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Absolute Pleasure

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Chapter One

Special Agent Sunny MacGregor surprised herself by seriously considering Agent Jack Caruso's question as she left her car and walked toward the pair of agents assigned to the Seducer's last known crime scene. Although she wouldn't exactly place herself in the same category as the victim she'd come to interview, she had been stretching the limit on abstinence since she couldn't immediately recall the last time she'd invited some guy to join her under the covers. Still, that didn't mean she'd ever be desperate enough to actually pay someone to have sex with her. At least she hoped not.

"I'm here to work the case," she told Caruso when she reached the open doors at the back of the van. "Not judge the victim." She did have an opinion on the subject, but one best not divulged to a pair of field agents assigned watch-dog duty outside the arched wrought-iron gates of the Wilder estate.

Caruso's rookie-agent partner, Walt Weidman, climbed out of the van. "I need to see your ID, Mac."

"For the love of Pete, Weidman," Caruso complained.

"This is her freakin' crime scene."

Weidman ignored Caruso. "Sorry, Mac," he said apologetically. "Rules, you know."

She slipped the black leather ID holder from the pocket of her navy linen blazer and handed it to Weidman. "Don't let Jack get to you," she told the rookie. "He's always a pain in the ass until he's downed a couple of thermoses full of that ink he calls coffee."

"Yeah, and then he's just a wired pain in the ass."

She hid a smile and glanced around the well-kept grounds before turning her attention to Caruso. He sat on a padded bench in the van before an instrument control panel monitoring the immediate vicinity and keeping in contact with another van with two more agents at the rear of the estate. "See or hear anything unusual?"

Caruso reached for the pack of cigarettes on the seat beside him. "I've been in cemeteries at 3:00 a.m. with more action," he complained. "The lab techs left about an hour ago. They didn't tell us dick, either."

Sunny bit back the reminder hovering on her lips that smoking was strictly prohibited inside a government vehicle. Surveillance could be dull as dirt under the best of circumstances. Watchdogging a nonviolent crime scene was dead work, occasionally handed out as punishment for agents on the shit-list of someone higher up the Bureau food chain. Since she'd worked with Caruso in the past during her own days as a field agent in the D.C. office, she figured he, rather than Weidman had ticked off her old boss, Gib Russell, big time.

Caruso flicked the lighter. Weidman handed Sunny her ID and shot the older, seasoned agent a disapproving glance. "Do you have to do that in there?"

Caruso blew a plume of blue smoke in Weidman's direction as he climbed out of the van. "Go read a manual or something," Jack groused. To Sunny he said, "You want to talk pain in the ass, spend an hour with Whiny Wally. Makes me look like Sister Mary Sunshine."

Caruso shielded his eyes from the harsh glare of July midmorning sunshine and squinted in Sunny's general direction. "And who did you piss off to get stuck with this piece of crap case, Mac?"

Sunny slipped a recently permed curl behind her ear before straightening her shoulders. "I requested the assignment."

Caruso drew deeply on his cigarette, then shook his head and emitted a raspy chuckle. "You still a glutton for punishment? They have therapy for that sort of thing, you know."

SEDSCAM, Bureau-speak for the Seduction Scam Investigation, remained an unsolved nonviolent crime under the Criminal Investigation Division's jurisdiction. So far, a grand total of seven thefts had occurred nationwide. Just because Sunny had asked to run the investigation didn't necessarily mean she suffered from masochistic tendencies. What she really wanted was to garner the attention of the head of the Investigative Support Unit.

The crunch and spray of gravel from the tires of a big black SUV moving too fast down the graded driveway kept her from putting Jack in his place. The vehicle slowed, then stopped as Caruso approached, exchanging a few words she couldn't discern with the driver.

"Probably a reporter," Weidman said with distaste from inside the van. He pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his sweaty forehead. "We've been waiting for them to start sniffing around all morning."

"A rich heiress bilked by a smooth-talking con artist to the tune of half a million dollars in cash and property and the FBI is suddenly involved? You bet the newshounds will be here." Not that she had any concerns on that score. She had experience with the press and wasn't above using the media to her advantage if necessary.

Sunny glanced toward the driver when he got out of his vehicle and joined Caruso. One look at the guy and she had him pegged him as a reporter. He had the whole I'm-your-new-best-friend thing going for him, which gave good journalists an edge over the competition. And this guy definitely had an edge, she thought, but it had zero to do with instilling confidence in a would-be source and everything to do with heightening her curiosity.

He walked with Caruso across the drive in her direction. As he neared, Sunny stared in utter and complete fascination. Generally she preferred brains and substance over beauty and brawn, but in this instance, she'd seriously consider making an exception.

Not that she was hard up or anything.

The crisp white shirt with fine gray pinstripes he wore enhanced a wide set of shoulders that tapered down to a lean waist, slim hips and long, powerful legs emphasized quite nicely in a pair of neatly pressed gray khakis. She enjoyed the rebounding view, as well, noting the casual way he rolled back the sleeves of the shirt to reveal tanned and powerful-looking forearms. A tie, one of those Wall-Street-power types, was knotted loosely at his throat, where he'd left the top button of his shirt undone. He came off looking crisp and rumpled all at the same time, in a way no woman with a pulse could ignore.

Continuing the mesmerizing journey into beauty and brawn, she wondered exactly when she'd become so shallow as to fall for a pretty face and a hot body. Probably the moment she realized she'd gone without a man in her bed for more than just a few months.

The bright morning sunshine made his slightly wavy, blacker-than-midnight hair gleam. Oh, she really needed to get a grip, here. Except that deeply tanned face with all those sharp lines and angles did nothing to aid her recovery from a lust-induced stupor. The directness of his brilliant, bluish-gray eyes when he removed his sunglasses didn't help much, either.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Absolute Pleasure by Jamie Denton Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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