Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games Series Book 2) (6 page)

“I’ll tell Miranda to wire payment into your—”

“I already told you,” Tabby grinds out through clenched teeth, “I don’t need the money. In this case, I don’t
want
it.” Her eyes meet mine, and in them I see entire cities burning to the ground. “And no more questions about Søren.”

I keep my voice carefully measured to hide the unease I feel hearing her say that. “I need to know whatever you know about him. It’s critical information that could have a major impact on the success or failure of the job.”

“There’s a ninety-nine percent probability the job will fail, no matter what you know.”

Her lack of confidence is surprisingly painful. “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

Tabby stares at me, her chest rising and falling in irregular bursts. I feel the tension in her, the weight of it in her body, how much effort it takes to stand motionless when everything inside her is pure violence. I recognize it because it’s something I’ve felt myself countless times, on countless missions. Gun in hand, crouched low against a wall in the dark, counting my breaths as I lie in wait for an enemy.

Whatever happened between the two of them, she carries it with her like the lone survivor of a battle, standing in the middle of a field gory with bodies and blood.

She says, “The only thing you need to know about Søren Killgaard is that he’s more clever than the devil, and not nearly as nice. If you show any weakness, he’ll exploit it. Whatever you think his endgame is, you’ll be wrong. He’ll always be five moves ahead of you, no matter how well you plan, and there’s only one way you’ll ever catch him.”

“Which is?”

Tabby smiles. The cold pragmatism in it sends a chill down my spine.

“By using me as bait.”

W
e leave
for LA at midnight. And for the next nineteen hours, Tabby doesn’t speak to me.

I’m comfortable with silence, but her silence is so loud, it screams. She’s furious about that kiss, but it goes deeper than that. I took something from her when I didn’t give her a choice. Worse, I suspect, is the way she feels about her own reaction to having my mouth on hers.

She liked it, which makes her hate me even more.

Women.

“Are we driving straight through to LA?”

Startled, I glance over at her. She’s staring out the window of the car, refusing to meet my eyes, the question asked in a tone that suggests she doesn’t care one way or another.

Her choice of travel wear raised my brows when I returned to her place after making a quick trip home to pack my bags, and I let my gaze rake over it once again, if only to satisfy my growing need to look at her. Tight black leather everything, including gloves, motorcycle jacket zipped up to her chin, and combat boots. The only thing she’s missing is a helmet. Except for her face, not an inch of skin is showing.

I recognize this outfit for what it is. Armor.

It’s a good thing it’s only March and the weather is cool, because August in that getup would be murder.

“No. Wanted to get into Tulsa before we stopped for the night.”

We’ve had three short stops so far at gas stations along the interstate, just long enough to hit the head and refill the tank. If I were alone, I’d push straight through, but then again, if I were alone, I wouldn’t be driving.

I know from my research that her parents were killed in an airplane crash when she was eight and wonder how much of her avoidance of flying is based on that.

I also wonder how much of who she’s become is based on those deaths, and the death of the uncle she went to live with after the loss of her parents. By eighteen, she was all alone in the world.

Except for Søren Killgaard, whose relationship to her remains a mystery.

For now.

Suddenly she mutters, “I’m so fucking pissed off at you!”

I stare straight ahead at the twin beams of the headlights illuminating the highway and wait.

After a moment, she says, “I can’t think when I’m mad. When I can’t think, I feel out of control. When I feel out of control, I panic. Are you seeing the pattern here?”

I keep my voice low and calm, nonthreatening. “It won’t happen again.”

“You said that before,” she says crossly, “but the problem is that I think I want it to.”

I nearly drive off the road. This kind of straightforward admission is the last thing I expected, and I’m totally unprepared for it. I quickly decide the only way to handle it is in kind.

“I’m not sure how to respond to that.”

She sighs, pulls the elastic out of her ponytail, and drags her hands through her hair. “Forget it. Tell me a story.”

Hello, fly ball out of left field.

“Sure.” I think for a moment, and then my brain presents me with a sly idea I have to admit I find totally genius, even if I did think of it myself. Well, probably especially since I thought of it myself.

“Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl.”

She looks over at me sharply.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, sweetheart. Am I telling this story or not?”

She leans her head against the headrest and closes her eyes. “Yes. Make it good.”

“I will if you’d shut up long enough to let me talk.”

I have to pretend I don’t see the stabby look she sends me. “As I was saying: boy, girl. The boy was strong and smart, selfless and courageous, a natural leader, and, of course, very handsome. And incredibly popular. Your real hero type.”

Tabby’s groan is pained. “For fuck’s sake, Connor.”

I push on, ignoring for the moment how much I like hearing her say my name. “The girl was strong and smart too, but in a way that most people couldn’t understand. And because most people didn’t understand her, it was hard for her to make friends. So because it was hard for her to make friends, she learned to rely on herself instead of anyone else.”

Beside me, there’s silence.

My voice grows quieter. “The girl lived alone in a castle high on a hill. She was a princess, you see. But her parents were dead, and she was an only child. An orphan. She had no one to play with and no one to talk to and no one to tell her how amazing she was.” I glance at her. “How beautiful.”

She’s sitting very still, staring straight ahead, her posture stiff and guarded. It’s all I can do not to reach out and stroke my fingers down her satin cheek.

“One day an evil wizard came to town. He’d heard of the beautiful princess, lonely and vulnerable in her castle—”

“Vulnerable!” Tabby scoffs.

“—and hatched a plan to steal her heart and then take over her kingdom by making all her subjects think she’d done something terrible. He began to woo the princess with jewels and gold and promises of forever—”

“Tread carefully, jarhead,” says Tabby, her eyes on the road and her jaw set.

“You already know I’m no good at that,” I reply softly.

She swallows and looks down at her hands clenched in her lap. “I don’t like this story.”

“Should I jump to the ending? Spoiler alert: the hero saves her.”

Tabby looks over at me, her eyes shining like gems in the dark. “A real hero would teach the princess how to save herself.”

Our eyes hold. A flutter works its way through my chest. I murmur, “Noted.”

She breaks eye contact first. We drive in silence for miles, until finally she says almost inaudibly, “He never promised me forever.”

Søren. His presence between us is palpable, a heavy weight in the air. A darkness.

“What did he promise you?”

Tabby looks out into the night, to the dark landscape passing by the windows in a blur, and says nothing.

* * *

W
e find
a Best Western hotel in Tulsa and take adjoining rooms on the fourth floor. I’m impressed that Tabby has brought only one small suitcase for her clothes, but judging by the size of her normal wardrobe—skirts that make the word “mini” seem overgenerous and child-size tops—I can’t say I’m really surprised.

Her computer gear, on the other hand, could have its own zip code.

“Good thing I drove the truck,” I mutter, hauling a fifty-pound black case from the back of my Hummer.

“Truck?” says Tabby, standing next to me in the parking lot as we unload our bags. “Is that what you call this monstrosity?”

I drag another of her bags out, this one even heavier than the first, and drop it at her feet. “Spare me the tree-hugging psychobabble about gas consumption and emissions, will you, sweetheart? This vehicle is built for a specific purpose—”

“Overcompensation for feelings of penis size inadequacy?” She smiles.

“Safety,” I correct and smile back. “As if you haven’t already noticed, I’m not exactly lacking in the size department.”

Involuntarily, her gaze drops to my crotch. Then she catches herself, blinks up at me, and flushes. Her voice comes out of her mouth with the cutting power of a sword.

“As a class three truck, this vehicle is exempt from many DOT safety regulations and lacks standard safety features, including side air bags and stability control. In addition, its large blind spots make—”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Don’t make me murder you in the parking lot of a one-star hotel.”

“Yeah? You think you could get the drop on me?” Amused, I look her up and down. “You’re lookin’ at two-hundred-forty pounds of grade-A Marine Corps male, sweetheart. You’re what, a buck ten, tops?”

She says, “First of all, you’re shit at judging a woman’s weight. I haven’t been one hundred and ten pounds since junior high school. More to the point, I’m an expert in Krav Maga. Not that I’d need it to lay you out.”

I prop my hands on my hips and grin at her. “Really. You got something more effective to take me down than the lethal hand-to-hand combat system developed by the Israeli Defense Forces? I can hardly wait to hear it.”

Looking right into my eyes, she calmly answers, “Two things, actually.”

“C’mon. The suspense is killing me.”

Her smile could melt steel. “My tits. If I unzipped my jacket right now and showed you the girls, you’d definitely be distracted long enough for me to bury a knife in your chest.”

She slings her laptop bag over her shoulder, grabs the handle of her suitcase, and jerks her chin at the rest of her bags that I’ve already unloaded. “By the way, all that gear can stay in the car. I won’t need it until we set up a COM center at Miranda’s.”

Still reeling from the mention of her breasts and the image it conjured—the accurate image, because I’ve seen her in all her bare-assed glory coming out of her shower—I ask, “You’re not worried about leaving your precious computer equipment in the back of my truck in a public parking lot all night long?”

“Give me a break, jarhead. I know an armored car when I see one. Someone would have to use a fifty-caliber machine gun to get through the amount of ballistic composites you’ve got on this thing.”

Should’ve known she’d notice the mods on the Hummer. She notices everything. “Thought you said it wasn’t safe.”

“Oh, it’s safe when it’s parked. It’s only a death trap when you’re behind the wheel. Has anyone ever told you that you drive like a twelve-year-old with ADD who forgot to take his Ritalin?”

Then she sashays away, hips swinging. I throw my head back and laugh, because
goddamn
she can give as good as she gets.

I stop laughing when I realize how much I like it.

A little flirtation is one thing. But I know how fucked a man’s judgment can get when he’s distracted by a woman. I’ve seen it before. When the friendly jabs become serious attraction and your concentration is shot because all you can think of is getting her beneath you in bed, that’s when mistakes happen. And in my line of business, any mistake could be deadly.

I’ve already seen how easily this particular woman can snap my self-control. The kiss in the restaurant was proof of that. I’ve never done anything remotely like that before, suffered an instantaneous, lust-fueled brain blackout, and I should be worried about it.

I should be, but I’m not.

Which is a problem.

Watching her walk through the sliding doors of the hotel, I resolve that there will be no more flirting. Until this job is over, I’ll be strictly professional. I can’t afford to be otherwise.

Now I just have to convince my dick to get with the program.

A
t five a.m.
, I finally give up the battle with insomnia and rise from bed.

I go for a run, trying to wipe all thoughts of the past from my mind and focus on the task at hand. Finding Søren Killgaard. Or, more precisely, getting him to find me. It won’t be hard. But Connor isn’t going to like what I have in mind.

Not that I’m going to tell him what it is.

There’s only one thing in this world I value more than my privacy, and that’s my sanity. It took me years to regain my mental footing after what happened between Søren and me, years of therapy that forced me to take a hard look at myself and the way I’m wired, but it only took Connor Hughes a single evening to unravel all those years of work.

It only took him a single kiss and I was undone.

In front of everyone in that restaurant, in front of those two ridiculous, simpering girls staring at him from the bar, undone.

And I don’t even
like
him.

I don’t understand it. It makes no sense. There’s no logic to what happened to my body when he put his mouth on mine, the sheer electric jolt of pleasure I felt, right down to my toes. It was only a moment of utter madness, but I was shaken to my foundations, and still am.

“Stupid,” I mutter. I pump my arms and legs faster, driving myself hard until I’m drenched in sweat.

By the time I return to the hotel, the sun is rising, the birds are chirping, and I’m slightly less inclined to take off someone’s head. I go around the back, skirting the main lobby because the rear stairs are a more direct route to my room, and pass the pool. Someone else is up early, swimming laps with powerful, efficient strokes that make hardly a ripple in the surface.

When the swimmer ascends the pool steps and rises from the water, I stop dead in my tracks.

It’s like porn. There’s no other way to properly describe it. It would only be more perfect if I were watching it in slow-mo and there were a cheesy soundtrack playing in the background.

The swimmer is very muscular, broad through the shoulders and back, but with narrow hips that highlight the bulk of his upper body and thighs. On anyone less well-proportioned, his substantial muscle mass would make him look thick and ungainly, but with his height and that tapered waist, the overall effect is one of balance. Power, perfectly aligned with grace.

Water runs in rivulets over acres of tanned skin, streaming down his back and legs. His wet black swim trunks cling to his spectacularly perfect ass. Even his bare feet are perfect, masculine and brown as a nut against the pale concrete coping.

He reaches for a towel tossed casually on one of the chaise longues that line the pool and proceeds to dry himself, supple as a cat. I watch in fascination. He has no tattoos, no scars, no visible body hair. His virgin skin is completely unblemished, gleaming like rubbed wood in the morning light.

My brain and my ovaries are in total agreement: This man is
stunning
.

Then he turns around, catches me staring through the wrought iron fence that surrounds the pool, and calls out, “Morning, sweet cheeks. You’re up early.”

Of course. Of
course
it’s Connor. The universe has decided it would be amusing to watch me grapple with a sexual attraction to a man I want to slap most of the time. When I’m not wanting to roll my eyes in disgust or douse myself in antibacterial spray so I don’t catch one of the virulent strains of STD he’s probably carrying.

The way the blood rushes to flood my face is actually a relief, because it’s diverting some of the blood that was throbbing between my legs.

“Good morning, Marine,” I say coolly. “Just getting in from the strip clubs? Needed some chlorine to get rid of all that rainbow glitter and dime store perfume?”

He grins, slings the towel over his shoulders, and ambles closer to the fence. The light catches the silver chain around his neck, glinting off his dog tags. I try not to look at his abdomen, because I’m pretty sure he’s got an eight-pack—not that it’s even physically possible—and I don’t want to stare.

Any more than I already have.

Don’t notice his hard nipples, don’t look at how perfect and brown they are or how there isn’t a single stray hair on his entire gorgeous chest.

There’s a border of low shrubs planted on the inside of the fence. Connor stops just in front of it. He runs a hand through his wet hair, pushing the dark mass of it off his forehead. I stifle the urge to laugh because I find the simple motion completely erotic and I’m the biggest idiot to ever walk the face of the earth.

His gaze flicks over the length of my body, my sweat-drenched T-shirt and little nylon jogging shorts. His grin dies. A muscle in his jaw flexes. In a different tone than moments before, he says, “We should be on the road within the hour. I’ve spoken to Miranda. She’s expecting us by—”

“I’ll be ready,” I say indifferently. “Meet you at the car in thirty.” I turn and walk away, trying to convince myself I really can’t feel the weight of his stare on my back as I go.

* * *

I
wake
up with a start sometime in the late afternoon with a crick in my neck and my heart pounding. I’d been having a dream that I was falling from a great height, freezing wind tearing at my clothes and snapping through my hair, the air so thin it swallowed my screams the moment they left my lips.

From the driver’s seat, Connor says, “You twitch in your sleep like a dog.”

I mutter, “I was having a nightmare. I dreamt I was you.”

He chuckles. “Aw. Am I annoying you already? You just opened your eyes.”

“You only annoy me when you’re breathing. Where are we?”

“Close to Albuquerque.”

I’m surprised. “New Mexico already? We’re making good time.”

I regret that instantly when Connor smiles. He says, “Of course we are. I’m driving.”

“God. It’s too bad arrogance isn’t painful.”

Another mistake, because it causes Connor to laugh. Loudly.

I sit up straighter, scrub my hands over my face, and take a swig of water from the plastic bottle in the holder between the seats. Right after swallowing, I realize this bottle wasn’t there when I fell asleep however long ago. Connor must have put it there.

For me?

He says, “Sorry there’s no ice or lemon in it.”

He remembered I ordered ice and lemon with my water at the bar in DC. Unsure what to make of that, or that he anticipated I might be thirsty when I awoke, I return the bottle to the cup holder with no comment.

After another few miles of driving in silence, I ask, “So what’s the plan?”

Connor’s dark brows lift. He glances over at me. “Oh,
now
the Abominable Snow Queen wants to talk plans?”

I exhale a long, pained sigh. “Did your parents ever ask you to run away from home?”

He laughs again. It’s a big, unselfconscious laugh, deep and natural. In spite of myself, I smile.

“No,” he says, “although I gave them plenty of reason to.”

I’m intrigued. “Really? The strong, smart, courageous, popular hero who’s the star of his own fairy tale wasn’t a perfect little boy?”

“You forgot handsome,” he says with a straight face.

I shoot back, “Handsome? You look like a before picture.”

He pretends outrage. “Are you getting smart with me?”

“How would you know? If you had another brain, it would be lonely.”

From there, it rapidly devolves, and although both of us stay absolutely poker-faced, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

“Yeah, well your head is so big, you have to step into your shirts.”

“We all sprang from apes, jarhead, but you didn’t spring far enough.”

“Just remember Jesus loves you, sweet cheeks, but everyone else thinks you’re a pain in the ass.”

“If brains were dynamite, you wouldn’t have enough to blow your nose.”

“Ha! Maybe if you ate some of that makeup you’re wearing, you’d be pretty on the inside.”

“Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you’d had enough oxygen at birth?”

“No, but I bet whatever your problem is, it’s really hard to pronounce.”

“The village called. They said they were missing their idiot.”

“Tabby, if your heart was made of chocolate, it wouldn’t fill an M&M.”

“Connor, if I wanted to kill myself, I’d climb your ego and jump to your IQ.”

“I wasn’t born with enough middle fingers to let you know how I feel about you.”

Trying desperately not to laugh, I say, “A hundred thousand sperm, and you were the fastest?”

Connor looks over at me. A brilliant grin spreads over his face. Behind him, the setting sun flares into a golden nimbus around his head, and he looks so heart-stoppingly handsome, it takes my breath away.

He says, “Earth is full. Go home.”

Our eyes lock, we stare at each other, and I can’t look away. Slowly, his smile fades. With the sensation that we’ve just driven off a literal and figurative cliff, my stomach drops.

I finally break eye contact and stare out the windshield, blinking hard into the distance.

I don’t like him. I don’t. I
refuse
to. He’s everything I detest in a man.

And yet…

“Let’s talk about Miranda,” I say abruptly, gazing at the range of blue-purple mountains we’re headed toward. Their tips are lit fiery red by the setting sun as if they’ve been dipped in blood.

“Fine.” His voice is low, slightly rough, all the teasing gone.

“When did she first contact you about her situation?”

He clears his throat. “I’ve been on retainer with her for years—”

“For security?”

“As a technical advisor,” he says, gripping the steering wheel so hard, I think it’s in danger of breaking. “Stunts, fight scene coordination, training actors in weapons handling, anything military related that needs an expert to add realism to a movie.”

“Oh.” I’m impressed. “That sounds cool.”

“It is.”

He says it flatly. I resist the urge to glance at his face to see what it’s doing.

“So what happened?”

He’s quiet for a moment, tapping a thumb against the steering wheel in a restless, staccato rhythm. “She received an email a few weeks ago. It said she was to deposit ten million dollars into an account in the Cayman Islands or there would be a serious data breach on her company’s network. One that would make the Sony hack in 2014 look like child’s play.”

“Blackmail.”

Connor nods. “What was unusual is that serious blackmailers already have the information they want to extort money for. In this case, it was simply a threat of a breach. One hadn’t actually occurred.”

“That fucking colossal ego,” I murmur, watching the craggy mountain tops fade from red to purple.

“Pardon?”

Feeling the beginnings of a headache, I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Søren. He wanted to give Miranda a heads-up that her system was going to be attacked so she’d close any holes there might have been in the network.”

“Why would he do that? It makes no sense to forewarn your enemy that you’re on the march.”

I smile, but it’s humorless. “Because he doesn’t want it to be easy. He wants it to be as difficult as possible, so that when he beats you after giving you fair warning, it will hurt twice as much.”

Silence as Connor digests that. I open my eyes and glance at him.

I say, “So let me guess how this went. You couldn’t trace the source of the email because an anonymous proxy server was used to hide the IP address. You didn’t think it was a credible threat because not only did he forewarn his intentions, his alias isn’t identifiable with any known hacker collective or has been associated with any prior hacks, high level or otherwise. How am I doing so far?”

“Pretty fuckin’ spot-on.” He sounds lethally mad.

“Right. Then, after you checked to confirm there were no network breaches and made the system tighter than a virgin’s asshole, you told Miranda she was probably dealing with an amateur and not to worry about it. And then he raped her network. And then the price doubled.”

Connor’s murderous expression tells me I’m right again.

“How long ago was that?”

“Four days.”

“How are you stalling him?”

“She’s saying she has to put together the money, she isn’t that liquid.”

“Has he given her another deadline?”

“Not yet.”

“Has any of the data he stole been leaked?”

“No.”

Good. So we still have some time.
I pause, reflecting. “What did he get?”

“Emails. Everyone’s, right down to the interns’. Executive salary information. Copies of unreleased films. Copies of scripts on future projects. And the source code for Miranda’s proprietary algorithm software, InSight. We think that was the main target.”

I snort.

Frowning, Connor looks at me. “What?”

“He’s not interested in her software. If anything, he probably looked at it and had a good laugh.”

“Why would he take it, then?”

I shrug. “To piss her off. To make it even more personal. She didn’t do as he asked, so she got her hand slapped. Big-time. So what happened next? Did you bring in the feds?”

“Yes—”