Blindsided

  “No.”

  She heaved a disappointed sigh, even though she knew better than to expect to catch him in the act on their first day of watching him. “Me either.” Realistically, it’d be a miracle to catch him doing anything illegal…ever. She and Scott could sit surveillance for the rest of their lives, hiding in the shadows, phishing Aggressor’s employees, and never get what they needed.

  Mexico was looking better by the minute.

  As soon as he’d locked the door to Dan’s apartment, Scott pinned Valerie to the wall and kissed her. Sitting beside her all evening without being able to touch had been a new kind of torture. Not to mention a distraction that made it hard to do his job.

  She responded to his overture with an enthusiasm as addictive as heroin. What was it about her? She tasted like heaven and had a body like the Devil’s own temptation. Every slide of her tongue, every caress of her hands down his backside sent him spiraling.

  Reluctantly, he pulled away and paused to catch his breath, head hanging low. “You’re dangerous.”

  “I’m not the only one,” she said, her beautiful brown eyes sparkling with desire and amusement. “You’re distracting me from work.”

  He gave her another quick kiss, forcing himself to release her from the cage of his arms and step away.

  She set her laptop on the breakfast bar and moved the stool out of the way to stand in front of the screen. “I’m tired of sitting.”

  A small, green sticky flag covered what he assumed was the camera lens at the top of her screen. “What’s that for?” he asked, pointing.

  “In case someone hacks my computer. This way they won’t be able to get video if they activate the camera.”

  Jesus, was nothing safe?

  Within minutes, she had downloaded all the photos from his camera and they sifted through them. The images from their surveillance were a bust. Nothing about Hollowell’s transaction in the liquor store appeared suspicious, even when they zoomed in. Of course, a simple exchange of words was all it would take for him to set up a meeting or a drop. “We’ll have to keep following him,” Scott said, pushing away from the counter to start the coffee maker.

  Valerie sighed and continued to peruse the downloaded images. She inhaled sharply and then frowned. “You took pictures of me?” Her gaze met his over the wide counter. “Why?”

  Shit. He swallowed hard, but really, how shocked could she be? She knew he’d followed her for weeks. Still, it must have felt like an invasion. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “This one I get.” She turned her computer so he could see the photo of her getting into her Prius. “And this one,” she said, switching to an image of her talking to a blond man at the rock climbing gym.

  He was pretty sure he knew where she was headed, and his stomach dropped. “But this one?” She pointed to the screen, now showing her in that professional-but-oh-so-sexy red dress she’d worn for her visit to Janus.

  “Or this.” A close-up of her face as she walked away from Janus beaming with satisfaction appeared on the monitor.

  “I couldn’t help myself,” he blurted. Heat spread from his neck to his scalp. “It’s not like I was going to build a shrine or anything…creepy. As a photographer, I have an eye for beauty. I wanted to capture yours.”

  An answering blush tinted her cheeks, and she swiveled the laptop in her direction again, her gaze darting to the image. She bit her lower lip as she studied the picture.

  Scott abandoned the coffee maker and moved around the bar to stand next to her, careful not to get too close. He shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t try to touch her. “In the beginning, you had me fooled,” he said.

  Her chin came up and her brow dropped, and he plowed on. “You dressed to be ignored, and it worked. Even on me at first. You were an assignment, nothing else. Pretty, but otherwise unremarkable.”

  Her lips thinned.

  “Which is exactly what you wanted,” he reminded her. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that she hid behind her dumpy clothes to help the men she worked with forget that she was a woman. As much as that was possible. The fact that she felt like she needed to go to such lengths made his fists clench. But then, he’d been a Marine. He understood how subtly—or overtly—hostile a predominantly and historically male culture could be for a woman. He’d just never given it much thought until now.

  “But that day,” he continued, “after you got past the Janus guard, I saw a new side of you, smiling and fearless and confident. And fucking stunning in that dress… I couldn’t help but snap a few photos.”

  Returning her gaze to the screen, she ran her fingertips lightly over the glass. Did she even realize how much he gave away with that picture? His feelings might as well have been written in neon given the lighting, the focus, the way he framed her face.

  It was as if he stood naked before her, but this time it wasn’t his clothes that were missing, it was every defense he’d ever built, every barrier he’d ever erected for concealment. He realized now that he’d begun to fall in love with her that day, and it was obvious in every pixel of her image.

  He stood rooted to the ground, his breath shallow, head spinning. He could no longer deny it. I love her.

  Fuck.

  “I was playing a role,” she said finally, scattering the jumble of thoughts in his head. “That’s not me.”

  “Bullshit.” He shifted close enough to catch her light floral scent and pointed to the picture, fighting the urge to bury his nose against her neck. “That is you. That’s you after pulling off the lie, when you thought no one was looking. The only other time I’ve seen you look that honest, that unguarded, is during sex.”

  Spots of color rose on her cheeks again, and the memory of her coming apart while he took her against the wall made him uncomfortably hard.

  She opened her mouth and then closed it again, biting her lower lip as she returned her focus to the computer monitor.

  “Take a good, hard look at yourself, Valerie,” he said. “You are more than your failures, more than your scars, more than your past. You are that woman,” he tapped the monitor, “and she’s incredible.”

  And now that he’d pretty much given away his hand, Scott wished he had some kind of ghillie suit that would make him invisible in Dan’s living room.

  “Thank you,” Valerie finally said, her voice soft as a puff of air. She stared at the image for several heartbeats before giving him a curious look. “Taking pictures is a lot like being a sniper, isn’t it?”

  Talk about being blindsided. His pulse drummed in his ears. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, come on.” She met his gaze with a skeptical brow, warming to her topic. “You need the patience to find the right position, the ideal angle. You have to sight your target and adjust your aim. And then you have to lie in wait for the perfect moment to take your shot.” Her expression softened, and she reached up to trail her fingers through the hair above his left ear. “But in this case, no one dies.”

  He kept his hands jammed in his pockets as his throat closed up. She had just nailed him.

  How had he never seen the parallels between his old life and his new hobby?

  But in this case, no one dies.

  For him, photography was a therapy of sorts. A way to help him deal with what he’d seen and done. An excuse to ignore everyone around him for hours at a time without appearing crazy. A way to frame the world exactly as he desired.

  A way to preserve a target rather than destroy it.

  “Don’t make me out to be something I’m not,” he said. “I don’t regret a single kill. Every one of them was a threat.”

  “Protector,” she whispered with a nod.

  Her fingers wrapped around the back of his neck, and he couldn’t look away. He began to feel decidedly un-calm standing so close to her.

  The desire to kiss her overwhelmed him. With every cell in his body he wanted to pin her to the wall and sip the vitality from her lips and lick it from her skin. To plunge deep int
o her body and tap into her vibrant sparkle. Not to steal it from her, but to share it with her. To let it heal him from the inside out.

  The apartment was suddenly too warm, too small. They didn’t have time for this distraction, and he couldn’t afford to let his feelings get in the way of the job they had to do.

  He stepped out of her reach before he did something stupid, like haul her into his arms and confess his love.

  By three a.m., Valerie had everything set up for several of her phishing attacks on people at Aggressor. She even had one ready to go for Cathy Hollowell on the off chance that the woman and her husband used the same personal computer. Duncan might not keep anything on his home drive, but people got careless and arrogant all the time. It was worth a shot.

  Valerie would send the emails later in the morning during typical business hours to arouse less suspicion.

  Listening to a running loop of Santigold and the Renegades through her earbuds while she worked, the tasks had kept her busy enough to ignore her confusion over Scott. She’d wanted to be creeped out—or at least pissed off—by the pictures of her on his camera, but the images had been more artistic than stalkerish. She couldn’t explain it, but the mood of the photos had been decidedly…admiring.

  Not only that, he’d somehow taken her from pretty—enough to occasionally turn heads or distract a guard with her cleavage—to almost beautiful. And, God, his words. She shivered at the memory of those words. You’re that woman, and she’s incredible.

  For one breath-stealing moment she’d had the sense of something important and wonderful hovering between them, but then she’d ruined it, like a speck of glitter in the air that turns out to be dust lit by the sun.

  She’d spoiled the moment with her obviously unwanted observations about the similarities between photographers and snipers. Hadn’t she thought herself clever? And, more importantly, like she finally had some profound insight into what made Scott tick.

  Stupid.

  Could she honestly be shocked he wasn’t happy about being psychoanalyzed? No wonder he’d backed away.

  She let out a long sigh.

  Her computer dinged softly through her headphones and she stopped absently combing hacker forums for news to check the alert.

  Yes! For whatever reason, Eli had connected to the Aggressor corporate network in the middle of the night.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she fired the commands to launch a malware program through Eli’s connection that would give her a backdoor into Aggressor. She was proud of the scripts she had written and excited to see them out in the real world. Also nervous, since this could be the most important hack of her life.

  Scott mumbled something from behind her. She removed the earbuds and looked over her shoulder at him.

  He roused from the sofa and rubbed his eyes, checking his watch as he stood. “What’s going on?”

  “Eli logged in,” she said with a grin.

  Blinking, his demeanor went from soft and groggy to upright and alert in an instant. “Oorah. Now what?”

  “I used the connection to upload a virus to the Aggressor server. He got us past the firewall, and my scripts will set up an administrative username and password that resides in the compiler.”

  Scott squinted.

  She waved a hand. “Sorry. Basically, they shouldn’t even notice it’s there, and it’ll be nearly impossible to get rid of without wiping their systems.”

  “What about antivirus software?”

  “That only works on known code. All of my scripts are clean as virgin snow. I rewrote my old functions from scratch and didn’t borrow from anyone else. So even if the Aggressor admins added the phrases from my old work to their antivirus database, it won’t help them.”

  “Smart.” He tilted his head side to side, his neck popping loudly in the quiet.

  She scrunched her nose at the ghastly sound.

  “Sorry. Bad habit.” He strode into the kitchen and opened the pantry, staring idly at the boxes and cans Tara had left behind for them. “How long until you’re in?”

  “I’m in now.”

  He whipped his head toward her, eyebrows reaching for his hairline. “That fast?”

  She laughed. “Faster than a speeding bullet.”

  “And potentially just as destructive,” he said without rancor as he snagged a box of pita crackers from the shelf.

  “True. Or helpful.”

  He conceded her point with a half nod and set the crackers and a tub of hummus on the bar across from her. “Hungry?”

  At the sight of the food, her stomach rumbled. “Yes, but I need to start digging around at Aggressor, see if I can find the emails Duncan sent me. I’m hoping there’s a backup somewhere.”

  “Eat and type.”

  “Yes, sir.” She tapped her fingers to her brow.

  “I wasn’t an officer.”

  Reaching for a cracker, she caught his gaze. “So?”

  “So. Only officers get saluted.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Tradition. It dates back to medieval knights showing respect and good intentions, and the military—especially the Marines—is hardcore about its rituals.”

  “I know nothing about the military. If you weren’t an officer, what were you?”

  “Enlisted.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Education.” He frowned at his fingers, which were splayed on the counter. “Officers have to have a bachelor’s degree.”

  “Oh.” She’d had no idea that was how the military worked, but she absolutely understood the resentment that came with limited opportunity.

  Just one more thing they had in common. One more reason she connected with him. Maybe even loved him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Falls Church, VA

  Thursday, 3:30 a.m.

  THAT BREATHY EXHALATION REMINDED SCOTT that Valerie was super techie-smart and he was nothing but a foul-mouthed grunt who’d had to bust his ass for a GED while behind bars. Okay, maybe he was a slightly enlightened grunt—he did read a lot now, and he had earned his Associate’s degree in the Corps—but a ground-pounder nonetheless.

  His dad had beaten that into him well and good.

  There had been moments in his younger days, glimmers of promise, when The Dick had seemed to care. Days when he was more sober than drunk, or things had gone his way, when the man had shown a modicum of interest in Scott. Just enough to tantalize, like a distant oasis that promises water only to reveal itself as a mirage.

  But Scott had finally given up his childhood dreams of having a loving father. Probably the day his dad had literally stomped all over his science project.

  “You think you’re smarter than me? That you can ‘be something?’” The Dick’s big foot landed squarely on top of the first miniature bridge, crushing it with the lug sole of his steel-toed boot. “You’re nothing, boy. Nothing. You hear me?” Crunch. The second bridge collapsed.

  Scott tackled his dad, thrusting his shoulder into the man’s soft belly. “Stop it! Stop it!” His sobs rendered his attack ineffective as his body collapsed under his dad’s strong push and he fell to his butt on the scuffed linoleum.

  The Dick waited for Scott to look up before he smashed the final bridge with a triumphant smirk. Then his face darkened and he straddled Scott, lifting him to his feet by his collar, tearing his T-shirt in the process. “You are nothing,” he said in a low voice full of menace. “You will always be nothing. Don’t you forget it.”

  Scott hated how he trembled, how little control he had over his own body. “Yes, sir,” he said with as much of a voice as he could muster.

  The man shoved him away, and Scott stumbled before catching himself against the wall. “You’re on dinner duty for the rest of the week. Your mom isn’t feeling well.”

  Of course not. His dad had beaten her so badly she couldn’t move.

  Even worse than his father’s attack was the look on his science teacher’s face when Scott told her
he had blown off the project. He had lost the respect of one of the few people in his life who had believed in him.

  Any lingering dreams of college had died the day he pulled the trigger.

  But he could imagine Valerie on a red-brick campus complete with ivy climbing the walls, maybe not partying with the frat boys, but turning their heads. Unless she had always dressed in shirts that fit like garbage bags.

  “You said you studied materials engineering.” He knew so little about her and wanted to know it all.

  “That was my plan.” A nervous laugh burst from her lips, and she gave him a self-conscious glance. “I liked chemistry.”

  Of course she did. “How’d you end up working as a hacker then?”

  She looked down and tapped her fingers lightly over the keys without actually striking. “I dropped out during my freshman year.”

  Her computer’s fan shut off. A clock on the wall ticked nervously, loud in the yawning silence. Scott didn’t move a millimeter.

  Valerie lifted one shoulder and tilted her head. “After that, hacking was the only skill I had, and even though I tried to deny it, I enjoyed it. There’s an illicit thrill in solving the puzzle, breaking in.” She stroked the keyboard absently. “Also, I think I secretly hoped working as a white hat might make up for my past crimes. I was naive enough to believe they wouldn’t follow me.”

  But you could never really outrun your past, could you? “Why’d you quit school?” he pried.

  Valerie frowned but didn’t answer.

  “Partied a little too hard, huh?” he teased, hoping to lighten the mood.

  Her wan smile did nothing to alleviate the growing turmoil in his gut. “Something like that,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Hey.”

  She met his gaze.

  His heart stopped at the depth of anguish in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.” He forcibly relaxed his posture and leaned against the counter. “I’ll quit interrupting your work.”

  “Do you miss Montana?” she fired at him in a head-spinning change of direction as she crossed her arms.