Deadlock

by Cherrie Lynn

  Betrayal he could handle. Turning from her and walking away when she looked at him so pleadingly, while her eyes, her very being begged him to believe her…living with that would be a hell like none he had ever experienced. And he’d known a fuckload of hell.

  But he did it. Tore his gaze from hers, turned, and left her standing alone.

  He didn’t know what else to do, but it would be something he would regret for the rest of his life.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jace walked away, leaving her with a helpless, growing void in her heart. When his bedroom door closed behind him, it felt like being cut off from her only lifeline. For a moment there, she’d thought they could lapse into an easy camaraderie, at the very least. It would hurt, but it would be better than hostility. And then he’d taken that hope and murdered it before her very eyes.

  Lindsey wasn’t stupid, though. She knew why he’d done it. It was something that would upset her terribly, and he knew it, and he’d wanted her to know about it.

  She didn’t know whether to hate him or thank him for trying to make their impending dissolution of partnership easier for her to bear. He’d done it for her, really. He’d tried to make her hate him. But that’s where he’d been wrong; it wasn’t easier. If anything, it was harder.

  She could understand why he’d done it all. Hated it but could understand it. After all, she was the virus. No one else. And when you were infected, you had to clean out the system or it was ruined forever.

  Well, Lindsey could return the favor. She would clean herself out. She would self-destruct, if that’s what it took.

  To hell with all this planning. To hell with all their “assignments.” Whatever N-Tech might be, it was involved in this somehow. Griffin had shown up there—the same man who’d come to Lena’s apartment. To hell with caution and everything else. Maybe she could walk in that building right now and find her sister, and if not, she could find a clue.

  She was tired of waiting on Jace Adams. Maybe their plan was to strike within the next few hours and she would jeopardize that by acting first, but she couldn’t know that, because no one would talk to her. Well, maybe they would talk to her if she took the entire mission on her shoulders. Maybe they would believe her then. Even if she never had the benefit of that knowledge because she’d gotten herself killed trying to clear her own name.

  Jace would be sorry then, wouldn’t he?

  Never in her life had she been faced with a situation where she was being called an outright liar while there was absolutely no way she could think of to convince the accusing party otherwise—until Jace Adams.

  Lena would know what to do. Hell, Lena would laugh, and find a way out, and make the bastards rue the day they ever crossed her, looking fabulous the entire time. The image made Lindsey smile.

  Somewhere out there, whomever had abducted Lena probably wished they’d made a very different choice. They’d picked the wrong one the day they picked her.

  Because she was out there. Lindsey could see through her superficial doubts now. Despite their differences, their disagreements, if her twin were dead, Lindsey would know. Through that genetic connection that transcended all understanding, she would sense the void on the other end if her sister were truly gone.

  Right now she needed that connection. She needed to think like her. Act like her. She needed to scheme. She needed a plan.

  And what was Lena’s main weapon in her scheming arsenal?

  Sex. Seduction. The promise of it, in a look or a throaty laugh or a touch, even when she had no intention of acting on it.

  Lindsey had blown that all to hell and gone because she’d given Jace the power to make her knees quake, and he knew it. She’d put all her cards on the table with him. It was too late for games, and this one she would lose anyway.

  She didn’t think her heart could take having him one more time before she left.

  The walls around her began to close in. She dropped to the couch and put her head in her hands, deep breathing, not panicking yet but not far from it, either. Four walls had never felt like a prison to her. On the contrary, they’d always represented a sanctuary. A haven from the rest of the world. But now…

  She had to get out of here. Had to. It was as much for self-preservation as for her sister at this point. And she didn’t know how long he would hole up in his bedroom. Maybe five minutes. Maybe five hours.

  She crossed the room and knocked on his door, swiveling her head to watch snow drift down in the gray dusk beyond his living room windows as she wondered if he would even answer. Would it ever stop snowing? Maybe she could simply walk out of the apartment if he didn’t—

  “Come in.”

  He was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling with his hands laced behind his head and his ankles crossed. Lindsey’s eyes couldn’t help but wander to the swells of his flexed biceps, but then he looked over at her, and she managed to meet his gaze. His dark brows drew together. “Are you all right?”

  She’d been through so much emotional turmoil, she must look a haggard mess, especially with the shock of that text message lingering on her face. Maybe one day, in some distant future she didn’t dare try to imagine too clearly, she wouldn’t be such a mess all the time. First, she had to survive.

  And Jace was waiting for her answer, if he even cared. “As well as I can be,” she told him.

  “Do you need something?”

  “Yes.” His gaze followed her as she crossed the room and stood beside his bed. He didn’t move. She didn’t think he even breathed. She let her own perusal roam his body, let her intentions be known.

  “Lindsey,” he said, his voice husky with barely suppressed need. “You shouldn’t be with me right now. I think we both need to cool off.”

  Her in his bedroom again was probably the very thing he’d been trying to avoid with that stunt just now. Well, she found that throwing a monkey wrench in his carefully laid plans was kind of fun. “Are you not going to let me sleep with you tonight?” she asked, keeping her voice small and hurt. “I don’t want to be alone right now. Don’t make me be alone.”

  It was the truth, even though she was doing the very thing he’d been accusing her of: deceiving him. She let her bottom lip tremble and saw his carefully cultivated ice mask begin to shift, begin to crack.

  It happened first in his eyes, in the softening there. And then, sighing, he opened his arms to her, and she went, absorbing the heat from his body into the cold places of her soul as he held her close to him. She would need this, she knew, for what lay ahead. His strength infused into her.

  Her lips found the sensitive area beneath his jaw, and she kissed him there, feeling him tense, hearing his breath hitch. “Lindsey.” Her hand trailed down the length of his torso, feeling his abs twitch under her touch, and then filling her palm with the bulk of his erection through his jeans.

  “Jesus,” he groaned, tilting his head back even as he tried to catch her wrist, to stop her explorations. Lindsey let her tongue flicker against his skin and performed a deft move with her fingers, and his grip relaxed, defeated. “This is the last fucking thing we should do,” he murmured, sounded beaten and distressed and miserable and turned on. Well, then he felt like she did. Her heart beat throughout her body but nowhere so strongly as between her legs. She needed him there.

  “Just once more,” she whispered against his ear, the spice of his aftershave intoxicating her. “All these years, I remembered you and how much I wanted you then. I still do.”

  He went down snarling, but he went down nevertheless, his control snapping as he grasped her head in both hands and kissed the life from her, his lips searing all thought from her head. The pain and the sweetness brought tears to her eyes, how the two could intermingle, how her heart could break even as it sang. “Stop me, dammit,” he rasped against her mouth, even between ravenous mouthfuls of her.

  “Can’t you stop
yourself?” she asked innocently, then let her tongue duel sinuously with his.

  “No. Only for you, only if you tell me. Fuck, Linz, can’t get enough of how you taste.”

  He tasted like darkness and sin and honey. She tore helplessly at his clothes, needing his flesh beneath her hands. He helped, and then worked at her own, until both of them were naked and twined together.

  Deceiving him wasn’t right; this was where she felt like she belonged from now on. This felt like home, here, pressed against him. How could fate be so cruel as to give it to her and then snatch it away? She’d held them at bay for as long as she could, but tears filled her eyes when he entered her, the beauty of him shattering her as he held her gaze.

  “Don’t cry,” he murmured. “I can’t stand it. I want to tear the fucking walls down.” He kissed her, and it should’ve made her feel better, but it didn’t. To cover her weakness, she shoved him over onto his back again and straddled him, feeling him deeper and harder than he had been. How was it possible? His hands grasped her hips, setting her into rhythm. A sinful, sultry rhythm, a slow burn that would incinerate her before it was done.

  She’d never really liked being on top. Until now. Having all this man beneath her instead of over her gave her an exhilarating rush of power, and she could always use one of those. “Yes,” she whispered, letting her head fall back. “Oh God, yes.”

  Jace’s big hands moved up and cupped her breasts, his thumbs stroking over her nipples as she rode him. His calluses rasped her tender flesh, making her bite her lip. He was so deep, so big, and her body knew its own needs even before her brain did. All she had to do was coast on this bliss, her hips undulating on his. He touched every inch inside of her.

  And when finally he jerked her down into his arms and filled her up with him, groaning into her ear as his release throbbed inside, she tumbled over the edge with him, biting down on his shoulder to stifle her cries.

  Minutes or an eternity later, he pushed her hair back from her face and lifted her chin to look at her. “Lindsey.”

  She laid a finger against his lips. He was still inside her, softened somewhat, but there was still life in him yet. She replaced her finger with her lips, light brushes across his mouth until he opened and let her in. “What are you doing to me?” he murmured after her tongue dipped teasingly over his, and she felt him harden inside her. Knocking you out, dear, she thought, smiling a little as she kept kissing him.

  “Just this.”

  “Thought you were mad at me.” His voice was dark, sex-roughened, and it reawakened all the places momentarily sated by her recent orgasm. God save her from all this sexiness, or she might not be able to leave. And leave she must.

  “I can be mad and still want it, can’t I?” She gave a tentative stroke of her hips, watching his eyes lose their focus with pleasure.

  “Is being pissed typically an aphrodisiac for you?” His fingers curled around the back of her neck.

  “Well, Jace, no one has ever made me as angry as you can. I guess I’m just now learning this about myself.”

  “Glad I could assist. I guess.” He chuckled, letting his fingers slide through her hair.

  “You guess?”

  “I like that you want me. Don’t like pissing you off.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Hurts you,” was all he replied as he began meeting the thrust of her hips with his own.

  Then why did he do it? At that moment, she almost didn’t care. She only wished she could stay here and love this man. If not for the rest of her life, then at least for a while.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Somehow, before he opened his eyes, Jace knew she was gone, like the emptiness in the bed next to him had infiltrated his soul even through his sleep. Before he saw the rumpled sheets where her warm body had lain, he knew that Lindsey wasn’t only gone from his bed but gone from his apartment, maybe even his life.

  He erupted from under the covers stark naked, his feet hitting the floor at a run even though he already knew what he would find. No Lindsey in the bathroom. No Lindsey in the living room. No Lindsey in the kitchen. She had fucked him until he couldn’t move anymore, and she’d split as soon as he’d passed out. He would be impressed if he weren’t so fucking pissed off.

  “Fuck!”

  It was a long shot, but he grabbed up his jeans lying on the floor and shoved his legs into them, then slammed his way out into the hallway and pounded on doors. Everyone came sleepily, instantly awake when they heard the dilemma. Sully, of course, had a few choice words for his stupidity, but that was to be expected, and he deserved every one of them.

  What a fucking number this girl had done on him. Somehow, that was the worst thing of all. Once again, he’d let himself be lured in by a pretty face. The irony was that it was the exact same face that had lured him in before, making him even doubly stupid.

  Fool me twice, shame on me.

  After all this was over, maybe the best thing he could do for all of them was leave. He would tell the Captain his judgment had suffered to the point he was a danger to all of them. He’d allowed his own life to be FUBAR, but he didn’t have to subject the Nest to the same fate. It had lifted him up, saved him, and now he had most likely destroyed it.

  There was no word for the raw, primal rage that slithered through his veins. It wasn’t a towering thing—it was dark, and serpentine, something that had crawled up from the depths of hell. The only other time he could recall knowing its sinister lust for revenge was sitting in front of the dean’s desk at MIT, learning of Lena’s betrayal. He was ready to fucking unleash it on someone. Anyone. Rhys. Lindsey. Lena. All of them.

  And God help them when he did.

  Of course, most likely she had turned her phone off, but he woke up his computer to run a trace anyway. And frowned. A long note was typed out in a text program on the screen.

  Jace—

  Yet again, I’m going to say something you don’t believe. I know what this looks like to you. Trust me, the last thing I want is to give you another reason not to trust me. But it’s something I have to do. For me, for my sister. I’m going to get her. I don’t know what I’m walking into, but don’t you dare follow me. Like you’ll listen, but anyway.

  Not a single thing I’ve told you has been a lie. If I die today, I will feel better knowing that you believe that, because maybe the only good thing that can come from something happening to me is that you’ll know I never betrayed you. Lena did, and I don’t know why, and I can’t apologize for her. All I can do is assure you that I’m not my sister. I’m not out to get you. I wanted you from the moment I first laid eyes on you in class all those years ago, and I still do. Whatever else comes my way, I got to have you, however brief a time it was. I’ll hold on to that through what’s to come.

  Someone has used me against you after you agreed to help me, and I can’t live with it. I’m the virus they used to infiltrate your system, and you will never know how sorry I am about that. If I can make it right, I will.

  Lindsey

  He clicked off the letter, a knot swelling in his throat, and realized his system had been jacked by some kind of malware. She’d fucking set malware on him so he couldn’t trace her. Jace wasn’t too stunned to be a little impressed. Meerkat had struck.

  But if everything she said in this letter was true, he didn’t doubt Meerkat was about to go and get herself killed.

  He also had to consider that nothing in this letter was true.

  It didn’t matter. A vision of her beseeching green eyes flashed in front of him, and all at once, he wondered how, even for a moment, he could have looked into them and not believed every word she was telling him. If he hadn’t spent so much time holding back, wondering at her loyalties, checking up on her, letting Lena’s phantom hang over him, they might have been able to get through this together. And now he’d made her feel as if going it alon
e was the better option.

  But he had to keep his head on straight.

  He searched through his registry to learn the source of her program, hoping to kill it so he could track her. Damn, damn, damn. She’d compromised the entire network, and he’d triggered it. He expected the outrage to explode from his teammates any minute now once they realized what had happened.

  “Lindsey,” he muttered, staring at the mess she’d left onscreen. “Oh no, baby. No, no, no, what are you doing?”

  Giving up, he charged from his apartment. If nothing else, maybe he could find physical clues. He took the stairs instead of the elevator, leaping down almost entire flights, nearly breaking his neck more than once. He ran through the lobby, dodging alarmed tenants all bundled up against the cold, many of them with arms laden with colorful gift bags. If there were such a thing as Christmas miracles, he thought, he needed one now. Maybe he would even start to believe again.

  Her car was still in the parking garage. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw it, and then surged forward all at once, reaching it at a full run. If it was here, then where the hell was she?

  He cupped his hands around the passenger-side window, peering inside as best he could in the garage’s muted light. Nothing looked out of sorts in there.

  Running around to the driver’s side, he moved so fast he almost tripped over the purse lying on the ground. He wasn’t an expert of ladies’ crap, hardly noticed them, but that taupe leather bag looked like something Lindsey would carry. Jace snatched it up and unceremoniously dumped everything out in his desperation. Keys, wallet. A wad of receipts and some lipsticks.

  Sure enough, a quick survey of her ID showed Lindsey’s sweet face, and his devilish fury from earlier only intensified at the thought of someone hurting her. Of someone somewhere hurting her right fucking now while he couldn’t get his head together over her disappearance.