Hacked Page 15

  Hours later, knee deep in a marketing strategy for a fresh pressed juice, I looked up to try to fix the kink in my neck. Stretching my arms overhead, I decided to allow myself a quick peek at my phone and do some mindless social media surfing.

  Flipping my silent phone over and opening the lock screen wasn’t my best idea to encourage productiveness. I saw I had missed a multitude of calls and texts, most of which were from Nixon. Shit. I flopped back in my chair and chewed my nail. What was I going to do about him?

  I could write my trusted pros and cons list, but that seemed way too clinical for a romantic decision. I had a choice to make. Listen to and read his messages, or continue to work. I had gotten so much work done, and I was so proud of myself, that I opted to dive back into work. Work was my favorite avoidance tactic and today, it was proving itself effective hand over fist. Workaholics anonymous would have happily taken me into their fold for all the times I used work to avoid emotion.

  Another hour went by and I could no longer resist the urge to flip my phone over and see what was happening. Nothing. Blank lock screen. Damn. I pulled up his name and let my thumb hover for a few seconds.

  “Should I, or shouldn’t I?”

  “You really should.” I jumped and threw my phone onto my desk at the deep, masculine voice coming from beside me. Before I settled back down, a shiver shot down my spine, landing square between my legs.

  “Nixon. You’re here.”

  “Well, I guess you didn’t hit your head again. Your vision seems fine. I won’t keep worrying that you’re unconscious on the floor. That still leaves all the other limitless scenarios running though my head.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that—” He walked farther into the room, which meant closer to me. “What are you doing?”

  “Walking towards you.”

  I held up my hand. “That’s not a good idea right now.”

  He stopped and put his hands in his pockets, standing there looking like freaking everything. Just, yeah, everything.

  “Why isn’t it a good idea right now?”

  I scooted my chair back a bit, trying to give myself as much of a buffer as I could. I needed to figure things out first, before I got close to him, because the number of times I’d picture him naked, wasn’t a number I was proud of.

  “Well, um, for starters, I’m working.” Good lead, Keev. That’ll get him.

  “I can see that you’re working. I can wait.”

  “No, no you can’t. I don’t even have a waiting room. Where in the world would you sit?”

  He pulled over Robert’s chair and sat down in it beside me with that super sexy smirk on his face. He’d let some stubble grow in and I really, really needed to feel it. Damn. I needed to dig deep.

  “And, well, there’s the fact that you have a wife.”

  “Had. I had a wife. She’s my ex-wife now.”

  “Yeah, well, she didn’t look so ex-y to me. She looked like she was just about to eat you for dinner and come back for breakfast.”

  He burst out laughing and the column of his throat called its siren song to me. Nope, no. Down girl.

  “Keeva, what do you want to know? Ask me anything.”

  “I don’t want to know anything, Nixon. I just want some peace. And I need to think.”

  “About what?”

  “About you, us, whatever happens next.”

  “Huh.”

  “What? What’s huh?”

  “Huh is me unsure of why you’re trying to figure out what happens next, when you could let it happen.”

  He grabbed hold of the arm of my rolly chair and tugged it up against his. He reached up with his free hand, wrapping it around my neck, pulling my head in and planted one on me. I was so shocked that I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but only ended up giving him a piece of my tonsils. He took the opening and gave his tongue carte blanche on a tour of my mouth.

  Of course, I was a completely willing participant by this point in time. He held me firm against his lips, slanting his head to accommodate the angle, but never giving me a chance to end the kiss.

  And what a kiss. I was finally getting a chance to encounter the stubble up close and personal and it felt electric rubbing up against my cheek. I sighed into him and felt the moment when my brain disconnected from my heart. I forgot what I was resisting, forgot all my girl power talk and forgot step number one. Focus on work.

  Shit. I was such a hussy. I place my hands flat on his chest, copped a quick feel, and then pushed back with all I had.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t need this right now.”

  He studied me, pulling back and I felt his indecision and mirrored it. He crossed his arms and sat back, still not giving me much space to retreat into.

  “Okay, Keeva. Here’s the deal. I like you. I’ve liked you since you sat down beside me on the plane. You know this. I’ve told you already. You following?”

  I blindly nodded, not entirely sure I didn’t want those full lips back on mine.

  “Good, ‘cause the next part is going to get complicated. My assignment is done. Your guy Robert cut a deal. He’s been taken in and is helping us take down the next guy up the ladder in exchange for stuff I’m not about to reveal to you. So, this means that Hawk and I are leaving.”

  My heart sank and my stomach came up to meet it. I sucked my bottom lip in and started to maniacally chew on it. He reached up and traced his finger along that same lip. I closed my eyes and not for the first time this month wished things had started out differently for us.

  His finger shifted to gently swipe way the tear that had unexpectedly escaped. “Don’t cry, baby.”

  At the brand new endearment, I closed both my eyes and let the tears come. Nothing horrendously sobby, just a steady stream. He pulled me awkwardly over for a hug, resting his forehead against mine.

  “Hey, don’t cry. Listen, I’ve got more.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to look at him.

  “So, Hawk is leaving and I’m going to stick around for a bit. Take a vacation I haven’t taken in a long time and sort out some stuff. I was kind of hoping we could start over.”

  At this glimmer, I opened my eyes and pulled back to look at his glorious face. “Start over?”

  “Yeah, start over. It would start with us going out on a proper date.”

  “A date.”

  He smiled and I studied the corners of his eyes as they crinkled. “A date. What are you doing tonight, Keeva Murphy?”

  I smiled back at him through the assured mascara leak. “I’m busy, actually. I’ve got this date thing.”

  He leaned in a lightly brushed a soft kiss across my lips and rolled his chair back to the other side of the office. I just sat there, frozen and unable to fully comprehend what was happening.

  “Pick you up at seven?”

  “Seven.”

  “Are you going to be okay? You’re repeating simple sentences. Is your head hurting?”

  I hung my head in my hands, trying desperately to gain some ground. “No, no I’m fine. It’s just, a lot is happening and I just don’t know.”

  He moved closer and interlaced one hand with mine. “Don’t overthink it. Don’t think about us past tonight. We’re going on a date. We’ll know by the end of the date if we’re going out a second time. Let’s just take it one date at a time, okay?”

  I stared at our fingers woven together. “Okay. Date number one.”

  He dropped my hand, letting his hand trail down my thigh, melting me with every inch, and walked out the door.

  Chapter 20

  Nixon

  “Lauren. It’s me. Again. Pick up or return your damn voice mails. I need to talk to you otherwise I’ll have to have our lawyers do it. Call me.”

  I hung up as violently as one can with a cell phone and threw it across the desk, grateful when it didn’t fall off the edge and shatter into a million pieces.

  I had left Keeva’s more determined than ever to cut Lau
ren completely out of my life. Keeva had been ignoring me for a week, but I was done giving her space. My only two obstacles were problematic, but I’d deal with them. Lauren was first up. I didn’t know why she was back and trying so hard to get my attention, but she needed to go back home. I had no interest in picking up where we had left off, unless it was back in divorce court to make sure our dissolution of marriage stayed that way.

  She had been driving me nuts the past week. She had been hanging around Hawk and me, trying to pry information from us, while appearing to be helpful. She was anything but helpful. I didn’t trust a single offer she had made, whether it was in the past or happening right now. She was up to something, but I really didn’t even have the energy to care what it was. I just wanted her to go.

  She played me, and that totally stung, but more than that, she seemed to have been forgiven by whoever were the powers that be were. I hated that somehow, she had convince someone yet again that she was genuine.

  I put her out of my mind and tried to concentrate on where I was going to take Keeva on our date. This was most likely my only shot at getting her back. I was tied up in knots, having no clue how to proceed, but I assumed it was with caution. How one guy like me, could go from having no women problems, to having two huge female problems in an instant, was beyond me. I wasn’t a guy prone to mushy statement and here I had been making quite a few in the past few weeks.

  We had wrapped up the case with Keeva’s guy, Robert, about ten days ago. He had admitted to talking with a team of hackers out of Russia that he had met in an online gaming forum. While Keeva had been holed up in her room, not taking any visitors and basically shutting me and the rest of the world out, I had been pulling files off of Robert’s hard drive with great success. I had found everything we needed to persuade him to take a deal in exchange for information that lead us to the bigger fish.

  The bigger fish were always what we were after. Robert, the spineless fuckup, caved pretty quickly and handed over his contact details and we’d since wiped their access to his computer and moved our access to their system ahead quite a bit. His computer was currently packed up and sailing over the ocean, hopefully landing safely so that all the evidence we needed could be extracted and we could move on to the next steps.

  I should have been back in the US to perform that task, but I had asked for a new assignment or at the very least some serious paperwork in order to avoid leaving here just yet. I was currently waiting on approval to do the reporting from here and then take a leave of absence while waiting to see if a temporary transfer to the Dublin offices could be worked out. I was getting jumpy and the typical government red tape was making me cranky.

  I had seriously screwed up most of our non-existent dating life, and this was my last chance to show her the truth. The truth was, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I thought about her day and fucking night and I didn’t know what to do with her. I stand corrected. I knew what I wanted to do with her, it was just that there was no way in hell that was happening any time soon.

  A knock at the door had me slightly concerned. Looking through the peep hole, I sighed as I opened the door.

  “Yes, Lauren?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “No, you can’t. I’m heading out in a few minutes.”

  “Where’re you headed?”

  “No place special. Did you want something?”

  “Well, you called me. And I’m so glad you did. I wanted to apologize. But, I’d like to come in first.”

  I leaned against the door frame, suddenly in no mood to deal with her. I needed to get going if I was going to get Keeva and get to our destination on time.

  “Whatever you need to say, you can say from the hall.”

  “You know, you never used to be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. All holier than thou. You used to be sweet.” She leaned in and I reflexively leaned back. “And kinda sexy. How’s your little girlfriend?” Her sickening smile really made me question how I had ever fallen in love with her. She really was a self-centered bitch.

  “I’ll give you one last chance to tell me what you need before I have you removed from my doorstep.”

  She studied me, eyebrows knitted together, cold and calculating. “I’ll remind you once again that you called me, but whatever. I’m heading back to Virginia tomorrow. I thought maybe we could just hang out. You know, like old times.”

  “You lied to me excessively during the old times. You repeatedly pretended to be in love with me in order to get what you wanted. And now you’re back in my life and I’m not interested. I called you to tell exactly that. Thanks for saving me the time of tracking you down.”

  I crossed my arms and pushed off from the doorframe, hoping to show her I meant business. “Lauren, we’ll be seeing each other occasionally, so I don’t want to leave you the impression there is a chance for us. There is zero chance, so please, remove yourself from my hallway and go find some other unsuspecting idiot to bamboozle.”

  I stepped back, slammed the door and angrily stalked back to grab my phone, dialing Hawk’s number before rational Nixon came back to life.

  “Hawk.”

  “Nix, hey.”

  “Tell me she’s not working in our department.” By his hesitation, I knew I was screwed. “What in the fuck? How did this happen?”

  “They think she can help us. You know, the insider thing. Daniels has a huge boner over her. Maybe over and under her, who the fuck knows? I’m with you, Nix, but we’re going to have to play nice until she messes up.”

  “This is bullshit. I can’t work with her. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if we had to work for her one day. She’s a fucking slippery electric eel, just waiting to strike.” I stopped pacing and tried to let go of the anger. I needed this night to go perfectly and bringing my anger at Lauren out with us was only going to end in a disaster. “I gotta run. Talk tomorrow.”

  I hung up, grabbed my keys and left to pick up Keeva.

  Keeva’d hit me hard, took me by complete surprise. I felt like I had known her for a lot longer than a month. I’d been studying her and her company for a few weeks before meeting her so intensely that it was like we had been dating for a couple of weeks and she didn’t even realize it. Jesus, I sounded like I collected her hair and slept with it every night. I needed to get laid, stat.

  I scrubbed my hands down my face and took off my glasses as I parked the car in front of her building. I would be the first to admit that I jumped into relationships with two feet before looking. One of those prime examples was seriously coming back to haunt me.

  I sat there, staring at the fading Irish sun, wondering if I was doing the right thing. I was a gut instinct kind of guy and this felt right, but God knew I had consistently made bad decisions. My phone softly beeped an incoming text.

  U gonna sit out there like a stalker all night?

  Roxi? You were supposed to lose this number.

  Hilarious. Coming in?

  U come out. I’m just finishing some work.

  K

  The lights went out upstairs and a minute later, she appeared through the doorway, without an overnight bag. Shit, I knew I had forgotten something. She opened the door and flopped down into the passenger seat and she looked so amazing that I completely forgot that she was going to need an overnight bag. I threw it into gear, thinking having her with me, unprepared for what was happening was something that the focused Ms. Murphy could use.

  We wound through the vibrant streets of Galway, tourists heading into pubs for a late dinner and a taste of the world famous Galway culture. This city was brand new to me, but there seemed to me to be only one other place that suited Keeva more than bohemian Galway, and that was the tiny town of Castlegregory. We weren’t headed there, but to another tiny place I’d discovered a few days ago. The whole time I had been there, meeting the errant Robert in a safe house, I’d wondered if Keeva had ever been.

  “Penny for your thoughts?�
� Her voice wove into my body, reminding me of the time. I had been so distracted and unsure as to how to proceed with her. Now, I had secured my leave with my boss, Daniel, and it was just the two of us. No pressures or secrets, no ex-wives, no meddling Murphy’s.

  I turned to look at her and smiled. Until we were out of the city, I needed to keep my eyes on the winding, cobbled road, but for a second, I wanted to see her framed by the blazing sunset. Her black hair, turned nearly auburn with the sun hitting it, her green eyes, questioning my current state of sanity I’m sure, and those full, dusty rose lips, with the perfect cupid’s bow framing them.

  “Nixon? You gonna come back to earth and safely drive us to wherever we’re going?”

  I shook my head and smirked. “I’m here. Don’t worry. Just admiring the view.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “You’re crazy. Okay, so, where are we going? Did I dress appropriately? You never really told me what to expect.”

  “You’ll see when we get there. We have to get moving though. I’ve got a bit of a timeline that needs to be adhered to.”

  She pouted while crossing her arms and I nearly ran into a delivery van veering towards the center line. “Do me a favor, baby? When I’m trying to drive here, don’t put your assets on the high shelf. It’s distracting.”

  She promptly uncrossed her arms and now it was my turn to laugh. If she though for one second she was going to control how this night ended, she was in for a larger surprise than I had imagined.

  We finally edged our way out of the city and picked up the route known as the Wild Atlantic Way. It was, in my humble opinion, the only way to see Ireland. The rolling green hills of the interior were beautiful, but the rugged, emotional coastline was where the real magic happened for me.

  Cliffs dropping off into the edge of the world, barren stretches of rock, tangled roadside brush and the smell of the ocean surrounding you. I would often find myself stopping and just staring out into the abyss, losing complete track of time but not having cared at all.

  We chatted casually about her current work projects and I filled in the basic first date background info. Family, just a sister, born and raised in Denver, been with the CIA for five years, and yes, Hawk had always been my partner and no, he was not going to be a topic of conversation for us. I was tired of girls always wanting to talk to me about Hawk. The Viking, as he was also known around our circles, didn’t need to be someone Keeva ever needed to know more about.