Elemental: Earth by L.E. Washington Page A

had to be Zinsser. He’s going to blow our cover. How did such a dumbass get to be our handler?”
    They all hated Zinsser. He was a chauvinist and felt this was the only way to use women in the field—as sex-bait.
    “I get the feeling that our so-called cover is blown,” Tessa said. When she said it, she noted that she didn’t feel the least bit of anxiety about that. A part of her wanted the truth out and this charade blown wide open. It wasn’t even about the physical attraction she felt for Gavin. It was about this esoteric connection that she couldn’t explain. She couldn’t believe she was admitting this to herself, but she felt like a hole in her soul was filled, like the missing piece of the puzzle was finally found. She hated the way it sounded in her mind. She had always hated hearing those types of metaphors come out of the mouths of women. It made them sound so weak to her. But now, she found herself not only thinking like them but feeling like those women, too. Was she losing her edge, her tough and impenetrable shell that has protected her for all these years?
    She had always sworn that she would not allow this very thing to happen to her. She had seen what her mother had morphed into. Once revered for her high level of intelligence and astounding strength, her mother had served as a CIA operative for years, straight after she graduated college at the early age of nineteen. She had been the youngest female ever to work for the CIA, and her penchant for puzzles and languages and codes gave her the top level of security in all things classified. Her mother had served her country in capacities that even Tessa’s father did not and could never know. Three Secretaries of State consulted Tessa’s mom on a regular basis, and Tessa had reason to believe that her mother was actually the one person who was able to stop what some believed would have exploded into World War III.
    But then, Ms. Elizabeth Wade became Mrs. Elizabeth Wade Brooks, and Tessa saw that as her fall from grace. Her mother became interested in being a wife, not espionage or top secret missions. She took time off from the CIA, declined job offers, and sooner than later (at least to Tessa), she was pregnant and settling for being wife and mother rather than allowing herself to be an asset to her country anymore.
    Tessa saw it as traitorous to all females. “Why would you play in to the ‘Disney Princess’ philosophy?” Tessa had asked time and time again.
    “It is not like that, Tessa,” her mother would always remark with exasperation. “You don’t understand because you haven’t been there. It is not a sign of weakness, dear. It’s a feeling of fulfilling the other part of who you’re as a woman, honoring the reason your body is the way it is, and taking on another role to better the world in another way.”
    Tessa always blew it off when her mother would explain to her what it felt like to “truly fall in love and want to become a better person through and along with this one who completed you”. She felt like it was beneath her mother to sink to the standards that a society of morons tried to force upon individuals. SHE would never sink to that level. She would be true to herself and never abandon herself and her dreams for someone else.
    But here she was wondering if she was feeling what her mother had tried to describe to her several times throughout life, and it made her both comfortable and uncomfortable, giddy and apprehensive. And while she tried to maintain a focus on the job and completing the mission, she felt a sensation of damp heat and a tugging hunger between her legs that was making it harder and harder for her to think about Gavin in any way BUT her lover.
     
     

Chapter Five
    In spite of his own orders, Gavin found himself restless and needing to see Tessa.
    “Are you serious?” Reed asked. “Weren’t you the one who told us to cut them loose? Now you’re wanting to test them?”
    “I know what you’re