Black Dawn

by Cristin Harber

  “Not yet. Just checking on you.” The apprehension in his voice made unease churn in her stomach.

  “Everything still a go today?”

  Shadow cleared his throat. “That buyer that I was… concerned about, they’re offering to triple, maybe even quadruple, the best offer you’ll get from any NATO country.”

  What? “No. You have my list of approved bidders. Why are we even talking about this?” Last thing she wanted was her exploit to be resold to some third-world despot or terrorist leader who would do a lot worse than cyber spying.

  “I just want you to think about what you’re turning down.”

  This was about money? “What I’m turning down for both of us? Is that it?” She shook her head. “Since when do you care so much about your fifteen percent?”

  “I don’t, Silver. But—”

  “Then why are you acting so different?”

  “I just want to be sure,” he mumbled.

  “I care about what happens to the world. Selling Monarch willy-nilly isn’t a good thing.”

  He huffed. “And I care what happens to you, Silver.”

  “So this is still about the break-in?”

  “Maybe. Alright, be there soon. We can talk in person.”

  No, she wanted information now. “Is someone trying to stop the auction? And what did BlackDawn find?”

  “Does in person mean anything? As long as the program is still saved in more than one place—your standard operating procedure—everything will be fine.”

  She bit her lip. “You’ve scared me. You ask me to do what you know I will never do, and I still don’t know the details of your concerns.”

  “Silver—”

  “What is it?” she hissed. “Just level with me. Someone’s going to try to steal it from me physically?”

  Shadow cleared his throat. “That was a concern. Which is why I asked you to go dark.”

  “And you said you’d fix it.” She tried to keep her voice low, but she was exasperated—and scared.

  “I did. I hired help.”

  “You did what? How many more people are you going to bring into this? First, another hacker nosing into my business, and now, what, an armed guard or something?”

  “It’s our mutual friend.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have a friend like that.”

  “You do. Black does security in person too.”

  “What?” She closed her eyes, trying to piece everything together.

  “He’s a client. Just as you’re a client. He did a generic security sweep for me, and he has no problem getting physical. It all works.”

  “I don’t want to meet him! No one knows Silver. I don’t want to meet anyone.”

  “I know, but desperate times call for—”

  “Now we’re desperate?” she snapped.

  “When your safety’s an issue, yes. He’ll find you if I don’t see you first.”

  BlackDawn would find her? If there was anything she knew about Black, it was likely he already had.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Parker tugged down a ball cap and held a coffee cup from the first café he saw. There were a couple of places to grab coffee in Union Station, and even though it was probably coffee blasphemy to bring a cup from Grinds into Grounded, he wasn’t going to waste time determining there was no Shadow at the first place without buying a cup of joe.

  This wasn’t a typical Titan job; it was a favor. Shadow had helped him over the years, and while he didn’t need a broker on the regular, the man was a source of information and a trusted ally. As it turned out from their brief conversation, Shadow was more worried about the Monarch auction than he had initially let on.

  They’d never met in person, but Parker had always felt he could pick a hacker out of a crowd. They had a look, and it wasn’t cliché flannel shirts and hipster pants. It was more a look in their eyes. As if they knew that cameras were watching, bank accounts weren’t safe, and identities were easy enough to steal. Add on the nerves he’d picked up when Shadow reached out for security, and Parker felt positive that he could easily pick out Shadow. He’d be older, concerned about a deal, and discreetly look loaded.

  There was a bonus to this job. Parker wanted to see Monarch before it was sold. Simple curiosity had made the trek into DC worth it.

  Taking a pull from the coffee, he dropped into a chair along the wall and assessed the open area of the coffee shop. Suits talking business, and tourists snapping pictures, begging to get pickpocketed. None looked like he’d guess Shadow would.

  “Silver. Order up.”

  Like Monarch’s Silver? What were the chances…? He assumed he’d find Shadow first, but meeting Silver in person would be interesting. Parker’s eyes shot to the barista pushing a drink onto the counter.

  In a split second, everything he knew about his world shifted. A chair pushed back, and a Lexi Dare lookalike stood with her back toward him. He knew that hair, that body, and the clothes similar to the security footage. What was she doing there? After she’d never responded to his text the night he dropped her off? And what was she doing… now…?

  Parker watched her walk to the coffee called out for Silver.

  “Round two, huh?” The barista laughed.

  Parker’s eyes tracked to the small table she’d left within her reach, with another coffee cup and the laptop Lexi had been so protective of. She hadn’t seen him, and he couldn’t register the woman in front of him, with those pouty pink lips, who joked with the barista. She was sexy like he couldn’t comprehend. She wasn’t doing a damn thing other than walking back to her table, coffee in hand, but the sway of her hips, the perk of her breasts…

  “Fuck me,” he whispered and stood, scraping his chair loudly enough that she looked up.

  Their eyes locked. Her lips twitched. Not a smile. Nowhere close to a hello. The leather-clad rock-star lookalike apparently was as shocked as he was. Parker didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Until he did, bounding over to her and strangling the urge to grab her, kiss her, and drag her to a back room where he could have his hands and mouth all over her.

  On a scale from one to smokin’, Lexi was nuclear. With wide eyes, she tilted her head to look up at him. There was little room between them, and if he could erase the inches without looking like some overeager fuck, he would.

  “Parker, hi.” She bit her lip, looking as if she’d been caught red-handed. Her cheeks pinked, and her eyes danced, wary, searching around him.

  For what, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

  “Nice to see you.” She turned and shut her computer.

  “Can I join you?” he asked.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t, what?” He wouldn’t take no for an answer, completely mesmerized and almost forgetting his confusion about the Silver coffee questions.

  Again, her pupils danced. “I’m working.”

  “Same.” He pulled out the chair at her table then sat down.

  “That seat’s for my co-worker. He’ll be here any time now. You should really go.” Lexi twisted her coffee cup.

  The scrawl of the name on the cup caught his eye and disappeared each time she moved it. But it read Silver. He hadn’t heard wrong, hadn’t lost his damn mind. Anxiety prickled down his spine as all the pieces lined up. The collision of his two worlds was explosive. Was he wrong? No, there were too many coincidences that he should’ve picked up on already. His hand clapped on top of hers.

  Slowly, she pulled in a quiet breath and tried to tug her hand back, but he clasped it and didn’t let go. “Parker, you have to go.”

  Shoving emotion aside, he ran through the facts. She’d gone back to a dangerous, abusive relationship for a computer? The unexplained jammer that he couldn’t figure out how to blame on Matt? Shadow calling with a security concern about Monarch, and Lexi sitting here with that coffee cup? All the dots lined up. “No way…”

  Her forehead pinched. “What?”

  “You’re Silver.”

&
nbsp; Color drained out of her face as her smile went flat and paranoia exploded in her icy blue eyes. She dropped her gaze to the scrawl on the coffee cup. “I don’t know what you mean. It’s just a nickname for a coffee shop.”

  He leaned forward to study her lying eyes. “Damn, Lex.”

  “No,” she whispered, shaking her head in the most unconvincing manner. “I’m not.”

  Despite the leather and eyeliner, she looked as delicate as she had in his sweats with towel-dried hair. Parker’s heart pounded as the magnitude of their extensive relationship formed, all the things Parker had assumed simply by never asking. What he’d known was Silver was a code-breaking dude. A trusted, competitive contemporary who Parker could find in the middle of cyberspace, run a hack with, try to one-up, and say see ya until later. That was Silver. The winter princess scowling at him? Not Silver. But yet it all made sense. “You’re…”

  “Busy,” she mumbled, refusing eye contact.

  Parker rubbed his temples. How could he know a guy for a decade plus, when the guy wasn’t even a guy? “You can’t be…” You can’t be him.

  “No idea what you’re talking about.” She stood, shoved the laptop into a messenger bag, and tossed the full coffee cup with Silver scrawled across the side.

  “Wait. Don’t leave.”

  “I have to work.” Then she ducked under the table and retrieved a motorcycle helmet. “Nice seeing you. Thanks for everything before.”

  With a toss of the bag over her shoulder, she tugged her thick ponytail from under the strap of the bag. Damn, it was the kind of hair that a man could wrap a fist around.

  What he knew and what he saw didn’t mesh. Lexi was a wisp with icy blue eyes who had thankfully left her shit fiancé, and Parker had a major hard-on for her. What Lexi did not look like was an elite hacker who had bantered back and forth to him in code for a third of his life.

  He remained frozen to the table, remembering the weekend that Matt had met her. Bachelor party for one of their boys. Parker had been able to write off almost the whole thing on his taxes because there was a technology conference at the same hotel, including a hacker competition. Holy shit.

  Lexi Dare was, without a doubt, SilverChaos.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Parker abandoned his coffee and jogged until he came up beside her sweet body speeding through Union Station’s wide corridor. “Give me a second.”

  “Nope. Bad idea.”

  A wave of men’s glances followed her. Not a single man could walk by without staring, and she didn’t seem to notice. She hit the escalators, and Parker stayed with her as a new rush of people departing from a train swallowed them with briefcases and rolling suitcases. Lexi quickly moved to another platform then slid behind a black gate, ignoring a large red-and-white “Closed to Public” sign. Parker stayed on her six as people bustled around.

  “Lexi, come on.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  But he didn’t. Wouldn’t. Suddenly they were alone in a maintenance hallway. She pushed through another door covered in dust and cobwebs that creaked when it opened into a service alley. It was dark, dank, and dirty. They were somewhere between the rails and a garage. Exhaust and the smell of metal hung in the air. Lexi never slowed, an old pro in the back tunnels of Union Station. That didn’t thrill him.

  Enough. He reached for the sharp angle of her shoulder. “Where are you going—”

  The little blonde spun on him, helmet in hand as a weapon, and smashed it toward his face.

  “Seriously?” Parker ducked, grabbed her arm, and spun her around so that the sinful round of her backside was pressed against his thighs. “Don’t be like that.”

  Sweet citrus drifted into his nose when she reached back and ran her hand into his hair. She didn’t pull, but she didn’t let go either. “I need you to go away.”

  Parker belted his arm across her chest while he kept her helmet-wielding arm down. His lips brushed her ear, and at that moment, the citrus struck him. “You don’t need to take a swing at me.”

  “You follow me into a back alley?” she whispered. “I can hit you if I want.”

  He chuckled into her hair. “I’m not Matt, and you are Silver.”

  “God.” She twisted in his hold, her lips coming within inches of his. “Leave it be.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  The brim of his ball cap pressed against the side of her head, sheltering him, giving him a moment to savor her. She smelled like lemons. Sweet and tart, which was exactly what she was like. Why he noticed and why he cared jumbled together. Truth was, knowing Silver, the way the hacker could work a job, how intelligent Silver was, how much of a challenge… it all shifted what had already been extraordinarily hot and full of potential to something with years’ worth of gravity and depth.

  Their tension multiplied the sexual charge that had been there in spades. Whatever he’d ignored after he’d driven away that night weeks ago was nothing compared to the lightning pulsing between them. She felt it too—he knew that without a doubt.

  “You were here to work,” he whispered. “I was too.”

  “Good for you, Parker.”

  And that was his in. “Try BlackDawn.”

  Her head whipped up, her glare disbelieving. “Excuse me?”

  He smiled as he watched her process his screen name. “Now we seem to be on equal footing. Everything I didn’t get before makes sense.”

  She rolled her tongue over her bottom lip before catching it between her teeth. She didn’t steal away, didn’t look away. Just blinked and tried again. “You’re still holding me.”

  “I know.” He squeezed her tighter because God, did he know he was holding her. It’d been over two weeks since he’d had her in his arms, and with her smelling all woman and dressed like sex in leather, there was no chance in the world Parker would release her. “If you didn’t know, it’s one of my favorite things to do.”

  Her pink glossed lips parted, but nothing came out.

  “I like the new look. Old look. Whatever.”

  She blinked darkly shaded eyes. “You remember?”

  “Something like this? Shit, sweetheart, etched into my memory.”

  Slowly her body softened. “Shadow hired you?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re BlackDawn?” She sounded breathy and gave another slow blink.

  Yeah, a little breathy and a lot bothered. Maybe angry and confused. Who knew what else? Mostly she sounded like he felt. Totally mind-fucked and turned on.

  Trains clanged in the background. Horns blared from distant streets.

  “Yeah.” A lump formed in his throat as he released her, dropping his arms and letting her step back.

  “I can’t process any of this.”

  “What’s there to process?” But even he knew that was a lie. All of this was confusing. How he felt, how she looked, what they thought about the tension they couldn’t ignore, and the work they’d done together for so long without knowing. Silver was anonymous, and his work at Titan was classified. None of this should converge.

  He grabbed her hips, and she slammed her open palms against his chest.

  “Why are you angry, Lex?”

  “I just am.” Her fingers splayed then clutched his shirt.

  He jerked her close, and her mouth went wide. The passion in her icy blue gaze rocketed through him. He shook his head. “No reason for that.”

  “Go away. I need to think. I thought I had my head right, but now—God!”

  His eyes dropped to her hands fisting his shirt. “You’re holding on to me, sweetheart.”

  But instead of pushing him away, her fingers bit tighter into his chest. He spun them around so her back was against the wall, his chest pressing against hers with her clenched hands sandwiched between them. Her breaths came quicker. Her tongue darted out and licked her lip, and he groaned, flexing his hips into her.

  “You still haven’t let go,” he breathed against her lips.

  “I don�
�t want to.”

  His mouth collided with hers, his tongue plunging into her mouth as she gasped and moaned. Her hands tightened, trying to pull him closer though it was impossible. Whatever had happened in Parker’s kitchen was sweet, and even in his Ranger Rover’s backseat, he’d been careful with her. This wasn’t like that. It was harsh and rough and hungry.

  Lexi’s legs crawled up his thighs, and he pressed against her, giving her his weight, making sure she knew that all the blood in his body had rushed to his cock. He moved to the slope of her neck, kissing and scraping her soft skin with his teeth. His tongue licked, and as he savored her skin, her hips started a sinful rhythm.

  “Wait.” Harshly, Lexi released her grip on him. “Parker, God. Wait… work. I have—” She gasped when he ran his lips to the spot behind her ear. “Work.”

  Who cared? He needed her alone. Not in an alley but a bed, where he’d strip the leather off her legs and kiss his way higher until he could delve into that pussy and make her come. But damn the look in her eyes. The second he let go, she would run. He didn’t know why and couldn’t push her to stay.

  “Parker, please.”

  He had to release her, though not without a warning. “This isn’t over, Lex.”

  As he set her down, her eyes squeezed shut, and her erratic breathing might as well have been a stroke to his swollen shaft. He didn’t want to stop, and with her panting like that, those kiss-swollen, pink lips of hers teasing him… he shook his head. He was lust drunk and nowhere near ready to think about the Monarch job.

  “I have to go,” she whispered, retrieving her dropped helmet.

  “We’ll talk about this later.”

  She bit her bottom lip then spun away. Parker let her go, watching as a tightness hit his chest. His arms were empty, and for the first time, his life felt empty too, devoid of a partnership they didn’t even have. Yet. He wanted her friendship, wanted her in his bed. He already enjoyed working with Silver. What a wild combination, maybe making him acknowledge for the first time how much he wanted something substantial outside of Titan.