by Desiree Holt
He saw the moment the realization of it clicked for her.
“So, some hacker couldn’t, for example, find a way into the software and use it to hack a bunch of different businesses.”
Liam nodded. “Right. They’d have to be able to diagnose the codes for each program and find a back door.”
“You must charge the earth for them. Not that they aren’t worth it, by any means.”
“We charge fairly,” he told her. “But a lot of work goes into each one. We have to analyze the company’s needs and decide what type of code to write that will do the best job.”
She frowned. “Do you think you could have a disgruntled client? Or a business you turned away?”
He shook his head. “I hand carry my clients like they’re God in person. I spend a long time in meetings with them before we write the first line of code, so we know exactly what we need to protect against. We have defense contractors, international banks, you name it. So, we can’t use a one size fits all. That’s how we made our name.”
“And why Arroyo wanted you in their fold,” she pointed out. “Do you think whatever is happening has anything to do with the Arroyo deal?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? But I’d have to say no. There’s no one who’d profit by killing this deal.”
“Maybe by getting rid of you, another computer engineer could step in and steal your clients. Or grab your Arroyo deal.”
He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.
“I don’t think so. If someone is that good, they could just go in and pitch their own firm. Sydney, computer engineering isn’t usually a violent profession.”
“Then there’s something going on you don’t realize and you’d better figure out what it is. Best-case scenario? It will turn out to be your overactive imagination. But I’ve been doing what I do for a long time, Liam, and I’ve learned to never discount someone’s intuition over imagination.”
They were silent for a long moment as Liam let her words sink in. He was probably out of his mind on this, the result of too little sleep and too much adrenaline. But he promised himself he’d be a lot more alert from here on in, and double and triple check everything at work.
“I hate to do this.” Sydney’s warm voice broke into his thoughts. “But I’ve got an eight o’clock meeting in the morning and I have to show up with all parts of my brain functioning.”
“Of course you do.” He could have kicked himself for wasting her time with his craziness. “My bad.”
“No, no.” She reached across and touched his hand. When she looked at him, he could see the same swirl of heat in her eyes he himself was feeling. Would they ever get a chance to take it for a test drive? “I’ve enjoyed this as much as you, Liam.”
He chuffed a laugh. “Even with my craziness?”
She nodded. “Even with.”
Her hand still rested on his, and the feel of her soft fingers sent heat charging through him. Great. He’d either have to drink iced water before he could stand up or walk through the lobby with a raging hard-on.
“Put this in your electronic memo,” he told her. “Once your trial is over, we’re going to have dinner—a nice long romantic meal in an appropriately conducive place—and see if whatever this thing is circling around us that we’re both ignoring is more than just wishful thinking.”
Sydney burst out laughing.
“Why, Liam. How could I resist such a romantic offer?”
He managed a lopsided grin. “Yeah. My bad. I seem to be out of practice here.”
“No worries. I think I’m in the same boat.” He lips tilted up in a sly grin. “But it was fun, right? A nice little break?”
“More than,” he agreed. “And yes. I’d love it if, when we get past the craziness we’re both in right now, we could get together.”
Liam picked up both empty paper cups and tossed them in a nearby discreet trashcan.
“Where are you parked?” he asked.
“In the garage. You too?”
He nodded. “Come on. We’ll walk together.”
That itch between his shoulder blades picked up as they crossed the lobby, but no one approached him and no one followed him, at least as much as he could tell. They rode up in the garage elevator together, Sydney getting off one floor below him.
They were the only two in the elevator and when she stepped off, Liam pressed the door to stay open.
“You’ll be okay walking to your car?” he asked.
“No problem.” Sydney winked at him. “I always keep my trusty pepper spray handy.”
Pressing the door open with one leg, he reached out for Sydney’s arm.
“Wait. Do you have to use it very often? That pepper spray?”
“No. Don’t worry. It’s more to make me feel better.” She smiled. “Really, Liam. My car is right over there. I’ll be fine.” She started to walk away, stopped, turned back and stood on tiptoe to brush a soft kiss on his mouth. “Luck tomorrow.”
Stunned, Liam just stood there, holding the elevator door propped open, until she was safely inside her car and the motor had turned over. He waved as she backed out of her space and headed toward the down ramp. He did his best to put the shock of that kiss out of his mind so he was hitting on all cylinders, but it was damn hard. What he really wanted was to go after her, drag her to his townhouse and spend the rest of the night losing himself in her.
But that would have to wait until this deal was settled and he wasn’t looking over his shoulder. Another few minutes and he was at his own car. He moved with caution as two cars took the ramp up to his floor from the one below. He relaxed a fraction when they sought out parking spaces and didn’t come near him. No one else appeared while he jogged from the elevator.
Only when he was in his own vehicle and heading down toward the exit did he allow himself to breathe normally. And wasn’t this fucking ridiculous. He was a thirty-five-year-old computer engineer. Could he get more boring? Who would waste their time coming after him, anyway?
He tried to check on his way home to see if someone might be on his tail, but there were too many cars coming out of the downtown area to where he lived. Either they were good at losing themselves in traffic or no one was following him. Or maybe he was just becoming neurotic.
Chalk it up to too little sleep and too much coffee, he told himself. Maybe if he got more than three hours’ sleep tonight, it would help. But there were no cars behind him when he pulled into the lane behind his townhouse and into his garage, with nobody on his tail.
Still, he breathed a lot easier when, after checking to make sure no one was parked just outside in either direction, he closed the garage door and was safely inside his townhouse. Before turning on any of the lights, he stood beside the living room window and peered outside through the tiny slits in the closed window blinds. He’d bought this place because it gave him the feeling he was living in a house but without the upkeep, and it was located conveniently for everything he needed. For the first time since he’d moved in, he wondered if he would have been better with a condo in a secure building? The row of townhouses fronted right on the sidewalk. Anyone could walk by and casually look into his living room.
Crap. Paranoid much, Benedict?
At last, sure that no one was going to come pounding on his door, he forced himself to take a few deep breaths and settle his crazy nerves. Then he flipped on the light in the foyer, climbed the stairs and dumped his briefcase on a chair in his bedroom. In seconds he had stripped off his clothes and fallen into bed.
When he closed his eyes, he prayed for a dreamless sleep. Instead, what he got was an image of Sydney Alfiore dancing almost naked, and a hard-on that threatened any possibility of sleep.
Chapter Three
Sydney closed the door to her condo and let out a long sigh. Today had been long and tomorrow promised to be even longer. Prepping witnesses for trial was never an easy task. For this case, it seemed to be even harder, considering the fact she had grave doubts about her client�
�s claimed innocence. The smart thing would have been to walk away and not accept the case. Unfortunately, the request for representation had come from a former mentor and she was hard-pressed to refuse.
The two witnesses she’d met today were going to be as difficult as her client. She just hoped they could testify convincingly and not look like they were covering up a secret, as they had tonight at dinner. She hated clients like this and once again cursed her old mentor for saddling her with the case. Oh, well. She’d do what she always did, fight fiercely for the win. And after she’d won, she’d tell her former professor she didn’t owe him another thing.
She had a brief flashback to a moment in her final year of law school, moot court, an exercise every senior law student went through. She’d been playing the role of the defense attorney, and she’d thought she’d presented such a passionate defense. A freshman had been drafted to play the part of the eighteen-year-old defendant. Sydney had been so full of herself and misplaced self-confidence. She had been shattered when the mock jury found him guilty and the mock trial judge sentenced him to twenty-five years in prison.
Even worse, her professor whom she idolized had flayed her with his words, criticizing her entire defense and telling her if she didn’t get her act together she’d end up in a third-rate law firm, one where beggars couldn’t be choosers. She’d since learned to don her invisible cloak of armor, one where only the very tough Sydney was seen by the public. Certainly not the uncertain senior law student who still lurked beneath the surface.
It had started right after the disastrous mock trial when she’d bought the silicone bracelet with the date of the jury verdict on it. She put it on at the onset of every new case and never took it off until the trial was concluded, not even to shower. It reminded her what happened when a person was overconfident and ill-prepared.
The one bright spot in today’s very long day had been running into Liam Benedict in the hotel lobby. God! The man was a walking sex dream and she’d bet money he didn’t even know it. Not that he wasn’t seen with his share of women. But, from what she knew, he was as driven in his career as she was in hers. She was passionately in love with the law. He was equally immersed in his firm that created specialized security software. She wondered if his relationships were as brief and shallow as hers.
Now, half-undressed, wearing only her panties, half-slip and bra, she leaned against the bathroom door and closed her eyes, calling up the image of the man. He was well over six feet, a comfortable height to match hers when she wore heels. He had the same thick black hair she remembered, the kind you wanted to run your fingers through, a little longer than last time she’d seen him but it softened the sharp line of his jaw and his cheekbones. His eyes were the same black, like polished onyx and framed with lashes so thick they made grown women weep with envy.
But there was nothing the least bit feminine about Liam Benedict. Oh, hell no. Quite the opposite. For a man she would label a geek considering what he did, he oozed masculinity from every pore.
Careful, girl, or you’ll be drooling all over yourself.
The moment she’d met him, every hormone in her body had come to attention and saluted, and they hadn’t returned to parade rest yet. Every time she and Liam bumped into each other it spiked again. It frustrated her that they both had such insane schedules that carving out any personal time together was impossible.
Anyway, it had been so long since she’d had anything that passed for a personal life she might just be painting him with a broad brush. Graduating from law school at the top of her class and passing the bar exam with a perfect score were what had gotten her into one of the top criminal defense firms in the southeast. So many of her friends had gone into financial litigation, real estate law or other fields that seemed so dry to her. She had toyed briefly with the idea of applying for a spot on a prosecutor’s staff, but then in her senior year something happened to a friend and she’d been committed to criminal defense.
She had stuffed everything else in a virtual closet while she focused one hundred percent on her career. Then she’d used her connections to snag a couple of high-dollar, high-profile clients, insisted on being first chair in their trials and won acquittals for them. After that she’d pretty much been able to write her own ticket and had recently made junior partner.
She knew there were male counterparts in the firm who would gladly have done whatever to get rid of her. Her own profile, however, was so visible now that all they could do was gnash their teeth and send dirty looks her way. She had her own law clerk, two associates who reported to her and a personal assistant she swore had been created in heaven.
But none of that kept her very warm at night.
Of course, she hadn’t met any men who’d inspired her to make changes in her schedule. Not, that is, until Liam Benedict. Even with as little time as they’d spent together, she had a sense there was something special there if they could just find time to get to it. Somehow, she’d carve out that time after this trial, even if it was just for a lunch, to see where this could go. All work and no play, she reminded herself. And she definitely wanted to play with Liam Benedict.
With a sigh, she hurried through her nighttime routine, pulled on a sleep shirt and crawled into bed. With so much racing through her mind, she was sure she’d have trouble falling asleep, but ten seconds after her head hit the pillow, she found herself falling through a cloud of black velvet into a dream.
“I wanted you the minute I laid eyes on you.” Liam’s voice was rough with need. “I damn near crippled myself trying to keep my hard-on from showing.”
“I can feel it now,” she half whispered, pressing her hips forward so she cradled his erection.
The scent of his aftershave tickled her nose, something fresh and citrusy. Whenever they’d been together, usually with other people, she’d maneuvered to sit beside him and managed to content herself with inhaling a deep breath and, drawing it into her system.
“We have too many clothes on.” The words were almost a growl. “I’ve wanted to do this since the first time I set eyes on you.”
He unbuttoned the tiny pearl buttons on her blouse, cursing them as he popped each one through its buttonhole. His cock flexed at the sight of her beasts filling the satin and lace cups of her bra, the dark nipples like shadows through the material. The hunger she saw in his eyes poured fuel on the fire already burning inside her.
“I want to taste every single inch of you,” he growled, running the tip of his tongue across the swells of her breasts. “Lick your nipples and bite them. Lap that pussy I’ve been dying to dive into.”
He used his hands to tug the drape of her shirt down her arms and toss it to the side. Next to go was the bra. He flicked the catch open and eased the straps down her arms. Liam sucked in his breath at the sight of her bare breasts with their swollen nipples, swiping the tip of his tongue across each one. Then he pressed his mouth to the valley between those breasts and strung kisses down over her abdomen until he was stopped by the constriction of her skirt. He took her mouth in a rapid kiss as he eased down the zipper of her skirt and pushed it past her hips. When he touched the material of her pantyhose, he stopped and groaned.
“Pantyhose. Jesus, Sydney. You’ll make me come before we even get to the main event here.”
He lifted her and placed her on the bed, where he’d already tossed back the covers. Disposed of her shoes then hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her pantyhose and ever so slowly eased them over her hips and down her thighs. Sydney closed her eyes, giving herself over to the feel of his hands on her skin. When he stopped with the garment only down as far as her knees, locking her legs together as if a rubber band had been tied around them, she opened her eyes to look at him.
“Liam?”
He was staring down at her, such intense hunger in his eyes her breath caught in her throat.
“Do you know how sexy pantyhose are?” His voice was hoarse and ragged. “My cock is so hard right now I’m amazed I can even s
tand here like this.”
Then he bent forward, placed a kiss on her navel and traced a line down to where the waist of the pantyhose rested. Sydney wriggled her hips as much as she could, signaling him not to stop there. His low, raspy laugh was like a match to her body, igniting the nerves in her pussy and making her walls flex with need.
As much as she wanted Liam to hurry, he seemed just as determined to take his time. At last he pushed the pantyhose farther down her legs, one inch at a time, until he could finally pull them free. Still fully clothed, he kneeled between her thighs, parted the lips of her sex and took a long, slow lick with his tongue.
Sydney was already so aroused from the little bit of foreplay that his touch brought her right to the edge of release.
“Not yet,” Liam insisted and placed his mouth on her delicious cunt again.
He nibbled the swollen nub of her clit, tugging it with his teeth before soothing it with his tongue. He lapped greedily at every inch of her core, fucking her with his tongue and drawing her toward release until she was strung tighter than a bow. He held her thighs wide apart, nibbling and licking and sucking so every nerve was tormented and spasms began deep inside her.
“Please,” she begged, teetering on the edge of release. She was sure her pussy was already dripping, her body responding to the teasing and tormenting and arousing.
Liam leaned forward and touched his lips to hers, carrying her taste with him.
“Please what?” he murmured.
“Please let me come.”
His laugh was low and raspy. “Is that what you want? But I’m having such a good time.”
“Yes.” She tossed her head from side to side,
“Then we’ll have to do something about that.”
He lifted her legs to his shoulders, a position that made her feel so completely open to him. Then he proceeded to use his very clever tongue and fingers on every part of her pussy, teasing and tormenting, bringing her to the edge before easing back, until she was ready to cry with the frustration of it. At the moment she was sure she would lose her mind, he thrust two long fingers inside her, pumping them, and bit down on her clit.