A Father's Sacrifice (13 page)

“I was going to find you before I went to bed, but Campbell told me you were with Ben. I’ve set traps and traces on your system to alert us if anyone tries to hack in. I’ve also put an extra layer of security on e-mail. There’s a three-layer system of sign-ons now, including the computer-generated pass codes. We’ve got to kee
p the hacker out of the secure area. Keep him from injecting a worm or breaking the encryption.”

Dylan listened to Natasha’s low voice in fascination. She seemed so young, but she was so confident, so smart, so irresistible.

As soon as the thought hit his brain, he rejected it. He wasn’t interested in her or anyone else. He had only one goal—saving his son’s legs.

“Sounds good. What’s your impression of the hacker?”

She sent him a sidelong glance. “He’s very good. Scarily good.”

He nodded. “I know. Whoever this is has already managed to do more than NSA thought anyone would be able to. And those guys aren’t often wrong. So he’s got to be the best.”

Natasha didn’t comment.

He heard something. He couldn’t identify it. In fact it was so faint that it might have been an animal moving about in the woods. Still…

“Let’s go back to the house.” The breeze had picked up. It swirled her bright hair around her face and shoulders, and he thought he saw her shiver.

Was she chilly, or had she heard the sound, too? He didn’t like the idea of her being beyond his narrow circle of protection.

She looked past him toward the house and for a second her eyes glimmered as if with fear. It was the second time he had the feeling she didn’t like being in his house.

“Are you okay?” he asked, just as a flash of light hit his dark-adapted eyes and a loud crack echoed around him.

“Natasha!” he cried as a second flash blinded him.

“Get down!” she shouted.

Her pale skin and bright hair made her stand out like an angel in the darkness. Adrenaline, hot as lava, pumped through his veins as the fight-or-flight instinct drove him.

He lunged for her just as a third flash threw the field into garish light and shadow. He hit her body with enough force to take her to the ground, then he rolled on top of her.

The next flash was accompanied by a deep thud. He cringed. His pulse hammered. He spread his body over hers, shielding her. His chest was pressed against her back and his groin rubbed against her bottom.

Doing his best to ignore the signals his body was sending to his brain, he wrapped her head in the circle of his arms and lowered his head beside hers. Her mouth was pressed against his cheek and his brushed her ear.

“Roman c-candles!” Natasha whispered breathlessly, just as his mobile radio crackled.

Without changing position, he reached for the radio. “Alfred, what’s going on?”

“Fireworks. I’m sending the guard in Beta to find whoever’s setting them off and stop them.”

“Thanks.” He thumbed the radio off and clipped it back onto his belt in one quick motion.

Beneath him, Natasha wriggled. Her movements played havoc with his efforts at control. The feel of her bottom moving against him was torture. He felt himself growing hard.

He was caught between a rock and a very hard place. Her wriggling had aroused him.

Hell, it probably wasn’t just her. It was the combination of surprise, danger, darkness and the feel of soft, firm woman—something he hadn’t indulged in, had hardly thought about, for the past three years.

He rolled off her. She immediately turned over, and he met her furious gaze. Her green eyes sparked like fire striking jade.

From her expression, it was obvious that he hadn’t moved away fast enough. She’d felt his arousal.

She jumped up and planted her feet apart directly in front of him and propped her fists on her hips. The moonlight revealed the spots of pink high on her cheekbones.

“What the hell was that?” she snapped.

That.
He almost laughed, knowing she wasn’t talking about what he was thinking about. He stood, wishing his jeans weren’t so formfitting, but it was far too late for that wish to come true.

He felt his face heat up. “Fireworks, according to Alfred.”

“I mean throwing me to the ground.”

He shrugged. “I thought we were in danger. I was protecting you.”

She threw up her hands. “I’m the FBI agent. I’m the trained professional here. Don’t you think I should have been protecting you?”

Her hair was a mess. Her face was red, her mouth thin with anger, and her pink pajamas were twisted, revealing the tip of one breast. She was furious and gorgeous and strong and sexy.

He shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t.”

She slapped her waist. “I have a weapon—” She cursed. “Where’s my gun? You knocked it out of my pack when you hit me.”

She whirled, scanning the ground, then spotted it a few feet behind them.

She stalked over to pick it up. When she r
eached down, Dylan saw a dark spot on her top, just below her left shoulder. “What’s that?” He touched her arm.

She jerked away. “What? Nothing.”

“It’s blood. You fell on something, didn’t you?” He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. When he peeled the stretchy material of her top down an inch or so, he saw the nasty scratch below her shoulder blade.

“No,” she said tightly. “I didn’t fall. You pushed me.” She stepped away again and used the tail of her top to wipe off her gun. “I’m going to check out the source of the fireworks.”

“No you’re not. You’re coming with me. I want to check on Ben, and you need medication for that wound.” He grabbed her arms and pulled her toward him.

She let him turn her around. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “I’m capable of taking care of myself. There’s nothing to slathering some alcohol on a scratch. And besides, you had no business throwing me to the ground like that. You could have gotten yourself shot.”

“Hey,” he said, angling his head to look her in the eye. “I’m a guy. Protecting is what we do.”

She looked up and he was surprised to see a different kind of light in her green eyes. She appeared a little stunned, and a tiny smile played across her generous lips. She lowered her gaze, then raised it again, as if trying to make up her mind.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “That’s nice.”

And then she raised her head and kissed his mouth. Her lips were like moth wings—soft, fluttery, warm.

He slid his hand through her hair the way he’d longed to ever since he’d first seen her. Then
closed his fist and held her head still as he kissed her—working like hell to keep his kiss as soft and gentle as hers had been.

It took all his control to keep from pressing her to his length and making the kiss a full-body experience. His arm shook with his restraint.

She pulled away and his heart lurched. Her eyes were dewy and heavy-lidded. Had he gone too far too fast?

After a quick searching look, she kissed him again. Again he had no defense.

Her hand ran up his biceps and across his shoulder. She cupped his cheek in her palm as she kept on kissing him.

Suddenly, the utter stupidity of what he was doing hit him. He was kissing a virtual stranger while his home and his child were under attack. He jerked away.

Natasha stood there, frozen for a few seconds, then the red spots returned to her cheekbones and she ducked her head. “I am so sorry,” she murmured, and took off for the house.

Dylan stood in place for a moment, cursing himself. He had a baby to worry about. A baby who was running out of time. What the hell had he been thinking?

The answer to that was a no-brainer. He
hadn’t
been thinking. He’d been reacting. He’d told her
I’m a guy, it’s what we do.
And it was true. Protection.

But also sex.

Chapter Seven

Tom looked at the schematic on his computer screen, then back at the device sitting in front of him. He traced each wire one more time, assuring himself that each one was perfectly placed, perfectly aligned. Then he opened a small plastic-wrapped package and carefully removed the gray substance inside. He kneaded it until it was soft and malleable.

After consulting the schematic again, he separated a nice-sized sphere of the gray substance and rolled it between his palms.

It was almost ready. There was only one last bit of construction—the hardest part. For this he needed a cell phone and something to serve as a trigger.

Just then a knock sounded on his front door. Excitement slithered up his spine. Everything was coming together like clockwork.

By the time his accomplice got back to Stryker’s estate this afternoon, everything would be ready.

It was only a matter of time.

N
ATASHA CLOSED HER EYES
and stretched her arms and back. That was the last test. The imposter program was ready.

She glanced at the clock in the lower right of the monitor. Four o’clock on Sunday afternoon. The weekend had passed quietly. Since Charlene was off and Dylan was working night and day on the neural interface program, she and Mintz had shared babysitting duties.

During the hours Mintz was watching Ben, she worked on her imposter program. Finally, by the time Charlene got back Sunday afternoon to relieve them, she’d completed the program.

She ran through the code one last time, paying particular attention to the encryption she’d set up to firewall the bogus neural interface software.

As she scrolled screen by screen, looking for errors, she rubbed her temple where a headache was beginning. She closed her burning eyes for a few seconds.

“Hey, is everything all right?”

Her eyes flew open and her breath hitched. “Oh, Dylan. I’m fine. Sorry. I’ve looked at this screen so long it’s getting blurry.”

“You should take a break.”

She took in his appearance. He leaned against the door in a supremely masculine slouch. He crossed his arms. A green T-shirt stretched across his shoulders and hung over snugly fitting wheat-colored jeans. His hair was tousled where he’d pushed his fingers through it. He hadn’t shaved, and the dark stubble contrasted sharply with his skin.

She was suddenly struck by a memory of his stubble scraping her cheek when they’d kissed the other ni
ght. It took tremendous willpower not to touch her cheek. His kiss had been just like him—intense, focused. And she’d had the feeling he was holding back. What would he be like if he let go? If he kissed her with the same passion he brought to everything else he did?

She realized she was staring at his lips. What had he said? Something about a break?

“I’d say you’re the one who needs the break.”

“I just spent a couple of hours with Ben.” His expression softened. “I was hoping he’d want a nap, but no such luck. We played ‘Daddy is a big bouncy cushion.’”

Natasha smiled. “I learned that game this weekend, too.”

“Thanks for helping watch him. He likes you. He said you were fun. Fun and ‘bootiful.’”

“He said that?”

Dylan smiled at the way her face lit up. Ben was right. She was “bootiful.” But he should be thinking about the interface—not how beautiful she was.

He stepped around her desk until he could see the monitor. He leaned over and grasped the back of her chair. “What are you working on?”

“I’m building an imposter program on your second server. It should keep the hacker’s accomplice from accessing the real server while you finish the interface.”

“What good is that going to do?”

He saw her stiffen. She’d heard the skepticism in his voice.

“Like I said, it will divert users to a second server—the shell.”

Her hair tickled his nose, sending her fre
sh strawberry scent rushing through him. Stirring his blood. He clamped his jaw.

“I’m not sure I see the point of this. You’re setting it up so the hacker hits this program instead of the real code? If he’s good enough to get in, is your imposter going to fool him?”

“No. It won’t fool him. He’d know right away if we switched programs on him.” She turned her head and suddenly he was too close. Close enough that he could almost taste her lips. So close he could imagine he felt the sweep of her gold-tipped lashes.

He straightened and stepped backward. There was already a war going on between his heart and his brain as he struggled to balance his need to keep Ben safe with the urgency to finish the interface.

Now the game was complicated by a third player—his libido. It shocked him that he could think about sex while time was running out for his son’s legs.

Damn, he wished they’d sent him a male agent.

Natasha said something. He forced his brain to concentrate.

“It’s the house computers I’m concerned about. I want to move their hardwiring to the shell server.”

“Why?”

She swiveled her chair to face him. “We think someone on the inside is feeding information to the hacker, right? This bogus program is good enough to fool anyone other than an experienced programmer.”

“What about e-mail? Ordering supplies?”

“I’ve synched the e-mail and local databases. Everyone in the house will be working on the shell, not the real server. Each time a file is changed, incoming
or outgoing, the change is automatically swept for viruses and worms. Suspicious files will be isolated for me to look at directly. The clean files are updated to the real server every two hours. And hopefully, if the hacker tries to sabotage the system through e-mail, he won’t realize he’s being screened by the imposter.”

Dylan stared at her. “You did all that since Friday,
and
spent what—eight hours with Ben?”

She shrugged. “Playing with Ben was relaxing.”

He nodded. He knew what she meant. An hour spent with his son refreshed and rejuvenated him more than a nap.

“So what about the interface?”

“You and Campbell will still work on the real server. Your time is too valuable and there’s too much room for error if you have to go through the screening process for everything you do. The hacker will see that some programs have been moved, but that won’t surprise him. In fact, he’s expecting me to try and stop him. He’d be suspicious if I
didn’t
change some programs. But it would take him a couple of hours online to figure out just what I’ve done, and he can’t risk staying online that long.” She shrugged. “At least, that’s the theory.”