Port Charles, Upstate New York

"Eve! Get off!" Brenda yelled, shoving Eve Lambert off the bed so that she could get to her blouse beneath. "God, look how this is all wrinkled now! Didn't you see it before you went and plopped yourself down?!"

"Why is your damn shirt on my bed in the first place, Brenda?"

Brenda Barrett, 20-year-old junior at Port Charles University, and Eve Lambert, 21-year-old senior, were the very worst of roommates. Their dorm room was always a war zone because of how badly they got along. Yet now, because of what they had both witnessed at the campus nightclub one week ago, their request to be paired up with different roommates was denied, as campus security was advised by the PCPD that it was imperative for them to stay together. Neither girl understood the necessity for this, and they were both very unhappy about it.

"God, I just rested it there for one minute," Brenda muttered.

"Well, next time - don't," Eve advised.

The two young women stared at each other with dueling, hostile brown eyes. Brenda's eyes were a glittering soft brown, etched with gold; Eve's eyes were a seductive, dark cola-brown. Brenda was petite with a mouth-watering body and gorgeous dark chestnut brown hair with attractive auburn highlights. Eve was tall and curvaceous with short, chic, ebony-colored hair. Both were very attractive: Eve in a glamorous, vibrant, Marilyn Monroe type of way; Brenda in a leave-you-breathless-speechless-heart-palpitating-goddess kind of way.

"I hate rooming with you," Brenda said. "I don't know what I ever did to deserve this torture."

"As if I like rooming with you?" Eve shot back. "And will you turn that off!" she yelled, hurling a shoe at Brenda's CD player, which was blasting the soundtrack from the musical "Annie." "Every day I have to come in here and be tortured by these damn show tunes!"

"They happen to be part of my final, as you very well know," Brenda said, tossing Eve's shoe angrily back at her. "And it sure as hell beats hearing you do your "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' monologue every damn night!" Brenda said, making a gagging gesture.

"Oh, you little….!" Eve grabbed another shoe and hurled it at Brenda's side of the room. "You and your stupid little music boxes. What are you - eight years old?!"

"They happen to be collector's items, you nitwit! What exactly is your excuse for that pathetic Beanie Babies collection of yours?" she asked, hurling the shoe back.

But just as Brenda sent the footwear flying, there was a knock on the door, and it opened to reveal campus security, Commissioner Scorpio, and two of the most attractive men either Brenda or Eve had ever laid eyes on. Eve's shoe sailed past the head of the blonde, who ducked and looked as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world than standing in the doorway of their dorm room.

"Miss Barrett, Miss Lambert. I have some gentlemen I'd like you to meet," Commissioner Scorpio said. "May we come inside?"

As Jax and Scott entered the room behind Mac, Scott whispered to Jax, "Great! Not only are we stuck baby-sitting two college co-eds, but two college co-eds who obviously hate each other. Did you hear that cat fight while we were coming down the hall? This is the mission from hell, Jax!"

"I think hell would be preferable to this," Jax muttered. It was inconceivable to him that he and Scott had been in the most covert, well-trained armed forces unit - the Navy Seals - and had then been inducted as members of the elite FBI special forces S.W.A.T. team, and this was what they were assigned to? Protecting two squabbling, young women who didn't need protecting from anything except each others' bloody, flying shoes!

He gazed at the taller woman, who gave him a smile.

"Hi', I'm Eve. Sorry about the shoe thing," she apologized. "even though I'm not the one who threw it," she added, glaring at Brenda.

Brenda spun around, and Jax got a good look at her.

Wowww, said his eyes.

He thought his heart must have stopped for a moment, but then he heard the beating resume. He shook off the momentary, minor freak-out, dismissing it as just an involuntary reaction to the unexpected. Running into a veritable goddess definitely fell into the category of the unexpected. But he had it under control now. Yeah, she was beautiful. But he'd seen lots of beautiful women, he reminded himself. He was engaged to one. She was just one more. His eyes disagreed with him, however.

"I was only defending myself from her attack," Brenda said.

"Ladies, ladies, please," Mac beseeched them. "This is important. Now go to your respective corners and just relax. I've got a lot to tell you."

Eve sat down on her bed, gazing from Mac to the handsome strangers. Brenda sat down on her bed, and her eyes went to the blonde male whom she had nearly clocked on the head with Eve's shoe. He didn't look that much older than her and Eve, but she was sure he wasn't a student here. Someone like this would never have been able to walk around campus unnoticed. All the girls of Zeta Phi Beta would be trailing after him, trying to see who could walk away with the prize. God, look at those eyes. They were so blue, and yet so green, but at certain angles so silver-gray, too. And his hair was like spun gold, his face like a Michelangelo sculpture, his body . . .

"Miss Barrett?" Mac interrupted her thoughts.

"Oh, sorry. Yes?" she asked, quickly averting her eyes from the object of their interest.

"I said these two gentlemen are federal agents who have been assigned to protect you and Miss Lambert until the Corinthos case is over. This is Special Agent Jasper Jacks, and this is Special Agent Scott Wilkie. They're going to take you away to somewhere safe for a while."

Jasper? He didn't really look like a Jasper, Brenda thought.

"The FBI?" Brenda said, looking stunned. "Where are they going to take us? The semester isn't over, Commissioner. We have finals," Brenda protested.

"I can't tell you the location, Miss Barrett. I don't even know where it is. It's an FBI thing. But you will be allowed to finish out the semester. You just won't be here at the dorm any longer," Mac clarified.

Eve sighed. "This is nuts, you know."

Brenda nodded. "For once I actually agree with her. All we saw were two guys talking and exchanging phone numbers or something. What is the big deal here?"

"Didn't one of those 'guys' dance with you?" Mac reminded her. "And give you something?"

Brenda waved her hand dismissively. "Yeah, one of them danced with me, and he tried to give me his phone number, which I ditched. So what? Why do we need protection?" Brenda demanded.

"I'd like to know that, too," the man called Jasper Jacks said, and he sounded as irritated as his partner looked, Brenda observed. She also observed that he had an accent, which was as sexy as hell.

"Yeah, Sonny Corinthos is a two bit hood. He has no power or pull to hurt anybody," Scott added.

He had an accent, too, Brenda noticed. The same kind as Agent Adonis, over here.

"This isn't about Corinthos," Mac said. "This is about the man these ladies saw him talking to. The man who danced with Miss Barrett."

"Who would that be?" Jax asked, unable to keep the boredom out of his voice and eyes a minute longer.

"From the description Miss Barrett and Miss Lambert gave us, it sounds like it was Bastian Reese," Mac disclosed. "Umm . . . my brother, Robert, said this name would mean something to you two?" he said, glancing uncertainly at Jax and Scott.

"Bastian Reese? Who the heck is that?" Eve asked with a 'who cares' shrug.

Jax and Scott, however, exchanged excited glances. Bastian Reese? Well, well, well. It looked like they were going to have the last laugh on Commander Donnelly after all. Director Scorpio had obviously sent them down here knowing that indeed their special skills would be required. He'd sent them to catch the world's greatest thief and a master of disguise. They were not here to protect these girls, so much as to use their wiles to extract information from them about any details that might help them in tracking down Bastian Reese. Of course, depending on what Reese had said to - or given to - Brenda, protection might very well become necessary. This assignment from hell could actually turn out to be the crowning jewel of their special forces careers if they could get their man.

Brenda got up off the bed and stood in front of the three men. "Hello? Will somebody please tell us what's going on here?" Brenda demanded, taking note of the secretive, and rather gleeful looking smiles that the two special agents were exchanging.

"You're a civilian, Miss Barrett," Jax told her. "You're only on a need-to-know basis."

"Oh, I see. So, I don't need to know if I'm in danger or not? And I don't need to know why the hell I need to be protected and hidden out in some undisclosed location?" she asked, irked by his condescending manner. "Now, who the hell is this Reese guy, and why are you guys having a cow over the fact that we saw him?" she demanded, hands on her hips glaring at him.

"Did he say anything to you?" Jax asked her, ignoring her questions. "Or did he give you anything besides his phone number? And how do you know it was a phone number, did you look at it? By they way do you still have it? "

"Excuse me but, I asked you a question first, Agent Jacks," Brenda said. "Who is this Bastian Reese guy?" She folded her arms as she gave Jax what he could only describe as an accusatory look. "And what do you think he gave me, huh? Obviously you don't think it was phone number, do you? Well, why don't you just fill me in so that I know know what the hell is going on here!"

Jax rose one eyebrow as he gazed at the fired-up little raven-haired goddess-thing standing in front of him. He wondered how many other men had had the urge to shut her big mouth with a kiss that would have her melting with wild passion onto the floor? Oh, what he could do to those lips of hers, he thought, somewhat stunned at where his thoughts were going, considering he was getting married next summer.

"I'm waiting," Brenda said, angered by his continued refusal to respond to her.

"You'll have to forgive her," Eve said. "She's never quite mastered the art of winning friends and influencing people. She just yells a lot."

"Oh, shut up!" Brenda said, shooting Eve a hostile glance. "I think my questions are totally legitimate under these bizarre circumstances, and I want an answer."

"There are certain things we just can't tell you, Brenda," Scott said, using her first name as a means to be on a friendlier basis with her and chill out her combative inquisitiveness.

"Wait a minute. So, you're not going to tell us why we're in danger, or even if we're in danger. And you're not going to tell us who this Bastian Reese guy is, or why your eyes lit up when the commissioner mentioned his name. And yet you expect us to just blindly go along with you to some unknown location, for god knows how long, like obedient, little puppies? Well, I don't know about her, but I don't like this cloak-and-dagger nonsense one bit, and I'm not going anywhere," Brenda said.

Jax gazed at her for a full minute. "You want to know who Bastian Reese is? He's someone you need protection from," Jax responded. "Now, please get your clothes and your books packed up, and lets go."

"That's it? He's someone we need protection from? What kind of an answer is that?" Brenda asked incredulously.

"The only one you're going to get," Jax responded.

"Good enough for me!" Eve said, popping up off of her bed as she began to pack up her belongings.

Brenda rose an eyebrow and sat down on her bed, folding her arms. "Well, it's not good enough for me. Unless you give me a better explanation than that, I am not going anywhere with you people."

"You're going," Jax said.

"Not unless you think you can carry me out of here kicking and screaming," she warned him, her eyes defiant and challenging.

Jax's eyes narrowed as a sigh of irritation welled up within him.

This one was going to be a problem.

His emotions alternated between complete annoyance when he encountered her 'I-dare-you-to-try-it' blazing eyes, and an ambush of desire when his gaze inadvertently fell to her gorgeous lips.

Yeah, a real problem.