Maybe her mind had short-circuited last night, but if she saw him again while she was in town, she’d steer clear. No sense in letting him think they were going for round two or three. One night was all her heart could handle with Christopher. The sex had been downright spectacular, maybe even the type of stuff songs were written about, but she’d have suffice with just the memories.
If she fell for him again, she’d never recover.
Stifling a yawn, she rose from her chair. The coffee they served on base was likely worthless. Maybe she’d hit up a vending machine for a can of soda before the briefing started. Digging through her purse for some change, she grabbed a few quarters and headed for the door. She needed more caffeine in her veins to help her think straight. Glancing back at the clock again, she nearly smacked right into Christopher, his large, broad frame taking up way too much space in the doorway. Making her far too aware of him. She jumped back, his masculine, clean scent hanging in the air between them, and gasped, both from nearly colliding with him and from the way his closeness sent shivers snaking down her spine.
“Lexi,” he ground out, not seeming surprised in the least to see her.
That made one of them.
His large hands clasped her shoulders, steadying her, and the angry words she had ready for him melted away as heat coursed through her body. The weight of them had her imagining all sorts of things she shouldn’t—like Christopher’s powerful body atop of hers as he pinned her down, her wrists in his grasp. Like the two of them making love until practically dawn, with her whimpering, begging him for release. He’d made her come so many times her head had been swimming when she’d finally drifted off into a deep slumber. It was amazing she was even functioning at all this morning after a night like that. She was still deliciously sore from their night of lovemaking, and she didn’t need to see him as a reminder. She sure the hell didn’t need to start her briefing both angry and aroused.
His eyes sparked with heat, and electricity surged between them. She felt small compared to his massive size, sheltered, as she always had when he was near. He was big. Dominant. Fully in control. He didn’t move his hands from her shoulders, and her heartbeat sped up. For a seemingly innocent gesture, her body was suddenly on high alert.
A beat passed as their eyes locked, and her lips slightly parted. His head seemed to move a fraction of an inch closer to her, and her gaze shifted to his full male lips. Kissing Christopher had always been nearly as fantastic as having sex—or maybe it was just the promises his kisses held of what was to come. The heat of them was enough to keep her warm many a cold winter night.
Christopher finally groaned and released her, stepping back. She shakily smoothed her hands over her skirt, as if that would somehow calm her frayed nerves. He looked slightly rattled himself.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her eyebrows narrowing in confusion.
Just about the only damn reason she’d come to base this morning and not high-tailed it back to the Pentagon was knowing she’d be nowhere near Christopher or any of the SEALs. She’d snuck out of her hotel room before he was up and hunkered down in an empty conference room just to avoid exactly that.
“My CO asked me to sit in on the meeting.”
“He asked you to help with the attempted hacks?”
Christopher smirked. “Does that surprise you?”
“Hell yes it surprises me. I’m supposed to meet with the IT staff today, not a freaking Navy SEAL.”
“You never used to have a problem with my being a SEAL if memory serves right,” he said, his voice gruff.
“We never worked together before,” she snapped.
“We were pretty damn good together last night.” He raised his eyebrows.
Fuming, she moved past him, the skin on her bare arm electrifying as she brushed against his shirtsleeve. Holy crap. She was about to go up in flames just from that innocent touch. She marched down the hallway, her blood boiling. Not only would she have to be on base with Christopher, but they’d be sitting in the same room? Perfect. She could really use the distraction of a past lover to keep her mind on her work. Shit. Shit. Shit.
She stopped when she reached a dead end and turned around, puzzled. Weren’t the vending machines this way?
Christopher was still standing in the doorway of the conference room, arms crossed against his chest, watching her with an amused expression on his face. “Having second thoughts about running off?”
“I’m not running off; I’m looking for the damn vending machines.”
He cocked his head in the opposite direction, a smile playing on his lips.
The hell with him.
She let out an exasperated sigh and stormed back down the hall. She felt like she was entering the lion’s den with the way Christopher’s predatory gaze swept over her. Why had she worn her impossibly high heels again? His eyes slid up her legs, and she could practically feel them burning into her skin. Her nipples tightened, and arousal pooled at her center.
He seemed entranced watching the way her hips swished back and forth in the slim pencil skirt she had on. She might as well be prancing around for him in her lingerie or something with the heated look in his eyes. Not that she pranced around for any man.
His lips parted slightly as his gaze fell on her chest, and she glared at him. No other man would openly ogle her this way at the office. So what if they had a history together? She didn’t need his lust-filled gaze staring at her all morning.
“Keep it in your pants,” she snapped as she walked by him.
He looked momentarily startled and then flashed her a grin.
“Whatever you say, honey.”
Heat burned through her. When Christopher used to call her ‘honey,’ it was sweet. Intimate. Now he said it almost tauntingly, like she was just any random chick he’d banged. Like they weren’t on base with eyes and ears everywhere. She glared at him.
“Take a left up there. Vending machines are on the right,” he called out.
She flipped him off before she rounded the corner, and she could hear his deep laughter all the way down the hall. It was the first time she’d heard him laugh since seeing him again, and something stirred deep inside her. Something unwelcome and unwanted.
This was going to be the freaking longest day of her life. She wasn’t sure which was more infuriating—having Christopher stare at her like that after all these years, like she was his, or the way her damn body betrayed her, responding to him in a way it wouldn’t—couldn’t— for anyone else.
She slid two quarters into the machine and punched her selection. The machine rumbled as the can of soda tumbled down. It remained there, waiting for her to retrieve it, as the hair on the back of her neck stood up and goosebumps spread over her flesh. Christopher’s warmth seeped into her as he stopped behind her, his large body looming over hers. His scent was so masculine and enticing, it was all she could do not to turn around and bury her face in his neck.
Christopher stood so close that if she bent over to pick up her soda, her ass would brush against his groin. Probably exactly what he wanted, she thought with a smirk. She was trapped between him and the humming vending machine, her own body humming with a different kind of vibration. The way that man got to her was unnerving. He wasn’t even touching her, but she was unable to move. Trapped by his dominance and power.
“Why’d you run out on me this morning?” he asked, his voice low and smooth.
“I didn’t run out; you knew exactly where to find me.”
He bent down, his lips hovering at her ear, “I was hoping to hear you begging for me again.”
She spun around and shoved at his immobile chest. “Don’t be an asshole.”
He nailed her with a gaze. “We need to talk.”
“Like hell we do.” Anger coursed through her. This was exactly what she’d expected to happen this morning—Christopher to just assume they’d spend another night together, like it was no big deal. She’d given in to him last night, caving in to
what her body had yearned for, but that was a one-time occurrence. Nothing good could come from spending another night with him. Not when the ending had already been written.
“I’m sorry.”
Unwelcome tears filled her eyes. “You’re about nine years too late.”
Christopher clenched his jaw and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Walking out on you was the biggest fucking mistake of my life.”
“I guess we all have to learn to live with regret,” she retorted, brushing past him as she walked away. Her heels clicked as she rushed down the empty corridor, and without even looking back, she knew Christopher was still exactly where she’d left him. The pain etched on his face was almost unbearable. It was the same hurt she’d locked away in her own heart.
She was halfway down the hall when she realized she’d forgotten her damn soda.
***
Lexi scanned over the IP addresses again late that afternoon, hunched over a work station in the server room. After a one-hour briefing this morning, explaining to the IT staff what she’d already covered with the higher ups yesterday, they’d moved out of the stuffy conference room and gotten down to business.
To her relief—and with only a slight twinge of disappointment—Christopher had spoken to some of the IT staff and taken off after the meeting. It was for the best. His eyes boring into hers as she’d addressed the room had caused her to stumble over her words at one point—and she never floundered when speaking in front of a crowd. Hell, she dealt with the top brass at the Pentagon daily. And she couldn’t handle conducting a meeting with her ex in the room? She was losing her edge around him.
He’d been professional, at least. Respectful even. Nodding in agreement at points, looking impressed when she gave a brief rundown of her background to the others. Having an outsider sent in from the Pentagon—and a woman at that—didn’t always go well in a male-dominated environment. No one had so much as even looked at her the wrong way this morning, let alone implied that a woman wasn’t up to the task. Thank God for that. She’d spent enough time dealing with assholes as she’d moved up the career ladder.
She punched a few buttons on the computer screen, the new IP addresses she was tracing popping up on a map of the world. Another click, and lines connected the myriad addresses that jumped across the globe, tracing a path. She set down her can of diet soda and glanced at the stack of papers she’d printed out. The hackers had covered their tracks well, routing themselves through servers in countries scattered across the planet. Their trail was difficult to follow. Impossible to trace. And exactly what they’d intended.
“Making any progress?” Captain Edwards, a hardened career Navy man and head of the network security staff on base, poked his head into the server room where Lexi was working with some of the other techs. He’d checked in twice earlier and seemed eager for progress to be made on the attempted hacks. As head of the network security team, no doubt his ass was on the line. He likely was unhappy that Lexi had been pulled into the mess. The Navy liked to handle their own issues, without officials from the Pentagon being sent down to intervene and report back to Washington. Captain Edwards had been polite but cool to Lexi, and the stormy look in his eyes each time they crossed paths made her jumpy and on edge. Nothing like trying to concentrate and focus on your work when someone was watching you like a hawk.
More like a cobra, she thought. He seemed ready to strike at any moment.
“We’ll get there,” Lexi promised.
“Let me know if you need anything,” he said, appraising her.
“Of course,” she said.
He nodded curtly and left. She exchanged glances with one of the military men she’d been working with all afternoon.
“Is he always such a hard ass?’
“That was nothing,” the guy said, chuckling. “He’s been nothing but civilized to you.”
“I can’t wait to catch him on bad day,” she muttered.
They’d given her room to take the lead on this investigation, but she needed to get some results. She’d played around with the idea of upping the network security, making it impossible for anyone to ever find their servers at Little Creek, let alone attempt to hack into them again. Or she could set up a honey pot—a trove of false information that would be utterly irresistible to the hackers. After they downloaded the falsified files, a Trojan horse virus would infiltrate their systems, leaving them open to an attack. And one hundred percent traceable by Lexi.
She wished she had a clue as to who was after the information stored on the classified databases. If it was just some dumb college kids fooling around, seeing what they could hack into, they’d be prosecuted, but it wouldn’t be worth setting up the dummy data and honey pot. If, on the other hand, it was indeed foreign nationals or some other adversary after Top Secret government data, then it had to be dealt with using the fullest extent of her capabilities.
She straightened her stack of papers and shoved them into her briefcase. The jumble of IP addresses wasn’t classified information, and she’d cull through them later on back at the hotel, seeing if she could glean anything new. The IT night shift on base would search through some of the code they’d been able to pull from one attempted penetration, seeing if the hackers had left any inadvertent clues. And after a couple of hours of shut-eye, they’d reconvene at oh-seven-hundred.
Eight hours spent analyzing data, and they weren’t any closer to finding the culprit than when they’d started this morning. Her chances of returning to Arlington on Friday were looking slimmer and slimmer.
She called Kenley as she climbed into her SUV, leaving the phone on speaker as she started the engine. “How was the game last night?” AC cranked up, windows cranked down. She was ready to roll.
“Nat’s won, Yankees lost.”
Lexi laughed. “You didn’t take Cassidy to the game, did you? She would’ve been pissed.”
“Nope. Just me, myself, and I. How are things at Little Creek?”
“Disastrous,” she said.
“You can’t solve the computer mumbo jumbo?”
Lexi rolled her eyes. “Of course I’ll figure that out—eventually. It’s more the entire male species that’s causing me problems.”
“You met a guy?”
“Just a blast from the past.” More like a freaking brick wall.
“Wait—you mean the guy you ran clear across the country from?”
“The very one.”
“Holy shit.”
Lexi laughed. Nearly a decade of friendship, and she’d never once heard Kenley utter a single swear word. “Now imagine how I feel.”
“That’s insane.”
“That it is. Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ll be back by the weekend, either. The computer ‘mumbo jumbo’ as you so eloquently put it is major. I many have to bail on you and Cassidy for girl’s night.”
“Sure you not just busy getting hot and heavy with the ex?” Kenley teased.
“I’m up to my eyeballs in work. Besides, he’s a complete ass,” Lexi said, choosing to leave out that fact that she’d slept with an ex. Perfect. Now she was lying to her best friend, sleeping with the enemy, and not any closer to tracking down the hackers than she had been this morning. What a catastrophe of a day.
“Hmmm. Maybe Cassidy and I can take a trip down to the beach for the weekend. You’ll have some free time, right?”
Lexi smiled. “Yeah, definitely. You want to crash at my hotel?” She pulled onto Atlantic Avenue, already feeling lighter with the salty air blowing in through her open windows.
“If Cassidy comes, too, we’ll probably just crash at the condo. We’ll come by though.”
“Awesome. Let me know what you guys decide.”
“Sure thing. Talk to you soon? I’ve got to wrap up some stuff at the office.”
“Sounds good. Bye, hun.”
“Bye.”
She pushed “end” and tossed her phone onto the passenger seat. She’d left base without another confrontation with a fru
strating Navy SEAL. Her best friends may turn her extended business trip into a beach weekend. The day was suddenly looking up.
Chapter 9
Christopher pulled out of the parking lot on base, trailing behind Lexi at a safe distance. He’d wanted to nab her before she left for the day, but the drills he’d joined his SEAL team for out on the water had taken longer than he’d expected. He’d sprinted out to his car just in time to see her pulling away. Maybe it was for the best, because what he had to say needed to be done in private. Far from the guys on his SEAL team, who’d been ribbing him about the fuck-up at Anchors last night. Lexi storming out on him was now permanently engrained in all of their memories. Hell.
He followed her for ten minutes, his mind flashing back to tailing Rebecca all those months ago during the stalker incident. Lexi didn’t seem to have the first clue that he was hot on her tail, and his gut churned. Maybe after they spoke about the mistakes that had haunted him for a decade, he’d teach her some basic safety precautions. A single woman couldn’t be too careful.
She pulled into a parking garage off Atlantic Avenue, across the street from a long strip of hotels. He signaled and turned in behind her. Christopher’s hands gripped the steering wheel as she chose the spot in the far corner. Granted, there weren’t any other open spaces left on this level. He’d tell her to use the valet at her hotel so she wasn’t walking around alone in parking garages all the time. Not that she was his concern anymore, but hell. The thought of something happening to her left a tightening in his chest that he didn’t want to examine too closely.
She was a big girl. A grown woman. Somehow she’d survived the past nine years without him. Fuck. There’d probably been other men, other boyfriends around. Maybe she wasn’t married, but she’d never said she was alone. The thought of another man’s hands on Lexi made his blood boil. Seeing her again after all this time sent his brain short-circuiting, filling him with primal urges to make her his again. So what if he’d screwed up a decade ago. He wasn’t some young kid anymore, he was a man. And hell if he wouldn’t protect and defend those he cared about.
A SEAL's Surrender (Alpha SEALs Book 3) Page 7