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  I heard the key jingling before I could connect the dots.

  “Did you really just distract me to get my keys?”

  He shifted me out of the way and opened the door, waving me through.

  “Yup.”

  Muttering to myself and giving him the best glare I could muster, I walked through the threshold. After walking a few feet into my hallway, I spun around to hit the wall, otherwise known as his chest. He didn’t hand over my keys, just stood there looking at me, through those damn glasses. They were going to be my downfall. It was inevitable. Part of me thought, just get it over with girl. Jump the guy and you’ll both be rid of this weirdness. But then my brain got into the act and thankfully located a mental picture of my last boyfriend, if you could call him that, and my lady bits instantly shut down. My brain dusted its hands together and patted itself on the proverbial back. Job well done. Bad decisions not being made tonight, thank-you!

  I tried to walk by him to show him the door. I was done being his... whatever I was. It was high time I protected myself from his intentions, no matter how innocent they were.

  “We’re not done here.”

  “Oh, I think we are. Look...” I assumed the hands on hips pose ingrained in women from the beginning of time, “whatever this is between us isn’t a thing. I’m not here for your indecisive pleasure. I’ve got a job to do for you, and that’s where our relationship ends. Employer and consultant. That’s it. Nothing more. It just cannot happen, okay? I find you kind of irresistible, but—"

  And that was the last thing I remember before he erased all of my doubts with his own brand of mind-erasing goodness: a kiss for the ages.

  Chapter 11

  Nixon

  “Fuck it.”

  I was done being good, I was done thinking of everyone else first, I was done being Special Agent Nixon Rivers. I was taking what I wanted and I wanted to kiss Keeva Murphy like I’d never wanted anything before this moment. I was probably going to crash and burn, but I’d do it with a shit eating grin on my face.

  I grabbed her arm and used her shock to propel her towards me while swinging her up against the brick wall. I immediately lifted her arms high above her head and caged her in with one hand while the other lightly traced her delicate collarbone.

  I took advantage of her quiet gasp to take hold of her mouth and stop fighting myself and start turning that aggression into passion. Grabbing hold of her bottom lip with my teeth, I tugged her towards me, encouraging her to sink into me and join me down the flaming path to Hell, because that’s surely where I was headed. Again, didn’t care.

  I cupped her jaw and fused her to me while she struggled with herself. She wasn’t going to let go as easy as I’d hoped.

  “Keeva.”

  “Yes?” Her voice sounded breathy but sure. But I needed to make sure.

  “Nothing.”

  Her soft laugh echoed through my brain, landing firmly in my heart, embedding itself nice and deep.

  “Something funny?”

  She broke free of the kiss and closed her eyes. “No.” She took a visible deep breath and I was pretty sure I was mirroring her. “Nothing about this is funny, Mark.”

  And there was the virtual cold shower I needed. This whole thing was a lie and if I wanted to move this forward, there was no way I could continue to lie to her like this. Problem solved, I knew what I had to do.

  I backed away from her, set her down and ran my hands through my hair. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened.”

  Looking at the ground, I tried to avoid the guilt that came to me when I looked into her eyes. But this woman held some sort of pull on me and I slowly raised my head to give her the best truth I could in this moment.

  “Look,Kee—"

  Her hand flew up between us. “No. Don’t do that. It happened. It was fantastic, but you’re right. It shouldn’t have happened. You’re kind of like my boss and I’m kind of like your employee and that’s whole lot of weird.”

  Deep breath, Nixon. The hurt in her eyes had been replaced with attitude and anger. Shit. I was so not this guy. This was why we didn’t have relationships with our targets. That and a whole boatload of other reasons.

  “So, I’m just going to head to bed. Thanks for the company and for that killer kiss, but it’s time I headed off.” She moved away from me and I felt her loss immediately. “’Cause I’ve got this crazy employer and he’s like, a real dick and he’s expecting me in his office in the morning with a full report on my progress and I’m not entirely sure I’m totally ready for the meeting, so yeah. That.”

  Shit, this wasn’t going anywhere close to what I had planned. I still needed to somehow hop on Robert’s computer, feel her out for her potential involvement in the extended operation and leave without her completely hating me. Oh, and keep her out of danger if needed.

  “Wait!” She stopped her retreat and looked at me. “Um, oh! How’s your head?”

  She gave me a weird look. “It’s okay. Just a tiny leftover headache.”

  I impulsively reached up and massaged around her temples. She moaned and closed her eyes and I silently willed my dick to calm the hell down. She swayed a tiny bit and I decided my best course of action would be to swing her up into my arms and leave the CIA stuff for another day.

  “Let’s get you upstairs and off your feet. You’re exhausted and really should have gone to see a doctor before you went to work today.” She had rested her head against my chest so all I could hear was a muffled response. “What’s that?”

  “I gave you some choice words in response to your veiled threat to call my brother.”

  I hesitated in the middle of a hallway, not entirely sure which way to go to get to her apartment upstairs from the inside.

  “Left to the end of the hall, then through the door and up.”

  I followed her directions, finally ending up outside her fantastic sliding barn door entrance.

  “You can set me down now.”

  “I’ll set you down when I think you’re ready.” She huffed out a short breath and I let out a laugh. “Do I have to call Aiden?”

  She pouted as I set her down and before I knew it, I had bent over and placed a soft kiss on her protruding bottom lip. “No pouting, princess. I will call him if I think it’s necessary.”

  She suddenly reached up with both hands and wound them through my hair, linking them at the back of my neck. Pulling me to her, she connected our lips, silencing my empty threats. She moved her hand up to remove my glasses, reaching behind her and setting them on her nightstand.

  I hovered over her, trying to maintain a solid plank position while taking and tasting her lips with mine. She gave a little tug on my neck and I sunk into the bed, propping myself up on my elbows and knee.

  Reaching beneath her, I scooped her up, folded her into me and rolled us together to our sides. She slipped her leg in between mine, while my free hand slipped down the slow arch of her back, landing on her exquisite ass.

  “Mark.”

  I tugged on her bottom lip, pulling it into my mouth with my teeth, then letting go, soothing her with my tongue.

  “Mark.”

  She slid her hands down my back, grabbing onto my ass, pushing us closer together, if that was even possible.

  Pulling back, she had an ominous look on her face. “Mark?”

  Shit, yes, Mark was me. I was Mark. “Yes?”

  “Your pocket is vibrating.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Hey, it didn’t feel all that bad.”

  I smiled down at her, reaching into my pocket to yank out the offending phone. It was a text from Hawk. Of course it was. It always was.

  He’s on. Get back here.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  I didn’t know whether to thank Hawk or attempt to murder him when I got to the office, but either way, my night was sliding into some sort of hellish pit of doom.

  “I’m sor—"

  She covered my mouth with her ha
nd. “Do not say you’re sorry. This...” She waved a hand between us. “Remember? This can’t happen. That text saved our asses. Your nice, round tushy just got saved, so, no apologies.”

  She gave me her signature single eyebrow raise. “Hello? Remember when you said, ‘I’ve got to go?’ Yeah, so, are you gonna go?”

  She was right. I needed to go and stay gone. It was time for Hawk to take over and for me to sit in a room monitoring strings of code. I wasn’t the face of our operation, he was. I had no idea when our roles had been reversed, but they needed to go back to the way things were. Simple. Boring. Compliant, for shit’s sake.

  What I was currently doing was so far across the line, I was in the new solar system NASA was busy discovering. I could be more than fired, I could be ruined. But here I was, unable to leave this bed.

  “You gonna make me?”

  Her eyes bugged out as she processed my dare. I was having too much fun messing with her to leave now. Hawk would have to handle the intel himself for the next little while.

  “Did you just dare me to kick you out of my bed?”

  I gave her back her single brow lift, taunting her with my eyes. My glasses were still on the bedside table and even though she was kind of fuzzy, I was enjoying the freedom from them.

  “Oh, you’re so on, mister. We’re about to cross some professional boundaries, just warnin’ ya.”

  “Bring it.”

  “Need your glasses on, four eyes?”

  “Sticks and stones and all that. Stop stalling. Do your worst, Murphy.”

  What she brought wasn’t what I was expecting, at all. I should have known by the evil gleam in her eye that she was an expert fighter. She was, after all, the youngest of five children, most of whom were boys. She would have needed to fight dirty and her best weapon would have been those slim, beautiful fingers.

  That she was currently tickling me with. Fucking ticking me like we were five. I had forgotten how ticklish I was until those tricky fingers were digging in.

  I collapsed in on myself, in pain from holding my laughter in. I would not let her win, show no pain. I was a CIA agent, trained to resist all forms of torture. I would not let her tickle information out of me. It was time to strike back.

  I rolled her underneath me, pinning her wandering arms above her head and let her mind wander to what I was about to do.

  “No, Mark. Please, no!”

  She screamed the last no out as I used my free hand to tickle her armpits, then skim her ribs to tickle her stomach to my last destination, her hip bones. I dug in as she squirmed from side to side, legs flailing, head bent back, lips letting out ear piercing squeals.

  “Say uncle.”

  “No,” she huffed out between giggles.

  “Say it!”

  She wheezed and tried to say something and I moved my hand down to behind her knee. Turns out Keeva was completely ticklish in every area. “No!”

  “Say it or I go for the feet.”

  “Never!”

  I didn’t go for her feet. I was aiming for her neck all along.

  “Oh my God! Mark, please, stop! Ahhhh!”

  I hadn’t had so much fun in forever. There was no way I was going to stop any time soon. I dove back in for another round and forgot all about my vibrating phone that was currently bouncing around her side table.

  Chapter 12

  Keeva

  What the hell was happening? One minute I was sitting alone in a pub, wishing I wasn’t alone and now here I was being tickled close to death by the last man on earth I thought would be interested in doing so. And let me add, he was an expert tickler. Take that in any way you wanted and all the intentions are there.

  “Please, stop. I’m going to pee my pants!”

  That stopped him. Nothing says turn off quite like a good old fashioned accident in your pants. He immediately pinned me with his knees, my legs flat beneath and thanks to his incredibly muscular inner thighs, I was still immobile beneath him. Which thanks to the past twenty minutes, didn’t seem as bad an idea as it used to.

  “Okay, play time’s over, pal. Nothing to see here. Time to go. Your phone is dancing around my nightstand, probably putting dents in it it’s vibrating so much.”

  Just when I thought I had this guy pegged, he goes and pulls a night like this. Fish and chip lover. Walks me home. Kisses me like he means it. Carries me upstairs. Kisses me again. And now, bested me in a tickle fight. I’m in opposite world, that must be it.

  He leaned over me, still holding onto my hands in one of his, but slowing down on the tickles. I’m pretty sure the not empty threat of peeing my pants might be helping my cause.

  His face was hovering in front of mine, exchanging air with me, eyes full of indecision that I was surely mirroring.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  He closed the remaining distance, softly landing on my lips, resting his forehead, seeming to be deep in thought. He had released my hands and understanding he was warring with something inside him, I stayed silent, letting my hands comb through his hair, trying for just a little bit longer to hold him to me.

  I knew, somewhere deep inside, I knew he had to go and us, together was a bad idea. One of us had to do the right thing. It was surprising that it appeared that it was going to be me.

  “It’s okay, Mark. I know you have to go. Really, it’s okay.”

  He chose to continue to remain silent, pushing off the bed, grabbing his glasses and swiping his phone as he walked by. Sighing, he stopped at the door frame and turned around and I admired the view of a little slice of heaven. His abs were peeking out of his T-shirt as he leaned on his elbow. With his glasses back on, I could probably start a fire with my vagina. It was currently doing its best impression of the wicked witch of the east and melting away before my eyes, it was so hot.

  Before I knew what to say, he was gone and my heart did a flip, unsure of whether or not this guy could be trusted with it. My gut told me there was trouble with him, but my heart was seemingly in control again. God only knew what series of horrific events awaited me, but I was willing to put my faith in the universe to show me what to do.

  Drifting off to sleep, I laughed softly to myself remembering the smile on his face he probably wasn’t used to having there and the tickling touch of his fingers as they coaxed my heart out of hiding.

  I WALKED INTO NR’S offices later that morning, ready for the meeting, but completely unprepared for what my heart was going to do with seeing him again. We had left things unsaid, a lot of things. Important things, like what the hell we were going to do when we saw each other again, and why I was feeling like I was going to combust every time he came near.

  I greeted their receptionist and took a seat in the modest waiting area. Looking around I thought they could do with a little upgrading on the decorating front. The place looked like a beige box.

  Lost in my daydreams, I missed the tall drink of water also known as Tom, up until he stood right in front of me looking like a Hemsworth brother from my dreams. Light grey suit that fit him perfectly, offset with a crisp white shirt underneath and that long blonde hair pulled back in a low tail.

  “Ms. Murphy. Great to see you again.” He held out his hand with an amused look on his face that I couldn’t figure out. Looking down, I made sure I had all my bits and pieces under control and my skirt wasn’t stuck in my underwear like the client meeting I had last month in LA. Let’s just all thank God I had landscaped the jungle prior to that meeting, cause I wasn’t wearing my panties with the most frontal coverage that day.

  My face flushed at the memory as I walked into their boardroom again. At least, that’s what I was telling myself. It was the intense man candy in this room. Between Thor and Clark Kent staring at me with a Cheshire cat grin on his face, I could have been walking into a GQ photoshoot.

  “Mark. Good to see you again.”

  “Ms. Murphy, same to you.”

  Ah, so that’s how it was going to go. Fine, yes, totally fine. As long as I
knew the score I could handle the game. We shook hands and got seated so we could get this meeting underway.

  We spent the next hour, in a back and forth match of wits and will. I presented my solutions to their problems, along with strategic marketing efforts and they shot them all down. Finally, I couldn’t take it much longer. I had to step up to the plate and address the testosterone in the room before this whole project went south for the winter.

  “Okay, gentlemen, can I ask what’s changed in the past two days? These strategies are in line with our initial meeting, where you approved all the directions my team was going to head. What gives?”

  They gave me their best impressions of a stone cold killer and I lost my cool.

  “Okay, well, then, is it because I’m a woman?”

  Their faces registered shock and I felt somewhat satisfied. At least I hadn’t read them both wrong. I didn’t think they were the type to play the penis card, but I had been wrong before. Case in point, the man staring intently at me from across the table. I thought if nothing else, we had a respect for each other. I guess I had thought wrong.

  “Mark? What’s going on?”

  “We’ve decided to head in a new direction. Actually, an entirely new direction.”

  Tom cleared his throat and I shifted my confused attention over to him. “Pardon?”

  He crossed his hands in front of himself and smiled. “The truth is, we’re pussies. We’ve both been afraid to tell you our news, so we decided to try out a plan of putting the decision on you.”

  “What in the hell? I’m so confused. Can you just give it to me straight?”

  He smiled, eyes bright and almost gleeful. “We’re firing you Ms. Murphy. And not because we don’t like what you’ve done, but because our entire business model just collapsed.”

  I slammed both my palms down on the table. “Are you fucking serious? What the fuck, Mark?”

  I focused my anger on him, watching his every move, right down to his fidgety fingers. Fingers that only last night were bringing me the utmost joy and today? Well, today I wanted to break all of his fingers and use mine to clock him in that pretty face of his.