by Rie Warren
I ranged forward, tempted beyond sanity.
I lazily followed the trail with a single fingertip, delving into her slightly damp, very warm cleavage.
Tilly shivered, cheeks pinked, eyes hooded.
Removing my finger from her firm tits, I stared into her stunned eyes. No power on earth could stop me from tasting her. Just that one little bit. I licked the wet saltiness slowly from my fingertip, leaning toward the luscious invitation of her lips.
One final shred of common sense stopped me at the last moment.
“FUCK!” I barked, backpedaling like my ass was on fire.
I spun on my heels and stalked out of the room.
Chapter Thirteen
Master Hacker
1400 THE NEXT DAY, the chanting from outside gained volume.
The six of us met up in the kitchen where the wall still bore the mark of the friggin’ wet biscuit dough. I couldn’t get goddamn biscuits—AKA Tilly—out of my head.
“If I have to listen to this shit for many more days I’m gonna go ballistic.” Walker stabbed a knife into the tabletop.
“You’re defacing US government property.” Lawless stroked the whiskers on his chin.
“I’m gonna deface a whole lot more than a fucking table—pardon my language, miss”—he looked at Tilly who lounged against the counter—“when I get my hands on those wastes of oxygen out there.”
“I think I can handle a few curse words, Walker.” Tilly sighed. “It’s better than what they’re saying, anyway.”
“You speak the language?” Walker dislodged his KA-BAR and sheathed it.
“I’m more than a pretty face.”
With a chuckle, Storm said, “Yeah, that’s pretty boy over there.”
Asshole pointed at me.
I cleared my throat, scooting a chair up to the table. “It’s getting louder.”
“Not much we can do about it.” Bane’s heavy frown was elemental to him.
“We could take a look,” I said.
“A look? How?” Tilly approached me, sitting down right next to me.
“Yeah. I could see if any of the security cameras on the perimeter are still online.”
Fucking cakewalk.
Lawless pushed his hands onto the table. “The security room no longer exists.”
“Don’t need the security room.” I strolled out to retrieve my prized possession. Returning to the galley, I pulled out the mini laptop I used on missions. “I’ve got this.”
“A computer?” Doubt filled Tilly’s voice.
Walker came to my aid. “Justice here is a genius.”
Thank you very fucking much.
“He says.” Storm cut through my gloating moment.
I flipped open the computer I’d rigged with more personally coded programs than my tablet. I popped my knuckles, bent my fingers to the keys, then looked around at everyone watching me.
“Give me some space?” All hackers had their rituals. Their twitches. Their hang-ups.
Me? I needed room to think. I worked alone. I couldn’t stand someone breathing down my neck.
If that made me a paranoid motherfucker when it came to cyber ops, so be it.
Everyone backed off, and I went to work.
My fingers flew across the keys as black screen after black screen popped up on the monitor. White letters and digits and random-looking symbols fed from my brain into my fingertips and onto the screen, taking me deeper and deeper into an encoded maze that branched out in infinite directions.
I’d already investigated the embassy and the residence’s systems to test my theory about how we could escape. This time I focused on the vital organs of the binary structure.
Bringing the intel to life on my monitor was like bringing a person back from the dead. A code here. A stitch there. A plug-in. Then the nirvana of a heart beating, an impenetrable citadel spread out and open and all for the taking.
Infiltrating a secure system was a high. Sometimes I binged on piggybacking into datacores, funneling through wormholes just for the fun of it before deleting all traces of my presence when I backtracked the fuck out.
Sometimes I timed myself. Like now.
Forty seconds later, and we were operational with three viewpoints from cameras scanning the grounds outside the building.
I spun the computer around and sat back in my chair. “The fourth camera was shattered, otherwise we’d be seeing its feed too.”
“Holy shit.” Storm looked impressed.
“Genius. Told you.” Walker smirked.
“So he’s really not just a pretty boy,” Bane added his shitty two-cents.
I flipped double middle fingers in their directions, but I felt pretty damn pleased with myself.
Lawless narrowed his eyes at the monitor in front of him. “So you could spy on other places. Any other place you chose to?”
“Um. I guess so. But that would be a serious breach of privacy.”
“And we never do that, sir.” Walker rolled his eyes.
They studied the visuals, live and on-screen. I rounded the table to join them, found myself standing way too close to Tilly, and moved waaaaay to the other side of the group before her scent had the chance to hit me way down hard.
The chanting we heard was echoed on the computer. It was louder for one reason only. The embassy compound was completely overrun.
Bonfires.
Tanks.
Militants.
And they were crawling all the fuck over our building. What remained of it. Which wasn’t very much aside from our enclave.
“They’re swarming.” Storm swallowed beside me.
“Must be a hundred or more out there.” Bane did the math.
“A full-fledged army.” Walker blew out a long low curse.
“I am not liking the tanks.” I pressed a button and zoomed in on an armored vehicle heavily loaded with machine gun turrets.
We all swore then.
Zooming out, I rotated one of the cameras. The field of vision filled with trumped up Houthi troops dosing on imminent victory. Burning American flags. Hanging effigies of Lawless. Shouting louder and louder.
A hoard. A hundred’s strong hoard with one bloodthirsty goal.
“Looks like a scene from The Walking Dead,” Walker, of all the fucking people, said.
“I liked The Governor,” Bane mentioned. “He was twisted.”
“Twisted one-eyed fuckwit. Hershel, he was my man.” Storm screwed his eyes up. “Can’t believe they killed him off.”
“Shane was cool,” I joined in.
“Zombie cool.” Storm nodded. “When he turned. Epic moment. Until Rick killed him.”
“Thank fuck they haven’t done away with Glen.”
“Or Daryl.”
“Too bad those zealots outside aren’t zombies.”
“You’d rather face a post-apocalyptic living dead takeover than that bunch of rebels outside?”
“Loser.”
“I was rather fond of Merle.” Lawless leaned against the table.
I peered at the ambassador. Merle was straight-up cracker crazy.
“What happened to Beth just about broke my heart.” Tilly’s voice lilted.
“Beth was done wrong.”
Everyone agreed.
“We could call Storm Merle,” Bane added.
“Just ’cause I’m country don’t mean I’m a redneck.” Storm came back at him.
“And just because I was a street kid doesn’t mean I’m a thug.”
Clearly cabin fever was beginning to take a toll on all of us.
Fuck’s sake.
I slapped the laptop closed. “Thoughts about the real problem at hand, or are you all hoping to show up on The Talking Dead in your afterlife?”
“What crawled up your ass?” Storm kicked out a chair and settled his two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle in the seat.
“What looks like a hundred or so terrorists milling around outside with superior firepower.”
“I still
have my C-4.” Walker’s eyes—dark brown and deep hard—narrowed at me.
“Great. Blow them all up.” I stretched, working the kinks from my neck and shoulders.
Tilly watched me.
Lawless watched her.
I stared at the fucking blank wall. No. Not blank. Goddamn biscuit dough stain.
This mission was on my shoulders, and the escalating stress wasn’t simply about getting us all out alive.
It was about Tilly, and what I wanted to do to her.
How much I wanted her.
One moment of weakness—personal or professional—could find us all dead.
“Can’t you just redirect that orbiting satellite weapons system?” Bane asked like it was no big deal pony-trekking the US military force’s space-based defenses.
“The SASSA? Sure. Could do.” Not quite a cakewalk, but not impossible. Not for me. “I don’t think that’d be real subtle though. Destroy this whole city. Sayonara Sana’a.”
“Screw subtlety. Nothin’ about this op has been quiet so far.” Storm spun his chair around.
“Frag you,” Bane uttered.
“Yeah. You already tried to do that once, didn’t you, pahdnah? And failed.” Raking his fingers through his hair, Storm’s scowl darkened.
“Shut it the fuck up. Both of you.” I pointed at the two men constantly stabbing each other in the back. “We stick to the plan. It’s solid. They’ll think they’re taking us by surprise.”
The chanting and insults reverbed in the background. I doubted anyone would sleep tonight.
Tilly disengaged from her dad’s side, stationing herself across the room. “So they’re closing in on us.”
I wanted to stride to her. Take her in my arms.
I wanted to fucking reassure her and tell her there was no way in hell I’d let her get hurt.
I couldn’t.
I was probably the man who was going to cause her pain—one way or the other.
“Yeah. They are,” I confirmed.
“And we wait?” Her fern-green gaze locked on mine.
“We wait.” My voice rolled out, rumbling chest-deep.
She knew what I was talking about. Not the mission. Not the Houthis. Not the threat.
Her and me.
She looked at me like she had sex on her mind.
I masked my features, pretending I wasn’t thinking the same damn thing.
Lawless was not stupid. He’d catch the first hint of the hunt. My sexual hunt for his daughter.
Clamping down on my jaw—and my need, my want—I stood.
Anger.
Fear.
Tenderness.
Temptation.
Avoidance issues. I had those aplenty.
I stalked out of the room.
Apparently that was my new MO.
Chapter Fourteen
Midnight Fuck Up
“WHAT IN THE FUCK do you think you’re doing?” I barked when I came across Tilly later that night.
We’d done the shame-faced-shuffle around each other all day long after that moment in the kitchen. I entered a room. She exited it. I happened to find her alone, and beat feet in the opposite direction.
We weren’t fooling anyone. Least of all ourselves.
But this?
This was the most stupid thing I’d ever stumbled upon.
Her knuckles halted midair as she crouched beside the soldered-shut door in the bunker that led to the tunnel.
I couldn’t let myself be with her. I couldn’t stop imagining what it’d be like to kiss her again without the fear of being discovered by Lawless, without the fear of possible death and defeat at the hands of the terrorists breathing down our necks.
I did what I could. I slept when she was awake. I took watch while she slept. I did not return to the danger zone of the gym because my willpower was stretched thin where she was concerned. After she’d touched my back . . . traced my tat. After she’d spoken so softly with understanding shading her voice, I’d needed to put up my armor around her even more.
Less than twenty-four hours after the incident in the gym, Storm, Walker, Bane, and I had finalized our exit strategy, and our escape plan was concrete, if not exactly airtight.
We’d filled in Lawless. His approval wasn’t necessary, but his cooperation would be essential.
He’d stroked the thick beginnings of a stiff, steel wool-like beard. “Hmm.”
Storm had looked at me. He’d begun prepping go-bags from our dwindling supplies as the hours counted down.
Bane had paused from packing medkits.
Walker busily checked wires and the tiny devices only he had the patience to fiddle with, even though boundless energy rolled off him like sunrays bouncing across the flat fields of a prairie.
I’d met Lawless head on. “We believe this is the best, most expedient option, sir.”
He sized me up with an unswerving stare. “You think I don’t see the way you look at my daughter, sonny boy?”
Erasing every expression from my face, I squared my shoulders. “This isn’t about Miss Lawless.”
His fist pounded on the table. “Well, it should be!”
“All due respect, sir, but you are the main asset.” I jammed my hands in my pockets, mirroring his belligerent stance.
“I don’t care about assets or even my own blamed ass!” Shoulders drooping, he’d deflated into a chair, his head hanging low. “My wife is gone. Tilly’s all I have left.”
Tilly had told me about her mother. I knew their family had dwindled to two.
But that wasn’t my problem.
I hadn’t been able to give Lawless the reassurance he needed, but I knew I’d fight to the death to deliver Tilly to safety.
Now, everything was in place. We just waited for the right moment. Waiting. An irritating waste of time often forced upon us while on an op, and the uselessness of sitting around made me feel no less like a ticking time bomb where Tilly was concerned.
But none of that shit mattered at all, ’cause I’d just caught Tilly Lawless in a seriously comprising position. And this time bomb was set to explode in her face.
I grabbed her wrist, hauling her to her feet. “Answer me, goddammit it! What are you doing?”
She jerked free, rubbing her wrist. “Sending messages.”
“To get us all killed? After what we witnessed today?” I kicked the door with a ringing clang before spinning back to her.
Getting all up in my face, her hair lashed across my chest. “Don’t be a jackass! To help you out.”
Snort. “Right. You. Think this might be above your pay grade, Miss Matilda?”
“I won’t lower myself to smack you across the face again, but I am real damn close, Justice.” She seethed, and her uncorked fury filled the room.
Good. I was just as fucking angry.
I snatched her wrists again. “Do you have any idea what they’d do to you?” Shaking her, I snarled in her face. “Rape you, Tilly. Gangbang the American bitch then kill you!”
“They’re not going to get me.” She shuddered in my hold. “You won’t let them.”
“Jesus Christ.” I dragged her to me. “Jesus Fucking Christ. What are you doing to me?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I’m just . . .” Her arms wrapped around me.
“Have you compromised the field?” I asked through short breaths sped against her hair.
“No. I wouldn’t.”
I snatched her around the waist and whirled her against the door. “What . . . kind . . . of . . . messages did you send them?”
“International Morse Code.”
My jaw fell open.
Given a spare inch, Tilly stabbed the hard planes of my chest with a fingertip. “It may come as a surprise to you, Mr. Marine, but even though I teach photography I am an ambassador’s daughter, and I have seen warfare up close before.”
“What did you tell them?” I gnashed, the side of my jaw clenching.
“I convinced them I was one of their insurgents caug
ht inside during the initial attack. Told them there were twelve of you.”
My eyebrows snapped up in surprise.
“Said the only way into the stronghold was through the tunnel and to keep going. To put all their manpower on it.”
“You WHAT?”
“Well, I figured there was no way we’d be using that route since we heard the voices coming through the first night”—Tilly ran her hand along the bumpy welded seams of the door—“so you must’ve come up with another exit. And if all their forces are concentrated in one area we’ll have a better chance.”
Fucking unbelievable.
I hooted a quiet laugh to the ceiling, hanging my thumbs in my pockets. “Jesus, girl. You got some balls.”
“And if they believe there are more of you, they’ll commit larger numbers in one concentrated area—the weakest point.” She hooked her index finger behind her shoulder, indicated the tunnel I hoped never saw the light of day again.
“Who the fuck taught you that?”
“My dad.”
I looked at her with grudging respect in the ambient lighting before anger subsumed my admiration, snuffing it out like the lights fizzled out above our heads as the generator shut down for the night.
I swung Tilly away from the door, manhandling her to the opposite corner. I boxed her in with my arms.
Anger at her for putting herself in danger and acting on her own.
Fury about her acting at all.
Rage that I couldn’t have her.
“You stupid, foolish woman,” I growled at her.
The heels of her palms beat against my chest. “Get off me, you asshole!”
“Like hell I will.” My voice rumbled like thunder. Gripping her shoulders, I shook her hard. “What the fuck got into you?”
“I wanted to help.” Her fingers cinched into my shirt, dragging hot slashing streaks down my chest. “You think I’m just gonna sit here and bake goddamn biscuits or something while you try to save us?”
She gave me a mighty shove.
I didn’t budge an inch. “I expect you to do what I tell you.”
She stomped on my foot. “You do not give me orders!”
“Some man sure oughtta.”
“Oh . . . you . . . you!”
I jerked up her chin between two hard fingers. “YOU! You scared the shit out of me, Tilly!”