Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers (49 page)

She just stood there, as he unzipped her dress and slowly pulled the soft material off until it pooled around her feet. For a long moment, he stared down at the lacy, strapless brassiere. Kneeling down, he slid his hands down her legs, savoring the silky feel of her pantyhose.

She just stood there, still in her heels, as he caressed her intimately. Suddenly, he buried his face in her belly, inhaling her soft fragrance.

His voice was muffled. “I don’t think I can let you go.”

The admission shocked him. Every trained part of him screamed out a denial. Letting go was essential. Letting go was control.

Jaymee’s hands were gentle as they framed his face, making him look at her grave, mysterious eyes with their speckled depths. “You don’t have to,” she whispered.

Nick shook his head. “It has to stop. This wanting. This needing.” He stood up and carried her to the bed. Placing her on the sheets, he sat down beside her. “I have to get ready for tomorrow.”

Jaymee understood. He needed to be alone. She felt the tension in his body, felt how much he truly wanted to be with her. She remembered how she’d fought a similar losing battle not so long ago where this man was concerned. Now it was his turn.

“Why?” she asked simply.

“Because I cannot let emotions take over. Jed already knows, and he keeps testing me. I have a job to do.” One that took him to too many places, too far away. Wanting Jaymee, and needing her, would interfere. Nick could see no way out. “I’ll be downstairs in the study, working. Go to sleep.”

Jaymee offered no protest as he left the room. She lay awake for a long time, waiting for him, but he didn’t come back. Finally, exhausted, she fell asleep.

As the hours ticked away, Nick worked on modifying the programs on Jed’s flashdrive, using it as an exercise to release his pent-up frustration. He had to get himself back in control. The next few days alone with Jed would be good for him, giving him a chance to distance himself from her.

It was very late by the time he finished. Jaymee’s bedroom light was still on and he hoped she hadn’t waited up for him. He was relieved to find her asleep. Standing by the bed, he stared down at her for a long while, as an unfamiliar deep longing grew inside. She was his to take, he knew it, but he wouldn’t take her away from her world. It wouldn’t be fair, taking her away from all that she’d built for herself, and for what? For a life of unknown danger with him?

No.

Quietly, he joined her under the sheets, careful not to wake her. She curled against his body like a contented kitten, snuggling trustingly when he slid an arm under her head. The longing grew like pins and needles. Staring into the darkness, he absorbed the pain, refusing to nurse the hunger. It would be so easy to satisfy what his body craved. It didn’t help when her hand reached out for him in her sleep, seeking and finding him. He stared in resolute silence into the darkness, ignoring her moving hand, ignoring his own hunger.

He would not give in. He needed his control back.

***

The tension between them was palpable the next day. Jed and Grace had exchanged a telling look and had gone about as if nothing was wrong. The men worked on the siding around the house, cut a skylight hole on the roof, then turned to the countertops in the kitchen and bathroom. Grace helped Jaymee finish the trim work, then they opted to start caulking and cleaning some of the windows.

They went out on the back porch for a late lunch. Jaymee sat on the steps, picking at the weeds as she ate, her mind busy reshaping the back yard, figuring out how to clear the brush back so it looked more presentable. Nick sat nearby, on the railing surrounding the porch, one tanned long leg dangling by her arm. The urge to lean against it ate at her, and she determinedly concentrated on the food and the weeds. She could feel his eyes on her, burning a hole in the back of her head.

Trying to ignore her own growing frustration, Jaymee turned her attention to Jed, who was sitting on the sawhorse, facing her. He looked at her fidgeting hands with interest, and she stopped moving them.

“How long will you be gone?” she asked casually.

“A few days. Three at the most,” Nick answered from above her.

She refused to make any direct comment to him. “Is Grace going with the both of you?” At the men’s silence, she demanded, “You aren’t thinking of letting her stay at Nick’s place without a car or company, are you?”

“I’ll be OK,” Grace assured her in a lazy drawl. She was sprawled on a picnic blanket a few feet away, sunning herself.

A sudden suspicion formed in Jaymee’s mind, and she turned back to Jed, her voice fierce. “Please tell me you aren’t going to let her live in the woods by herself.”

Jed darted a narrow glance at Nick, who drawled back from the railing, “Told you she doesn’t miss a thing.”

“You are!” Jaymee was appalled. “No!”

“She needs to…”

“No!” Jaymee stood up, glaring down at Jed. “Uh-uh, not in my neighborhood. You can train her another time, Jed. She’ll stay with me while you’re both gone.”

Grace turned onto her front, propping herself on her folded arms. She didn’t say anything, but her brown eyes sparkled in the sunlight as she enjoyed the sight of someone actually daring to oppose her father.

“She’s with me because she’s in training,” Jed told her in a quiet voice, but his face was implacably cold. “If I wanted her happily domestic, she’d be in Ohio with her grandmother.”

“Nick….” Jaymee finally looked up at him, appealing him with her eyes. Surely he wouldn’t agree to let the young girl do this.

Nick studied her as he chewed on an apple, watching the myriad emotions flit over her face. “It’s between Jed and Grace,” he finally proffered an explanation, not taking any sides.

“You’re all insane!” exclaimed Jaymee, agitatedly pacing between the two watching men. She folded her arms and stood in front of Jed.

“Uh-oh…” drawled Nick. “I’ve seen that look before.”

Jed returned Jaymee’s glare expectantly.

“I’ll make you a bargain, Jed,” she said briskly. She paused as he cocked his head. “You let her stay with me, and I’ll give her some training.” At Nick’s soft laughter behind her, she went on earnestly. “I can’t bear the idea of her on her own out there. She can work with me, learn how to do some sweat work. I’ll run her exhausted with ten-hour days. I’ll build her muscles carrying bundles of shingles. I’ll even stop her orange juice intake.”

Nick fell off the railing laughing, whereas Grace groaned aloud in mock horror.

“No, no, don’t listen to her, Daddy!”

Jed’s light eyes glittered with amusement, although his expression was passive as ever. “I don’t know,” he said mildly. “You might kill her with all that training.”

“She’ll be building calf muscles, biceps, endurance. She’ll be...” She stopped, realizing he’d just given her tacit permission. “Yes?”

Jed nodded. When Jaymee gave a sigh of relief, he turned to Nick, and said without inflection, “She’ll be fine.”

A muscle worked in his jaw as Nick abruptly stood up. “Let’s look at your program before we go,” he said flatly, ignoring his cousin’s baiting.

“Have you modified it?”

“Yes.”

“I have a notepad and laptop in the bag in the kitchen. We can check it out in there.”

The two men took what remained of their lunch with them. As he passed Jaymee, Nick stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. She wanted him to kiss her, but he was still in his strange mood. So she stared back challengingly at him.

“Nicely done,” he whispered, and his fingers lingered for a moment before he went in.

Grace sleepily slapped at a fly as she turned on her back again. “That was great, Jay. Jed seldom backs down for anybody.”

“That’s because he knows I’ll keep my word,” Jaymee threatened lightly.

“My last day of freedom, then,” sighed Grace, closing her eyes.

“Do you know where Nick and your father are going?” Jaymee didn’t want to pry, but couldn’t help it.

“Back to where Nick’s boat was. Sorry, can’t tell you the location.”

Jaymee joined Grace on the blanket, putting on her sunglasses. “It’s OK, I just need to sort of know.”

“I know,” Grace softly responded, her eyes still closed. “I go through it too, you see.”

For the first time, Jaymee understood the burden of loving someone like Nick. From what she could gather, Grace lived with her grandmother and seldom saw her father. She was a little girl who was forced to grow up fast. She wondered whether she was lonely without her parents, whether she liked what her father did for a living. Which brought her to wonder whether she herself could live like that, knowing Nick was always in some form of danger somewhere, whether she would be lonely.

But loneliness was nothing new to her. She had been alone and lonely before Nick came into her life. As for his lifestyle, she’d love him no matter what he did. She’d love him whether he was Killian or Nick, or whatever he chose to call himself. It was what made him the way he was, and she wouldn’t want to change him. She sighed with resignation. It all came to a very dismal conclusion. She wouldn’t try to change his mind to leave her. She wouldn’t want to change him.

The two men were sitting on the kitchen stools, staring at Jed’s laptop when Jaymee and Grace came back in forty-five minutes later. Jaymee trashed all the paper plates and refilled her glass with iced-tea. Grace hopped onto the kitchen counter and watched her father and uncle at work, her quick eyes reading the screen. She cocked her head and immediately the family resemblance with the two men became apparent.

Jaymee hesitated, unsure whether she was in the way. As if he sensed her indecision, Nick whipped out a hand while still talking to Jed, silently asking her to go to him. She placed her hand in his and he drew her close, until she stood in front of him. Taking the glass from her hand, he stole a sip of the ice tea, then set it down on the counter.

“...without the grid. The decoding should work but didn’t. Even when I reversed the code, the damned sequences gave errors,” Nick was telling Jed, as he crossed his long arms around Jaymee and laid his chin on her head.

“You’re missing something,” Jed stated.

Nick reached out and hit a few of the keys. “It’s there, right in front of me. I just don’t see it. Look at this sequence. And this one.”

Jaymee looked at the screen. Numbers. Patterns. Color dots. Map-like diagrams.

Jed pointed to one of the diagrams. “This is location.” He typed something. Apparently, Jaymee noted, all these Virus-men could type fast. “This is position.”

“That information is apparently unimportant enough for them not to hide. They didn’t care if we know we’re spying on them, Jed. They just don’t want us to find out which satellite and how. This computer program they’re using is dangerously versatile.”

“Of course. Their encryption board is our technology in the first place. It should have been child’s play for you to decode them.”

“I’m missing something,” Nick agreed.

“Unless they have developed a new encryption technology.”

“Possibly.”

“How long before you can break through?”

“Not long.”

“That’s too long.”

“You have so much confidence in my abilities,” Nick came back, wry amusement in his voice.

“The longer they can detect our information and break into our systems, the more our national security is under siege, and the more others in our unit are in danger.”

Jaymee felt Nick’s coiled tension, although his voice remained remote. “I know.”

“It’s definitely something we can use later down the line. If we can figure this out and stop it in time, we can play with the combined tech at COMCEN and create a super program.” Jed finally looked at Jaymee. “What do you think, Jay? Can you break the code?”

Her eyes widened and she studiously gave the symbols on the screen a careful lookover. “Looks like shingle codes to me,” she jibed. “Manufacturing dates and invoice numbers. And warehouse locations.”

She cast a triumphant glance back at the hard man beside her. She could toss strange terms at him like the best of them.

“A password would override all the walls,” Jed said, his eyes faintly challenging her to have a comeback for that line.

“With the new ASTM code, the shingles are supposed to withstand category two hurricane winds. Of course,” she said with her most serious face on, “I can’t guarantee about the walls.” She felt the rumble of amusement in Nick’s chest as his hands lightly stroked her bare arms.

“All codes are decodable,” Nick interrupted the little game, laughter in his voice. “I have the right sequences in one of those strings.” He kissed the top of Jaymee’s head. “Right, Jaymee?”

“Of course,” she gravely nodded. “Don’t mix the color codes. The shingles won’t match.”

The two men finally laughed, even Jed. Jaymee grinned back, rather shocked to see Jed showing his teeth. He had a deep-throated laugh. How sad he didn’t do it often. She turned her head to look up at Nick.

“What, did I say something funny? Mixed codes can cause a major problem, you know.”

“Minx.” His smile was sexily lopsided, and her heart flipped. God, she was going to miss him. “Think you know everything about codes, hmm?”

Jed turned off the program and snapped the laptop shut. “Good mind reflex, Jay,” he complimented. “You could have been an asset in COMCEN.”

Jaymee shrugged, picking up the glass of ice tea. She was getting the hang of talking at Jed’s level. She gave him her best Nick-stare, measured and bold. “All a mind game, I’ve learned. No sweat involved. Nothing to show off when completed. Just a lot of manipulation.”

Nick chuckled again, obviously enjoying her sudden scornful mood. Jed nodded appreciatively.

“Touché,” he acknowledged, a corner of his mouth lifted in mockery. He arched a brow at Nick. “I think we’d better leave to accomplish something, so we can show some sweat when all’s said and done.”

Nick gently released Jaymee and got off the stool. “You can’t beat Jaymee when it comes to making you sweat,” he agreed, giving her a suggestive leer.

Jed moved to the backpack, putting away his things. “I have the scuba gear in the Jeep. All I need are your things.”