Midnight Kiss

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “Don’t.” Luke’s voice was deep and low. He’d put his hand over hers again and again she felt that sense of strength and warmth. She caught her breath. No, not warmth — heat.

  Oh God. She was never distracted by beefcake, never. Not that handsome men were thick on the ground where she worked. Either at her current company, at the NSA, or even at university. Slump-shouldered, either painfully thin because they forgot to eat or dumpy because the only thing they did besides work the keyboard was eat pizza, with dubious grooming habits, the men she’d been around most of her adult life did not inspire lust.

  The few times she’d forced herself to go on dates or go clubbing, the men had been better looking and better groomed but — like children. Preening in fancy clothes, dropping restaurant names, checking to see what effect they were having on her.

  Awful. That was the effect they had on her. Usually she couldn’t wait to get back to her cool, empty apartment and get back online, where interactions were fun and impersonal.

  This man didn’t do any of that. He didn’t preen and he didn’t try to impress. This man was a man, in the full sense of the word.

  She rarely saw real men. That must be why all her hormones woke up at the very worst possible moment. What was the point of hormones rising up, raring to go when there was nowhere to go? This was strictly a frightened customer/professional protector scenario.

  But damn! He was just so incredibly attractive. It was unfair that she had to deal with such a good-looking male male when she was so tired and scared. Like a male model, only a little scruffy and unshaved. Which actually made him even more attractive.

  Oh God. Sandbagged by her own hormones.

  He was so serious. He exuded seriousness from every pore. She was in so much trouble and here she had a freaking soldier protecting her. A brave one, too. Felicity had texted her the basics on Luke Reynolds, thinking it would reassure her. It had. He’d won medals for valor. Had been in Special Operations, SpecOps, they’d called it at the NSA. Brave and smart and dedicated to helping her.

  Why, oh why were her hormones betraying her now?

  Her hand under his was trembling and she looked down. He snatched his hand away as if he’d presumed too much. When, actually, she wanted to crawl onto his lap and lick his face. Throw her arms around that strong neck and lay her head against that broad chest.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “Tell me the rest of the story.” He looked her in the eyes and she almost got lost in them. Manly men weren’t supposed to have beautiful eyes but this one did. Just her luck. Light blue, with thin lines of dark blue and dark eyelashes though he was blond. She sighed, looked down, gathered her thoughts which were not of him. Not, not, not.

  He nodded as she looked up again. “How’d you get out without anyone seeing you? Anyone with operational experience would have posted men at the front and back entrances. I don’t know what kind of manpower they had but they’d have covered all contingencies.”

  “They probably did. But my apartment is part of a pretty big complex, a gated community of twelve apartment buildings. What isn’t visible, and what you can’t know unless you have property there, is that they are all connected via underground passageways, so people can get from one building to the next underground if it’s raining or snowing. The laundry rooms and garbage bins are there, and everyone has a storage locker. The elevators to go up to the apartments don’t go down to the basement, there are separate elevators down to the basement. So unless they did major research and hacked into the architect’s studio, they wouldn’t know about the underground passageways and the special elevators. I was in the special elevator to the basement before they made it up to the fifth floor. I followed them on the hallway security cameras. I ran down the basement corridor as fast as I could. In ten minutes I came up in a small alleyway twelve buildings away. It leads directly to a bus stop. I waited in the alleyway for a few minutes until a bus came. It covered the video cam across the street. The camera couldn’t catch me boarding. I got off right in front of the apartment of a friend of mine who’s away for two months on a course. She asked me to water her plants twice a week and I had the keys to her apartment in my backpack. I don’t think anyone would ever connect us. I stayed there all night. I hacked into Kyle’s work computers. He’s pretty good at security and it took me a while. But when I finally got in, his entire system had been trashed. His company will have to start over. Even the data stashed in the cloud was gone.”

  Luke stared at her, unblinking. “That would take a lot of talent.”

  She nodded. The fact that someone had killed Kyle’s entire IT department had frightened her almost more than the killing of Kyle himself. Any idiot with a gun can kill. It took talent and resources to wipe out Kyle’s company’s system.

  “By evening, I realized I needed help, so I called the HER room.”

  “Come again?” For a moment she was distracted by his frown. Damn, he was so handsome even frowning was a good look on him. “What’s a her room?”

  That called up a slight smile. Just thinking of the HER room made her feel better, safer.

  “The HER room. It’s a Blockchain-encrypted storage folder in the darkweb shared by the four of us. There were originally three of us in the same office at the NSA, we were the ones who set it up. This was before Felicity. Me — Hope — Emma and Riley. H.E.R. We founded it a couple of years ago when we were working together at the NSA. We had the Boss from Hell who managed to be oppressive, incompetent and sexist, all at once, and all at maximum volume. We were setting up a database of all the known means of communication of ISIS, and it required focus and he was always there, looking over our shoulders, complaining and making stupid comments because he didn’t understand the parameters of the database. Backstabbing sexist creep. Belittling us while waiting for us to make our breakthrough so he could claim credit.” She glanced angrily at him. “Did you ever have a boss like that?”

  “Once. In the Army. But everyone hated him and he was eventually rotated back to Washington. Never in law enforcement.”

  “Then you’ve been lucky.”

  He bent his head. “I have. But you haven’t.”

  “No.” She tried hard to control her breathing because just thinking about Kevin Dolby made her gnash her teeth and her cerebral circuits short out. “We needed a way to communicate because we suspected he had our workroom wired for video and sound.”

  That surprised Luke. “Really?”

  “Well, it was the NSA. It’s the Palace of Paranoia and it’s very likely even the bathrooms were wired and there was an AI somewhere monitoring us, always. So we created an out. A special message board in the darknet where you have to beat fire-breathing dragons and climb a mountain of thorns to get in. Impenetrable. And it can also display text steganographically. The messages can be embedded into whatever is on the screen. I wrote that little algorithm. We could complain about Dolby and no one would know. We also warned each other if some other particularly obnoxious guy was coming our way. And we helped each other out with problems.”

  The skin had tightened over Luke’s cheekbones. The skin over his temples pulled as his jaw muscles clenched. “You got a lot of that? At the NSA? Harassment?”

  She sighed, looked down at her hands where her fingers intertwined then pulled apart. “We got a lot of that, yeah. Not just at the NSA. We’re used to it, but sometimes it just … it just rankles, you know? We were working so freaking hard and we just kept getting undercut. So it was hard.”

  His mouth was a thin line. He nodded jerkily.

  “Anyway, it was our safe room, the HER room. Felicity was admitted by popular acclaim though she wasn’t at the NSA long. We talked, vented. When one of us has a problem she just sends up the bat-signal and help is on the way. So I sent up the bat-signal. It’s weird that Emma and Riley didn’t answer but Felicity answered right away. I didn’t actually know where she was and that she was married and pregnant. Not only pregnant but with orders to stay in bed because
she could lose the baby.”

  “Babies.” A faint smile crossed Luke’s face. “Twins. Boys.”

  Her face lit up. “Oh my gosh! How wonderful! I hope her husband treats her right.”

  Luke nodded. “Oh yeah. He loves her. He takes really good care of her. She is his life. He was the one who arranged for everything. The pickup in Boston, the flight over, me. Any friend of Felicity is a friend of his. And mine.”

  Hope hardly heard him. Only heard — he loves her. He takes really good care of her. She is his life. Hope wasn’t jealous of Felicity, not a bit. Felicity hadn’t had it easy and she deserved every ounce of happiness life could give her.

  But oh … to have someone love you. Really love you. What must it be like? Hope had friends who were fond of her, but no man had ever loved her in her life. Emma, Riley and Felicity loved her but none of them even lived in the same city.

  Well, that was pathetic. Right now she was in danger, a friend had died because of her, her doorman had been killed and now a brave man — a decorated soldier — was right here, right now, ready to lay his life on the line for her.

  That’s what she should be thinking about, not romantic notions of love.

  She was tired. That was it. All that adrenaline coursing through her system, it had made her loopy and sloppy.

  “So.” She tried to straighten her spine. “That’s it. That’s basically all I know. Well, except for one more thing.” She tried and failed to keep the misery out of her voice. “Whoever my real father is, apparently he wants me dead.”

  Whoever my real father is, he wants me dead.

  Those were the saddest words Luke had ever heard. How could anyone want this woman dead? Let alone … her father?

  She looked so fragile and delicate, perched at the edge of the seat of the sofa as if she would fly away at any moment. So pretty and so smart. Felicity hadn’t said much about her — there hadn’t been time — but she said Hope was wicked smart and coming from a wicked smart woman herself, it really meant something.

  Felicity hadn’t mentioned she was also wicked pretty. Not that Luke was noticing. Not much, anyway. Pretty as she was, she was also in imminent danger. Big time. Her story was horrifying and it took a lot for him to keep his cop face on. Expressionless and stolid, when inside he was screaming.

  He’d expressed the fact that the shadowy forces against her were powerful without letting on that they might be facing fucking Satan himself, on steroids. Anyone who could corral two teams of efficient operators within the space of maybe half an hour … that was serious shit. Maybe even government serious. Certainly, the only entities that could field that kind of operational reaction that fast would be US military SpecOps, maybe the CIA Special Activities Division and one or two private security companies, but they’d have to operate on the East Coast.

  Or be everywhere, which was even scarier.

  This was a woman who had serious enemies. Enemies who had infrastructure, resources and weaponry. She had nothing of that, not even tactical awareness. She had smarts and was nice. That was what Felicity said and he’d seen nothing that would contradict that.

  Smart. And nice. Those weren’t good qualities to deal with the bad guys of the world. Particularly if one of them was her fucking father. Or grandfather. Who wanted her dead.

  Luke had dealt with a lot of shit in his life, as a soldier and as a cop. But he’d never had to deal with anything like this. His own dad had been the best. Aloysius Reynolds, pure Irish, a twenty-year cop, had been the best husband and dad ever, in the history of the world. When Luke’s mom had cancer, his dad took leave and never left her side. She died with her hand in his. And when Luke had had his troubles, his dad had been by his side one thousand percent. In fact, Luke’s troubles had broken his dad’s heart.

  He missed his dad, fiercely, every single fucking day.

  His dad had never once raised a hand to him. He sure as hell hadn’t tried to kill him.

  That was a level of viciousness he’d never encountered, not in fifteen years as a soldier and a cop. No wonder she was almost paralyzed with terror.

  Luke watched her carefully as she spoke. She was exhausted and terrified but she spoke cogently, even elegantly. Every aspect of her spoke of a stable, intelligent young woman. Who also happened to be amazingly pretty. Not head-turningly beautiful, she was too understated for that. Beautiful women reached out and grabbed your hormones by the balls because nature programmed them for that. Not Hope. She just sat quietly and waited for you to notice the perfect skin, fine features, green eyes surrounded by black lashes, the shiny blue-black hair. She was quiet and made you come to her but once you did …

  Shit.

  What kind of man would want this young woman dead? How could a father not be supremely proud of a young woman who was so smart and brave? He just couldn’t wrap his head around a father wanting a daughter dead. Ordering her death.

  Luke had come across great depravity as a soldier and as a cop but this … this was just too much.

  He always did a good job, the best he was capable of. But by God, he was going to defend this young woman with everything in him. Luckily ASI was on board, and ASI had resources. They’d pull out all the stops for Felicity because she was loved, but once they got to know Hope, they’d pull out all the stops for her own sake.

  He hated that lost look on Hope’s white face. The look of someone who’d suddenly had the gates of hell wrenched open right in front of her, with fanged monsters reaching out to grab her. She needed some sense of normalcy, otherwise she’d spiral into despair. Luke had no idea how resilient she was, but he did know that to track down those who wanted to hurt her, he needed her help.

  Only she had the knowledge necessary to crack this, inside that pretty head of hers, but if she was beaten down, she couldn’t access it.

  Normal … what was normal?

  Well, food.

  Leaning forward, he tapped her gently on the knee. She startled, looked him in the eyes. Her own were full of fear and misery.

  “Hey. I think we need to take a break. You are completely safe here. I know you’ve been on the run and you must be running on fumes. This place has a great restaurant. How about we order in some food?”

  That earned him a shaky smile and a nod. He didn’t want it to — this was a job, or if not a job, a favor to Felicity — but his heart simply turned over in his chest. She was doing her very best in a very shitty situation. Which, basically, was what being a Ranger and a cop was all about.

  “Here.” He stretched out, grabbed the room service menu and sat next to her. He ran his finger down the choices. “Do you eat meat?” She was probably vegetarian. He just hoped she wasn’t vegan because the chef here made full use of eggs, cheese and butter.

  But she surprised him. “God, yes, I eat meat. Love it.” Her finger landed on the page. “Pepper steak. I love pepper steak. Is it good here?”

  He smiled at her. “Oh yeah. I’ll have it myself. With fries?” And was delighted when she nodded.

  She pursed her mouth, considering. “Maybe we should also order a salad? Just to even things out? Sneak in a few vitamins?”

  “Okay. And then since we’ve been really good about the salad, how about a slice of blueberry cheesecake? To die for.”

  “Oh God.” Her eyes closed and a smile tilted her lips up. “Pepper steak, fries and blueberry cheesecake. I can already feel my arteries hardening. Can’t wait.”

  While her eyes were closed, Luke sneaked a guilty look at her lips, soft and naturally pink and so very kissable.

  Whoa. Jesus, where had that come from?

  Do. Not. Go. There. He told himself sternly. He had to be really harsh with himself, drill-instructor harsh, slap-yourself-upside-the-head harsh because operators don’t get involved with their protectees. Fastest way on earth to lose someone — have your head up your ass, giving an opening to whoever was gunning for your client.

  Not gonna happen.

  “Okay.” He stood, put some
distance between them. “While I order, do you want to take a shower? I’m told there’s more or less everything you might need in the bag Summer put together for you.”

  “Summer?”

  “A friend of Felicity’s. She put the bag together for you, since Felicity herself doesn’t have much freedom of movement these days. Summer’s a journalist. You might have read some of her stuff? Used to run a political blog, Area8. She just published a book, is writing another one.”

  Luke shook his head in admiration. Man, he was good with a lot of stuff but he couldn’t ever write one book, let alone two.

  Hope stood, too, giving a little gasp. “Summer Redding-Delvaux?”

  He nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “I used to read her blog all the time! And I have her book, The Massacre, on my ipad. Felicity recommended it. Be sure to thank Summer for me.”

  Luke nodded. “Will do. She told me to tell you that you should find more or less everything in there. For all your, ahm, needs. That’s what she said.” He could feel just a touch of heat rising along his neck.

  “Okay.” Hope picked up the wheelie and disappeared into the bedroom Luke indicated, and then into its en suite bathroom. After a moment, he could hear the shower. The showers at the hotel were amazingly luxurious and he hoped the four shower heads, one of which had a choice of lavender-scented, lemon-scented or rose-scented water, would make her feel better.

  The food would definitely make her feel better.

  The food arrived and he arranged it on a small table he pulled out from the wall. A bottle of a good California red was open and breathing when she came out of the bathroom, a puff of lavender-scented air coming out with her. Oh, man. He was tongue-tied for a moment. The shower had put some color in her face and she looked rested, as if the shower were the equivalent of a nap. Often it was.

  She was dressed in an outfit Summer had provided — a turquoise cotton sweater and dark blue pants. She was a little smaller than Summer so the clothes hung on her but the effect was just to make her look more delicate. Fragile. Like a strong wind would blow her away.