Romantic Times

by Christina Skye

  The one thing her new job had afforded her was the ability to indulge in her particular vice for artisanal, single origin coffee. She would have given her entire bank account for a cup now.

  Given that her bank account currently totaled $73.21, it would be worth the cost.

  But there was no point dreaming about the impossible. She glared at the man called Gabriel, stalked across the room, grabbed her backpack for fresh bubblegum and then went to work.

  Old personnel files shot over the page. Security profiles from DC appeared next.

  One decent cup of coffee would have helped so much.

  Air brushed her neck. Rich aromas danced across her nose.

  Coffee.

  Her eyes fluttered. “Is that what I think it is?” Maddie took a long, savoring breath.

  “Probably.” The man set a cup down beside her hand. “Looks like you could use this while you wait for room service. Just don’t gulp it. This is the really good stuff, and it’s all I have left.”

  She took a careful sniff.

  South America.

  Single varietal.

  She took another smell, letting the smoky scent roll over her nose. “Yellow Bourbon varietal. Brazil. Fazenda de Ines.” She closed her eyes, following the impressions on the hot steam. She didn’t take her coffee lightly, not a bit. It was about the only indulgence Maddie allowed herself these days.

  “These beans are a little old. Probably a week past their prime. Not that I’m complaining. I haven’t had anything half this good since I left my apartment in DC.”

  The man stared at her. He was wearing a dark green sweater now. It picked up the deep, restless color of his eyes. “You picked all that up from one smell?”

  Maddie flushed, feeling a little embarrassed. But proud too. She knew her coffee, okay? She was allowed to be proud about that. “It’s just this thing I do. Not brain surgery, you know.”

  He was still staring at her. “From one smell you could dig up all that?”

  She shrugged and reached for the coffee. Dark, moody enchantment played over her tongue. Light citrus and clove layers mingled and danced. The coffee tasted even better than it smelled.

  Orgasm in a cup.

  Maddie blew out a little breath. Where had that thought come from?

  When the man with the sandy hair moved in closer, she picked up his smell too. Citrus and lime. Smoke. Something else she couldn’t name.

  It irritated her that she wanted to try.

  Because his scent was almost as tantalizing as the coffee.

  She shot to her feet. “This stuff is awesome. I mean, wow. But I’d better get back to these personnel files.”

  He leaned over her shoulder, and she was hit with the smoky male scent all over again. “No need to get jumpy.”

  Who was jumpy?

  Maddie glared at him as he ran a finger down her laptop screen until he found one particular name. “My intel says that McNamara has some serious connections in Miami. He also has a grudge against the senator. Seems his cousin was arrested for threatening letters after a little matter of $50,000 in unpaid IRS bills two years ago. The senator refused to act in the family’s behalf. Our man McNamara was not a happy taxpayer after that.”

  “I’ll check his recent travel patterns.” Maddie figured it would take her about four minutes to do that.

  She shoved up your sleeves and then stretched slowly. Her stomach growled, and the old twinge in her shoulder began to act up again.

  Where in Sam Hill was room service when you needed them?

  Whatever.

  The man stared at her arm. “Looks like your shoulder hurts. An old accident?”

  He'd noticed that? Most people paid no attention to Maddie. She liked it that way, staying anonymous and sliding under the radar. People asked too many questions and made too many stupid assumptions.

  “So what was it, accident or injury?”

  She rolled her shoulders carefully and frowned. “Yes.”

  “Very funny. Accident?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Don't overwhelm me with medical facts here.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  The truth was, the injury had come several months before. Maddie had been on a job in London. Her first work for the government, in fact. She'd been amped up, determined to impress her boss. Then the proverbial stuff hit the fan. Maddie was still trying to process that trifecta of horribleness.

  But some good stuff had come out of it. Like the amazing man she had met in a London cemetery. Really. He had walked out of the foggy night and pulled her down into an open crypt, nearly giving her cardiac arrest.

  She still smiled at the thought.

  The really weird part was that the rugged, gorgeous man was apparently bound to her. By some kind of very old vows. Maddie was trying to figure out the whole relationship thing, since she had nada experience with relationships before this.

  Unfortunately, everything had gotten complicated fast. Lately her rugged stranger was acting moody whenever they talked. And he wouldn’t answer her direct questions.

  It made Maddie crazy.

  Given the fact that there were a set of very nasty demon-things following him through a changing time warp, he had reason to be distracted.

  But good luck explaining that to anyone.

  Behind her the man called Gabriel donned a silver earbud and walked to the window. He looked down and gave a two-finger wave to someone Maddie couldn't see.

  A contact down on the street. Tracking their hotel target, probably.

  Maddie frowned as the tall man listened and then spoke quietly into the small mic.

  This time he spoke in Gaelic. Fast and fluent. Who was he?

  None of your business, Maddie girl. Get back to your spread sheets. Sooner you're done, sooner you'll be back home, savoring some amazing coffee. Maybe you’ll score a trip to England, and when you get there, Lyon might be happy to see you. Less distracted, as if he wasn’t planning something dangerous that he didn’t want you to know about.

  Maddie shivered, feeling a sense of danger that she couldn’t place.

  “Cold?”

  “I’m just fine.”

  The man shrugged and turned back to the window.

  But when she looked down, a small glow played around her hands, swirling and soft, part of a strange new skill that Maddie was still fighting.

  Twisting and alive, the lights danced over her arm in slow spirals.

  The marks were back. The ones Maddie didn’t want and didn’t understand. And they carried a warning.

  Chapter Five

  The man named Gabriel kept the coffee coming while Maddie worked, pulling up rental car records and prior employment for their target. Timothy McNamara had been a busy man, traveling all over the Southwest and California in the last six months. He had used an alias, of course. It had taken Maddie all of two minutes to crack that.

  She hunched over the laptop, frowning, fingers racing across the keyboard. Thankfully the glow-thing had settled down. No more marks that played over her hands. Maddie definitely didn’t want to explain that to anyone.

  “What do you think he's up to?”

  Maddie jumped as Gabriel moved up behind her. She hadn’t even felt the air stir. “Stop that. It’s creepy how you make no noise.” Her skin tingled as he reached over her shoulder.

  “Sorry. Habit.” He studied the screen. “What’s this?”

  “Rental car pattern for McNamara’s roommate named Kade. About thirty cities in the last year.”

  Gabriel rubbed his neck and glanced off into space. “That’s interesting.”

  “What is it?”

  “My guess is military bases. Thirty-two of them, spread out all over the southwest and California.” He turned back to the laptop, frowning. “Tucson. Glendale. Flagstaff, Arizona. Davis Air Force Base. Luke AFB. Camp Navajo Army Base. California locations here too. Edwards. Pendleton. Vandenberg.”

  He rattled off more names, and Maddie was stunned.
Clearly he was right. Why hadn't she seen that pattern herself? “What happens next?”

  “I’ll call it in. Get me a list of dates crosslinked to each location. Can you do that fast?”

  “Piece of cake. Except I could really use some coffee.”

  Gabriel smiled and shook his head. “I can see Izzy was right about you. But you need to eat. Here’s a protein bar. Field rations, so it isn’t gourmet, but it gets the job done. Perfect blend of protein and carbs for energy efficiency.”

  Maddie took a bite and frowned. “Fine. That’s it for the protein. How about more coffee?”

  “Eat it all, Einstein. Then we’ll see about coffee.”

  She shrugged and finished the bland bar, feeling better immediately. Her stomach stopped growling too. The fact was that Izzy Teague called her an adrenaline junkie, and Maddie had to admit that he was right. That particular tendency had gotten her into trouble far too often, starting with the time that she and her friends had hacked into the Department of Defense mainframe computers when Maddie was just fourteen.

  Seriously lame.

  Remembering all that made her feel stupid and childish, so she swung back to work. Work was the one thing that made her feel balanced. Useful. Not a total outsider.

  Maddie felt Gabriel behind her, and his presence made her restless. She reached past him, grabbing for the last of her coffee, but her big silver earring snagged on the edge of his sweater. She muttered in pain, her hand clenched in surprise. The coffee cup slipped through her trembling fingers.

  Gabriel’s hand shot out.

  The cup was retrieved in midair before it splashed hot coffee all over Maddie's chest and hands. The movement had been a blur, completely silent.

  She blew out a breath. “Thanks. That was definitely going to hurt.”

  “No problem.”

  He leaned down slowly, tracing a line along Maddie’s wrists. Frowning as if he couldn’t figure something out. “Why don’t you explain to me about these.”

  “They’re usually called hands.”

  “I’m talking about the other thing. The lights. The ones that move over your arms. I saw them.”

  Maddie sucked in a breath. She couldn’t talk about this. Not to anyone but Lyon. And Lyon was all the way across the ocean on a different continent.

  “You need glasses, Gabriel. These are hands and nothing else.”

  He reached around her shoulder, gently freeing the earring from the wool sleeve of his sweater. “My eyes are fine, Maddie.” He turned her wrist over slowly and traced the soft skin.

  His touch made her breath catch. Something warm and restless began to hum down into her chest.

  “How old are you anyway?” he murmured. His hand slid over her wrist, smoothing it as if he had nothing else to do in the world. As if he enjoyed touching her and wouldn’t mind doing more of it. “Seventeen? Eighteen?”

  She cleared her throat and pulled away. “I’m old enough to know that we both need to get back to work.”

  “Not quite yet,” he murmured. “You’ve got dirt on your cheek.”

  “Where?” Maddie rubbed her face, frowning.

  “Here.” Gabriel brushed a line along her chin. “It’s been there ever since I broke out of the closet. You must have done it when you locked me inside.” He frowned, anchoring her face with strong fingers. His touch was impossibly light, Maddie thought.

  Gentle.

  As if she mattered in a way he couldn’t figure out.

  Make that two of them.

  “Gabriel, I don’t think—”

  And then his mouth brushed hers. The heat and strength and smoky smell of his skin struck her like a bolt of lightning, tangling her nerves, snapping along her senses. Maddie’s chest seemed to be too tight. She couldn’t get enough air to breathe.

  And she wanted more.

  She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch, feeling the snap of heat grow.

  Gabriel muttered something in Gaelic. His mouth hardened, and he pulled her against him, dropping his arm around her waist until they were locked in dizzy.

  Maddie felt as if she was drinking sunlight, spinning into space. It was crazy and scary.

  Gabriel took a harsh breath. Then he pulled away. His fingers feathered over her cheek, tightened, and fell to his side.

  His eyes burned over her. Measuring. Hungry.

  “This is… dangerous, Maddie with the purple hair. You make me feel like a reckless teenager. Or about a hundred years too old,” he said grimly.

  He took a harsh breath, jamming a hand through his hair. “Either way it’s a bad thing.”

  Maddie started to answer, but her cell phone rang, her computer screen lit up, and a voice called from out in the hall.

  And all the bad things happened at once.

  Chapter Six

  The phone in the room rang. Maddie’s cell phone screeched. The doorbell rang in two harsh peals.

  None of it was coincidence. How could it be, when her wrists were lighting up with long glowing strands of energy that twisted around her, warning of danger.

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “I definitely want a piece of that technology,” he muttered. “Whatever it is.”

  Not going to happen in this lifetime, Maddie thought. And you’ve never even imagined technology like this. “Whatever. I’ll get the phone. You handle the door.”

  When she answered her cell, Izzy was on the other end, his voice cool and emotionless.

  When he got distant like that, it meant things were really bad. “Get down here to the catering office. Bring your laptop. I have code for you to override. And keep Gabe with you. Move,” he snapped.

  Gabe was closing the door when Maddie broke off the call. He shoved on a high-tech earbud and scowled at her. The frown made him look dangerous.

  And absolutely gorgeous.

  Great. Another alpha male in her life.

  But Gabe wasn’t any of her business. Get back to the spread sheets and computer code, Maddie girl. Sooner done the better. This is getting way too complicated. You’re the one with nada social skills, remember?

  Gabe crossed to the couch and pulled on a tailored navy blazer that made him look like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Talk about a chameleon, Maddie thought.

  “Who was at the door?”

  “Room service. And an Elvis impersonator. Clearly someone wants to keep us distracted,” he said curtly.

  Maddie didn’t even think about the food delivery. She grabbed her laptop, feeling the sense of warning grow. “That was Izzy on my cell. We need to get down to the catering department ASAP. There's a code to override.”

  “That’s off a side corridor on the hotel mezzanine level.” Gabe adjusted his small silver earbud and nodded. “But first you need to ditch the earring. Dangerous thing in a close quarters confrontation.” He gently removed the earring and shook his head. “Teague should have told you that.”

  “He did. I ignored him.”

  “Of course you did.” Gabe sighed. “Now do something about those.”

  Maddie looked down.

  Hell.

  The lights were moving again, snaking over her shoulders in a restless dance. She turned away and took a deep breath, summoning up the balance that was still so new to her. She thought about Lyon and all he had taught her, using his patience and calm strength to soften the blow of hard discoveries.

  She called up the memory of his face. His rugged body.

  The lights stopped dancing and slowly faded.

  Gabriel watched intently. “I’m going to get a piece of that technology. Count on it.”

  “It’s a free country,” Maddie muttered. “Now can we go?”

  *

  Half a dozen people were clustered outside the catering office. Gabriel strode right through the middle of the crowd, which quickly parted for him. Maddie saw Izzy at the end of the corridor and sprinted toward him.

  A dog sat next to Izzy, motionless in front of the nearest locker. Maddie didn't know what kind of thre
at was indicated. Nuclear. Biohazard. Even something electromagnetic. It was a waste of her time to speculate, so she didn’t bother.

  “What do you need?”

  “Scan that lock. It's digital. I keep picking up new number sequences, as if the code is being changed randomly.”

  Maddie pulled out her laptop and knelt in front of the locker. Dimly she sensed Gabriel move down behind her, his shoulder at her back. She was glad for the warmth and the unexpected sense of protection. Then she slid deep, focused on the task before her.

  Numbers played through her head. Sequence possibilities.

  But something made her feel cold. She looked up and her vision blurred.

  A bright blue wave of color washed over the corridor at the edge of Maddie’s vision. She shook her head, glancing back toward the catering office and the anxious crowd of workers. Nothing blue anywhere.

  The image faded.

  Maddie frowned and went back to work on the lock scan.

  The job took her six minutes, and that was five minutes longer than she had ever taken before. She checked her code one more time. Her hands flexed. She hit the enter button.

  A loud siren screeched inside the metal locker door.

  “I did it right,” Maddie called out angrily. She worked back through all the steps of her analysis. And then she hit enter again.

  The siren stopped and the locker door slid open. Izzy nudged her aside, with the dog right beside him. “Get her back, Gabe,” he ordered. “Get everyone back.”

  Maddie rubbed her neck and stepped to one side, feeling empty and drained now that her work was done. Izzy had warned her about the sense of letdown after a job, but it still caught her by surprise.

  “I’m calling in backup. Gabe, give me a hand here, will you?”

  Maddie felt a kick of emptiness when Gabe moved back to Izzy’s big duffel back at the far corridor.

  Blue.

  When she looked down, something glowed along her hands and over her chest. Gabe was talking with Izzy, the dog still alert beside them. Maddie blinked, off balance, and a shape hurtled from the narrow cross corridor, hitting her hard and knocking her sideways.