by Tina Folsom
He scoffed. “Yeah, right. Then why the fuck would you take a walk in a dark park at night when it’s so dangerous, huh? Care to explain that?”
“Well, then what are you doing here? Spying on me?”
“Don’t try to turn the tables on me. We both know what’s going on here. You set me up to come to the park.”
“To do what?” she spat, defiance spewing from those lips he’d devoured the night before.
“To kill me,” he ground out, shoving his face practically into hers. Her blue eyes sparkled now, picking up light from somewhere in the vicinity as she glared at him.
Michelle gnashed her teeth. “With what, you idiot? Maybe with the gun you’re still pointing at my head?”
He had to give her that: she wasn’t caving easily, more proof that she was smart and out to trick him.
“Now get off me!” She tried to push him, but he was heavier and stronger, and had no intention of relinquishing his superior position just because she was a woman.
“Not until you tell me what you’re doing here. Were you the one setting up the meet?”
“What meet?”
The way her eyes shifted at her words, he knew she was covering, buying herself some time to get out of her predicament.
“You know what meet.” He looked her up and down. “Of course it was you, wasn’t it? Who else would know how to navigate the Deep Web but a former member of Anonymous?”
Her chin dropped and air rushed from her lungs. She tried to catch herself, but it was too late; she’d already given herself away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” With his free hand, he reached for her necklace and pulled on it, until the pendant emerged from underneath her black long-sleeved T-shirt. “Odd choice for a piece of jewelry, don’t you think?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I can wear what I like.”
“Sure you can. And I can draw whatever conclusions from it that I like. And that, my sweet, is a Guy Fawkes mask, the symbol of Anonymous. Which you were a member of. What happened? The authorities catch you when you were a hacker?”
“I was never a hacker! And you have no right to question me. You’re the one who’s got something to hide, not I.” She motioned to the gun he was still pointing at her head. “You’re the one with the gun, remember?”
“And that is exactly the reason why you should be answering my questions truthfully and not dishing up any more lies. I’m growing impatient, Michelle, and you know what happens when I get impatient?”
She stared at him quizzically.
“My hand starts to tremble. It’s a little tick, you know.”
“You wouldn’t.”
He shook his head. Michelle had courage, the kind of courage that could get her killed one day. “Don’t test me. Tell me the truth, Michelle, or would you rather I guessed what you’re up to?”
“Be my guest!”
“Well, then.” He loosened his hold on her by a bit while he lowered the barrel to her neck. “You were a hacker associated with Anonymous. You got caught at some point, hacking into some government agency or another. You’re talented. So talented in fact that they made you an offer: to work for them. How am I doing so far?”
She pressed her lips together.
“Good. I’m on the right track then. Shall I continue, or would you rather take over and tell me the rest?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
He slammed his fist into the tree trunk next to her head. She flinched.
“Goddamn it, Michelle, I swear I’m going to strangle you if don’t drop your stubbornness and tell me what I want to know. Don’t you get it? This is not a game. Lives are at stake here.” He moved in, bringing his face to hover only inches from hers. “Were you the one to set up the meet?”
She shook her head, trembling now. “I was told to record whoever was showing up here.” Tears brimmed at her eyes. “I didn’t know it was going to be you.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, Michelle was talking. Softening his voice, he asked, “The person you work for, who is he with? CIA? NSA?”
She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know.”
Nick growled. “Michelle.”
“I swear I don’t know.” She sucked in a breath. “I don’t know who he is. He contacts me and tells me what to do. I have no choice.”
He studied her face for a moment, wheels clicking into place now. “His offer to work for him wasn’t really an offer, was it?”
Silently, she shook her head and dropped her lids.
“Is that why you’re getting a fake passport made?”
Her head shot up and she pinned him with her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“The flash drive on your key ring. You had image files and information on it that pointed to it.”
She braced her hands at her hips, suddenly furious. “You took my memory stick? That’s private property. You had no right!”
He shrugged. Private property rights weren’t really his concern right now. He had bigger fish to fry. “Should have encrypted it.”
“There’s no need to encrypt it! It never leaves my sight.”
He pasted a grin on his face. “It did when you took a shower.”
“You, you…” Her hands came up as if she wanted to hit him, but he stopped her by pressing the gun harder against her neck.
Her eyes darted to it. “Don’t you think that’s a little overkill right now? You’ve assured yourself already that I’m not armed. Or do you use that gun as an extension of your dick?”
He chuckled involuntarily. He couldn’t really blame her for being angry; neither could he take that kind of insult lying down. “My dick needs no extension, as you well know.”
She huffed indignantly.
But she’d made her point, and knowing what he knew of her so far, Michelle posed no physical threat to him. He put the safety back on the gun and holstered it, but didn’t step back, keeping her trapped between his body and the tree trunk.
“Now that we’ve established the size of my dick, let’s continue. What else did your mysterious handler want you to do?”
“Just record the people who were going to meet here and then text him the file.”
“I don’t mean tonight. I mean in general. You were stalking me online, trying to prevent me from hacking into a server.”
Her mouth gaped open for a second, before she spoke. “So that was you.”
“Yeah, that was me. You’re pretty good, but you made a mistake.”
“How?”
“Doesn’t matter. I traced your IP address to the coffee shop.”
She nodded. “So it wasn’t a coincidence then. Too good to be true. You played me all this time. Got into my pants just so you could figure me out, that it?” She tossed him an angry glare.
“And trust me, I enjoyed it, and so did you.”
“Jerk! I would have never slept with you had I known—”
He pressed his body to hers, grinding his hips into her pelvis, snatching her wrists with both his hands, and pinning her against the tree.
“You don’t know anything, Michelle. Or do you know how I fought with my conscience whether to seduce you or not? Whether to take you to bed or not? How I agonized over it, knowing that it was wrong to touch you when I knew I was doing it to get information from you?”
He lowered his lids, only looking at her parted lips now.
“While all this time, I wanted you, wanted to be with you and make love to you as if we were normal people who are attracted to each other. Do you know that I wished that my suspicions were wrong? That you weren’t the hacker they’d sent to catch me?”
He released her wrists and shoved a hand through his hair, realizing something for the first time.
“Damn it, I slept with you because I wanted you. I could have gotten the information I needed by other means, too. By breaking into your place, or by mugging you. I didn’t need to get this close. But I wanted to.�
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Just like he wanted her now beyond all reason.
Unable to stop himself, he sank his lips onto hers, taking her mouth in a fierce kiss.
15
Nick’s unexpected kiss robbed her of her breath. All Michelle could do now was cling to him. Her knees were too weak to support her weight, and only the tree at her back and Nick’s body pressing into her were holding her up. She had no strength left, no fight left in her. Nick holding the gun to her head and having looked like he was actually going to use it had squashed any kind of resistance she’d tried to mount. She’d been surprised at herself that she’d held out as long as she had. But no longer. Because resisting Nick’s kiss was impossible.
His words continued to swarm in her head, bouncing around like ricochets, urging her to believe what he’d said. That he hadn’t wanted to use her. That he could have done it without sleeping with her. That he’d only slept with her because he’d wanted her.
She shouldn’t believe it. No. She couldn’t. He was only saying this to gain her trust so she would tell him everything. He knew too much already. But the way he acted made no sense. If he worked for Smith, why was he asking her all these things? He would already know that she was beholden to Smith. Or was she wrong? Was he in fact not one of Smith’s pawns? Was he truly who he said he was, the hacker she’d been charged to find?
She pushed him away, making him release her lips. Resisting the urge to rub her fingers over her mouth to verify that he’d truly kissed her with such passion, she glared at him instead. She needed answers.
“Are you saying you’re not working for Smith? That he didn’t send you to check up on me? To keep me in line?”
“Smith?”
“The guy who’s making me do all this.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because it’s just a little too convenient that you showed up just after he gave me an ultimatum.”
Nick grabbed her shoulders. “What ultimatum?”
“If I don’t deliver the hacker to him in ten days, he’ll throw my ass in jail, though I think he didn’t mean it. I think he plans to kill me because he’s afraid I know too much.”
“When did he give you the ultimatum?”
“A week ago yesterday.”
“That leaves you two days.”
Michelle swallowed hard. She could count, too. She knew her time was nearly up. “He said if I did well tonight, then, maybe, he’d let me off the hook.” She snorted. “Like that’s ever gonna happen now.” She pushed back the tears of desperation that threatened to turn her into a pitiful mess and looked at him. “You’ve gotta let me go. I don’t care what you’re involved in. I don’t even want to know. But I need to get out of here.”
“You really think he’s not gonna find out what you’re planning? Don’t you think he already knows that you’re trying to procure a fake passport and are planning your getaway to South America?”
For a moment, she froze. How did he know about South America? Then it clicked. “The flash drive. It was on there, my research.”
Nick nodded, his face a mask of seriousness now. “I think we can help each other.”
She shook her head and her torso, trying to shake off his hands, but he held firm. “Yeah, that’s how he put it, too. And look what happened. I’m in a deeper mess than I ever was before. Why would I trade in one blackmailer for another? How’s that gonna help me?”
“I’ll make sure you stay alive. I can protect you against Smith. If you help me.”
“Do what? Don’t you get it, Nick? You’re the better hacker. You traced my digital signature. You found me. That wasn’t supposed to happen. So how could I possibly help you when you’re so much better than me?”
“It’s not about that. It’s about who you know. Smith. I need to get to him. If he knew that I was trying to get into the CIA’s servers, then he also knows why. And that means he knows what I am.”
Confused, Michelle shook her head. “Then why would he need me to find out? That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” Nick shot back. “Because he knows what I am, but not who I am.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to. All you need to know is that, if you tell me where I can find Smith, I’ll help you disappear.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “And how would you know anything about how to disappear?”
His head came closer, until all she could see were his penetrating eyes. “I disappeared three years ago. None of my enemies has been able to find me. And I’m right under their noses.”
“Enemies? Like Smith? Is he your enemy?”
“If he’s looking for me, most likely.”
Curiosity got the better of her, even though she’d told herself and Nick only moments earlier that she didn’t want to know what he was involved in. “What did you do?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
But she couldn’t let it go. “Smith is government, I know that much, though I’m not sure what agency. Probably CIA. That means you did something the government didn’t like. Espionage? Treason?”
Nick chuckled unexpectedly. “Those are mighty words for an anarchist like yourself.”
“I’m not an anarchist. I believe in democracy. All I ever did was expose corruption and wrongdoing in the government.”
“By hacking into classified information together with your friends at Anonymous, I suppose?”
“Look who’s calling the kettle black. Besides, Anonymous is doing good things, too. They’ve pledged to shut down Al-Qaeda’s online presence.”
A smile formed on Nick’s lips. “I’m not defending the government, Michelle, so you can stop your tirade. We’re on the same side, or at least I hope I’m able to convince you to come to my side. You need me.”
She contemplated his words, falling silent for a good long moment. Could he really deliver what he was promising? A new start, somewhere nobody could find her? Where she was safe from Smith and whatever government agency he worked for?
“You know you want to say yes. Let me make the decision easier for you.”
She raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was planning, when his hand came up to caress her cheek.
“I won’t hurt you, Michelle. I’ll protect you. Trust me.”
“Trust isn’t a thing you can force.”
“But it’s something that can grow. You trusted me with your body, now trust me with your heart and your mind.”
Slowly his lips approached her mouth. His breath whispered over her skin, tempting her to surrender, to give herself over to this man, this stranger who’d taken her body to unknown heights. At the same time, he’d lied to her. How could she trust him now?
“Nick, please…” She didn’t know what she wanted to tell or ask him, didn’t know why her fingers suddenly clawed into his shirt, holding him close.
“Baby, just let me help you. Let me keep you safe.”
His lips brushed against hers so gently that she wasn’t even sure he was touching her. Only when the pressure against her mouth intensified and a hot tongue swept over her trembling lips, did her resistance crumble.
“I’m not your enemy,” he murmured against her lips and dipped his tongue between them.
The clicking of a gun paralyzed her and made Nick spin around in her arms.
“Wow, you sure are a smooth operator,” a male voice drawled. “Guess even I can learn something from you.”
16
Hand on his gun, Nick froze. The man standing only a few feet away, pointing a gun at him, caused the small hairs on his skin to stand to attention. A familiar tingling spread over his body, and he recognized it instantly. He was facing another Stargate agent. This wasn’t the mysterious Mr. Smith Michelle had told him about, or at least he hoped not. Only Michelle could confirm.
“Leave that gun right where it is,” the man ordered.
Nick turned his head sideways, without taking his eyes off the stranger. Tall and athletic-lookin
g, the man appeared to be in his early thirties, his dark blond hair hanging over his forehead, yet cut short on the sides. He was clean shaven and appeared well groomed. “Michelle, is this him? Is this Smith?”
She peered past him. “It’s not his voice.”
“What?” Did that mean what he thought it meant?
“I’ve never seen him. I only know his voice.”
The stranger clicked his tongue. “You shouldn’t have let me get the drop on you. Getting sloppy, my man.”
The fact that the man addressed him as if they knew each other unnerved Nick, but he pretended that he didn’t mind. “You’re late,” Nick said instead.
“Actually, I was early.” He motioned to Michelle, who was now trying to squeeze past him. Nick pushed her behind his back. “Just like this one here showed up early. I was wondering what she was planning.”
“We need to talk,” Nick said firmly. Preferably without the other Stargate member pointing a gun at his head. Clearly the man had trust issues, and while Nick had been close to wiping out Michelle’s reluctance to trust him with seduction, the same method wasn’t going to work on his fellow Stargate agent.
Not that he could blame the guy. Nick himself wasn’t sure whether he could trust him either. Sheppard had warned them that should the program ever be compromised they’d have to assume the worst: that one of their own was a traitor. That one of their own could come to hunt them down, using the very skill that had made them brothers against them.
“Yeah. Alone,” the stranger responded. “Lock her up.”
“No!” Michelle protested, her head darting past Nick’s shoulder.
The stranger’s gun veered toward her. “You don’t have a say in this.”
“But I do,” Nick countered, glaring at the man.
“Unarmed, you don’t.”
“You know I’m not unarmed.”
The man cocked his head to the side. “And just how fast a draw are you?” He made a small movement with this gun. “It takes way less time to pull the trigger with the finger already on it. So don’t be stupid.” He motioned to a path beyond the copse of trees. “There’s a shed down there, a couple hundred yards away. She’ll be fine in there while we talk.”