by Petrova, Em
The dismissal nagged her, but she hid her disappointment. She had to resurrect this somehow. He was as interested as she was. If she could change out of her ruined top here, she didn’t need to go home. She dropped into the passenger seat. “Don’t move.”
She reached behind her back to unclasp her bra, and his eyes grew wide.
“Do you want me to turn around?” he asked.
The flush was sexy, and the propriety was endearing. If he hadn’t already turned away, maybe he was still considering what she’d said. She let out a tiny laugh, trying for seductive but—she was pretty sure—coming off as nervous instead. “I said, don’t move. You’re my human curtain.”
In a single fluid gesture, she managed to pull off her soaked shirt and bra and slip the new one on without completely exposing herself. As she poked her head through the top of the shirt, she caught a glimpse of him forcing his gaze from her chest back to her face.
“That takes talent.” A tiny quaver ran through his voice.
She ducked her head, feigning shyness. “Thank you for what you did in there.”
He leaned against the frame of the truck, studying her. She couldn’t read the thoughts behind his eyes, but she could almost convince herself the worst thing she saw was uncertainty.
He finally spoke. “Does this mean you don’t need to go home and change after all?”
So she hadn’t completely ruined things. Relief flooded her. “Not yet. Did you have something in mind?”
“Let’s drive and talk.”
He closed her door, and seconds later, he was seated and pulling onto the road. However, he wasn’t talking. His gaze stayed fixed on the road, his hands on the steering wheel.
Riley shifted in her seat. What should she say? She hadn’t planned to proposition him, but as the night wore on, the idea had climbed into her head and refused to budge. It made perfect sense. And when he all but laid out that ultimatum, she had to grab her chance.
Though she was done falling for every guy she dated, and the best way to break the habit was to stay single, she still missed the sex that typically came with being half a couple. More than six months without a guy to cuddle up against, clothed or otherwise, left her with a longing that her toys didn’t sate.
Zane made sense. He wasn’t looking for commitment, and they already knew so much about each other. Besides, she didn’t love him—not like that. In all the years they’d been friends, it would have reared its head long before now.
She watched the road fade into the darkness, as his truck climbed farther away from the houses dotting the side of the mountain. They were on the east side of the valley, high above even the multi-million-dollar homes. The valley floor with its endless lights made the sky and its stars look like a reflection.
They pulled onto the shoulder of a familiar dirt road. Riley didn’t know how many nights they’d spent on the side of the mountain, either wanting a view of the fireworks shows below or just plain talking.
He shut off the engine and stared ahead, gripping the steering wheel. He finally turned to her. Something heavy and sad lingered behind his pale eyes. His smile was weak. “I hope this is okay.”
“Of course.” Her fast reply sounded too loud—too chipper—to her ears.
He climbed out. “You coming?”
She scrambled to follow him to the back of the pickup. He dropped the tailgate and slid into the bed, back to the wall, one knee pulled up to his chest, and arm resting on top.
She hid her frown. His posture wasn’t a good sign. There had been a time when they’d have lain down in the back of the truck to watch the stars, her head on his shoulder, and never thought anything of it. Now he looked as though he didn’t want her anywhere near him.
They could talk through this. It would have been nice if he’d agreed to take things to the next level, but she’d said no hurt feelings if he wasn’t interested. She crawled into the truck bed opposite him and leaned forward, legs tucked to the side.
“So, not that it’s a big deal…”
Oh geez, she really had screwed up. “You know it sounds like a very big deal, right?”
“I do.” He dropped his forehead onto his knee for a moment before looking at her again. “You wanted to know where I’d been for the last two years.”
Her breath caught, and her pulse slowed. That was what this was about? “I was curious, but I figured top secret, right?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “They’d like you to think so.”
The conversation about no-string sex could wait. This felt infinitely more important than how she got off at the end of the night. “Now I’m extra curious.”
“A couple of years ago, I got a new assignment. They wanted me doing some heavier surveillance. It was a huge challenge, so I jumped on it.”
Of course he had,
“They told me I was getting them into some really tough places. Networks most people couldn’t crack. Then they gave me someone new to report to.”
“Okay…?” She wasn’t sure why it mattered.
He ran his fingers over the stubble on his head. “We did this differently than I’d ever done surveillance before. The woman they had me working with was very good at it, and the entire idea was scary brilliant.”
Riley forced back her wince at the unabashed compliment for another woman. “How so?”
“You know how phishing and spoofing work, right?”
She nodded. The recipient clicked on a link they thought was taking them to one place, and it took them to another instead, while capturing the associated login information.
“This is spoofing meets psy-ops. She would interact with specific people online. Chatting, friendly shit—How’s the dog? Did you have a good vacation? —the kind of casual conversation you see everywhere. If she couldn’t get connected with someone online, she’d do it in person, posing as a waitress, whatever, for the target. She didn’t need anything critical from them, just the standard kind of stuff anyone might tell a stranger. How work’s going. How the kids are. Stuff like that.”
“My job…” He paused, as if thinking how to best phrase what he’d say next. “My job was to send those people email. Spoof it and make it look like it was from someone they knew and trusted. A boss. A girlfriend. A daughter. I had to make the email completely real and passable, so no filters could tell it was from anyone other than who it should be from. The recipient clicked the link—I don’t know, social media, whatever—and it passed through a gateway that downloaded the tiniest little Trojan in history, and we had full access to their computer. They ended up where they thought they were going and never questioned it.”
“Wow.” She was wary enough not to click those stupid links from strangers that said things like, guess what I just heard about you online, but never hesitated when the messages from her friends looked genuine.
“Yeah.” He dragged out the word. “It wasn’t my job to look at where we were going, just to get us there and make sure we stayed.”
Riley’s head spun with the information.
“Except one night, things changed.”
“What?”
“She left me alone for the first time.”
“Before that, you were together twenty-four, seven? Long stakeout?”
He let out a dry laugh. “Something like that. I only figured out later, but it had a lot more to do with the fact that I wasn’t under the same watch restrictions as before.”
“Watch restrictions?”
He nodded. “I poked harder than normal that night. I got bored and skimmed one of the computers I’d planted the back door on. The name caught my attention. American name. American IP… There was absolutely nothing top secret about that machine. It was some teenager’s laptop. The worst things on it were a couple of emails she’d sent a friend, about sneaking out to get drunk that Friday night.”
“Why were you spying on American teenagers?”
“I wondered that too. Every time my CO left me alone after that, I dug into another m
achine. The further I went, the more I looked, the more I realized I was no longer fighting the same war I’d signed up for.
“We weren’t doing Air Force work. She’d sucked me into some serious CIA shit. We were spying on civilians. The kind of people no one realizes are a threat to national security. Eventually I was told it was to make sure they held true to their non-disclosure agreements. Not selling plans on top secret weapons. Not fixing pricing on government bids. Things along those lines.”
She didn’t know what to say. It was so Tom Clancy, but digital, with a heavy side of invasion of privacy. “So what did this first computer you looked into have to do with that? How does knowing someone’s teenager got drunk on Friday night tell you if they’re selling out their country?”
“No one is tight-lipped every hour of every day. Especially not the arrogant guys who think they’re too smart to get caught. Some senior VP for a military contractor finds a second source of income from a country who may not be so fond of us, or he takes a bribe during contract negotiation—anything like that. He may not brag about it, but he frequently tells his wife. Even if he doesn’t, suddenly the family has things they didn’t before. The kids are going to expensive private schools, or they’re bragging to their friends about the new swimming pool, or the wife has a new car. A new wardrobe.”
That made a scary amount of sense. “So you looked for anomalies.”
“I didn’t, but I made it possible for someone else to.” He shook his head, doubt and anger hiding behind his gaze. “As I dug some more, I realized she—my new commanding officer—was on location with me, to try to make my job change to the CIA official. Which made sense, when I thought about it. There was absolutely no reason for us to be working in the same room otherwise.”
What could Riley say to that?
He stared back, a sad smile on his face. “So I confronted her. She didn’t deny any of it. Instead, she offered me a job. The kind of work we’d been doing, but more of it, and good money on top of that. They were impressed I’d scraped all I did without them knowing. Basically, I’d passed their test.”
“So when you say you turned down the job for ethical reasons…”
“Spying on armies and rebellions and organized groups trying to take down governments is different than peering into private lives because they might be selling government secrets—but probably aren’t.”
Riley couldn’t hide her wince.
“Besides. Part of me still needs to prove…”
She waited for a moment. “What?” she asked when he didn’t finish his sentence.
“Nothing.” The single word was soft in the night. “Stupid shit.”
A gust tore through the night, making her pull in tighter on herself. She saw the guilt and pain in his expression. Heard the hesitation in his words. He wasn’t telling her everything, and whatever he held back devoured him. “Like what?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter.” He drummed his fingers on his legs.
She felt the wall cropping up between them again. “Okay. It doesn’t have to.”
He stopped moving his fingers and clenched his jaw. “I didn’t mean to ruin your night with this.”
No. She wouldn’t let this happen. She expected some things to be tough for him to talk about, and while this wasn’t the deadly secret she’d feared, it still ate at him. “You didn’t. I promise. I’m always here; that hasn’t changed.”
He forced out a breath through clenched teeth. “We should head home. You have to work in the morning.”
She wanted to help him sort through this. As much as she’d tried to ignore it up to now, he wasn’t the Zane who left six years ago. He was haunted by choices she couldn’t fathom having to make, and she wanted to help him through it. “We can stay out here a little longer.”
“And do what? Not talk? I’m sorry, Riley. I can’t. Not tonight.”
The shrug-off hurt more than she thought possible, gnawing inside and chipping away at her core. She couldn’t push him if he wasn’t ready to talk, though. The only solution was for her to be available when that happened, and hope he understood she was listening without judgement.
“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but what else was she supposed to say? “I understand.”
Chapter Seven
Zane drummed his fingers against his leg, while he waited for Riley to answer the door. It was a good bet she was home. Her car was in the parking lot, and they were meeting Kenzie for dinner in a couple hours. He told Riley he’d stop by early so they could just hang out for a little while. Still, no response to the doorbell or his knocking.
He hated to see her hurt, and it was worse when he knew he caused it—like the hurt reflected on her face after they left the bar two nights ago, when he couldn’t bring himself to open up. Unfortunately, some reminders from his past were difficult to deal with. For instance, all the bad decisions he made while he was deployed, or every time he chose a challenge over what he knew was right.
Knock a third time, or call her? Oh, right. He grabbed his keyring. This would take some getting used to.
He pushed into the condo and locked the door behind himself. A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he spun toward the kitchen. Riley sat at the table, sketchbook in front of her. Earphones in place, she was oblivious to the world. He followed the curve of her body, from toes against the floor, up her bare leg, to where her thigh rested on the foot tucked beneath her. She wore a button-down shirt with only the middle two buttons done up, and possibly nothing else. Her half-dry hair hung around her face, as though she’d gotten out of the shower and forgotten to finish dressing.
She shifted her weight, and her shirt pulled open at the top, revealing a round, firm breast. His blood pressure kicked up a notch, and his cock throbbed. Her offer from the other night rushed back to him, taunting as it had so many times over the past few days. Fuck. She was tempting. Her cheeks were flushed with inspiration, and though she was half-exposed, she was still statuesque. Her focus made her that much sexier.
He really shouldn’t be staring. He adjusted his jeans, doing his best to hide his reaction, and knelt next to her. She hadn’t brought up the casual sex offer again. He’d have a hard time turning it down if she did, but it wasn’t his place to mention it.
She had on more than just the shirt after all, though the plaid men’s boxers peeking out from underneath did nothing to relieve the insistent throb below his waist. He ignored his arousal and rested a hand on her arm.
She almost jumped out of the chair, before she focused on him. Her hand flew to her chest, tugging her shirt farther open and offering an amazing view of her sun-darkened skin. “Holy shit. You scared the hell out of me.”
He forced his gaze to her face, unable to hold back his laugh at her reaction. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” She tucked her legs under her again, covering more of her body with the shirt.
Not that the gesture did much to stop the teasing images racing through his thoughts. “I kind of am.”
She tugged him to his feet. “Have a seat.”
He dropped onto the padded chair next to her, trying to be subtle about adjusting himself again. A tiny smile still danced on her lips, and he didn’t know if it was because what he was trying to hide was so obvious, or because she was still half-lost in her drawing. She gave him one last glance before turning back to her work. “How’d the interview go?”
His arousal limped away at the single question. “Not as well as I hoped,” he said. He hadn’t even made it past the company’s screening process, because he had no civilian experience or a degree to back up his claims. They hadn’t said so specifically, but he heard it in the interviewer’s voice over the phone and the way the conversation all but died when Zane mentioned his only experience with network security had been overseas for the military.
“I’m sorry.”
He pulled her sketchpad toward him, wanting to talk about anything that would keep him from dwelling an
d ruining the night before it started. He widened his eyes at what she’d been working on. It was the character she said was based on him, with a wiry man kneeling in front of him. And both of them were naked. She hadn’t told him she was drawing yaoi—male-on-male graphic novel pornography. “You drew another guy sucking me off?”
She let out a short laugh. “Since when are you a prude? Besides, it’s not you. It’s a drawing that happens to be built like you. I already told you that.”
He should be offended or something, but the tease on her full lips, and that she’d drawn him naked in a compromising position—even if it wasn’t one he was into—made his pulse race again. “I just don’t get it. Why do some girls get off on two good looking guys groping each other?”
“I’m not getting off on it. And you’re better? You’ve never fantasized about two women together?”
She knew the answer to that. She’d described it for him over chat, at least half a dozen times. The memory of the images she painted with words made his dick perk up. “That’s different,” he said.
“How?”
He provided the only answer he could think of—the truth. “Because one turns me on, and the other doesn’t.”
She planted both feet on the ground and scooted her chair closer to his. She nudged his knees apart, rested her elbows on her legs, and traced a line along his inner thigh. “If it doesn’t do anything for you, what are you right now?”
As hard as he had ever been. He couldn’t completely keep his gaze off her chest and the fantastic view down the front of her shirt. He drew a finger along her collarbone, eliciting a sharp gasp. “I think that has more to do with you than your artwork.”
“I thought you liked my drawing.”
“Your skill is borderline erotic; it’s true. The subject matter, not so much.”
Mischief danced behind her eyes, and she increased the pressure against the inside of his leg. “You’re telling me, if you’ve got a women you’re wild about, and she wants you and another guy at the same time…”
He grimaced—not at the idea, but because he was having a hard time focusing on anything but her touch and the gorgeous curves in front of him.