, which, given what she probably made a year, said a lot about the woman.

“Not a speed junkie, huh?”

She laughed evilly. “As they say, looks are so often deceiving.”

He opened his door. “How so?”

She slammed the door shut, then buckled herself in. “This little baby has four-fifty horsepower under the hood and will go from zero to sixty in about two-point-two seconds. She’s not even street-legal.”

He was impressed by that. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s souped up and ready for just about anything. Drecker and Norbert are our official mechanics. They can make a car do just about anything you can imagine. I’m sure Joe will have them hook you up soon enough.”

Steele didn’t speak as he fastened his seat belt and Syd started the car.

He studied her in the dim light. She was confident and quick, but even so she seemed an odd choice for a federal agent. Not that he was an expert on them by any means. There was just something about her that seemed like it would be more at home in another line of work.

“So what made you decide to become an agent?”

“March twenty-third, 1992. Eleven a.m.”

Steele frowned as those words went through his head and he couldn’t peg the time or a place. “Should I know that date?”

“No,” she said quietly, “most likely not. It barely made more than the local news.” She sighed as if that thought hurt her. “My mother always called such events Darwinian moments. You know, those crystal-clear times in your life that change you forever. When I was a little girl, she used to talk about being in her classroom the day Kennedy was assassinated and how she remembered every detail of it. March twenty-third is that way for me. I remember everything I had on, every detail of that morning…” Her grip tightened on the wheel.

It was the only reaction she gave.

“What happened?”

She took a ragged breath as she stopped at a traffic light. “I was in my poli-sci class, bored out of my mind, counting the minutes until it was over. Then a woman from admin came into the room to speak with the professor. He pointed at me, and my heart sank. Two minutes later, I was out in the hallway while she told me that my brother-in-law and nephew had been killed that morning in a boating accident.”

Inwardly, he cringed at that. It must have been hard to hear something like that at such a young age.

She ground her teeth and cursed. “My nephew, Chad, was only five years old. My sister had taken my niece to the doctor that morning, and her husband, Bobby, had volunteered to watch Chad while she was gone. Bobby was a lobster fisherman in Maine and had taken Chad out countless times with him—his dad owned the boat, and it was a family business.”

Steele’s frown deepend as she spoke. He knew it had to be something more than a simple accident. Her anger was too raw, too bitter all these years later.

She turned them down another street, toward the Bat Tower. “That same morning some environmentalist group had decided to make a point about overfishing lobsters and had picked four boats as targets. Bobby’s was one of them. Those bastards had rigged a small explosive to sink it while they were out at sea. Chad had wandered over to the place on deck right over the bomb. Bobby had gone to get him when it went off and caught both of them in the blast. In one instant, they destroyed more than just a stupid boat.”

Steele felt for her. He knew firsthand how bad grief like that burned inside. Without thinking, he reached over to take her hand and squeeze it.

He saw the tears in her eyes and was shocked by them. She was such a strong woman that for her to betray those tears told him just how much that day had scarred her.

He could feel her pain as she returned the gesture. She quickly blinked the tears away and cleared her throat. “When the people who were responsible found out what had happened to Chad and Bobby, they shrugged it off by saying that’s what they deserved for harvesting lobsters…. Yeah, a five-year-old really deserved being blown to pieces over seafood.”

She pulled her hand away from his to wipe at her eyes as she cleared her throat again. “I hate extremists with a passion. They get so wrapped up in their cause that they think nothing of killing anyone who doesn’t agree with them. It’s just so wrong…so wrong.”

Steele wished he could ease the pain of her loss, but he knew better. Some wounds never healed and those to the heart were particularly nasty. “So you went into this to keep it from happening again.”

She nodded. “At least, that was the thought. What I quickly found out is there’s so much red tape and bureaucracy involved in trying to get things done that I was ready to quit the FBI and never look back. Like you, I’d fought my superiors so many times that they were just about to can me.”

It really spooked him at times how much she and Joe knew about his past.

“That’s when Joe came in. BAD was only about a year old then, and he was looking for recruits. I’d been reported so much for insubordination that he’d flagged me as a possibility. As soon as he explained to me that I could actually do my job without having to file reports and requisitions, I threw in with him and haven’t regretted it since.”

Steele arched a brow at that. “Not even this afternoon, when he crawled all over you?”

She cast an irritated sideways glance at him. “Don’t remind me.” She downshifted and took a corner so fast it would most likely make Joe proud.

Well, at least he now understood what had prompted her actions against him. She was one of those idealists who wasn’t that different from the extremists she fought against. But at least she recognized that in herself.

Not that he was willing to completely forgive her. But understanding went a long way in soothing his anger toward her.

“So how much insubordination marsyour record?” he asked her.

“More than I care to recount.”

“Really?”

“You don’t believe me?”

He shrugged. “Given the length you went to to secure me, I’d believe most anything about you. You strike me as one of those overachievers who probably never made a B in her life.”

“Not true. I flunked astronomy my freshman year, and passed ethics by the skin of my teeth.”

Now that he didn’t swallow. “Really?”

She nodded. “See, you’re not as perceptive as you think you are.”

Maybe, but at least it gave him a degree of hope that she wasn’t as transparent to him as he thought. He wondered what else he’d misjudged her on.

Please let this be one of them….

“So have you ever had a one-night stand?”

She actually turned her head to look at him while she was driving. “Excuse me?”

He turned her head back toward the road. “You heard me. I was wondering what other erroneous conclusions I’d drawn about you.”

She stopped at a red light and turned to look at him. “That’s one you were right about. I don’t do men on a one-time basis.”

“Figures,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose you’d want to change your ways tonight?”

She shook her head at him. “Sleeping with a guy you work with only complicates things. No thanks.”

He leaned his head back. Damn.

You don’t even like her….

His brain might feel that way, but his body was another story. It wanted her with a vengeance.

“I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who don’t work with you and who don’t share my standards.”