She wasn’t wearing panties. Billy’s cock jerked against his jeans and he swallowed hard. Yeah, he’d been with other women, but it had been a while. He’d been too busy lately, and too uninterested. That last had begun to bother him recently, but he figured it was temporary. They were working pretty hard at HOT HQ in preparation for this operation in Qu’rim. Al Ahmad was there, hiding out and arming the rebels in the civil war against the king. And Lucky San Ramos, their dead teammate’s widow, was the only person who could ID the terrorist.
Lucky wasn’t happy about it, but she was here and training hard for the mission. They were all training hard. They owed it to Marco San Ramos and Jim Matuzaki to get this guy. Those two had died months ago now, on that fucked up mission to capture Al Ahmad’s second-in-command. Billy had wanted to lose himself in Olivia’s arms when he’d gotten home, but she hadn’t been there.
Billy turned away and finished the beer. Then he set the bottle on the counter very carefully. “Nothing, Livvie. Go to bed. Forget I said anything.”
She didn’t move for a long moment. But when she did, she didn’t leave the room. She moved toward him, until he could smell her sweet scent wrapping around his senses. He stood very still and kept his gaze on the bottle rather than on her.
“What’s wrong, Billy?”
Her voice was soft and sweet and he wanted to turn and tug her into his arms, bury his face in her hair like he used to do. What was it about this one woman that turned him inside out? He’d tried to drive her from his mind with sex and booze and hard work, but she’d never really gone away.
On some level, he knew that was pretty significant. But she’d run away from him, left him behind. If she could do that, then she wasn’t as into him as he’d been into her. He got the hint and he’d moved on.
But here she was, in his house, and all he wanted was to strip her and remind her of how it used to be. Remind himself, too, because there’d been a sweetness with her he’d never felt before or since.
“Too much on my mind, not enough sleep,” he said. “Just go back to bed.”
She moved, but not away from him. Her hand settled on his arm, her fingers burning into him where they touched. She’d always had the power to set him on fire. It hadn’t changed. He stood stiffly and waited for her to do or say whatever she was going to.
“I want to know what you meant. What don’t I get?”
He met her gaze head on. She wouldn’t give up unless he told her. So he would, and if it hurt her, then it was nothing less than she deserved. Because she’d hurt him.
“It was more than sex, Liv, and you know it. We had something special, but you threw it away. And for what? Do you even know?”
Her throat worked. And then her gaze dropped and he found himself looking at the top of her bowed head. He’d wanted to hurt her, and now he didn’t. He wanted to hold her.
“I was scared.”
He put his finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. Her eyes shone with moisture. “Of what? Of me?”
“Yes.” She put her fingers around his wrist, held on. “Because you made me feel too much and I didn’t know how to handle it.”
“So you chose to run away instead of face your fear.”
She closed her eyes. “I know that’s not something you would ever do, but yes, that’s exactly what I did. I’m not like you, Billy. I’m not tough and brave and willing to fight. I like to cut my losses, protect myself.”
He just felt weary now. Weary and heartsick and angry deep down. Because she hadn’t believed in him. In them. She’d run away, and she’d kept running until she needed something from him. Until she needed his help.
She’d come back because she was scared, not because she missed what they had together.
“One of these days, you’re going to have to learn to stop running.” He slid his fingers along her jaw, down her throat. He stopped just shy of ghosting them over her nipples, though he knew she wouldn’t stop him. He dropped his hands to his sides. His cock ached, but it wasn’t the first time. He could deal with it.
“I know. I’m trying.” She slicked her tongue over her lower lip and he just barely kept from groaning. If she touched him, if she reached out and put her hand on his chest, he was a goner. “Good night, Billy. Thanks for the food.”
“Sure thing, Liv.”
She stepped away from him and disappeared through the door to the hall. Billy closed his eyes. Then he went and got another beer from the fridge.
***
Wal-Mart was a madhouse on Christmas Eve, but they stopped anyway and managed to pick up a pair of jeans, a sweater, and some boots for Olivia. She was much warmer than she’d been last night when she’d been trudging down the road toward Billy’s place. The snow had continued all night and there were big drifts of it on the sides of the roads where the plows had come through.
The roads had been salted and were passable, if not completely safe. But Olivia didn’t fear with Billy Blake behind the wheel. He’d grown up in snowy Vermont, unlike her, who’d grown up in various towns across the south. From Florida to Texas and back again, she’d lived in every state that had once been a part of the confederacy. Snow was not a typical occurrence in her childhood.
She’d frowned when they’d passed her Beemer in the ditch, but Billy told her not to worry. The ditch wasn’t deep, thankfully, and he’d promised he’d tow it out for her later when they finished their errand at Titan Technology.
Olivia hugged her arms around herself as they drove into the city. There was still plenty of traffic in DC, though not as much as there might have been if not for the snow and it being Christmas Eve. Behind them, Nick Brandon, Ryan Gordon, Chase Daniels, and Sam McKnight followed in an unmarked communications van. She’d thought that many guys were overkill, but HOT didn’t do anything by half measures.
They would’ve probably had the whole team along, except that Kev MacDonald was assigned to twenty-four-seven duty guarding Lucky San Ramos—and Jack Hunter, the sniper, was busy elsewhere. Not that they needed a sniper today. Or so she hoped anyway.
Matt Girard was back at HQ, directing operations. Occasionally Billy answered a call from him, but she never could glean what they were talking about. It was all code and shorthand and Olivia leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.
She hadn’t slept well. After that three a.m. encounter with Billy, she’d been unable to settle down. She kept thinking about what he’d said, about how they’d had something special but she’d been the one to throw it away.
Well, hadn’t she? Olivia wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. On the other hand, how was she supposed to know what his feelings had been? He’d never told her.
But he’d also spent all his time with her when he wasn’t in the field. They’d lived together without actually living together. He’d kept an apartment of his own, but he’d never stayed there. He’d stayed with her.
“Not many cars here,” Billy said, cutting into her thoughts. She opened her eyes as they pulled into the parking lot. No, there weren’t many cars, but there were always people who worked even when they could take the day off. “What about Howard’s?”
She scanned the lot for Tom Howard’s Jaguar. It wasn’t there and she breathed a sigh of relief. “Not here.”
Getting Billy inside wasn’t going to be difficult, but if Tom were around, it would be a lot more challenging. They often had visitors from subcontractors of Titan, from the halls of Congress, from different military branches—but Tom was the CEO and would know better than anyone what was expected and what was unusual.
Olivia breathed out a shaky sigh as Billy parked and opened the door. She joined him, her badge hanging on a lanyard around her neck and tucked inside her jacket, and they began walking toward the building. The van with the rest of the team was nowhere to be seen and she knew they must have parked down the street. They were in contact with Billy through a tiny ear mic, but that was it.
They walked right up to the door and Olivia bad
ged in. Billy swiped his badge right behind hers because the guard would note how many people were entering against how many badges had been swiped.
“Hello, Miss Reese,” the uniformed woman behind the desk said when they stepped inside. “Didn’t expect to see you today.”
Olivia smiled. “I didn’t expect to be here,” she replied. “But Mr. Blake needs to work on some software updates for the company Intranet. Shouldn’t take long.”
She signed into the log, making small talk with the guard about her kids and family plans for tomorrow. The woman turned the log and checked the entries against their badges.
“Go on in, Miss Reese, Mr. Blake. And you have a Merry Christmas if I don’t see you again.”
“Thanks, you too.”
Billy turned to her once they were in the elevator. “Doing great, Livvie.”
She rubbed her arms through her coat. “Thanks.” She would have loved to say more, but she was just paranoid enough to think that the elevator was wired for sound and the guard was listening in downstairs.
The doors slid open to the main floor of Titan Technology’s offices. The lights were on and a couple of people tapped away at desks in their cubicles. It almost made her sad, in a way. What kind of home life did you have to have to be here on Christmas Eve, in your cubicle, when you could be watching Christmas movies or just taking it easy?
Then again, who was she to judge? She didn’t exactly have anyone waiting at home for her, did she? She didn’t even have a tree this year. She’d been planning to watch romantic comedies all night and then get together with a couple of single girlfriends tomorrow for dinner.
Olivia led Billy down the hallway, past her office, and toward the secure research wing where Alan Cooper’s office was located. There was a cipher lock there and she didn’t know the code. During work hours, if anyone needed in who didn’t have the code, they called the secretary who sat just inside the door and informed her about their business.
Olivia glanced over her shoulder worriedly as they approached, hoping nobody was watching. The corridor was empty. The security cameras that normally pointed at the door were still there and her heart skipped. But the guys in the van were supposed to hack in and override the cameras, so unless Billy told her to stop, she figured it had been done and they were looping an empty hall.
When she reached the door, she stepped aside to let Billy get to the cipher.
He shot her a grin that said he was having more fun than she could imagine. And then he leaned forward and kissed her swiftly. It wasn’t anything more than a kiss for luck, but her whole body ignited as if he’d swept his tongue into her mouth and squeezed her ass.
“Show time, Liv.”
CHAPTER SIX
Olivia’s heart beat hard the whole time Billy was at the keypad. But it took him less than a minute to crack the code. Her jaw dropped as he yanked the secure door open and motioned for her to enter.
She led him through the warren to Alan’s office. It was locked too, but he had it open in less than a second. He stuck a long probe in the slot, slapped the end of it, and the door opened on silent hinges.
She closed the door behind her as he went over to the desk and powered up the computer. Her pulse raced and her stomach clenched, but she told herself that Billy knew what he was doing. And HOT was watching the cameras. They’d have advance warning before anyone else entered the building.
The six people already inside weren’t authorized to enter the research area, so she had no fear one of them would stumble in. Still, her nerves were strung tight and her belly roiled with acid.
She let her gaze rove freely over the man at the desk. He was engrossed in his task, his fingers flying over the keyboard, his face lit by the screen. She loved looking at him. He was clean and beautiful at the moment, but she imagined he often did this with greasepaint and dark clothes.
The microphone in his ear was hidden, but he kept up a running commentary to the men at the other end. His voice was deep and velvety and she remembered him whispering hot words in her ear when he was buried inside her.
Geez, Liv, wrong time to be thinking about this.
But she couldn’t help it. Not after last night and how close she’d been to throwing herself in his arms and begging him to make love to her again. She’d been aroused, he’d been hard, and there’d been nothing to stop them.
Nothing but tangled emotion and a deep uncertainty about what it would do to her to open herself up like that again. Could she have sex with him and not be affected by it?
Somehow, she doubted it.
“There’s nothing here, Knight Rider,” Billy said softly, his voice edged with frustration. Olivia didn’t say anything because she knew he wasn’t talking for her benefit, but her stomach fell into her toes.
“Not even his notes. Either Cooper’s been very careful or someone’s deleted the evidence.”
He tapped a few more keys and gritted his teeth together. “Yeah, copy,” he said at the same time the screen went black and he got to his feet. He was moving toward her before she could process that he was finished here.
“That’s it? We’re done?”
His face was grim. “We’re done. There’s nothing on the LAN but the official stuff. If it was here, it’s gone now.”
She told herself not to panic. “So what do we do?”
He stopped in front of her, his big form shadowing hers. She could feel his heat, his vibrancy. In spite of everything, she wanted to lift her mouth to his and feel his lips again.
“We have to find Cooper. He’s the key to everything.”
“How do we do that?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, his head snapped up and he swore. “Copy,” he said. And then he grabbed her arm and hustled her out of Alan’s office and back toward the secure door.
“What’s wrong?”
His mouth was a hard line. “Tom Howard’s on his way up.”
Olivia’s belly took a nosedive into the floor.
“It’s all right,” Billy said. “We have a story, remember?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed as they hurried down the corridor. The secure door was in front of them, the steel mesh window looking out on an empty hallway. If they could just get there and get back through…
“And what is it?” Billy said, interrupting her thoughts.
“You’re from the Pentagon. A last minute operational check of our software.”
“That’s right.” He sounded so smooth and calm that her heart slowed a fraction. They reached the door and Billy looked out. And then he opened it and they were through, heading toward her office. They reached it as the elevator dinged. Olivia gripped the knob with trembling fingers and twisted.
She could hear Tom calling out to Bob Jenkins, one of the guys in the cubicle near the elevator. And then he was whistling, coming down the hallway that passed in front of her office.
She sat at her desk and called up her email. Billy stood nearby with his arms folded and a stern look on his face. Olivia clenched her teeth as Tom got closer.
And then he stopped in front of her open door, his gaze darting from her to Billy and back again.
“Olivia,” he said. “Saw you’d come in today. Everything okay?”
She pasted on a smile and stood. “Yes sir. Just showing the guy from the Pentagon a few things. He’s doing a software check.”
Tom was frowning. “I didn’t realize we had anyone coming over from the Pentagon.”
Billy stepped forward and held out his hand. He looked big and imposing in his jeans and dark T-shirt. He’d taken his leather jacket off and draped it over a chair and his bare arms flexed in a smooth ripple of mouth-watering muscle.
“William Blake, sir.” He held out a card and Tom took it. “Colonel John Mendez sent me over for a quick check of a few things. You know the Pentagon.” He crossed his arms over his impressive chest and stood there like a block of stone. And then he smiled as much as a military machine might smile. “We’re rea
l impressed with your product, sir. Can’t wait to put it in the field.”
Tom’s face split in a wide grin. “Thank you, uh, Mr. Blake. We’re very honored to do our part for our military. You active duty?”
“I am not at liberty to say, sir. You understand.”
Tom nodded. “Oh yeah, did a few years myself. Know all about those special duty assignments.”
“Yes sir.” They talked a few more moments and then Billy nodded at the card in Tom’s hand. “Give the Colonel a call, sir. He’d love to hear from you.”
Tom tucked the card in his jacket. “I’ll do that, Mister Blake.” He nodded at Olivia. “All right then, I’ll let you get back to it. Merry Christmas, folks.”
“Merry Christmas, sir,” Billy said as Tom walked out and went whistling down the hall toward his office.
Olivia sat there blinking, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, her entire body humming with adrenaline.
“Log off, Liv,” Billy said quietly. “Time to go.”
Olivia did as he said, her heart thundering, ears straining to hear if Tom Howard was coming back, if he’d decided something was fishy after all. But Tom didn’t come back and they were soon walking out the front door and climbing inside Billy’s truck. He started the engine and sat there with his hands on the wheel, lost in thought.
“Aren’t you worried he’ll be suspicious?” Olivia asked when the silence stretched out.
He turned to look at her. “I expect he will be. But he’ll call Mendez and Mendez will back the story up. Howard’s the kind of guy who’s impressed with the Pentagon and top-secret projects. He’ll be satisfied.”
***
Tom turned the card William Blake had given him over and over in his hand. Tom could spot a soldier a mile away, and that one was Special Forces if he was anything. His hair wasn’t high and tight, but his manner and bearing said he was in the military and that he was elite.
Tom had been in the Army, but he’d never made the cut for the elite units. He’d tried, but apparently drill instructors weren’t amused by brains. Yeah, he’d stopped to sleep for a few minutes when he was supposed to be humping to the next checkpoint, but he’d been so clever about it. He’d used initiative, by God, but that wasn’t an acceptable excuse to a DI. He’d been saving himself, conserving energy, but the Army didn’t see it that way when they’d caught him leaned up against the tree and catching a few winks.
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