Protected by a Hero

by Susan Stoker, Cristin Harber, Cora Seton, Lynn Raye Harris, Kaylea Cross, Katie Reus, Tessa Layne

  “I’m Matt.”

  She tilted her head, letting strands of hair sweep over pale skin. “Lexi.”

  “Here by yourself?”

  “Nope. A work thing. A contest, I guess. I won. Yay me. So I’m here to celebrate.” She signaled the bartender then looked back over. “Hundreds of people are in town for my… work thing, so if you’re some creepy serial killer dude, look elsewhere. People would notice me missing.”

  He laughed. “Let me celebrate with you.”

  Her lips quirked at the corners. “Think you’ve celebrated enough already.”

  “Nah, bachelor party. Night’s still young. It’s my job to get hammered.”

  “And end up by yourself? Where are your buddies?”

  “Honey, I couldn’t care less where they were, sitting next to the likes of you.”

  She smiled primly and shut him down with a bat of her eyes. That was the problem. Couldn’t throw lines at a girl with class.

  He laughed, drew back. “Too cheesy. I get it. You’re not that kind of girl, even if every man in this bar is praying that you are.”

  Lexi pivoted on her barstool. “And what kind of girl is that?”

  He worked his jaw back and forth, knowing he was too damn buzzed to keep her attention if he didn’t nail whatever was about to slip from his mouth. “A woman like you walks into a bar, and this man—hell, any man—prays for a look. Maybe a kiss. He wants a green light to get your number as much as he wants to take you to his room. There’s a whole lot going on in a lot of men’s heads right now, seeing as you appear to be a free agent walking into a bar that’s sausage city in the middle of NYC.”

  She looked over his shoulder, her eyes drifting across the room. “Doubt that.”

  “You aren’t even playing coy with me, are you?” He stole a glance over her curves. “That’s about one in a million.”

  “I’ll make it easy for you, Matt.”

  He leaned in. “You remembered my name.”

  A gentle laugh fell from her lips. “I remember a lot.”

  “Make it easy for me, peaches.”

  She made a face. “Don’t expect a kiss. No crazy hotel room romp just because I sat next to you. I didn’t ride here—”

  “You took the train from where?” Because he would offer to take her back. Damn.

  A less-than-sweet smile curved her dangerously deceptive lips. “More like a Gixxer.”

  “Like a GSX-R?”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Know something else that goes by Gixxer?”

  That leather-clad, smoky-eyed beauty with all that power between her legs… “Fair warning, peaches. I might’ve just fallen in love.”

  She laughed, downplaying what might have been the sexiest thing he could imagine. “I didn’t head three hours north to give my number to some man I’ll never see again—”

  “I drove three hours. It’s meant to be.”

  She gave him another disinterested smile. “I’m not trying to be rude—”

  He blinked. “Where do you live?”

  “Not here.”

  “But where, peaches?”

  “That’s not a cute name for me, thanks.”

  “God, you seem like a sweet one.”

  She tossed her head back and laughed. “Does that crap ever actually work?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You’re persistent,” she lobbed back.

  “I’m who you were supposed to meet tonight. Trust me.”

  Now it was her turn to blink slowly. “Maybe.”

  The bartender finally showed up. “Need something?”

  She stole her eyes away from Matt and ordered a beer.

  A beer. Longneck, domestic. In the bottle. were her exact words. The motorcycle-riding princess was his wet dream incarnate. He’d joked about it before, but after her drink order, he was, without a doubt, in love. Or at least staking claim. Everything about her stole his heart. Or made him want to get her out the door, away from every other asshole there, and see what she would do next. This was the type of woman he’d never let go.

  The bartender arrived with her beer. “Starting a tab?”

  She shook her head. “No, just this one.”

  “You and me, peaches.” Matt bounced his almost-empty beer bottle between his hands. “We’re going to start over.”

  She shifted those baby-blue eyes up. “Didn’t realize we’d started anything to begin with.”

  “Let me take you out to dinner. In DC. Where we both live.”

  “I live in DC?”

  “Three hours away.”

  She assessed him. “I could’ve come from any direction.”

  “Fate wouldn’t let you sit next to me if we weren’t supposed to meet.”

  She studied him then sipped her beer. “Another line, Matt.”

  He laughed. “Give me an answer, Lexi.”

  “No, but I appreciate the invitation.”

  He clutched a hand to his chest. “Oh, woman. You just killed me. Give me one reason to say no.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “But you want to.”

  She turned on her stool. “I don’t trust you. I don’t trust a single guy in this room.”

  “Not even a little?” Everything about her made her more interesting. “Fine, fuck it. New approach.”

  “Are you going to narrate every way you ask me out?” She laughed.

  “Here’s the deal to prove my point. Give me your number. I’ll stop hitting on you and go find my buddies. We’ll do our thing, you head off to do yours. And within the week, I’ll give you a call. Dinner. In DC. Deal?”

  She didn’t say yes.

  He leaned closer. “If you don’t give me an answer on the date, I’m going to make a play to get you in bed right this damn second. You’ll love it. So win-win either way for you.”

  “You’re kind of an ass.”

  A guy tapped her shoulder.

  What the motherfuck? A territorial growl began in Matt’s chest.

  The guy who could’ve been the poster boy for Geeks Without a Chance stepped closer. “Excuse me, are you—”

  “No,” she answered before the guy finished the question.

  “Back away, dick.” Matt threw a protective arm around her.

  The shoulder-tapper backed up, tucking his tail like the little nerd boy he was. “Shit, man. Easy.”

  Matt stared down the skinny little fucker. Scrawny. Brainy. Straight out of a computer lab somewhere. And dude thought he could interrupt Matt? In what world did that guy stand a chance? Shit.

  His eyes shot to her. “Thought I recognized her—”

  Matt’s gaze narrowed. “You didn’t.”

  Computer boy backed away. A few seconds ticked by, then she peered up at Matt. Clearly she was unnerved, and for every line he’d thrown at her, it turned out all he had to do was act as if he were her man already. Easy enough.

  “Thanks,” she said, wary of the world.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Sure you’re not some famous model?”

  At the joke, she relaxed, and he leaned into her. “Not even close.”

  Though she could be by the looks of her. “So my offer…”

  “Your offer.” She glanced at his arm possessively around her and almost looked relieved to have someone caring for her in a bar full of nameless faces.

  “Yes or no, Lexi?”

  “Yes.”

  He leaned forward, brushed the hair back from her ear, and whispered, “Three hundred miles to meet a girl from my backyard. I’ll take it.”

  She scrawled her number on a napkin. “I have to go deal with work stuff. But it was nice to meet you.”

  As she left, he pocketed the cocktail napkin with her digits and finished his beer. Alright. Nicely done. But that didn’t take care of him for the rest of the night. He turned toward the crowd and went in search of someone who’d be interested in him right now.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two years later…

  Bass thumped hard
. The lights were low and dark with flashes of red. The warehouse vibe was chill, and the party raged. Lexi Dare was in her element, with her people, and no one was the wiser that it was, yet again, a party celebrating her. SilverChaos. Whenever there was a big corporate hacker challenge during the day, one of the top dogs in the cyber world threw a rager that night.

  Tonight was all her doing, though few knew who she was. Anonymity was comfortable. It had been her one constant over the years, even if some hackers had tried to connect her name and handle. To most, she was just a regular party girl who worked the underground scene. Friendly enough, she vibed out with the crowd and knew with photographic precision ninety-nine percent of the room’s occupants, even if they didn’t know her. They were a tight-knit community that functioned fine without real names, hidden in their cloaks of anonymity. Only a couple nosey ones made her nervous. She’d been in the mix since she wandered in so many years ago as an abandoned teenage prodigy with no one but a foster sister and a notebook full of code that no one but her understood. Until she’d met these people.

  They made her feel accepted, as if she had a shot at what having a family would feel like. At those parties, she felt as though she were returning home for a reunion. Really, that just showed how little about family she knew and how much of it she craved.

  Now she was back to where she’d started years ago: lonely and abandoned. These events were the only social activity she had anymore, the only ones that let her feel normal, and she clung to them, hoping to retain some of herself even as she knew that with every day in the real world, the real her faded.

  Her leather pants and smoky eyes? She’d hide them when she went back home. Either her foster sister would keep her clothes or Lexi would stash them deep in the closet where Matt would never find them. It was just too… hard to find the right balance between living the expected, suburban, almost-a-housewife life and being the real her.

  “Blondie!”

  She turned toward the voice she’d heard before. It was the second time that night he’d made an approach. He was a nice-looking Asian guy who went by Phiber, and he wasn’t half bad at corporate hacks. What he’d put forth during today’s corporate-sponsored competition was solid. But his wardrobe, what looked like dozens of layered shades of black, did him no favors, and his ego was the size of Silicon Valley. He really thought himself the excellent hack.

  “Blondie’s not my name.”

  His head jutted awkwardly with each bump of bass. “Drink?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  She was one of the few women there that night, or in general. It wasn’t lost on her that she was attractive. Men did double takes when she rode up on the back of her sporty racing bike or when she pulled off her helmet and her fuck-yeah braids were tousled. She didn’t mean to look like that—it was just how she could breathe. According to her fiancé, it was also how she attracted attention, which was why he had a problem with everything these days.

  How she dressed.

  When she worked.

  Her bike was too dangerous.

  Her makeup was too loud.

  Even now, Lexi ground her molars together, briefly weighing the idea of being without Matt—which meant without anyone who called her family—against the idea of being alone in this filled world of loners.

  Things weren’t great at home. Matt pushed the line from being a jerk to just being an asshole. But loyalty was important. Trust was too. Family forgave—that was what he reminded her of constantly. Family filled that void she’d always had. Matt was her family. Right?

  She pushed out a breath, not wanting to deal with reality. Matt thought she had a security clearance, that she worked a freelance techy “geek” job—God forbid the guy rub two brain cells together—and she had to travel to clients. It was one of the few things he let her do without him anymore, but that was primarily because they needed the steady income from her work.

  She’d lied to him from the get-go about exactly what she did to earn a living. Maybe that made her a bad person. Maybe she’d known without realizing it that she was headed down a road that looked perfect but was rocky and dangerous. When he’d dangled a permanent, protective connection in front of her, she jumped at it. Too hard.

  Well, this was her work, and the deep, dark hacker underground wasn’t a security-clearance type of job. Without even asking, she knew there was no way Matt would allow her in this world. Her world. Where she was literally the best of the best.

  But seriously, when did she have to ask to have a job? To do what she’d done for years? Simple answer—the second he’d slipped a rock on her ring finger.

  Phiber tried again with his dance moves and a smile that highlighted a scar above his lip. “If not a drink, then just want to party?”

  She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers to highlight the engagement ring. “Thanks, but I’m good, Phiber.”

  The guy smiled, probably because she knew his handle. “Tonight’s really a rager.”

  Apparently her subtle “no thanks” hadn’t indicated that she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Though truth was, she could use a chat. Not that she was lonely. She had friends. Maybe. Just online now, it seemed. She was falling further away from the girls she’d once been close to. All except for her foster sister, but even Meredith hadn’t seen Lexi in weeks.

  “Yeah.” She bit her lip and nodded at Phiber instead of focusing on her troubles. “It’s crazy tonight.”

  “You hear SilverChaos did all this?” Phiber slugged back his drink. “Mad props to that guy.”

  She stepped back. “Yeah.”

  “Think he’s here?” He laughed. “Could be me. Could be you.”

  “Except you’re Phiber.”

  He shrugged. “But who are you?”

  She needed an exit now. There was no way the guy would pin the elite handle on her, but why risk it? She clapped her hand on his back, patting him like a dude. “See ya, buddy.”

  Lexi tugged on her leather string bracelet, fidgeting, and moved away. She felt Phiber’s eyes still on her, and even though he couldn’t know she was Silver, she had the heebie-jeebies. She melted through the crowd, chatting with others who didn’t creep her out. One weird guy wouldn’t ruin her fun as she hid from home, avoiding her jerk of a fiancé. Though he was so much more than that lately. Her fingers brushed her tender eye.

  Stop thinking about him. Shaking her head clear, she tried to focus on the music, dancing to the beat from the sidelines of the makeshift floor, but her heart wasn’t in it. Why did she lie to herself? It wasn’t Matt’s attitude anymore, nor was his drinking just a random occurrence since losing another job. Matt had crossed the line. More than once. A push. A slap. All came with an apology and excuse. He shouldn’t have been drinking. He’d never do it again. She made it happen, and God, she knew better.

  But it happened more and more often. Not every day. Not even every week. That would be, like, abuse. This was more like… abuse. Shit. She couldn’t even admit it out loud, couldn’t even tell Meredith. Nope, like a little wimp—like nothing who she was—Lexi could only hmm and hum when anyone asked questions. All she did was bury her face in her computer. Well, that wasn’t entirely true—she’d also rescued Bacon Byte, her cute, slightly morbidly obese pug. But even Bacon’s sweet sneezes and snores didn’t turn Matt into a civilized human being.

  Who threatened to hurt a dog? Whether it was off-handed jokes about letting the poor thing gorge herself or jumping at Bacon to scare her, Matt made Lexi’s heart race. Awful people were mean to puppies. Now when she went out of town for her “web security” meetings, she asked Meredith to puppy-sit. So much for Operation Melt-Matt’s-Blackened-Heart.

  How did she have a man’s ring on her finger when she didn’t trust him alone with her dog?

  “Easy,” she murmured to herself.

  She was the queen of abandonment issues. Bouncing from one foster home to the next had really done her in, which was why she showed up to these absurd competiti
ons and kept next to no winnings, donating as much as she could afford. If she could make one little girl’s world happy with stupid money, then yeah, she didn’t need to bring home major dough. But all of that charity still didn’t make her comfortable with the idea of walking away from the only man who claimed he’d never leave her or let her go. Ever.

  Lexi wandered through the crowd. A few high fives and a couple hellos later, she was posted in another corner, eyes peeled for Shadow. Her broker dealt with the upper echelon of the hacker world. As a rogue independent contractor, he knew every important corporation and government contact interested in buying her high-tech projects: patches, programs, codes, and exploits. Over the years, he’d made himself her father figure as well as her business adviser.

  Lose the douche. Those were Shadow’s only words of wisdom when she mentioned the engagement.

  As if it were that simple. Shadow had been by her side since she was seventeen. Last year, for their ten-year working relationship anniversary, he took her to Paris, where they disabled the security and paid off the guards for a private tour of the Louvre. Shadow had a lot of friends in dark places.

  “Silver.” His familiar voice caught her from behind.

  “Hey.” She smiled then watched him nod hello as he handed her a fresh drink, switching out the one in her hand. “Good times, right?”

  “Not bad. How’s life?” He always asked the same question, recently with undertones about concern over the wedding she hadn’t started to plan yet.

  For how close she was to Shadow, it was peculiar that he hadn’t met Matt—that she knew about. Actually, now that she thought about it, given how confident his dislike of her fiancé was, Lexi was sure that Shadow had met Matt.

  “Same as it always is.” She stared at her new cup.

  Carefully, he touched her chin, turning her face, and pushed away one messy curtain of platinum hair. There was a fading bruise on her eye that she’d caked makeup over. In the dark strobe lights, it’d be hard to see, especially given the smoky smudges of black and gray she’d painted over it, but nothing ever got past Shadow. He prided himself on it. Steal from him, he’d steal back. Lie to him, he’d force the words back in your mouth. Ignore the truth—even if it was a black eye that was impossible to avoid—he’d make sure that it was most certainly not ignored.