by Desiree Holt
“Has anything significant happened lately besides the Arroyo deal? Not that it isn’t significant enough by itself, but I can’t see anyone following you or causing an accident because of it. So what else? Anything with any of your clients?”
“Not any more than usual, except for the recent flood of new accounts. Oh! Ouch!” He flinched when she squeezed his knee a little harder.
“Sorry. I just want to make sure this gets to the bone.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing feels good. I don’t want to take advantage, so you can stop any time after the next three or four days.”
She laughed. “You wish.”
“Yeah, a guy can hope.”
“I’m going to get something to ice that knee in a minute.” She sat back on her heels. “You may be imagining things, as you said, but I’ve learned to trust people’s intuition. So, let’s get back to your clients. Anything special that night trigger this?”
“Possibly.” He shrugged. “Maybe. I write software for defense contractors as well as high-profile financial firms.”
“Which one’s at the top of the list right now?”
“I’d have to say Hoffman. They’re doing a hush-hush project for the Department of Defense. We’re just finishing up their security program now so they can load everything onto their servers. I’ll be delivering it the week before Gasparilla.”
“I don’t suppose you caught that guy’s license plate today, did you?” She shook her head. “Stupid question. I think we’ll go with deliberate because that’s what the logistics say. I don’t think whoever this is wants to kill you, or they would have done it.”
“What good would killing me do, anyway?”
“What happens if you’re out of commission? How does it affect your ongoing projects?”
He frowned. “Not a lot. We’re structured so any one of the staff can jump into any project if necessary. If I couldn’t finish the Hoffman project, there are three others on my staff who have worked on it with me who could complete it, beta test it and deliver it.”
“So, harming you wouldn’t accomplish a thing, right?”
“Right. That’s why this is so hard to understand.”
Sydney nibbled on her lower lip. “Does the outside world know that?”
“I have no idea what they know.” He started to push himself to a sitting position, then groaned and fell back.
“Easy, big boy.” Sydney shifted on the bed to kneel beside him. “You’ve got some mighty big bruises here.”
“I feel like I got hit by a giant fist.”
“Looks like it, too. Maybe we need to come at this from another angle, but not tonight. You need to get some sleep and I need to ice those bruises.” She eased off the bed. “Do you have gel packs in your freezer?”
“Yeah. I always keep a couple handy.”
“Good. Better than ice.” She took a sleep shirt out of the little tote she’d brought with her and pulled it on over her head. “I’ll be right back.”
She fetched two gel packs from the freezer. She’d score a hand towel from Liam’s bathroom to protect him from freezer burn. He was still in the same position when she hurried back into the room. To Sydney, it didn’t look as if he’d moved an inch. She did notice, however, the glass on the nightstand that she figured had held the Jack Daniel’s was now empty. Good. He’d be relaxed. She had a special treat to finish him off and he’d be able to sleep.
“This is cold,” she warned him, as she settled one gel pack on his knee.
He jumped. “No shit.”
Even though she wrapped it in a towel, when she eased the other ice pack beneath his shoulder, he jerked again and cursed softly.
“We need to leave these on for twenty minutes. If you’re a good boy, you’ll get a reward.”
It was a testament to the electricity between them that even in his present condition, his cock flexed beneath the towel and when he spoke, his voice was husky.
“I can hardly wait.” He sighed. “Damn. It’s a good thing I do most of my work sitting down.” He studied her as if suddenly aware of what she was wearing, and his mouth curved in a little grin. “You came prepared to spend the night?”
She shrugged. “Of course. You sounded as if you needed me and I wanted to be here for you.” Watching his face, she could almost see him processing everything in his mind.
“So, let me see if I understand, because I don’t want to make a mistake here. We’ve been together twice. Three times, if you count the party where we met. Neither of them were what I’d call dates, but the last time was better than any other date I’ve ever had. And instead of me taking you out on a real date tonight, here you are tending to my wounded body and prepared to spend the night. Even though I know damn well you have an early meeting before court tomorrow. Did I get that all right?”
Sydney had been adjusting the ice on his knee, but she stopped and stared at him. “Is this okay? I know I have a tendency to telescope time lines, so did I get our signals wrong?”
“No, you didn’t.” He smiled and linked his fingers with those of her free hand. “Not even a little. There’s something here, Sydney. We have the kind of careers that don’t leave a lot of openings for personal time. Time to build relationships, so if something’s there we need to jump into it with both feet. Otherwise we risk losing it. But make no mistake here. This isn’t anything close to casual. We had something going from the minute we met. And I want to make sure we do everything we can, however different this might be, to be sure we don’t lose out on it.”
“Good.” She blew out a breath and felt the tension ease from her body. “Me, too. Now, how about you just close your eyes and let me work some of my magic on you?”
He arched one eyebrow. “Magic?”
“Uh-huh. Go on. Close your eyes.”
As soon as he did, she shifted to kneel beside him. Tossing aside the towel draped over his hips, she slid one hand between his thighs to cup his balls and wrapped the fingers of the other hand around his now rigid cock.
He started to sit up, but pain slashed across his face and he fell back onto the pillows.
“Jesus, Syd. Way to startle a man.”
“But a good way, right? Just close your eyes. I’ll do all the work here.”
As soon as he was relaxed again, she began a slow up-and-down glide of her fingers on the hard cock, gently squeezing his balls in rhythm with her strokes. The more she stroked, the harder the pulse at the hollow of his throat beat.
She bent lower and took one stiff nipple in her mouth, sucking it before giving it a gentle bite. A low groan rumbled from his throat, so she closed her teeth on it again before moving to the other bud. Then she trailed the tip of her tongue along a line down his abs, paused to ease the indentation of his navel then continued on through the curls at his groin. When she reached his cock, she swiped her tongue across the velvety head, catching a tiny bead of fluid sitting right at the slit.
“Jesus, Syd.” Liam tried to lift his groin closer to her.
“Uh-uh. No moving. Can’t lose the ice packs. Can you hold absolutely still?”
He chuffed a slightly hysterical laugh. “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this while icing my body.”
She winked at him. “It’ll keep you from getting too hot too fast.”
“Not possible. Oh, god!” He spat the words out as she shifted her fingers and took the length of his shaft into her mouth.
He tasted of shower and body wash and just plain Liam, the skin soft, but beneath it, he was hard as steel. She timed the movement of her mouth with the rhythmic squeezing of his balls, not too fast but just enough to push him slowly up that erotic climb. She alternated scraping the length of him with her lips and her teeth and stroking him with her fingers. It wasn’t hard to tell the need was building rapidly in his body. His breathing became choppy and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He made exciting little noises as she pulled him closer and closer to a climax, keeping everything deliberately slow and
steady.
“Jesus, Syd. God! Please. I need to— Holy fuck!”
The words flew from his mouth as she used both her hand and her mouth on his cock. Now she moved faster, sucked harder, felt the heat of him against her palm.
And he was there, his body rigid, back arching, shouting as he erupted into her mouth. She massaged his balls as she sucked every bit of fluid from him, swallowing it as he came and came and came. At last he went limp, his shaft softening against her tongue.
She eased him from her mouth, smiled and kissed her way up his body to his lips. He threaded the fingers of one hand through her hair, anchoring her head in place so she was looking directly into his eyes.
“That was…incredible.”
“For me, too.” The kiss she gave him was more emotional than passionate. “Did it get your mind off what’s going on with you?”
His laugh rumbled up from deep inside his body.
“Damn straight. Although I might need the same kind of treatment every night until we find out what the hell is going on.”
She chuckled. “Don’t push your luck, buddy. Tonight was an unexpected gift.”
“I know.” He pulled her head closer to kiss her again, a soft touching of lips, no tongue, just that affirmation of connection. “But I can hope, right?”
“Well, keep hoping. I can’t wait to get to closing statements in this damn trial. My client is a horse’s ass and the prosecutor is obsessively detailed. He’s insisted on bringing in an army of forensic accountants to testify to each minute transaction. Which of course I then have to rebut with my own expert witnesses.”
“Not much fun,” he commented.
“No kidding. But Gasparilla’s in a couple of weeks and I’d like to be finished by then so I can party a little. If I’ve done my job right, the jury won’t take long to return a verdict of not guilty.”
“I’m close to delivering the Hoffman project.” He stroked her shoulder, his touch warming her from the inside out. “The move to the new building is all set for right after that. What do you say we celebrate Gasparilla together?”
“I’m all for that.”
He chuckled. “Come to the parade and I’ll wave to you from my float and toss you some beads.”
She stared at him. “You ride in the parade?”
“Uh-huh.” He told her the name of the group he was with. “Been doing it for about five years. There’s a private party after. We can have a couple of drinks, do the glad-hand thing and then have our now private celebration. How does that sound to you?”
“It sounds terrific.” She sighed. “Especially the private part.”
He chuckled. “And I won’t be so banged up by then, either.”
His smile hit something deep inside her. None of the men she’d ever been with had smiled at her quite the same way.
“Then after that maybe we can actually go out on a real date,” she teased.
“Or five or ten,” he joked.
“Meanwhile you need a good night’s sleep.”
She eased the gel packs away from his body and helped him slide beneath the covers. Then she slipped in next to him, cuddling close on his uninjured side. He curled his arm around her to hold her as close to his body as he could. She tried to relax but her brain wouldn’t stop poking at her.
Should I have left him alone tonight? Would it have been better if I had stayed away?
But she couldn’t deny the connection between them, and the chance for something she’d never had before. She had never wanted to make time for a personal relationship before, mostly because no one had ever come along that made her want it. For the first time in her life, she felt this intense connection and she wanted to build on it.
“Syd?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Thanks.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “For?”
“Just being you.” He kissed the top of her head. “Good night.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “It really is.”
Chapter Ten
Shan had chosen a different restaurant this time, one in a northern suburb of Tampa, where they would be much less likely to run into someone they knew. They had been lucky so far, but Shan had deliberately chosen meeting places not frequented by people they knew.
Eight had ordered beer again, ignoring Shan’s displeasure. To each his own. Besides, who was the one risking life here, anyway?
Shan took a sip of coffee, set the cup down carefully and looked across the table. “Your boss must have a body made of steel. I cannot believe the accident didn’t keep him out of the office.”
Eight snorted. “Only death would keep him out of the office. That was a very stupid thing for you to do. He’s been paranoid all last week about the security for this project. He insisted on checking all the work at the end of each day. Some nights he was there almost until midnight beta testing each phase.”
Shan had been playing with a cigarette. The restaurant did not allow smoking, so this apparently was the next best thing. But at Eight’s words, Shan’s fingers snapped it in two and scattered tobacco on the table.
“I expect you made sure that did not interfere with your ability to do what you have to.”
Eight almost choked on a swallow of beer. “I did what I had to. I’m very good at my job. You and your people are the ones who fucked it up because you insisted on doing things that called attention to the situation.”
Eight did not want to tell Shan that one personal project she’d been working on was a new way to hide the back door in the software. She was testing it on the Hoffman project. Someone would have to be very sophisticated in the field to be able to detect it. There hadn’t been a way to test it yet, because Liam had hardly left the office until the Hoffman software was delivered. She couldn’t have copied it to a laptop because it would have left an electronic footprint. It had just meant picking the right morning to go in extra early and take care of it.
And taking advantage of the fact that Liam trusted Eight without reservation.
Oh, what fools people can be.
And that was almost a problem. Eight heard from Rosalie that when the head of Arroyo heard about Liam’s ‘accident’, she wanted to hire security to drive him everywhere. Thank god Liam had managed to squash that. So, there had still been a narrow window—narrow being the operative word—to install the new, more sophisticated back door. If it worked, perhaps that would generate an even larger payoff when everything was complete.
Don’t get ahead of yourself.
But the devil that sat on Eight’s shoulder was calling with its seductive voice and the secret vice was demanding to be let out.
Soon. Very soon.
“So, the program is in place at Hoffman’s. Good. Let’s give it a few days before we test your back door.”
“The best time would be when we’re in the middle of the move,” Eight pointed out. “There will be a point in time when the entire system is down.”
“You will text me when you have that information. When did you say the move was scheduled for?”
Eight swallowed an irritated sigh. “This weekend. Tomorrow.”
“But most likely he will begin dismantling things today. Correct? My people are most impatient to move forward on this. Time is critical.”
“Just don’t do anything until at least late tomorrow.” Eight’s gut burned. This thing would produce ulcers before it was finished. If only self-control wasn’t such a problem when the devil beckoned.
At last Shan finished the last of his coffee and signaled their meeting was over.
Eight slid out of the booth and hurried to the door, wanting to get out of there as fast as possible.
What a clusterfuck this was turning out to be.
* * * *
Liam popped a couple of ibuprofen in his mouth and washed them down with the water left in his bottle. He had become accustomed to the constant dull ache in his body and the twinge in his knee that stabbed him whenever he got up or sat down. The
residual ache was taking a long time to go away, most likely because he pushed himself at work for hours longer than she should. If not for Sydney’s wonderful massage last week, he’d be in much worse shape.
Sydney.
Just thinking her name called up all kinds of erotic images. It had thrilled him to discover that beneath the take-charge image she projected to the world was a softer, more feminine woman who made him want so many things. And now he was right on the verge of being able to enjoy those things and—he hoped—a lot more.
He’d finally taken care of all the paperwork on his accident. Gotten the police report that contained his statement about another car pushing him into oncoming traffic. The damage to his vehicle spoke loudly to that. He’d picked up the rental, his own car now out of commission for at least a week because the body shop was so backed up.
Teri and Phil had offered to stay late to do a last work-through on the Hoffman project. Sy was at a client’s tweaking their program, but the two were more than enough. They put the software through its paces, finally satisfied that it was locked up tighter than a drum.
After the others left, Liam added his own special tweak in there. No matter how much he trusted Teri or Phil or Sy, he wanted to be the only one to know about this little gimmick. By the time he locked down for the night, he was exhausted but satisfied he and his team had done their job more than well.
He delivered the new software to Hoffman Contractors on time and installed the system on their server while Hoffman and his staff watched. Then, with everything in place, he tried to again crack it to access their files, without luck. It had worked without a hitch. He stayed long enough to watch them load all the work files, especially those involving the new drone project, and to make sure all was in working order.
Today, just to satisfy both himself and his client, he’d tested it again, trying to hack it from his office, then from a cyber café near Hoffman’s building. Nothing got through. He kept getting the same programmed screen: Incorrect password. Try again. When he left, everyone was happy, including himself. This was a weight off his shoulders.
