by Violet Paige
“I think we’ve closed down the party.” I looked over his shoulder. Becca and Travis were inside cleaning the kitchen.
He followed my gaze. “I guess you’re right.” He lifted my hand so our palms slid together. “Should we leave?” he asked. “Maybe we’ve overstayed our welcome.”
The question hung between us. I didn’t want it to be over. The housewarming I never wanted to attend was now the party I never wanted to leave. I was happy on the bench. I was happy connecting, or re-connecting, whatever it was we were doing.
AJ cleared his throat. “Can I buy you a drink on the way home?”
“Oh. I thought—”
He laughed. “I might have been a stupid dick not to notice you in Econ 10, but I see you now, Sydney Miller.”
I blushed, but this time it was from the boldness in his flirting.
“Besides, I don’t think I’m ready for tonight to be over.”
I looked at him, trying to read the eyes of a man I didn’t know well at all, yet somehow felt connected to. “I don’t think I am either.”
He tucked my hand behind him as he led me off the bench and into the house. Becca and Travis stopped abruptly when we stepped inside.
“Oh, we didn’t think you two were coming in.” Becca giggled. I saw Travis give AJ the head nod. I tried not to read too much into it.
I dropped AJ’s hand and hugged Becca. “The house is beautiful. You should be really proud, Becca. I mean that.”
She giggled. “Thanks, babe.”
“It was a great party. Amazing wine and guest list.” I smiled. “Thanks for inviting me. I’ll see you at work on Monday. Ok?”
She whispered in my ear, “You better call me tomorrow morning. I want to know everything.”
I shook my head. She wanted details, but there wasn’t anything juicy to tell. Unless she thought reminiscing about missed college connections was sexy. What did I say? We talked all night in the garden? We compared Tar Heel stories and tried to figure out what other classes we might have had together? It wasn’t a wow story, yet under my skin I couldn’t deny it felt like it was. Tonight felt different. Tangible.
“Good night, man.” Travis slapped AJ on the back and we had our opening to escape.
The guest guilt slipped in. I thought about offering to help clean up, but remained silent after my goodbyes. I didn’t want to miss my chance to talk to AJ some more.
Once we were on the other side of the townhouse I spun to face him. I wondered if the magic would be broken on this side of the house. If the air that had wrapped around us was sealed inside that garden. I was wrong. The pull to him was just as strong on this side of the sidewalk as it had been under the sparkle of patio lights.
“So about that drink?” he grinned. “Where should I take you?”
But before I could answer his mouth crushed mine and I threw my arms around his neck, pulling him against me with a desperate hold. It was the kind of crazy kiss I had only seen in movies. We took steps backward until we rounded the side of the building. AJ pressed me up against the brick wall, where the kiss grew hotter and stronger. His hands wrapped in my hair, tugging my lips to his. I moaned, tasting the wine on his tongue. On his mouth. It made me dizzy. It made me race with energy and lust.
His hands coasted over the fabric of my dress, dragging the hem up and down my thighs as if he wanted to hike it higher, but was restraining himself. I could feel the need building in his fingertips when he dug into the softness of my thigh. We were in an alley, and neither of us seemed to know what the limits were.
He brushed his thumb over my bottom lip before kissing me again. I couldn’t catch my breath. I didn’t want to. I liked the rush. I liked that we were toying with something risky.
“Do that again,” I whispered.
“I want to do more than that,” he growled.
I nodded as he yanked my dress to my hips, sliding his hand between my legs. I moaned as he pinned my wrists over my head against the brick building. He nipped at my lips, grazing them with his teeth. My hips jutted forward, waiting for his free hand to snake under the black silk panties I was wearing. Thank God I had on matching lingerie tonight.
“You’re fucking beautiful, Syd.” He groaned into my throat as his lips moved to my breasts.
I was at his mercy. My body writhing against him. Desperate for the hard planes of his chest to chafe my nipples. Eager for his shaft to press into the softness of my thighs. To feel all the rigid muscle of his toned body melt into the softness of mine.
“Ohh,” I whimpered when his fingers trailed the skin along my knee to my heat. I sighed with anticipation.
But a set of headlights flashed on us as a car turned out of the driveway adjacent to the townhouse and AJ pressed his forehead to mine. His heart had to be racing.
“Shit. I’m sorry.” He released my wrists and pushed my dress back into place. “Maybe we should find somewhere else to talk. Somewhere not so public?”
I sighed with frustration. My body was ready to explode. He had lit a fuse that needed to fully burn and smolder until I released every firework in my veins.
“Maybe we should.” I bit my bottom lip wanting to feel the graze of his teeth again. It made me shiver and moan simultaneously. “I guess, technically, it’s not the first time we’ve met, even though only one of us remembers,” I teased. “I have a bottle of wine I was going to give Becca we could open it instead.”
I was giving myself permission to let things go as far as they could tonight. It wasn’t as if I was taking a stranger home for a one-night stand. This was AJ Hart. Someone I had known for years. It wasn’t a random hookup. Not a guy from a bar. It was AJ.
He grinned. “Is that an invitation to your place?”
I nodded, bringing his mouth to mine again.
“What if that image you have in your head of me is naïve?” I heard something dark but alluring in his voice.
“What does that mean?” I let my eyelashes flutter in a seductive way.
“Be careful, Sydney Miller. That’s all I’m saying.”
He circled his arms around me and I let my body fall into his. He had me. Total control. Complete power over the rest of the night. His fingers tangled in my hair, bringing a rougher kiss on my swollen lips. We had made out until we were at the end of the brick wall.
“This house is empty,” I whispered. “It’s for sale,” I added
His eyebrows waggled. “I think I can get us in.”
“And the wine?” I kissed the hollow at the base of his neck, unfastening the buttons as we edged our way to the deck.
“We’ll drink it after.” He chuckled.
I nodded, knowing the desperation we felt for each other couldn’t be soothed any other way.
Chapter Ten
It was as if I could feel the nervous energy from the other passengers grow stronger around us as we continued a pattern around D.C. They shifted in their seats and tapped the call buttons with more frequency. If it was this bad in first class, I could only imagine the deluge of requests in coach.
Jeff and Cindy raced up and down the aisle serving drinks and sandwiches. I wondered how stocked the galley was for this kind of time in the air. What happened when there was no more Bloody Mary mix? What would Cindy say when she ran out of pretzels and sugar cookies?
“It’s classified, Syd. Classified,” AJ emphasized. “I can’t tell you more than that. Can you give me a break on this one thing?”
“I don’t give a shit if it’s intel for the president. I need more details. I need something to track down the chatter. More than this flight number. You have to give me something else to go on if you want me to find what we need.”
The longer he held out, the farther into the rabbit hole I would go without a carrot trail to lead me back to the surface. It would be harder to retrieve information. He had to give me words. Clues. A message. I needed sites. Names. More than an airplane’s flight number.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There was
a plan so you didn’t find out like this,” he mumbled more to himself than to me.
“What? The cat’s out of the bag. You have to see that. Classified information doesn’t mean anything in this situation. Tell me something. Please,” I whispered softly.
He closed his eyes, letting his head fall into the pillow on the seat. I could see how hard he was debating his decision. It was like I had asked him to peel off his fingernails. This went against everything in his training. Everything he was programmed not to do. Given the option, I wondered if he would have chosen torture over revealing classified secrets.
“It started six months ago,” he started slowly.
“What did?”
He rubbed his jaw. His stubble had started to grow in. The five o’clock shadow combined with his crisp white shirt made him look edible. Another thing I resented about my ex. We were likely going to die, and he looked hot as shit.
“The assignment I was given. It was for six months, maybe less depending on what I discovered.” He hung his head. “My job was to tail you. Gather every piece of intel I could on your contacts and your movements.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve been following me for six months? But that’s when I started traveling for my podcast. I got my first lead then. My first interview.”
AJ nodded. “Yes. I know. I’ve been shadowing every footstep you’ve taken. Although, I didn’t know at first you were recording it for a podcast. I wasn’t sure what it was. It took me a while to realize what you were trying to do. Who you were trying to find.”
My stomach lurched. I felt sick. Queasy. I bit my lip to stop myself from crying or throwing up. “Why? Who did you think they were?” I had to know.
AJ looked away. “The group.”
“Group?” I questioned.
“The hackers you used to work with,” he explained. “I needed to know you weren’t trying to make contact with anyone. I had to know for sure.”
“It doesn’t work like that. No one knows their real identity. It stays dark for a reason.” I was livid. All of this was a huge violation of privacy. Mine and the hackers I used to know. Not to mention the people I interviewed to find my birth family.
“Why? How could you do that? How could you invade my privacy like that?”
It was hard enough hearing that AJ had been the agent assigned to follow me, but knowing the FBI was watching me made my skin crawl. I had inadvertently put a target on the back of everyone I had met in the past six months.
He tried to explain. “The Bureau needs you, but given your history they wanted to make sure you’re clean. That there were no connections from your past that might interfere before they tried to bring you in on the team.”
I huffed. “They’re worried about my past? Incredible. They are the ones lying and hiding in the dark.” My comments were directed toward AJ. He was the one who had betrayed me.
“Can you blame them? You hacked the FBI, Syd. They still aren’t over that.”
“I had good reason to do that. They know something about me. About where I came from,” I hissed. “I hacked because I needed that information.”
“Yeah, well you made a lot of enemies that way.”
“I stopped hacking. I don’t do it anymore. I wear a big white hat now, but I guess if you’ve been on my ass for six months you already know that.”
He nodded. “I do. White looks good on you.”
I ignored his shameless attempt to flirt. “But even with everything you know. Everything you observed. It took six months to decide I was trustworthy?” There were layers of anger we hadn’t begun to touch. I knew we didn’t have time to unpack that baggage right now.
“Things took a turn. My assignment changed.”
I peered at him. “What kind of turn?”
“There’s no way to say this without scaring you.”
“We’re on a plane about to go down. I’m past that. What is it?”
“I’m not the only one following you.”
I didn’t like the way he said it. I didn’t like the worry in his eyes. AJ didn’t do that. He didn’t worry. He was too confident. Too self-assured. But I saw it. There was fear when he spoke the words.
“I’m the one trying to protect you, Syd. I’m the only one keeping you safe.”
Chapter Eleven
“What are you talking about?” He was right. He did scare me. “Who? Who is this person?”
“Chicago. Phoenix. Charleston. D.C. There was someone else there wherever you went. We went. He was there too.”
He hadn’t given me substantial information I could use on the dark web to track the plane chatter, but I had a feeling it was coming. The hair on my arm stood up.
“Who? Who was there?” Why didn’t he just tell me?
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Always there. Close, but not close enough that I could ever identify him. He feels like a ghost, but I know he’s not. He’s as real as you and I are.”
“How do you know? What evidence do you have?”
“I don’t have an hour right now to go through six months of weird shit. I know you deserve these answers, but one thing at a time.”
“You can’t tell me because you don’t know.”
I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t have enough time to process everything so quickly. “I don’t understand anything. I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know why the FBI cares. Who is following me? Why would someone follow me? And you? Why are we on a plane headed to nowhere?” I was on the verge of tears. They were hot and heavy and just on the edge of spilling over.
“Hey, hey.” He took my face in his hands. “Don’t do this now. We’re going to get off this plane. And we’re going to talk all this through. And we’re going to be able to do that because you are the most brilliant hacker I know. Retired, reformed whatever, you know how to do this. You’re going to figure out the threat and how to get a message to the agents on the ground. There is a way through this. I know there is.”
I looked in his eyes. All I could think about was how much I had missed them. How I had tried not to dream about him. How I forced myself to stay away from his picture. How I’d blocked his number in my phone. How the sound of his name broke me every time I heard it.
“Ok, Syd? You’re going to keep going. You can do this. You can save this plane.”
I nodded. “But what aren’t you telling me? Give me something, AJ. If you want me to trust you, give me a reason to.”
His thumb moved over my cheek. I summoned all my strength not to lean into the gesture. That wasn’t us anymore. We were in an intense situation, surviving anyway we could. He was falling back to familiar cues. I was trying to not drown in the memories, barely treading water.
“We want to bring you in for Project Compass,” he whispered. “See if that comes up. Check Project Compass chatter.”
“All right. You know I’m going to want to know exactly what that is later.”
He chuckled. “I would assume so. Once we’re on the ground I promise I’ll tell you all of it. You have my word.”
“I don’t know how long this is going to take,” I explained.
“I think I should take a walk to the back of the plane.”
“Why?” I felt panic. It seemed dangerous for us to separate, but maybe those were my emotions taking over. The feeling that every second with AJ was fleeting.
He tapped his chest, indicating he had protection if he needed it. “If there’s something unusual. Someone acting suspicious. I need to keep an eye on what’s happening up here, while you dig around in there.” He nodded toward my laptop.
“You’re right. Let’s split up.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He rose. His broad shoulders filling the space in the aisle. I tried not to stare as he disappeared behind the curtain into coach.
I had to focus while AJ was gone. I started a new route on the net. Instead of only looking for flight 552, I searched for Project Compass below the deep net. Now that I had a name I could
always read the files about the project later. In this moment, I had to go into the underground world to find what we needed. I didn’t need contents of documents. I needed breaking chatter. Someone in this space had to know what was going on with this flight.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“Would you like me to move that bag for you now? I could get it out of the way.”
I jumped when Jeff appeared next to me. I spun the laptop so it faced the window, out of view.
“Umm. No thank you. It’s fine. I need it.” I clasped it tighter between my ankles.
“Suit yourself.” He rolled his eyes and moved on, fiddling with a pillow and blanket set.
I turned the computer around and continued my search for Project Compass. As the minutes ticked by, I looked over my shoulder. I looked to the front galley in case I had missed AJ walking by in a sweep of the cabin. I couldn’t see past the dark blue curtain behind me. I bit my lip, considering whether I should peek through the fabric and see what he was doing. What if he had found something? What if he needed my help? What if he had drawn attention to his search?
I nervously typed, until I stumbled upon exactly what I was looking for. Call it luck, or sheer brilliance, but I found it.
“That was a waste of time. Did you find anything?” AJ coasted into the seat.
I tried to hide the relief I felt that he had returned. I kept my anxiety to myself.
“Everything.” I sat back in the seat. The screen was filled. I had so much to sort through, I didn’t know where to start. “What is this?” I asked.
AJ leaned over my shoulder. “Translate it for me, Syd. It’s like reading Greek looking at your screen.”
I skimmed the headline in the room. “It’s a marketplace. It’s where buyers and sellers gather with government contraband. Someone has the Project Compass files. It looks like they are for sale.”
It didn’t look like a regular website. Interpreting it wasn’t as easy as a quick read-through. It was almost a mirror image of what AJ was used to on a regular search engine site.
