Into the Crossfire Read Online Free PDF Page B

been much to talk about. He had
    sex--lots of it in fact, though lately, work had gotten in the way--but it was never
    with anyone special. The sex he had was mainly a way to scratch an itch, like
    eating when hungry. Who wanted to talk about food once you'd eaten your fill?
    Mostly, one woman was just like another. They satisfied an appetite, and that was
    about it.
    But...Nicole Pearce was different. He couldn't really get a handle on why,
    but there it was. And he wasn't talking about it.
    They stared at each other mutely, Sam not talking, Harry trying to crack
    him open but failing. Finally, Harry gave a big martyred sigh.
    "Okay. This is what's going to happen. Right now, you look like a
    dockworker who's been scamming goods and you smell like one, too. No way in
    hell you're gonna get lucky with that babe looking and smelling like that. So you're
    going to get a shave and a haircut and take a long shower. Two of 'em, because
    man--" He waved the air in front of him as if someone had just let rip a massive
    fart. "You read me? And I'm going to go out with Mike for a beer and we're gonna
    wait for your report tomorrow morning on your evening out with Ms. Luscious."
    "Out," Sam growled, rolling his eyes. "Get out now before I break your
    bones all over again, and I'll do a better job of it than some fucking Afghani RPG,
    trust me."
    Harry gimped his way out of the office, a half smile on his face. It had been
    worth it being teased, to see Harry smiling. Sam wasn't much of a smiler himself,
    but Harry had been to hell and back. This was the first lighthearted exchange he'd
    had with Harry since he'd been blown up in the Hindu Kush.
    Maybe it was the Nicole Pearce Effect. God knows, she had an effect on
    him, a massive one. Harry said he'd been mooning over her, which was crazy. Sam
    didn't moon. But he had been...interested. Real interested.
    He'd timed his comings and goings to get a glimpse of her. Christ, just
    watching her walk down the hallway toward him had been enough to give him a
    boner he could use to hammer a nail into the wall.
    He knew the basics about her, thanks to her website and Google. Daughter
    of an ambassador, grew up all over the world, attended the University of Geneva
    School of Translation, translated from French and Spanish, knew basic Russian
    and some Arabic.
    That really impressed him. Language training was intense in SpecOps. Sam
    had aced just about everything in training except languages. He had a tin ear for
    languages, and it had been a real drawback. Still was, as he was starting to have
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    foreign clients.
    Though she was an ambassador's daughter, Nicole Pearce didn't live like a
    woman of privilege. She lived in a house that was worth about half the value of
    Sam's condo on Coronado Shores. Her income was one twentieth of his. She had
    founded her company only a year earlier, when she had moved to San Diego to
    live in the house her maternal grandmother had left her, operating the business out
    of her home until she'd moved into his building a month ago.
    Before opening her own business, she'd worked as a translator for the UN
    in Geneva.
    When, out of curiosity, Sam had looked up the job description, there'd been
    the income for her UN civil service pay grade. He'd whistled. In Swiss francs, tax
    free. It was an enormous amount of money. Why had she quit that to open a small
    business in San Diego, taking a huge cut in income?
    She was single, which floored him. Never been married, either, which was
    even harder to believe. Actually, it seemed insane to him. Had she only lived in
    places where they put saltpeter in the water? Where all the men were gay? What
    was wrong with the men she came across? Because if he hadn't first seen her in the
    middle of an op when he couldn't break opsec, he'd have been on her tail the
    instant he caught sight of her moving in across the hallway.
    Grew up abroad, owner of new business, single. Those were the facts he
    was able to find on her in public