The Girl Who Swapped (15+) SAMPLE ONLY

Destination: The Lynan Institute

"Drive, just drive!"

There was no mistaking the urgency in her tone. He pressed his foot flat to the floor, darting nervous glances occasionally at his passenger, worried that she might suffer a stroke or fit before they arrived at their destination.

Wait a minute, she hadn't specified her destination, had she?

"Where we going, Missus?"

"Oh, shit, sorry," she clapped her hands together. "I forgot to say. The Lynan Institute? Dreyfus Street?"

He nodded. He knew it, though he had never actually dropped, or picked up, anyone from the Lynan Institute. Maybe this fare was his chance to find out what went on there.

He took a surreptitious glance back at her. She had wrenched open the back door of his black cab, shouted her instruction to drive, and he'd automatically obeyed with only a cursory glance at the back seat (no sign of any weapon—okay, this is legit) before driving off.

Now he could look more closely. He guessed the woman was in her early thirties, well-dressed, with light-brown hair cut in a razor-sharp bob. She wore an expensive coat over skin-tight leather trousers.

Marvin sighed in pleasure. Too often women these days favoured the casual look: jeans or the dreadful yoga pants. To his mind, though, there was nothing as erotic as a smartly-dressed woman.

His passenger was shifting about in her seat, a toe tapping up and down, beating the sound of her impatience on the cab floor.

"Going as fast as I can, Missus," he added, watching the agitation on her face, her frown, her pursed lips and the frequent sighing.

"To be honest, I prefer Ms," she said, but she smiled so sweetly as she said it, the wrinkles on her forehead smoothing out and the lines about her mouth suddenly disappearing, and so he decided he didn't mind.

"Going as fast as I can...Ms," he amended. She winked at him in the mirror, one eyelid slowly closing over a large brown eye. She touched her top lip with her tongue, a gesture so fleeting Marvin wasn't sure he'd seen it, but another wink seemed to confirm it.

He was her slave for evermore.

Friendly relations now set up, he decided to risk satisfying his curiosity.

"The Lynan Institute, then?"

She grinned at him. "What do you want to know?"

"Well, us cabbies are awfy—nosey about it. What is it? What goes on in there?"

She winked again.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know, Marvin?" With a further smirk, she sank back into the seat, relaxed at last.

It didn't look as if Marvin was going to get that long-standing, niggling question answered after all.

Hold on, how did she know...

"I read your security badge." The voice piped up from the backseat. Okay, so it wasn't rocket science how she had managed to work out his name, but reading his mind just there...Good job the Lynan Institute wasn't too far away now, that was for sure. Tongue tricks or not, Marvin's admiration began to drain away. He wasn't sure this woman was legit after all.

"Keep the change."

His fare had exited the taxi gracefully, gathering together her coat and swinging her legs out in an arc.

The tip was generous, but by no means outstanding. Marvin didn't linger to watch her go into the Lynan Institute.

The knowledge of what the institute did would have to wait. Marvin's taxi-driving colleagues would stay in ignorance for a little while longer.