by Lori Ryan
He turned left, moving through the dining room to the kitchen and Sam waited while he checked in there. She was fascinated with how he moved, his feet silent, his body always placed to maximize her safety and provide cover for himself.
She’d thought about Chad’s explanation that this was simply someone seeking information about her work at Sutton and she thought he was right. It made sense. And because of that, she didn’t truly believe anyone would be in her town house. She allowed herself to fantasize about all of the other things Logan’s body could do as she watched him move with ease through her rooms. He wasn’t just in shape, he was a machine. He’d released the top two buttons on his shirt during the drive here and she could see the tanned skin below his neck tempting her with all kinds of illicit thoughts. Sam actually felt saliva build in her mouth at the thought of reaching her tongue out and trailing it down his neck, while she undid a few more buttons to expose his chest.
Then he was silently making his way up the next staircase to the final level of the town house and Sam’s mind flashed to her bedroom. She quickly catalogued the room in her mind. Three skirts, two pair of pants, five shirts, and three bras were disbursed throughout the room. The remnants of her morning frenzy as she dressed. Well, it could be worse. At least the clothes were all piled on her bed and chair and she’d put her shoes back in the rack in her closet before she’d walked out the door. And there were no panties hanging around. That was something.
She followed along behind him, hanging back on the stairs to watch. Logan swept her bedroom and bathroom, even going so far as to open the door to the crawl space in the bathroom, and then the guestroom while she waited on the staircase landing. When he finished, he returned to her, his eyes looking slightly more relaxed. A little more like the man she knew. And, of course, her eyes found their way back to the vein that ran down the side of his neck, disappearing beneath his shirt. Oh, how she wanted to follow it down, stripping back the fabric to see what lay beneath it.
Sam swallowed hard as Logan moved toward her, his body predatory. He bent in close to whisper in her ear and Sam bit her cheeks to keep from gasping. Or launching herself into his arms. Launching was a very distinct possibility. The heat of his breath tickled over her skin, teasing and taunting her.
“Offer me a drink, Sam,” Logan whispered, but her brain had a hard time processing what he meant.
Sam pulled back and looked at him. His grin was wide and amusement now colored his eyes. The soldier was gone. Teasing, playful Logan was back in place. He ran his hands up her arms, sending chills—the good kind—through her body before pulling her in close again. Mouth at her ear—and this time she’d swear he intentionally let his mouth touch the curve of her ear ever so slightly, sending shivers through her—he whispered his instruction again.
“Samantha, offer me a drink. The listening device in your bag is picking up nothing but silence so far.”
Oh. Right. The bugs.
Sam nodded, not exactly trusting her voice as she drew her eyes up to Logan’s face. He smirked at her as he pulled out a device she assumed would sweep for listening devices. Sam cleared her throat.
“Can I get you a drink, Logan? Um, I think I have root beer and, um, maybe…water. Milk? I have milk.”
Milk…it does a body good. His body sure has done good. Maybe he’s a milk drinker.
Logan was grinning at her again, the look in his eye telling her that maybe she’d said that out loud.
“Did I do it again?”
“Yup.” The look on his face was entirely too smug.
“Jerk. What do you want to drink?”
There was laughter in his eyes and his voice as he continued to scan her home with the device he’d brought. “Water would be great,” he said, as he headed off toward the stairs to the second floor.
Sam left her jacket and purse up in her room, purposefully leaving them behind, so unless Logan found more bugs, their conversation wouldn’t be overheard. She followed him down the stairs but when he headed into the dining and living rooms, she stayed in the kitchen, popping ice into two glasses and filling one with water and the other with root beer. Root beer was her vice. Certainly not her only vice. But a big one.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she called in to Logan as she put the root beer back in the fridge and bumped the door shut with her hip. She figured if there were bugs in here, they should be saying something to one another. She saw Logan slip almost silently down the stairs to the basement before coming back up and crossing to the couch, where he sat down.
“Nothing in the house,” he said. He tossed a signal jammer, similar to the one Chad had given her earlier, on the coffee table.
“The scanner should have picked up any devices even if they weren’t transmitting at the time. Some devices only pick up if a bug is actively transmitting information. Chad likes his toys and keeps some pretty advanced stuff around, but to be on the safe side, continue to jam any conversations you don’t want overheard.”
Sam sat beside Logan and handed him his water before sipping her root beer. She tucked one leg up under her and tried not to pay attention to the fact that the hottest man she’d ever met was sitting next to her. In her home.
She tried to ignore the fact that, when he sat, the strong muscles of his thighs flexed against the fabric of his pants, drawing her gaze and making her wonder what those muscles looked like beneath his pants. What they felt like.
This time, she caught herself before she reached a hand out. No feeling up the hot guy sitting next to you. His knowledge of all this technical stuff actually made him twenty times more appealing than he would be if he’d just been a pretty face and a hot body.
“Do you really think this is just about Sutton and someone digging for information? The competition looking for something?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Logan said. He was half turned to face her on the couch, one arm up over the top edge. He lifted a strand of her hair and let it run through his fingers. Sam almost rolled her eyes at how her body reacted to the simple gesture. It was more than just the physical rush of heat and the leap in her chest. There was an emotional tug at her heart and she needed to remind herself that Logan didn’t plan to act on whatever this was that seemed to pull them together. He’d said as much to Jack at the cocktail party. She’d overheard it herself.
Well, not overheard. She’d seen it come out of his mouth with her own eyes. And despite how many times he told her she looked like Jessica Rabbit and he thought she was hot, he didn’t plan to do anything about it. Which sucked.
“We’ll have Zach set up security just in case, but I doubt you’ll really need it. He’ll install the standard door and window sensors, but I’ll also have him put in some panic buttons in strategic places that you can hit if you’re ever in trouble. They’ll be wired to the police station, but also to me. I’m only five minutes away from here.”
Sam told herself to focus on what Logan was saying, but it was hard. She should probably be taking this more seriously, but both Chad and Logan had assured her she was likely safe. That this was simply an attempt to ferret out company intel. Really, how could she be expected to pay attention to words when he was sitting on her couch, staring at her with those intense eyes that made her want to whimper and strip down to her panties?
“Are you listening to me, Sam?”
Sort of.
“Yup.” She nodded.
“The crawl space in your master bathroom—if the alarm is tripped or you notice anything suspicious, trip the panic button and head right for that crawl space. Barricade yourself in with the boxes in there. Is there anything heavy in them? Heavy enough to hold the door?”
“Books,” Sam said. “Most of them are filled with books.”
Logan nodded. “Good. Light enough for you to move quickly, but if you pile a few in front of the door, they should hold briefly. They’ll buy you a little time. And, with the crawl space being in your master bathroom, it’ll be one of the last places any int
ruder gets to when they enter. Block yourself in and don’t come out for anyone other than myself or Chad. I’ll get a bar to add to that door to fortify it, but the boxes are your contingency plan until we get that installed.”
“So yummy when you’re in protector mode.” Sam sighed. “Damn, that was out loud, wasn’t it?”
Logan gave a huff with a shake of his head, but she saw the corners of his mouth twitch and knew he was trying not to smile.
“I should go,” he said, standing. He picked up the jammer and handed it to her. “Remember to turn this off and let them hear you watching a little TV and brushing your teeth. Anything they’d expect to hear.”
“Won’t anyone listening think that’s odd? I mean, suddenly their device just goes out?”
He shrugged. “At first they’ll just assume it’s interference from everyday stuff you’d run across. It won’t tip them off for a few days, at least. Eventually, they’ll notice it’s happening too often, but not at first.”
He paused and seemed to search her face. “Are you okay to stay here tonight by yourself? Do you want me to stay with you until Zach gets your security system in place?”
Yes, please.
“No, that’s okay. I’m not worried about it. I think Chad’s right. Jack will probably know exactly who it is and Chad will track the bugs back to them and it’ll all be fine. Like you guys said, I’m the weak link. Chad and Jack and Andrew would certainly notice anything awry right away and people know that. They wouldn’t think I would have spotted anything, so they targeted me, that’s all.”
He seemed to shake himself out of a haze. With purposeful movements, he took the jammer from her hand and showed her that he was turning it off. She wasn’t honestly sure if his next words and actions were for show for whoever might be listening, or not. Frankly, she didn’t care.
Because before she knew what was happening, Logan was murmuring her name and he’d lowered his head to hers, capturing her mouth with his. And, oh God, capture was the right word. Because she was caught in the haze and heat and dizziness of the kiss. Caught in the control of his hands as he laced them through her hair and angled her head, taking the kiss soul deep with the stroke of his tongue on her lips. Lips that parted without thought or care, letting him delve into her mouth.
Sam moaned and Logan’s arm dropped to her waist, hauling her against him, bringing the hard planes of his body flush to the soft contours of hers. Her entire body responded in an instant, and tantalizing warmth raced through her as her curves fit to him.
And then, he pulled away. His gaze was intense, his breath just the smallest bit out of control, but he quickly seemed to collect himself. He steadied his breathing as he pushed her away from him, seeming to place her quite purposefully out of reach. Sam couldn’t make out his thoughts, and honestly had no idea if he’d done that simply for the benefit of anyone listening, or because he’d wanted to. She was going to choose to think he’d wanted to, but he shuttered his eyes and said a quick goodnight before walking away, and she was left wondering if it was all just for show, after all.
Chapter Eight
“Diya?”
Diya looked up from her computer and raised her eyebrows at Yoshi.
“Yes?” She’d told him not to interrupt her and Peter as they worked, so she knew if Yoshi had chosen to do so it would be important.
Yoshi eyed Peter as he stepped into the room. Diya had a feeling Peter was wholly absorbed in his work, but she trusted him completely, regardless. He had worked for her father over the years as a contact in the United States and had proven himself. She waved Yoshi farther into the room.
“You can speak in front of Peter. Heaven knows he’s learning every secret we have right now,” she said with a smile.
But in reality, Peter wasn’t learning her secrets—he was learning her father’s. Diya had discovered her father kept journals filled to overflowing with the secrets of anyone and everyone he’d ever worked with. Some had been secret codes to establishing contact with those he worked with. Others were secrets those people wouldn’t want getting out. It seemed her father had known the value of information and he’d traded upon that value through the years. She’d always wondered how he’d come to be as powerful as he had, and now she knew.
She fully intended to pick up where he’d left off, but she also planned to bring the endeavor into the present day. Rather than journals, she was having Peter Gatorelli computerize everything. He’d begun by setting up firewalls and security. Once he completed that task, he’d be taking all the information Diya’s father had compiled and setting it up in a database she could search and cross-reference at will. She would also be able to add to the database, and she intended to do that as well.
Yoshi sat in a chair across from her. “I’ve had three men on Logan Stone for a week, and I think you’re right about that woman. Samantha Page appears to be dating him. I’m not sure yet how important he is to her, but they’re definitely together.”
Peter’s head shot up. “Samantha Page?”
Yoshi nodded, his mouth pulling down into a frown.
“Where is she from? Connecticut? Like Stone?” Peter looked to Yoshi for an answer. Yoshi nodded again.
“Huh,” Peter said and lowered his head to the laptop in front of him again, talking to himself under his breath, a highly annoying habit he seemed unaware of, or perhaps, unconcerned about.
When he didn’t say anything else, Diya prompted him, her tone not at all patient with the eccentricities of the man. “Peter!”
“Huh?” He looked up from his work, confusion etched on his face.
Diya buried a sigh and rolled her eyes as Yoshi coughed nervously into his hand.
“What about Samantha Page from Connecticut?”
“Oh. It’s probably nothing, but there were rumors a while back that she was Gl1nd4w1tch, the white hat hacker behind the take down of Mendelow, Alonzo, and a few others.”
Diya stared at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What does that even mean?”
Now it was Peter’s turn to roll his eyes.
“Gl1nd4w1tch is leetspeak for Glinda witch, as in the good witch of the North or East or wherever. There are white hats and black hats. Good hackers and bad hackers. I,” he said with no small amount of pride, “am a black hat. I hack for profit or to fuck with other people when I feel like it. White hats hack for the pleasure of it and do good for others. They help the government shore up their defenses, and in general try to help undo a lot of the shit we black hats do. Even when they’re hacking for their own pleasure, they don’t actually profit from it or cause harm.
“They’re like the do-gooders of the hacker world. And if these rumors are right, Samantha Page is the best of the best of them. Many hackers identities are well known, despite the fact that they use an online name or two. But Gl1nd4w1tch hasn’t ever been identified. They call her—or him—Gl1nd4w1tch because whoever it is worked with the FBI to take down Mendelow after he hacked into the FDA’s computer system and she’s supposedly worked with them on other things since then. They say she’s taken down criminals the FBI can’t build a case on just by hacking into their systems and taking out all their money, screwing with them any way she can. She’s the kind of chick who finds a major security breach in a company’s software and goes and shows them how to fix it, out of the goodness of her heart. It’s disgusting.”
“And there are rumors this Samantha Page is that hacker?” Diya asked.
Peter shrugged. “I don’t buy it. There are very few people who actually believe it, but whatever. Don’t get me wrong, Samantha’s a pretty decent programmer and even a semigood hacker. When the rumors started, someone hacked her and found out she goes by the name blu33y3dphr3nd—blue-eyed friend. She’s created a few awesome games and she’s got a couple of cool hacks to her credit, but she’s no Gl1nd4w1tch. She just isn’t that good. I don’t buy it.”
“Or she’s smart enough to make herself look like she’s not that good, like s
he’s this blue-eyed person instead, when in reality she’s scamming you all. Find out,” Diya said to Peter. “Do whatever you need to track this hacker and see if it leads back to Samantha Page.”
Peter sputtered. “It can’t be done. If it could be done, someone would have done it by now. No one can track Gl1nd4w1tch.”
“I thought you could do anything,” Diya said, with a raised brow, instantly recognizing the set of his shoulders that said he wouldn’t let her challenge go unanswered.
Peter squinted his eyes her way and uttered a short “fine,” before turning to his computer.
“And you,” Diya said, turning back to Yoshi, “stay on Logan and Samantha. Also find out all you can on her, everything there is to know from what brand of underwear she prefers to how she takes her coffee. Everything.”
*****
“You kissed me.”
Logan looked up at the sound of Sam’s voice. Hell. The woman was gunning for bear this morning. Her hair was twisted up in some complicated thing at the back of her head, neck unprotected, just begging him to reach out and trace it with his tongue. She wore a high-heeled-boots-and-miniskirt combo that always sent his fantasies off in cock-hardening directions. Crap like that really made it difficult to work. Scratch that. It made it difficult to breathe, never mind work.
“I did,” he said, purposefully making his voice even. Kissing her had been a mistake. At first, he’d told himself it was only for the benefit of anyone listening in on the devices, but that was a load of crap and he knew it. What would it matter to her eavesdropper if she had a boyfriend or not? If he’d been at her place as a friend or as a lover? It wouldn’t.
No, the kiss had been solely for himself. Solely because he couldn’t help himself any longer. And then, once it had started, he couldn’t stop. She’d melted into him and moaned and before he knew it, he’d pulled her in close, lining his cock between her legs just right. And it was so freaking right. So ever-loving effing right.
