5. "My apologies, but, upon further inspection, it looks like you are indeed not the person I was hired to kill." AU Jessa

Will would have been much better suited to this mission, Jem thought as he surveyed the Wolf Creek Resort and Ski Lodge in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. His partner, Will, was much better at wooing women into taking their clothes off. Or so he claimed. They had been partners for years, but Jem had yet to actually see anything that backed up all Will's bad boy talk. Not that Will wasn't good at flirting, but he was also good at getting slapped. It made Jem wonder.

In any case, Will was still a much better choice for this mission, but Will was in Wales meeting his new niece and when the lead on Carolina Carter came up, Jem was already in the area, so they'd sent him. No one knew exactly what Carolina Carter looked like, save for a scar on her upper thigh. It was apparently a souvenir from her first assassination mission, and to celebrate it's success, she'd had the scar outlined in black ink before it faded.

She'd been laying low since her dealings with some very important businessmen in Colombia had gone sour. The tip that she was in Colorado was the first anyone had heard of her in six months. Jem was supposed to be on leave. He'd been in Colorado for Bowdoin International Music Festival and wasn't particularly happy that Carolina Carter had decided to show up two days before Janine Jansen, violin virtuoso and Jem's reason for being there, had been scheduled to do a workshop.

His mission was simple. Find the girl who'd signed in as Tessa Grey. Get her to reveal her upper right thigh. If she had the tattoo, shoot her immediately. It made him sick every time he killed people, even though he only killed the worst sort of people, those who killed innocents and made children into orphans and kicked puppies. It didn't matter to his unconscious mind though. Dreams of killing haunted him.

He squared his shoulders and walked into the lodge's cantina. He knew who he was looking for, knew that the girl who called herself Tessa Grey was pretty, even through the grainy pictures from surveillance cameras, but he wasn't prepared to see her in person. He took a seat at the bar and asked for a brandy. He watched her while he drank, letting the drink warm him from the inside out.

His instincts told him this girl wasn't Carolina Carter. This girl was bundled up in a sweater and leggings and the fuzziest boots he'd ever seen. She was seated alone at a small table, reading a book whose title he couldn't see. Every so often she'd reach out and grab a tortilla chip from the basket in front of her, but she appeared to completely absorbed in that book. The photos from her file couldn't have prepared him. They didn't show how thick her dark hair was or how it shone under the lights. They didn't show how her eyes sparkled when she smiled at something in her book or the elegant slope of her neck when she drained the last of her margarita.

When he finished his drink, he crossed the room and sank into the chair across from her. No, the photos couldn't have possibly prepared him for her, or for the way she jumped out of her skin when he sat down or for the way she'd all but glared at him for interrupting her.

He took a deep, steadying breath and tried to act like Will. Will was always nonchalant and charming. Will always knew what he wanted and how to get it. Will wouldn't have gotten hung up on the way the flush of annoyance crept across her pale skin. Will would have remembered that she was a possibly cold-blooded killer with beautiful eyes and would have said something by now instead of just staring at her like an idiot.

"I'm Jem," he blurted out, and then regretted it. He was Jem to Will, to Charlotte and Henry and Jessamine. To the rest of the world, especially to potentially dangerous criminal masterminds with a penchant for cutting people into small pieces, he was James Carstairs.

She stared at him for a full minute, her head cocked to the side. The back of his neck began to burn as a blush crept up it towards his ears. She finally smiled a little, closed her book, and extended her small hand to him. "Hello, Jem. I'm Tessa."

"I've never seen anyone so absorbed in a book before," he said. It was mostly true. Every now and then Will found a book he couldn't put down, but, even then, he was still aware of what was happening around him. "What's it about?"

"Colombian drug lords," she said without batting an eyelash and his heart skipped a beat. But then she smiled broadly and handed him the book. Gothic text revealed that the title was Winter and a quick glance at the back confirmed that it was some sort of sci-fi fantasy book, not a text on shady Colombian politics. He let go of a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"It seems very interesting," he said, thumbing through the first few pages and surreptitiously planted a microscopic tracking device somewhere in the first chapter. "I wouldn't want to keep you from it."

He handed this book back to her and stood up. This sort of thing always worked for Will. His partner called it the first taste. He'd strike up a short conversation with a girl and then suddenly walk away. Within thirty seconds the girl would be chasing after him and asking to buy him a drink. It worked every damn time.

Of course, Will was a walking Adonis and girls tripped over themselves to get his attention. Jem swore at himself for thinking that it would have worked for him. He was halfway to his room when a voice stopped him.

"I think I've had enough of Colombian drug lords for one night."

He turned around and grinned at her before closing the distance between them and kissing her squarely on the mouth. This was entirely Will's borrowed confidence. This was most certainly not something he was used to doing. He expected her to pull back and slap him before screaming to the hotel manager to call the police.

But she didn't. Shockingly, she kissed him back.

She tasted like tequila and salt and her lips were soft and warm. He couldn't help but wrap his arms around her and kiss her back. He told himself it was because this was also because of Infiltration and Inducement training and not because she smelled so good. This was something Will did all the time. Distract the target with sex and then, when they were most vulnerable, do what needed to be done.

These were not things he wanted to be thinking about. He wanted to be enjoying the way she felt in his arms and not wondering how those dainty hands had pulled the triggers that ended lives. He wanted to think about how her silky hair slid through his fingers and not about the multiple guns and knives strapped to his person. He most certainly didn't want to think about what he'd have to do with those guns and knives if she had the tattoo on her leg.

And that would be the hardest part. Because if she had the tattoo on her leg, he was going to have to kill her. And if she didn't...he wasn't sure what he was going to do.

The logistics of the whole thing were ones he'd never had to deal with before. If she were Carolina Carter, she would certainly be suspicious. If she invited him to her room, she'd probably end up killing him. Of course, he'd have more of an advantage if they went to his room, but how much of an advantage could one really have over an international terrorist?

"I've never done this, ever," he said against her lips and they were completely and totally honest. He'd never done anything like this before. "But would you like to come up to my room?"

She stiffened in his arms and he prepared himself to be slapped. But she surprised him again by burying her face in the crook of his neck and whispering a very quiet "yes."

In any other situation, Jem would have sent her on her way. She wasn't drunk enough not to care and this made the situation infinitely more complicated. But there was still the possibility that he was holding Carolina Carter in his arms and, as far as anyone knew, she might very well be a shy teen lit fan with a penchant for margaritas. Even if he doubted very much that he was holding Carolina Carter in his arms, his superiors would want proof.

He led her by the hand to the elevator. As soon as the door closed behind them, she was kissing him again and he let himself freefall into the kiss even though he was sure it was bad idea. But they were in the elevator and he knew from his research on the building that it would be impossible for anyone to drop from the ceiling if she decided to attack him. Actually, it was one of the safer places in the entire building. So, he kissed her and ran his fingers through her thick hair and enjoyed the little mewling sound she made when he took her lower lip between his teeth and savored the way her hands ran over him.

The elevator ride was over too soon and once they were in his room, things happened quickly. He offered her a drink, which she accepted. While he was pouring, he dropped a fast acting form of rohypnol into hers. By the time he'd finished with the drinks, she'd already removed her boots and sweater and was sitting crosslegged on his bed in a clingy camisole and leggings that did nothing to hide her shape from him.

She accepted the drink and drained it one gulp. He caught her when she collapsed and eased her back onto the bed, brushing her hair away from her face as he settled her against the pillows.

He couldn't procrastinate, but he wanted to. He used one of his smallest knives to cut a hole in the thigh of her flannel leggings. A big hole. It reveal a lot of her creamy skin, but no sign of a tattoo. He cut another hole in the other leg, just to make sure, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. This was not Carolina Carter.

He gathered her things and found that she'd used her keycard as a bookmark before he scooped her up into his arms. It wasn't difficult to manage her dead weight, but it was harder than he'd anticipated to carry her and her fluffy boots at the same time. Thankfully, her room was on the same floor as his and he was able to get her into it without dropping anything.

He'd just tucked her into her bed and kissed her on the forehead when a very angry Colombian burst through her window.

When Tessa Grey woke up, she was not in her bed at the Wolf Creek Lodge. Not even close. She was laying on a hospital bed in a tiny room with bright florescent lights, plain white walls, and the beautiful man from the cantina watching her from where he was leaning against the wall.

"Jem." His name was the only thing she knew about him other than the fact that he looked sexy as hell, even though his shirt was wrinkled and torn and stained with...was that blood?

"What happened?" she asked as she pushed herself up. She felt hungover, in fact, her head was pounding like a bitch, but not like she'd drank so much that she needed to be hospitalized. If anything, he looked like he should be in this hospital bed. "Are you alright?"

He'd crossed the room in two steps and was suddenly kneeling next her bed. She could see now that bruises were forming across one of his cheeks and there was a bit of dried blood beneath his nose.

"How do you feel?" he asked, ignoring her questions. "Are you thirsty?"

"I'm okay. A little embarrassed about not remembering how I got here." She gave him a pointed look that he ignored, "but okay."

He ran a hand through his hair and she noticed that his knuckles were cut and bruised too. "Are you sure you wouldn't like something to drink? Those drugs can dehydrate you pretty quickly."

"Drugs?" she all but shrieked and he blanched slightly. Her mind spun in maddening circles. She remembered meeting him at the bar. She remembered taking a shot of tequila before running after him. She remembered kissing him in the hall and the elevator and sitting on his bed in just her leggings and camisole. She'd been nervous because she didn't usually go about kissing random hot men. She'd drunk the brandy he'd given her in one gulp and it'd burned all the way to her toes. But she didn't remember anything else. What had she done? She tried pot once, in college, but hadn't been able to get over the smell. She couldn't imagine doing something like ecstasy or heroin, not even if she was blackout drunk. Was that why her head hurt so damn badly?

"What exactly do you mean by drugs?"

He steepled his long fingers together and bit his lip. After a moment, he said, "It would seem that you are, in fact, not Carolina Carter."

"Excuse me?"

"This is going to sound ridiculous, but if you'll just...stay with me until I'm through..." He looked at her beseechingly and, to her surprise, she found herself nodding. He smiled briefly and pulled a card out of his breast pocket and handed it to her. "My name is James Carstairs and I am a member of MI6." She gaped and he rushed on before she could speak. "We got a tip two days ago that Carolina Carter, a international criminal mastermind that no one's ever actually seen was in Pagosa Springs at the Wolf Creek Lodge. For some reason, my superiors thought that Carolina Carter was you. My mission was to, uh…" He had the grace to look sheepish. "..to get to know you well enough to see your thighs, where the real Carolina Carter has a distinguishing tattoo and then shoot you if did."

Tessa stared at him, her brain trying to catch up with everything that he'd just told her. "So you…"

"Drugged you and cut up your leggings enough to see that you do not have any such tattoo. I was going to bring you to your room and leave you a note, but there was this Colombian in your room who apparently thought you were Carolina Carter too. Then there was this truly amazing fight that's definitely going to cost my government a lot in repairs when the folks at Wolf Creek Lodge see your room. And I thought if the Colombian had mistaken you for Carter, other people might too. Of course, you were still unconscious because that drug was pretty powerful. So, I decided to call in a favor, and now we're deep in the Cheyenne Mountain military base while my superiors try to figure out what to do with you until Carolina Carter is caught."

She'd kept herself quiet during his entire explanation, even though she had a thousand questions she wanted ask him, but only one bubbled to the surface now. "Do with me?"

"Well, we don't want people to keep trying to kill you," he said with an elegant shrug. "I mean, I was nice enough to confirm who were, but that was a really angry Colombian. You were unconscious, but believe me, you don't want to have deal with people like that all the time." He gestured at his bloody shirt. "Nasty business."

"No, I suppose not…" she murmured, as she looked over the badge he'd given her. There he was, James Carstairs, staring up at her, with Military Intelligence circling his photo and a very official looking seal embossed across the top. "And, um, what exactly are the plans about me that, that are, uh, being discussed?"

"Well," he said, leaning back on his heels. "We know that you've got a brother in London. How would you feel about visiting him for a bit?"

She stared at him with wide eyes and he cringed a little as he stood up. "Just think about it, for a little bit, okay? I'm going to go see if I can't find you something to eat. Will you be alright?"

She nodded as the overwhelmingness of the whole situation settled over her. He stopped at the door and looked back at her, a small smile playing on his lips. "I almost forgot." He gestured to the table next to her hospital cot. "I got you a new copy of your book. The other one kind of got used to knock out the Colombian." And then he was gone.

She stared at the door for a long moment after he left before turning her gaze to the table. Sure enough, a brand spanking new copy of the book sat there. She grabbed it, just for the feeling of normalcy and comfort holding a book gave her, and a piece of paper fluttered out of the front cover. She was surprised to see that it was a note from him.

Tessa,

Sorry about your other book. I'll buy you the rest

of the series too if it'll help make up for this mess.

If it means anything to you, I was really glad to

find out that you weren't an international

terrorist.

Jem

PS: Sorry for considering killing you too.