STONE looked into the mirror in shock. His long hair had been shorn off and trimmed into a short, conservative side part to match Jack Lacey’s. The barber who’d come up to the suite had close shaved him with a straight razor as well. Stone fingered his smooth cheeks, familiarizing himself with their foreign texture as the guy packed up and left.
He commented to Christian, who looked on, grinning, “I look younger than him.”
“I’m sure I’ll cause you enough headaches in the next two days to give you a few extra worry lines. Besides, everyone knows that television ages a person. People will be able to comment on how young and healthy you look in the flesh. Or you can tell them Miami has been good to you.”
“It was. Until you came up with this cockamamie idea.”
“Cockamamie? Wow. You really did grow up on a farm, didn’t you?”
“Screw you, preppie boy.”
“Anytime, cow pie.”
“Oh, you did not just go there—” Stone started, rising out of the chair threateningly.
Grinning, Christian interrupted. “Let’s go pick out a few suits for you.” He led the way to the senator’s bedroom to raid the closet.
“This feels weird,” Stone announced. “Like I’m stealing his life.”
“You’re not getting cold feet on me, are you, Mr. Big Bad Soldier? Do I have to double dog dare you to do this?”
His natural urge to accept a dare surged forward. The brilliant bastard was playing him, and they both knew it. He scowled back at Christian’s triumphant grin.
“Try this one.” Christian held out a conservative, charcoal summer-wool suit. “It’s one of the suits Jack wears when Tucker insists on a Kevlar vest.”
“Jack has to wear bulletproof vests? Are death threats that frequent for him? Is that why he wouldn’t take this one seriously?”
“To take your questions in order, Tucker orders them as a standard precaution when we’re touring high-crime areas. Death threats are common enough, but never as persistent and psychotic as this one has been. And last, I have no idea why Jack refused to believe Tucker or you when you tried to tell him his life was in real danger.”
Stone stripped off his own shirt and dropped his pants, aware of Christian staring appreciatively at him. “Fantasizing about doing the senator?” he quipped.
“Do you seriously think I’m shallow enough to like a guy solely because of how he looks?” Christian snapped.
“I dunno. You tell me.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Stone. Wild horses couldn’t drag me to Jack’s bed, assuming he even swung that way.”
“You really don’t like him, do you?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Do all his staffers feel that way about him?”
“Pretty much everyone who knows him hates him.”
“Except for Chesty, of course.”
Christian snorted. “Give her a week.”
Stone zipped the trousers. “Not a bad fit.”
Christian held the suit jacket for him, and Stone slipped his arms into it. Christian’s hands rested briefly on his broad shoulders and then fell away. Yeah, he was aware of Christian that way all the time too.
He flexed his arms and reached across his body. “A little tight across the shoulders.”
“The tailor should be able to let that out some.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Do you want to be able to move your arms?”
Stone scowled. “What if the tailor and barber and makeup artist or whoever else you hire to pull off this makeover tell someone I’m not the senator?”
“I’ve paid them all exorbitantly to keep their mouths shut. They won’t talk.”
As if on cue, a knock at the door turned out to be the tailor. Stone spent the next hour being poked, prodded, felt up, and otherwise abused as the tailor marked several suits and a half-dozen dress shirts for tailoring. The shoulders and sleeves needed letting out to accommodate his more athletic build.
“While you’re at it,” Stone commented to the tailor, “I need you to let out the left side seams of the jackets to accommodate a sidearm in a shoulder holster.”
“You can’t wear a gun as a senator!” Christian exclaimed.
“Watch me.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Stone retorted.
The tailor looked back and forth between the glaring combatants, grabbed the suit coats, and fled the suite.
The door closed solidly, and Stone stalked over to where Christian leaned against the bedroom wall. “In case you’d forgotten, someone is trying to kill Jack Lacey.” He planted a hand on the wall beside Christian’s head and leaned in aggressively. “And thanks to your ingenious evil plan, I’m Jack Lacey.”
One side of Christian’s mouth lifted in amusement. “Your usual intimidation tactics won’t work on me, you know.”
Stone stared. What intimidation—oh. He shoved away from the wall but didn’t go so far as to step back. He was still close enough to smell Christian’s expensive aftershave. He felt his resolve weakening in the face of the guy’s general gorgeousness and close proximity. “I need a weapon. For self-protection.”
“That’s why you’ve got Tucker.”
He did the protecting. He wasn’t the protectee. He wouldn’t even begin to know how to let someone else be responsible for his safety. Stone asked lamely, “Speaking of Travis, have you told him about this whackadoodle plan of yours?”
“Not yet. I thought I might test out the finished product on him and see how close a match you are.”
He just rolled his eyes. This was arguably the dumbest stunt he’d ever pulled. He had a sinking feeling that when this all went to hell—and it would—that his ass was going to be grass right along with Jack and Christian’s.
He spun away from Christian and all that smoking-hot temptation. How was he supposed to focus on becoming Jack Lacey when all he wanted to do was take the senator’s aide to bed?
Christian launched into a mind-numbing briefing on who all was going to be at this Chamber of Commerce shindig tomorrow evening. He sounded as if he needed the distraction of work too. At least Stone could take solace in not being the only one uncomfortable, horny, and well on the way to frustrated as hell. As for the speech, the good news was that no one scheduled to attend had ever met Jack in person before.
True to his word, the tailor had the first suit back up to the suite in about an hour. Stone donned the Italian suit and stomped into a pair of Jack’s cowboy boots, which fortunately fit him with only a little pinching in the toes. He jammed a cowboy hat on his head and scowled as Christian stepped back to observe the effect.
A slow smile spread on his lover’s face. The kind of smile that needed to be kissed away and then put back for entirely different reasons—focus, dammit!
“You’re a dead ringer for him,” Christian declared.
“You have no idea how unhappy that makes me,” Stone grunted back.
“Hey, he’s a handsome man. He performs very well among the middle-aged female demographic.”
“He uses sex appeal to get votes?”
“Whatever works. Jack will do just about anything to get a vote, scruples be damned. He would flat-out buy votes if he thought he wouldn’t get caught.”
“That man would rob a bank if he thought he wouldn’t get caught,” Stone snorted.
“He can be a wee bit… ethically challenged,” Christian allowed.
“Is the pope a wee bit Catholic?” Stone snorted. “You’re giving me a scary education into the inner workings of our political system.”
“It’s rotten to the core. That’s why I’m hoping to land a job at Justice. Maybe I can do a little something to clean up the corruption.”
He hadn’t pegged Christian for such an idealist. It was a character flaw he’d also been accused of during his military career. It got in the way there too.
He looked up sharply as the suite door flew open and Tucker barged in. “Hey, Chris. What did you need me—” Tucker broke off. “Senator Lacey! When did you get back?”
“Told you it would work,” Christian bit out.
Tucker advanced farther into the suite. “What’s going on? Where have you been, sir—” His jaw dropped as he drew within spitting distance of Stone and finally discovered the ruse. “Okay, that’s freaky.” He walked a three-sixty around Stone. “Day-umm. You look just like him. And exactly why are we playing Impersonate the Asshole?”
Stone’s stare narrowed a little. He frankly didn’t like reminding everyone in sight of a giant asshole. “This was Christian’s lame idea. As you know, the senator will be out of pocket at least four or five days. Mrs. Lacey told Christian to find a way to make all of Jack’s appearances happen, and this was the only thing we could come up with.”
“It might just work. I had to practically be in your shorts to realize you weren’t Senator Lacey.”
Tucker was emphatically not the person Stone wanted in his shorts. That person was currently smirking in satisfaction at the success of the ploy.
“Then you’ll help us with the ruse, Travis?” Christian asked. “If nothing else, you can use Stone as bait to draw out whoever’s trying to kill Jack.”
Tucker grinned. “Talk about dedication to duty. You’re willing to become the guy to protect him.”
“That’s me. I’m the job. We’ll need you to start acting like a bodyguard again tomorrow.”
Tucker nodded. “Sure thing. Just fire me an itinerary, Chris.”
“Will do. We’ll be staying in until the Latin Chamber of Commerce event tomorrow night. I’ve got a crap-ton of briefings to get through if Stone’s going to convince them he’s Jack.”
“I assume you’re moving into this suite, then?” Tucker asked.
Stone started. He hadn’t given it any thought.
“Yes, he is,” Christian answered smoothly. “And I’ll be staying in the second bedroom to keep working on teaching him how to be Jack.”
Tucker grinned. “Good luck with that. Just don’t turn him into a flaming jerk.”
Christian grinned broadly, no doubt enjoying Tucker’s unwitting joke.
Travis headed for the door. “I’ll let you two get to it, then. G’night.”
Stone shoved a hand through his newly short hair. He’d love nothing more than to get to it with Christian. But he wasn’t at all sure Christian was up for a repeat of last night. He’d been all business ever since Mrs. Lacey hired Wild Cards for herself.
“Walk across the room,” Christian ordered.
Stone’s attention jerked back to his immediate surroundings. “What? Why?”
“To see if you walk like him.”
“No one’s going to watch how I walk. As long as I look like him and say what you tell me to, they’ll buy the act.”
“We can’t be too careful. You need to walk like him, talk like him, have the same mannerisms—”
“Let’s not get too carried away, bro. I’m not an actor.”
“No, but you do have to save both our careers.”
Gee. No pressure there. Frowning, Stone walked across the spacious living room.
“No, no, no. That’s all wrong. You have to roll from your bootheel to the ball of your foot. It’s a cross between a ramble and a swagger.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“How Jack walks. Try again.”
He didn’t take three steps before Christian stopped him, saying, “Watch me.”
Stone stared appreciatively at Christian’s muscular thighs and tight ass as the man strode away from him. “Do it like that.”
“Like what?” Stone echoed.
“Concentrate!”
“I am. On your ass.”
Christian whirled, glaring.
Stone grinned broadly. “I’m just saying. Those jeans fit you like a glove, and you have a great ass. I can tell you do a shitload of squats to get it. A guy’s allowed to appreciate hard work, isn’t he?”
“Don’t you try to butter me up, Stone.”
“Butter, huh? I usually go for a nice water soluble lube—”
“Stop it,” Christian snapped.
Stone threw up his hands in mock surrender. “All right, already. Show me this walk thing one more time….”
CHRISTIAN worked Stone hard all evening long, having him practice Jack’s fake Texas drawl and even more fake cowboy saunter. He did it as much to distract himself from wanting to jump Stone’s bones as he did it out of necessity. Thankfully Stone’s playful mood passed, and he quit tempting Christian almost beyond endurance. Although Christian had to admit he secretly enjoyed the flirting. His life had never been structured to enable or encourage anyone to actively seduce him.
Stone might not be an actor, but he was a hella quick study. In just a few hours of coaching, he had impersonating Jack Lacey down to a fine science.
Crap. He had to find some other way to keep their minds off the hot sex they both craved. They were back to being coworkers, and no hint of impropriety whatsoever must mar Christian’s sterling reputation if he was ever going to work at the Justice Department. His work life was entirely separate from his private life, which was, well, private. But Lord, that man was tempting.
He reached for a file of position papers he’d printed out earlier and pulled the top one off the stack. It was possible that someone, somewhere, would ask faux-Jack a question off the cuff. And Stone would have to field an unrehearsed answer.
Within about a half hour, Stone complained, “Can’t you just step in if someone tries to interrogate me and claim I’ve got another engagement to go to or something?”
“I’m only an aide. People at a certain level of influence won’t stand for me deflecting them.”
“God. How do you stand being some asshole’s flunky? You’re too smart to be stuck in a job like this.”
“From your mouth to God’s ear,” he replied dryly.
“I mean it. You don’t value yourself highly enough.”
What was he supposed to say to that? He resorted to a noncommittal shrug.
It was a nightmare trying to cram years’ worth of position papers and political platforms into Stone. But the man did an admirable job of absorbing the information being shot at him out of a virtual water cannon. The good news was that Jack rarely absorbed all the details and nuances of Christian’s position papers, so any holes in Stone’s knowledge wouldn’t come across as strange. Stone was, indeed, as sharp as he’d seemed in the hotel bar when they’d bantered over proper whiskey consumption. And hoo baby, were all those smarts hot.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stone blurted, staring down at a position paper. “Lacey’s opposed to gay marriage and won’t support antidiscrimination laws or an equal rights amendment?”
“Correct.”
“So you knowingly work for the devil.”
“Tens of thousands of bright-eyed wannabes graduate from college and flock to DC, convinced they’re the next great thing to hit that town. At best, a couple hundred of them will get entry-level coffee-pourer jobs on Capitol Hill. I landed a job as a Senate senior staffer. It doesn’t matter with whom. I took the job.”
“Still. Satan.”
“Newsflash—most of them are Satan’s handmaidens. Jack’s not the worst of the worst.”
Stone shook his head. “Congress gave my military outfit no end of trouble. Apparently they thought it was cool to hang out in a situation room and watch us hang our asses out to dry on low-light minicams for their entertainment.”
God knew, Jack had been exactly that type.
“Can I order us some room service?” Christian asked. “I’m famished, and you’ve been working at least as hard as I have.” Plus he really needed something to distract him from all that burning intelligence radiating from Stone. It was possibly the sexiest thing about him to date.
While he ordered up cold sandwiches, Stone ran both hands over his scalp, standing his newly short hair up on end. It reminded Christian sharply of sex between the two of them, and his groin tightened. Now that Stone was back on the payroll, he was off-limits again.
But it was more than a simple question of business ethics. Stone Jackson was the kind of man who could derail Christian’s carefully ordered life. Stone would jet off to his next assignment and resume the nomadic lifestyle, and he’d be left behind. Oh, it would be a wild ride while it lasted, full of thrills and chills, but at the end of the day, it would be a train wreck. And he couldn’t afford that. He couldn’t afford anything that made all the dreadful things his family thought and said about him true.
He really ought to give up trying to impress them. But crap on a cracker, that was easier said than done. They’d sunk their hooks in him when he was young and impressionable, and as long as they continued to yank at those strings, he continued to dance on them.
“Earth to Christian, come in.”
He looked up, startled. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Was it a good fantasy?”
He screwed up his face. “Not even remotely.”
“Damn.”
Christian smiled apologetically. “Have you got any questions about Jack’s position on global warming?”
“Nope. Global warming doesn’t exist and it’s a left-wing conspiracy.” Stone rolled his eyes. “All I have to do is say pretty much the opposite of what I think, and I’ve got this guy nailed.”
“His foreign-policy positions are generally sensible,” Christian retorted.
“Yeah, and I’ll bet you wrote every one of them, didn’t you?”
“Well, maybe.”
Stone grinned and started for the door as a knock announced the arrival of their late snack.
“Sit,” Christian ordered firmly. “You’re the senator. Other people do the menial chores for you.” He was amused at the ensuing tirade from Stone, delivered entirely under his breath. “You must be fun in a foxhole with a mouth like that.”
“You have no idea,” Stone drawled, sticking his tongue in his cheek.
Christian rolled his eyes at the crude gesture. “Crawl back up onto the curb.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said it.”
And that was how eating egg-salad sandwiches turned into a metaphor for their relationship. Stone grinned unrepentantly and charged ahead, while Christian glared disapprovingly and held back.
After the light meal, he asked, “Do you need me to go down to your suite and get any of your stuff for you since you’ll be staying here now?”
“Actually, my gear needs to come down here where I can keep an eye on it.”
Glad for an excuse to escape Stone’s magnetic appeal, he headed down the hall. The metal trunk in the corner of Stone’s room was surprisingly heavy. He hoisted it onto his back and hauled it down the hallway without any trouble, though.
Stone jumped forward to help with the trunk as he swung it off his back in Jack’s suite.
“What’s in this thing, anyway?” Christian asked.
“Surveillance gear. Spare ammo. Bullet-resistant vests. The usual.”
Right. Usual. “You live in a strange, strange world, Mr. Jackson.”
“And getting stranger by the second.”
He went back to Stone’s room to fetch underwear, razor, and toothbrush. Impersonating Jack Lacey could only be carried so far, after all.
It felt weird to be handling Stone’s personal stuff. Which was disconcerting, given that they’d crawled all over each other’s bodies already. How much did he really know about the security man? He’d been so gobsmacked by all that sizzling sexuality that he hadn’t really stopped to know the man himself. And he couldn’t very well start asking Stone a lot of personal questions now. He needed the guy to immerse himself in being Jack Lacey, not dredging up childhood memories and digging into what made Stone Jackson tick. He sighed.
He found a small sports duffel and stuffed in Stone’s undies and toothbrush. He was careful to leave the room looking lived-in, in case a maid from the hotel were to say something to the wrong person. Which was probably a little more paranoia than the situation called for. But he was more nervous about pulling off the impersonation ruse than he cared to admit.
It might be Stone’s job to anticipate everything that could go wrong, but it was his job to focus on everything that could go well. Stone needed a cheerleader right now, not a naysayer. The man was already skeptical enough about this project without him adding his own doubts and fears to the equation. As always, he repressed what he was really feeling and painted on a positive face as he stepped back into the senator’s suite.
“Thanks, man,” Stone said warmly as he took the bag from Christian and peered inside. “That was thoughtful of you.”
“That’s me. Always thinking.”
“Yeah. I noticed. Do you ever let your hair down and go off the clock? You know, just relax?”
“I met you in a bar. Drinking. I was relaxing.”
“That’s unwinding, not relaxing. Doesn’t count.”
He’d been more relaxed than he had been in years when he’d woken up in Stone’s bed. But he wasn’t about to hand over the power that sharing such a detail would give Stone. Instead he opted to go on the offensive. “You’re pretty tightly wound, yourself, Stone. What do you do to relax?”
“I run. Or go to a firing range.”
“You shoot guns to wind down? Holy hell. I’d hate to see what you do to rev yourself up!”
“I listen to god-awful rap music. Puts me in a foul mood in one minute flat.”
“Duly noted,” he commented drolly.
Stone stepped close to him and said quietly, in a charged voice, “I can think of one more thing I do to relax….”
Christian gulped. He shouldn’t. Really, really shouldn’t. But damned if he wasn’t going to. Just one more time. And then he’d swear off of this man before he became an irrevocable addiction.