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How Jaime Met Ben

3 years 8 months ago - - Sydney, Australia

Jamie Elizabeth Anderson in her young and fresh 24-years of age had been to exactly 12 different countries before beginning her latest op. In all the television programs she'd managed to glance at, literature she had absorbed, and missions she had been sent out for however, nothing had prepared her for her trip down under.

It wasn't just hot, it was blistering.

"How does anyone even breathe in this heat?" The 24-year-old complained loudly as she peered out a window. A chuckle sounded from behind her and when the currently dirty-blonde turned around she did all she could to resist biting her lip at the gloriously naked body eating up her own form with two hungry, hazel eyes.

"You could always get naked," the man's voice spoke out seductively with a mischievous smirk on those gloriously bronzed lips of his that made a warm shiver run over her skin and sink down into her core. God, he was sex in one irresistible, sun-tanned package.

"Mmmm," she dragged out the syllable enticingly as she slowly took a step forward. Her thin fingers played with the thin edge of the sheet around her body as the shiny fabric loosened, her brown eyes watching his unblinking as she took another step forward, a thick swallow sending a bob in his throat. A sly and sexy smile spread her mouth, and she watched the man's bottle lip drop slightly, the lust and hunger deep set in those incredible eyes of his.

"As fun as that sounds," her knee came into contact with the pillowtop mattress, her hand never releasing the sheet covering her body, every movement, sound, and look she made throwing the man deeper and deeper into her web of seduction. She was much too good at this.

"...I have a flight to catch." For a second the man just blinked, not understanding or perhaps simply not hearing her last few words until Jamie suddenly started to stand and walk away from him.

"What?" His voice almost choked and he sat up just as she disappeared into the attached bathroom.

"I told you…" she paused. What was his name again? "I'm only in the city for a few hours between my flights." She decided to dodge any names all together. The man grumbled loudly in an obvious exaggeration, and Jamie finally stepped back into the bedroom now in the lacy black bra he'd so expertly removed last night and those tight black jeans that left so little to the imagination.

"Where's my shirt?" She asked aloud and completely ignoring the hungry eyes still complaining about her lack of willingness to replay last night's festivities.

"So is this what you do?" the unnamed man ignored her question as she lifted and threw over his discarded boxer shorts to find one of her boots. "Fly into cities with your sexy little smile and seduce men into letting you lodge at their apartments for free and then fly off the next morning without even letting them know your full name?"

Jamie finally found her shirt off in the corner of the room and wasted no time quickly throwing it over her messy, currently blonde waves. She glanced down at her wrist for a second before finally turning back to the stranger with a mischievous smirk on her face.

"That's not true," she said back with a teasing tone as she swiftly picked up her travel suitcase with one arm. "I usually get them to buy me breakfast too." Before the man had another chance to argue, Jamie Anderson was out the apartment door and into the blistering Australian heat. The faux blonde slid on a dark pair of glasses and threw her bag adorned with fake airline markers over her shoulder.

The sun beat down on her slowly tanning skin as she started down the stairs with a smirk on her face and a slight shake of her head at just how gullible these pretty young guys she always ran into could be.

Jamie's phone began to vibrate in her back pocket just as she reached the bottom of the stairs and she didn't hesitate to answer it without even a glance at the ID.

"A dark blue sedan is going to pick you up two blocks south of your location," the familiar voice spoke without a second of hesitation. "Get in it, tell them the instructions you were given and the car should take you to the park where your contact will be waiting."

Jamie smiled as she looked around for a moment as a reflex. "Good morning to you too, my love," her smooth words held a hint of sarcastic wit to them.

"Well I guess I don't have to ask how your flight went. Tell me the poor man you seduced into bed at least knew you weren't planning to stay long this time?"

Jamie smirked. "But of course," she said slyly as she approached a corner and took a second to glance around. "Women like us don't spend enough time in one place to build relationships. He was more than willing to give the young and naive American flight attendant a tour around the city and his apartment."

"My God, Anderson," the man on the other side of the line almost spoke with a hint of admiration. "You are a force to be reckoned with." A bubbly laugh filled the empty space and Jamie took the pause in conversation to climb into the arranged vehicle and repeat the phrases she'd been instructed to.

"So where am I going, Alex?"

"Well I take it must really have been a good morning for you if we're back to first name basis." Jamie silently rolled her eyes but didn't bother to verbalize the action. The invisible voice made some light chatter for a few more minutes as the preassigned car took Jamie to her destination. She let him talk, knowing full well that since he was her handler and she was currently in a different timezone he would end up spending a very long night in his office chair until she got back to the safe house later her evening and his late morning.

"There is a music festival that is being hosted in the area you're to meet. We have reason to believe the target is going to be meeting other international buyers tomorrow during the festive. Hundreds of thousands people are going to be present at this festival, a lot of money is being put into some of the bigger performances and there are a lot of higher class personnel that are going to take advantage of the chaos to make business they normally hide underground."

The car finally came to a stop and Jamie took a step out as she peered out into what looked like an almost empty amphitheater.

"Did you read the file I sent you before your departure?"

"Yea," her brown eyes scanned the area as she spoke. "I'm looking for a Henry Morrison. He works for the venue where the festival is being placed and oversees lighting and electrical. Though he hasn't officially been turned yet, we know his price tag isn't very high and he'll snitch of Coulton without much provocation."

"Chances are he doesn't understand what Coulton is really doing or how dangerous he is, so you need to be cautious about Morrison's ignorance in this situation."

"Right," Jamie breathed out a hard breath. "Get in, acquire an asset, gather intel, get out."

"If he misses a meet or changes a detail at the last second, get out immediately. We don't need Coulton knowing we're on his turf, and if he finds out about Morrison, he will be on a fast-track mission to figure out who he's leaked intel to."

"Got it," she said back quickly. Jamie was ready to disconnect.

"Jamie," the other line called out quickly before she had a chance to end the conversation. There was a pause. "Be careful. You're not in a particularly dangerous area or even in enemy territory here, but sometimes getting too comfortable is more dangerous than being in a war zone all together.

"I got it," she repeated again."

"Jamie," his voice was stern this time around and Jamie had the urge to roll her eyes. "Don't be stupid. This is not a vacation, its a mission and I swear, if I miss the birth of my child trying to save your ass out there because you did something stupid, you will never be able to repay that to me."

"Goodbye Alex," she said back tersely and quickly before he had a chance to throw another word of caution into the air. The phone made a soft thlunk as she dropped it into her bag. Jamie took a hard and deep breath. There was a tinge of guilt after hearing her handlers last comment, but she tried not to let it jostle her nerves.

If there was something she knew didn't mix well with being the kind of person and the kind of professional she was, it was those tricky, sticky, clinging little things called attachments. Love and spy business did not mix. Relationships and the CIA didn't mix. Families and being a covert operative did not mix. She had been telling herself these things since before she even was officially recruited or invited to the farm. When she had first been assigned Alex as her handler, he had also mentioned something similar. Now that same person, the closest thing she had to family besides her actual immediately family was married and expecting the birth of his first child.

"Hypocrite," she spoke gruffly to herself in annoyance. She knew in a small part of her that it was different in her case and his. She was always in the field, always in a different country and city, and overall in more dangerous situations than he. Still, she had always felt like there was an unspoken pact between them to remain unattached by any means possible, and in the past year he had entered in a relationship, ended up engaged, gotten his fiance at the time pregnant, married her, and now was days from expecting the birth of his first child.

Jamie tried to let go of the poisoning thoughts and let her focus return to the mission. She was looking for a man she had never gotten a photo of and had the most minimal description of. The only clue she had was he was going to be holding a flashlight...because a flashlight in the middle of the daytime was not at all conspicuous. The young woman glanced down at her watch for only a moment to check the time. Realizing she was less than three minutes from meeting the contact, she turned back up just in time to dodge a mid-forties man passing by quickly. Her eyes narrowed for just a second. The dark head of partially peppered hair walked quickly away in the opposite direction and into a passing group of workmen carrying heavy sound equipment. The young operative had zero reason to be weary of the everyday ordinary event, but something deeply rooted in her subconscious was sending off a small red flag. Her warm brown eyes stayed focused in the area where the man had walked off to and she didn't hesitate to start off in that direction.

A speck of the dark peppered hair showed itself over to the left and without coming off as too obvious, Jamie Anderson began following him. Her mind replayed all the details of the file Alex had given to her before she boarded the flight back in D.C. She knew Morrison was in his mid forties and probably dressed similarly to the man that almost just walked into her, but she also knew the man was expecting her meet.

The man in question rounded a sharp corner and Jamie resisted the urge to pick her pace for fear of attracting unwanted attention. The instant she reached the corner and turned however, the man was gone. Her pace slowed down as her eye searched for any sight of the man, but dozens of younger, brunette and some blonde heads mixed and moved about, none of them matching the older man she had just been following. If there was a small flag out before, the wind was making that flag much bigger and obvious now.

She glanced down at her watch again, and felt the beginning prickles of caution spread over her skin. Morrison was no where to be found and any other contact that was supposed to find her was now eight minutes late. Every sensory and siren in her head was beginning to tell her to abort her mission, the words of caution Alex gave her repeating in her mind.

She didn't remember thinking about getting her phone or making the decision to call in the situation before she had the small cell in her hand and dialed.

"I think I've been compromised. Morrison missed our meet and I think I've been spotted. I need a safe house," her words were rushed out before she even heard any indication that the line was connected.

"A safe house is being found now. Just get out of there as calmly as you can. Even if Morrison's situation has been outed, there's no reason to believe your identity or allegiance has been compromised. Get onto the street and head north. I'll send you coordinates as soon as I can."

Jamie was ready to turn for the nearest major street as soon as the line disconnected. Her fast feet started before her line of sight did, heading backward. She was just turning in the direction she had been instructed when something caught her foot. Being well trained and always prepared she didn't need a moment to gather herself. The exact instant her foot caught and her body began to fall, her entire body reacted, arms stretching out, joints bracing themselves, head turning in, hands out to catch her fall. Her entire body collided almost instantly with thin and outstretched metal, the structure twisting and bending under her small body as she collided with the fall in one tangled heap.

"Shit," her voice rang out without even intending to as she surveyed her situation.

"What the fuck!" A sharp voice rang out that moment. Jamie was quickly to look up in the direction of the voice just as a tall mid-twenties ran ran over in her direction.

"Fuck," he spoke out angrily as she pulled herself out of the mess. He didn't hesitate to extend a hand out to offer her help up but she ignored the gesture all together.

"I told those bloody bastards this was a bad idea to set up the cameras so early," Jamie could hear the voice as if it was distant, her attention more focused on her line of sight as she searched around for any indication of foul play.

"My supervisor's goin' to be mad as a cut snake," the young man muttered out quickly and loudly as he surveyed the damage. Finally confident that she hadn't attracted any unwanted attention to herself, Jamie turned towards the man and felt herself slow to a pause.

The man couldn't be more than 25 to 27 years old, his medium to light brown hair competing with a gloriously authentic tan that seemed to make his lighter brown eyes stand out like something Jamie didn't think brown eyes could do. What made the young woman stop in her tracks and stare however was not the color of the young man's eyes, but the focus in them, the bewildered expression on his handsome face, and the complete lack of movement as he stared almost frozen in his position.

He was staring at her, and for a single and first moment in her life, Jamie Anderson forgot to breathe.

Author's Note:

Hello my little ducklings! I am so sorry. I wanted to update this earlier.

I've just literally been too tired. Who knew working with toddlers all day could be so exhausting? (that is sarcasm...and I do love working in preschool.)

Anywhos, since I wasn't expecting even one review, the moment I got my second review I knew I needed to pick up the pace and get the next chapter out.

As always, reviews make excellent inspiration and motivation. Let me know if you like Jamie and Ben and what elements of Jamie's parents you see in her. ;)

Lots of Love,

- Liz