by Cynthia Eden
“Be sure that you do. Be sure that she doesn’t have you.” With that, Merik yanked open the door—
And almost mowed right into Vivian.
Because she was standing in front of my apartment door.
“Thanks for bringing me the new lock, Merik,” Vivian said into silence that stretched a bit too long. “Tell me how much it cost, and I’ll be happy to pay you back.”
“Forget money. You can pay me with brownies,” he told her easily. “A pan that Chase doesn’t get to touch.” He looked back at Chase. “Don’t forget what I said, my friend,” Merik told him with a teasing smile that didn’t touch his hard gaze. “I look forward to seeing you play the game.”
You are such a bastard. “Good night, Merik. Appreciate you helping me get settled.”
Merik tossed his hand into the air and was gone. Chase had to admit, he was glad to see Merik vanish.
Vivian lingered in the doorway.
Chase stalked toward her. “Did something happen?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
But didn’t say more.
He looked down the hallway. Her apartment door was closed. “What? What is it? What—”
“I like conducting experiments. Variables are my thing.”
A smile wanted to pull at his lips. “I thought I was your variable.”
“You are.” Her gaze was on him. “That means I should see what happens.” Her shoulders squared. “You said you wanted me.”
He had said that. He probably should have kept his mouth shut, but that confession had been raw and honest.
“I want you, too. So let’s see what happens when we kiss.”
When they—
She stood onto her tiptoes. Her hands pressed to his shoulders. “Kiss me, Chase.”
He wasn’t a damn fool. His head lowered to hers. He took her mouth.
Chapter Three
The kiss was hot. Sensual. Consuming.
Chase kissed with finesse and raw power. With a focused intensity that had her toes curling in her tennis shoes and her nails pressing into the soft fabric of his t-shirt. A moan built in Vivian’s throat as her mouth opened even more for him. His tongue stroked so skillfully over her own.
This wasn’t a sloppy kiss. Not too wet. Not too rough. It was a kiss of seduction. A kiss that promised so much more. A kiss that told her—
The man is going to be trouble. The kind of trouble that a woman would enjoy endlessly. But…
“Tell me that you aren’t a bad guy,” she whispered against his lips.
Chase stiffened. “What?”
She kissed him again. After all, if you were going to conduct an experiment, you had to be thorough. Her tongue slid over Chase’s lower lip then dipped into his mouth.
His hands curled around her waist, and he hauled her closer. There was no missing the unmistakable—very large—physical reaction he was having to her.
Only fair, since she was certainly reacting to him. Her heart drummed frantically in her chest. Her nipples were tight and aching. Her body was eager, heat filling her, her sex was—
His tongue rubbed against hers. His kiss was just as focused as before. Sensual command. Expert care. So good that she could kiss him for hours on end.
“What the hell did you mean,” he growled against her mouth, “about being a bad guy?”
With an effort, Vivian pulled back. Her breath was coming out in quick pants. “You’re a very good kisser.”
“So are you. Best ever.” Said simply. “Get back to the bad guy part.”
Oh. Okay. “I was just double checking, before anything else happened to make sure that you really were as, um, good, as you seem to be. Sometimes what you see isn’t what you get. I don’t want to be burned that way again.”
His brow furrowed. “I’ll need you to explain more about that.”
Her head tilted down. Vivian’s hair fell forward.
His hand lifted. Carefully touched her cheek. Then pushed back a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “Viv?”
She liked that. The little nickname. It seemed personal. Tender.
You just met him. You can’t trust him. “I want to make sure you’re as genuine as you seem. I’ve had lies before, and I don’t like them.” She wasn’t talking about lies from a lover, but he wouldn’t understand that. She needed to tell him more, though, because when she looked up again, she found him staring at her with an intense, brooding gaze. “I don’t want to make a mistake with you. I was curious to see if the attraction between us would be as strong as I suspected.” She backed away. “The tingle was new for me. I’ve never met someone, touched, and instantly…felt that.”
He nodded. “The attraction is strong. Glad we both feel it.” He put his hands on his hips. Kept standing in the open apartment door.
“You asked if I wanted to be friends or if I thought we might be more. Seemed like a good idea to try and figure that out. Why waste time?” Her voice was too husky.
“What are the results of your experiment?”
The result was that she wanted to kiss him again. She felt shaky and uncertain and turned on. Very turned on. More experimentation would be required.
Stop it. Stop being so clinical! But she did that to protect herself. “I don’t want to make a mistake.” She could still taste him. Feel him. “You’re not some secret criminal, are you?”
Chase gave a slow shake of his head.
She started to smile—
“Are you, Vivian?”
Her smile froze.
“Are you some secret criminal?” Chase asked her, and his voice had roughened. “Do you have deep, dark secrets I need to know about?”
Her hand rose. Her fingers smoothed over her left eyebrow. “There was this study conducted a while back. It said the average person was usually keeping about 13 secrets, and of those thirteen, there are about five that those people will take to the grave.”
“Thirteen, huh? Seems like an unlucky number.”
His words sparked her interest. “Do you have triskaidekaphobia?”
His eyelids flickered. “Fear of the number 13? No, I’m good. Actually, I don’t fear very much. That’s something you should know about me.”
Her heart drummed in her chest. She was spouting off her weird facts, and he wasn’t looking at her like she was crazy. Instead, he was still gazing at her with a hot, hungry lust in his eyes. A lust that had made his golden eyes burn even brighter.
“Something else you should know…” He leaned close to her. “I’m not bad. I’m not the villain in this story. Believe it or not, I’m supposed to be the good guy.”
She could believe it. Or maybe she just needed to believe it. “I’m glad.” She wanted to kiss him again. Because she wanted it so badly, Vivian retreated a few steps. There had been more than enough experimentation for one night. “I hope you get settled all right.” She turned toward her place.
“Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?”
“Yes.” She looked over her shoulder at him. That stare of his… Need surged through her. “Come over around six?”
“I’ll be there.”
She hurried back to her home. Put her key in the new lock. Rushed inside. When she shut the door—and locked it—Vivian put her back against the wood. Her breath came in fast rushes. Her heart kept racing.
I’m supposed to be the good guy.
Chase was good, but he was sure making her want to do all kinds of bad things with him.
***
“Yep, definitely a place in hell for me.” Chase reached for the water bottle that he’d left on the counter. “Good guy, my ass.”
He wasn’t good. He was lying. He was using her. He was going to find evidence to lock her up and send Vivian to jail.
Vivian…in jail? Trapped behind bars?
No, that didn’t feel right.
His hold tightened on the bottle.
He hated this case.
Chase took the water and headed toward his desk—and the locked
briefcase that waited beside it. He put down the water bottle and lifted the case onto the desk. A quick flick of his fingers, and he’d set the correct combination on the briefcase’s lock. The case popped open, and Chase reached for the file that waited inside.
A file he’d read dozens of times.
Vivian Wayne. She was a civilian contractor currently working in conjunction with the CIA. She’d gotten the proper clearance to do her job. Jumped through all the right hoops.
She had her Master’s degree in engineering from Georgia Tech, and she’d been brought to the covert CIA branch in Marietta to work as a Digital Forensic Engineer. Doing contract work at first, but the plan had been for her to eventually transition over to working fully with the agency.
Except something had gone wrong.
Classified intel had gone missing. Initially she hadn’t been the only suspect, but the agency had done a good job of narrowing down the field until she was the primary target. Now they wanted concrete evidence against her. They wanted her caught in the act of selling the intel to enemy agents.
Despite the evidence pointing only at Vivian, the agent in charge at the CIA—some fellow named Dexter Ryan that Chase hadn’t met yet—he’d decided that she might have a mystery partner working with her at the agency. Someone who had managed to avoid detection. So Dexter had made arrangements to take the investigation outside of the agency. He’d pulled some strings with Eric Wilde, and suddenly…
Chase had been assigned to the case. His current mission was to bring down Vivian Wayne.
His gaze slipped to her picture. It was the ID photo from her job. She wasn’t smiling, just looking straight ahead. The rich red of her hair was obvious in the picture as the locks tumbled over her shoulder. Her green eyes stared straight ahead, and her full lips were slightly parted.
He’d looked at her picture over and over again since Eric had assigned him to the case. Undercover ops were usually a cake walk for him. Hell, half the fun in his life came from the opportunities he had to be someone else on his cases. When Eric had first told him about the job, Chase had thought this would be easy. He’d even been eager for the new assignment.
Until he saw her picture for the first time. Until he stared into her eyes.
She didn’t look bad. But then, the dangerous ones never did. If you could see the darkness, the world would be a much safer place.
When he looked at Vivian, he didn’t see any darkness or danger.
Not when she blushed.
Not when she told him her random facts.
Not when she kissed him as if she was desperate for his mouth.
As desperate as I was for hers.
But the evidence was hard to refute. A security recording had even been recovered showing her accessing secure servers that had been beyond her clearance level.
The material she’d allegedly taken? The real names and locations of CIA operatives all over the world. If she sold that material, if she gave that data to the wrong people, then the operatives would die. That was why he was supposed to catch her in the act. Dexter Ryan had somehow picked up chatter of an in-person exchange. Except no one knew when or where that exchange would be.
So, yes, Chase was being a bastard. He’d broken the lock on her home. He was lying to her. He was doing his job.
Anything necessary. Lives were on the line. He couldn’t let an attack of conscience stop him from completing the mission.
A pretty pair of green eyes couldn’t derail him. She was the job, nothing more. He’d tell her whatever she wanted to hear, and soon enough, he’d get her to tell him all of her secrets.
All thirteen of them?
She’d looked so serious when she’d told him that people usually had thirteen secrets. And five that they carry to the grave. Vivian had seemed genuine. Real.
He’d found himself leaning toward her. Smiling as she talked. He’d found himself being freaking charmed by her—
Shit. Be the player, not the one who gets played. Chase slammed the file shut, tossed it back into the briefcase, and marched for the bedroom. This case could not end soon enough.
***
He slipped down the hallway. It was three a.m., and the building was dead quiet. Gaining access to the place had been easy enough, especially for someone with his particular talents. Then, instead of riding the elevator, he’d headed up the stairs—it was easier to stay hidden that way. Lots of shadows were in the stairwell.
Now he crept toward his target. He lifted his hand, the key at the ready.
Then he stilled. What in the fuck? The lock looked different. It was shiny and silver. It had been bronze before, he was sure of it. When he jabbed the key into the lock, it didn’t fit. Sonofabitch. When had she changed her damn lock? And why had she done it?
His fingers fisted around the key he’d brought. This should have been so simple. But, no, she’d just had to make things harder. He almost drove his fist into the door.
Can’t do that. That might wake her up.
He didn’t know how to pick a lock. He hadn’t needed to pick it, not when he had a key, but now, everything was screwed up and—
A male voice shouted, “Hey! What are you doing at Vivian’s door?”
No one else should have been on the floor. The other apartment was supposed to be empty. But some bastard was yelling at him.
He yanked his hood closer to his face.
“What are you doing?” The jerk’s voice was even louder. “Get away from there!”
Great. Just what he needed. Some asshole is playing hero. Before the asshole could get a look at his face, he turned and ran back for the stairwell.
“Hey!” A snarl. “Stop!”
No way. He wasn’t stopping. He was escaping. His hands flew toward the stairwell door. The key fell even as he shoved the door open. Dammit! No time to pick it up. His steps clattered as he raced down into the shadows.
Chapter Four
“Hey! Stop!”
The shouts had Vivian’s heart racing as she threw open her door. She rushed into the corridor and her body slammed into something big. No, not something. Someone. Chase.
He caught her and twisted their bodies as they fell. She braced for a hard impact with the floor, but Chase landed on the bottom, with her sprawled across him.
His chest was bare. And probably harder than the floor. All of those muscles were like rocks and—
His gaze held hers. Blazing. Electrifying. Panty melting.
“He’s getting away!” Chase lifted her up. Put her on her feet. “Go inside. Lock the door!” Then he raced for the stairwell.
She raced after him. Just as she reached the stairwell door, her slippered feet hit something.
Something shiny.
She bent and scooped up a key. Then she flew down the stairs as she hurried after Chase. Who was getting away? What was Chase talking about? She’d woken to the sound of his yells, and she’d hurried out, thinking he needed her.
He’d helped her before. Wasn’t it her turn to help him?
Vivian reached the bottom floor, and she shoved open the door. The lobby was empty. Completely quiet, except for the sound of her frantic breaths. She looked to the left and the right. She hadn’t been that far behind Chase. Where had he gone?
The lobby’s entrance door flew open. “Lost the bastard!” Chase charged forward with his face locked into tense, angry lines. Then he saw her. He staggered to a stop. “What the hell are you doing?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Backing you up?”
He shook his head. Marched toward her. “You’re supposed to be in your apartment.”
“But why would I be there? Something was obviously happening down here. You might have needed my help.”
He halted right in front of her. She’d realized he was tall, but this was the first time that his size had felt intimidating. Engulfing? Maybe because he was towering over her. And the waves of his anger seemed to fill the air.
“I told you to stay up there for your safety,�
� Chase gritted out.
“I can protect myself. I came down here to help protect you.”
His expression grew even darker as his gaze swept over her and then lingered on her shark slippers.
“I have training, okay? I can handle some trouble.”
He squinted at her slippers. “You’re wearing Great White shark shoes.”
“Great Whites can have about three thousand teeth in their mouths at a time.”
His head lifted. His gaze met hers.
“Not my slippers,” she mumbled. “The real Great Whites.”
“I figured that.” Chase raked a hand over his face. “You can’t run into danger.”
“Wasn’t that what you were doing?”
“I know how to handle it when shit gets bad!”
She surged toward him. “I do, too! I told you, I have training! It was required for my job!” She’d excelled at the training. Even though she was only doing contract work for the CIA so far, she’d been pulled in for initial operative training sessions. She didn’t plan to do any field work, but Vivian had always believed in being prepared. Side note, she’d also never met a class she didn’t like. Getting to learn hand-to-hand combat? Having the opportunity to figure out every weak spot on her opponent’s body? Yes, please. Tell me more. Teach me everything.
His brows flew down. “Exactly what kind of job do you have?”
“I…” It’s classified. “I work with computers.” That was a nice, safe, and true answer.
“Of course, you do.” Chase shook his head. “You believe your computer training qualifies you to rush after bad guys in the middle of the night.” He put his hands on his lean hips.
Her stare dipped down to his hips. Bad move. Wrong move. She forced her gaze back up. “It’s not computer training,” she told him heatedly. “It’s—” Nope. Vivian caught herself. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that she was doing contract work for the CIA. Then she realized exactly what else Chase had said. “Wait. Hold on. You were chasing a bad guy?”
A jerk of his head. “I heard some noise in the hallway.”
“I heard noise, too,” she retorted quickly. “It was you, screaming for help. That’s why I ran out to you.”