The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

  She smiles.

  I scowl.

  But she might have a point, and I might also be going slow because I don’t know where I went wrong to let the bad dudes track me.

  I step out of the kitchen, looking for Rhett, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Probably hiding from me while he makes secret plans.

  If he leaves without saying goodbye, I’ll kill him.

  If he leaves to take down Dirk Lemonson without taking me with, I might also kill him.

  Can I handle weapons and break people’s arms with my mind? No.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m useless.

  I can hack satellites and be like those behind-the-scenes heroes at base ops in those crime shows who tell the badass operatives when someone’s sneaking up behind them.

  Davey pops his head out of his pod. His hair’s mussed like he’s been sleeping, and he has Princess Sparkle Butt in one hand. “Are you done causing trouble yet?” he asks.

  “Never,” I tell him.

  Since the outer door is closed, and since Sia’s not here to see, I pull Prince Snufflesaurus out of the room too, and Davey and I make ourselves at home on the couch.

  “Do I get to go to work tomorrow?” he asks.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You’re putting a crimp in my love life.”

  I grin at him despite the lump growing in my throat. Davey has his life so much more together than I ever will. “You’ll still make the concert.”

  “I better.”

  We chat about his day at work a little more before he tells me he’s tired and heads back to bed. I think the dick pic confession regularly coming from Nikki’s phone in the kitchen is annoying him.

  Or possibly everything about being here is annoying him.

  Nikki gives me the back away, klutz glare when I pop back in the kitchen, so I rustle around until I find a bag of Twizzlers—in an organic grocery store’s headquarters’ snack kitchen? Was Rhett in here alone? Did he sneak these in?—and go in search of the SEAL who’s trying to save my ass.

  He’s someone else to bother.

  It’s fun.

  Also, just being around him gives me confidence everything’s going to be okay.

  It takes a while, but I finally locate him.

  He’s in the employee gym in the basement. I now understand where he gets the ass of glory, because he’s at a row of machines near the entrance, doing squats.

  Glorious, thigh-straining squats.

  He’s changed into workout shorts that ride up along the thick slabs of muscle every time he squats low, and drop back down every time he stands. His face is granite concentration. His breathing is deep and steady.

  I try to get a Twizzler in my mouth and miss completely, smacking myself in the cheek with it instead.

  One corner of his mouth twitches, even though I’m positive he’s not watching me, and the combination of strong, sexy, and amused makes my lady business hot and wet and throbby.

  A monster moves in my peripheral vision, and I shriek before I realize it’s Pigpen. But in my defense, he’s dressed in a black shirt and dark blue jeans and I swear his beard has gotten hairier today too. He could be a hipster Grim Reaper if he got himself some cool glasses like I wear.

  Rhett finishes his set and is full-on grinning when he catches the towel Pigpen tosses him. “Jumpy there, Spikes?”

  I don’t know what’s fueling my rapid-fire pulse, because my heart ducked and covered and basically leapt out of my body. “Testing your reflexes. You both failed to attack the danger.”

  Rhett purses his lips together, clearly trying not to laugh, and pins me with that all-seeing hazel gaze. You are ridiculous, and I dig it.

  The sentiment—and the fact that I understand him—is only mildly worrisome. He should know better than to let me into his brain space. I might corrupt him.

  “Eloise,” he mutters, half exasperated, half affectionate.

  “I’m bored. Nikki kicked me out. And she hasn’t caught Dirk Lemonson yet.”

  He and Pigpen share a look—one that I’m pretty sure was Rhett asking Pigpen to go keep an eye on our new team member—and then the hairy monster heads toward the elevators.

  “You could get some sleep,” Rhett suggests.

  “I’m like a vampire. Without the whole drinking blood and fear of sunlight thing. Nothing scares me.”

  He kindly doesn’t point out that I’ve screamed in his presence no less than three times in the last day and a half, but he does grab a white towel and wipe it over his face, where I’m pretty sure he’s hiding another smile.

  The man gives killer smile.

  I should be grateful he’s saving me from the sight. Keeping me from falling a little bit harder as I unravel more of his secrets.

  “Also, the only thing that will stop me is a stake to the heart,” I add, “which means I’m your biggest asset when we go take down Dirk Lemonson.”

  He crosses his arms and goes macho man.

  I cross my arms and go make my day, fucker woman. Plus, if we’re going to fight about this, we might get naked again, which is a-okay with my throbbing pussbox.

  “You’re a fucking loose cannon,” he reminds me.

  “Only when I’m unprepared.”

  “Pigpen just scared the shit out of you by breathing.”

  “He’s a scary-ass motherfucker when he breathes. Dirk Lemonson’s a pansy.”

  “Dirk Lemonson could be six bodybuilders hyped up on steroids running the digital equivalent of a sweatshop for all you know.”

  I open my mouth, then close it, because he actually has a legitimate point.

  “I can still help,” I finally mutter.

  He stares me down, and if I’m being honest, I’d much rather pull him into the showers and do unspeakably naughty things to his body than hack into a satellite feed to check out the current situation at the cabin where we think Dirk Lemonson is hiding out.

  “It’s my mess,” I add.

  “We’ll discuss this later when we know more.”

  I scowl.

  He ignores me and turns to the next machine, and if he starts doing arm curls and I have to watch those solid cords in his forearms flexing, I might orgasm on the spot.

  His lips are twitching again. He knows this turns me on. And he’s going to torture me.

  If this is the kind of torture I get for misbehaving, I’m definitely going to misbehave more often.

  Probably.

  Maybe.

  Let’s see if we all survive this trouble first.

  29

  Rhett

  Gym time is my time. If I don’t keep my body in peak physical shape, I’m no good to my team. It’s also good stress relief before a mission.

  Distractions piss me off.

  Not pissing me off at the moment?

  Eloise interrupting gym time.

  She’s found a seat on an exercise ball and is ogling me like she wants to wrap me in Twizzlers and eat them off me from head to toe.

  She’s trying—and failing—to get another candy rope in her mouth, and it’s so damn adorable, my nuts hurt.

  “I’m doing this on purpose,” she informs me as she stares me dead in the eye and misses her mouth again with the floppy stick.

  “You ever drop the bravado?”

  “Do you?”

  Touché. “This isn’t bravado. It’s who I am.”

  “Exactly.”

  I lean on the padded rest of the bicep curl machine and just watch her while she finally succeeds in taking a bite. “What do you do when you’re not trolling dudes who prey on insecure people?”

  One nostril twitches. “Bang my drums and annoy my brother.”

  “Online,” I clarify.

  “Dude. That’s all I do.”

  There’s enough indignation pouring off her that I believe her. “So you reallocate a lot of money.”

  She shrugs. “Not really. Mostly I do little shit to jerkoffs who get on social media and fat shame or slut shame or whate
ver shame people just for being people. I’ll screw with their social media feeds so all they see are pictures of spiders or snakes or friend requests from other trolls who have pictures of hot half-naked chicks as their profile pictures but are really going to get them to pay a shit-ton of money for bad porn.”

  I shouldn’t be listening to this, but her brand of vigilante justice is pretty fucking awesome. “They troll you back?”

  “You have to give two shits for trolling to work.”

  “You give two shits.”

  “Not about what random asshats say about my made-up profiles on the internet. And sometimes I hijack their feeds so all they see are motivational posters, because sometimes people who are the shittiest trolls are the loneliest people in real life, and they need that self-love crap. You never know whose parents were alcoholics or workaholics or whatever.”

  “Can’t blame bad parenting forever.”

  “Easy for you to say. You had two good parents and four siblings at your back.”

  I did. And it still wasn’t enough to keep me from trouble. “I had detention half my junior year for fighting and missing homework and mouthing off.”

  She grins. “But you didn’t get expelled? Amateur.”

  I push off my seat and stalk toward her. My reflection in the mirrored wall stalks back.

  She misses her mouth with a Twizzler again, and she slips off the ball and onto her ass.

  “You’re fucking adorable,” I tell her while I grab her by the hands and pull her to her feet. Her fingers are this side of chilly, and I want them on my skin.

  “Says you. I’m a total badass.”

  “Maybe in powder puff remedial badass school.”

  “I’m coming with you when you take down Dirk Lemonson,” she informs me. “And you’ll see just how much of a badass I can be.”

  I turn her so we’re headed toward the showers, because I’m well aware of the security cameras in the gym. “The only thing we eat while we’re on missions is bugs.”

  “I snorted a line of ants once. I can do it again.”

  I actually love that I don’t know if she’s serious or not. I’m leaning toward not, but I’m not completely certain. “And we carry gear that’s twice our body weight for at least ten miles.”

  Her lip curls. “You’re just saying that because I almost died at the gym this morning. But look who got better.” She shakes one hand out of mine to flex her arm, and if she’s trying to make me so hard my nuts ache, she’s succeeding. “I can carry three times my body weight forty-eight miles.”

  “In ten-pound increments over six months with the help of a pack mule?”

  “You’re so hot when you call me on my bullshit.”

  She leaps onto me. I catch her, our lips clash, she wraps her legs around my waist, and she kisses me like her life depends on it.

  I grip her ass cheeks and hold her tight against my aching cock while she thrusts her tongue in my mouth and kneads her fingers into my scalp. Need to get to the locker room.

  Need to get naked.

  Need to get inside her.

  One last time.

  “You’re so fucking addictive,” she gasps against my mouth before plunging her tongue back in.

  I groan, because she is too.

  We make it to the locker room. I slam the door, turn, and hold her against it while I grind my hips against her hot center.

  She’s so fucking eager. Not holding anything back. She claws at my shirt until she yanks it up to my chest and moans in the back of her throat when her fingers glide over my skin. Her touch both ignites me and soothes a deep ache in my soul.

  It’s like finding a missing piece.

  That last thing that makes me feel like I don’t entirely fit. That this chaos inside me isn’t a flaw.

  Not with Eloise.

  It’s what makes me right with her.

  I pull out of the kiss so I can lick that double helix tattoo on her neck. She moans and holds my head in place, hips bucking against my hard-as-fuck cock. “Don’t stop,” she orders in that breathy, throaty voice that makes my balls so tight my eyes cross.

  As if I could stop even if I wanted to.

  I flip the lock on the door and turn again to carry her into the showers. Her legs are a vice grip around my hips. Her short fingernails rake over my scalp. She finds my mouth again, and we’re kissing like horny teenagers when I manage to untangle her legs and put her on the ground.

  She whimpers. “What the hell?”

  I tear my shirt off and shuck the shorts and my shoes, throwing them all back out toward the lockers. Her eyes go huge and round as she trails her gaze from my eyes down to my proudly saluting cock, which I’m rolling a condom down, because I’m ever the optimist. With eager hands, she grips me, and fuck, her touch, those cool fingers on my hot skin, that adoration in her bright blue eyes—I’m done for.

  I’m completely, unashamedly, head over heels for Eloise Jayne.

  Hacktivist extraordinaire.

  Tatted goddess.

  My sister’s friend.

  Eloise drops her hands just long enough to whip her clothes off and make a puny attempt at tossing them as far as I tossed mine.

  “Show-off,” she says when I grin.

  She licks her finger and trails it from her neck, between her small but perky breasts with the deep rosy nipples, over the flat plane of her belly, beneath her adorable outie belly button, down to her pussy, and all my blood channels to my dick.

  I can’t talk.

  I can’t think.

  I can’t breathe.

  I want to know the story behind the phoenix tattooed on her ribs. I want to know where the scar on her shoulder came from. I want to know what touched her enough about The Taming of the Shrew that she put a line from it on her thigh.

  I want to learn all of her secrets and lose myself in her every day for the rest of my life.

  Fuck.

  I’m not ready for this, but here she is.

  And she couldn’t be more perfect.

  “You gonna do something about having a naked woman in the shower, or are you just gonna stand there?” she asks.

  My gaze wanders down her legs. They’re not long, but they’re strong and shapely, and I want to have them wrapped around my hips, around my face, fuck, around any part of me.

  A blast of cold water from the shower hits me in the chest, and I jerk my head up with a yelp.

  “It’ll warm up,” she says with a grin as she releases the handle.

  I growl and grab her, lifting her so she can wrap those legs around me again, and I devour her mouth.

  And I turn her into the cold water.

  She shrieks with laughter, and I nuzzle her neck, licking and nipping down to that rose blooming on her shoulder. I could be standing dripping wet, buck naked in Antarctica, and the sound would still leave my dick hot as molten iron and hard as steel.

  I know I can’t have her—not forever—but hell if I’m not going to enjoy this moment.

  “Don’t like it now, do you, Spikes?”

  “Bring it, you wimpy beast.”

  “You’re already wet for me, aren’t you?”

  She pumps against my cock as the water warms, the heat already fogging the cool air. “Oh, fuck, yes. Grab the Twizzlers.”

  I back her to the wall, out of the spray, but still in the mist from it. “I don’t want Twizzlers. I want you.”

  “Oh,” she whispers.

  Her glasses are fogging, so I push them to the top of her head and watch those bright blue eyes watching me.

  So many questions.

  So many fears.

  None of her usual bravado.

  She’s even quit pumping her hips.

  “You’re fucking amazing.” My voice is raw, because honesty is hard. “Whatever happens, you need to know.”

  Her fingers dig into my shoulders and she bites down on her lip.

  Uncertainty doesn’t look right on her. “We’re not supposed to do this,” she whispers.


  It’s the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever heard her admit.

  “Too late.” I seal my mouth over hers again, and this time, there’s no clashing, no hurry, no desperate drive for fast release.

  This kiss is slow.

  Careful.

  Thorough.

  I hold her with one arm and reach between us with the other to cup her breast, massaging the hard nub of her nipple with my thumb.

  “Oh, fuck, yeah,” she hisses out while her head tilts back against the wall.

  Her hips roll against mine, rubbing my aching cock with that hot pussy. While I stroke her breast and tease her nipple, her hands stroke and explore my arms and chest, pausing only when she hits the scars hidden under my ink, and even then, only briefly.

  Her touch is owning me. Claiming me. Everywhere her hands go, I’m hers.

  I know this can’t last—she’s chaos, playing by her own rules, and I’m probably already in hot water with my chain of command for getting this involved with her problems—but screw it.

  She’s good for my soul.

  I tilt my hips to line myself up with her entrance. She moans into our kiss and takes me inside her, squeezing me with her hot, slick pussy.

  She’s so damn perfect.

  I rock into her as far as I can go, all that wet tightness holding me captive. She flexes her inner walls around me, and fuck, it’s enough to make me lose control.

  I pull almost all the way out and thrust back in, grinding my hips against her clit, and she breaks the kiss with another moan. “Oh my god, you’re amazing.”

  “You’re better.”

  We lock eyes while I pump into her again. And again. And again.

  Don’t stop, those blue eyes say.

  Don’t hurt me, they add.

  Don’t let go.

  There’s fog all around us. The tile wall’s slick, and beads of water cling to her hair while the shower water beats down behind us.

  I thrust again. “I’ve got you,” I tell her hoarsely.

  I don’t have me. I’m about to lose control, between that fear in her eye and the way her body’s welcoming me and tightening around my cock and the breathy gasps from her parted lips every time I stroke into her.

  “I l-like you,” she gasps. Her pussy tightens harder around me. “I l-like you a l-lot.”