Secret Agent Seduction by Maureen Smith Page B

when you knew you’d be packing up and leaving at any time. Thankfully, I had the kind of parents who made anywhere we lived feel like home.”
    Armand noted the softness that filled her voice and the warm glow that lit her dark eyes whenever she spoke about her parents. He wanted to keep her talking, wanted to learn everything there was to know about her. What made her happy? Or angry? What was her favorite novel? Did she live alone or with a roommate? Had she ever been in love or lost her heart to anyone?
    Okay, Armand amended, maybe he’d rather not hear the answer to those last two questions.
    â€œDo your parents still live in Virginia?” he asked instead.
    Lia nodded. “My father is retired from the foreign service, and he and my mom spend most of their free time putting around in their garden, traveling—no, they haven’t had enough—and doing a lot of community outreach and fundraising. They like to keep busy, which works out fabulously for me. The busier they are, the less time they have to worry about me and my dangerous job.” She chuckled wryly, leaning back and propping her booted feet up on the opposite seat. “Never mind that the kind of upbringing I had pretty much guaranteed that I could never settle for a safe, boring desk job.”
    â€œNaturally.” Armand grinned, giving her a deliberate once-over. “And somehow I can’t see you confined to a safe, boring desk job anyway.”
    She gave a husky little laugh that made his pulse leap. “Thanks. I will definitely take that as a compliment.”
    â€œYou should,” he murmured. “It was.”
    When Lia took a sip of her beer, Armand forced himself not to stare at the sight of her lush, pretty lips wrapped around the rim of the bottle, forced himself not to groan when the pink tip of her tongue flicked out to swipe a droplet of beer from her lower lip. She was a lethal combination of innocence and eroticism, strength, beauty and intelligence. It took his breath away.
    Even though her posture was relaxed, he’d noted the way her dark, watchful eyes periodically scanned the surrounding forest, searching for any unseen threat.
    The things a man could accomplish with a woman like her by his side, Armand thought.
    Nursing their beers, they lapsed into companionable silence, lulled by the warmth of the afternoon sun on their faces, the lazy drone of a hummingbird hovering nearby, the gentle rocking motions of the boat as it bobbed in the water. Armand couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever felt so relaxed and at peace with himself and his surroundings.
    It had been far too long.
    At length, Lia broke the silence between them. “So what about you, Magliore? What was it like growing up on a tropical island?”
    He gave her an amused sidelong glance. “I can guarantee you it wasn’t half as exciting as your globe-trotting childhood.”
    She smiled easily at him. “Let me be the judge of that.”
    â€œAll right,” said Armand, setting aside his empty beer bottle and hooking his hands behind his head once again. For a moment he idly surveyed their booted feet, which were propped side by side on the opposite seat. He noted the differences in their shoe sizes, struck by how much larger his own feet were. Lia Charles may be a fierce warrior, but she was also a warm, beautiful, undeniably feminine woman.
    â€œAs you might imagine,” he began, “I spent much of my childhood on the water. Just to give you an idea of how much the ocean was a part of me, I learned how to swim before I could walk. I went swimming every day after school and on the weekends as soon as I finished my chores. My friends and I used to go deep-sea diving all the time. We spent hours exploring rock formations and the coral reefs, which were pretty amazing. But even when I wasn’t in the water, I had to be near it. I would walk up and down the shoreline, studying tide pool