Tell Me No Spies (3 page)

I blew out a breath
between my teeth. “I did. He knows Arnie hasn’t been around in the
last couple of months.”

In my peripheral
vision, I saw Kane turn to look at me, and I glared straight ahead
out the windshield.

After a short silence,
he spoke again. “I thought you two were hot and heavy.”

“And I thought it was
none of your business,” I gritted. “And speaking of ‘none of your
business’, what the hell were you doing lurking in the parking lot
in the middle of the night anyway? Looking for some cheap
thrills?”

“I was doing my job,”
he ground out. “I’m an agent, not a goddamn voyeur. If you’re going
to make out in public, you can’t blame me for having to watch. And
it’s lucky I was here. What would you have done when he started
getting really friendly and found your gun?”

I was biting my tongue
to hold back angry words when he shot a scowl at my snug T-shirt
and jeans. “You are wearing your gun, aren’t you? Dammit, Aydan,
tell me you’re wearing your gun! Tell me your judgement isn’t that
clouded…”

“Jesus Christ! Yes!
I’m wearing my gun! It’s in my ankle holster. And he wasn’t going
to get any friendlier because I’m not goddamn
stupid
enough
to take a chance like that! And I told you, I made a fucking
mistake, which happens occasionally to mere mortals like me…”

I paused only long
enough to suck in a furious breath. “…unlike you, who would
never
make an error in judgement, like, oh, I don’t know,
sneaking into my house in the middle of the night and fucking my
brains out after we agreed we couldn’t get involved…"

Kane tensed in his
seat, staring out the windshield, and I realized I’d gone too far.
I was about to offer an apology when he jerked around to face me,
and I flinched when his hands flew toward me.

One of his fists
knotted in my hair as he yanked me close and kissed me hard. My
half-raised hands were trapped between us, and I shoved against his
powerful chest and jerked away far enough to yelp, “What-the-”

“Don’t fight me,” he
growled, and pulled me into another demanding kiss.

I made a half-hearted
attempt to push him away, but his hands and lips felt too good. The
tiny part of my mind that retained some logical thought advised me
this was a Very Bad Idea, but I cheerfully ignored it.

Kissing him back
hungrily, I let hot need overwhelm me while I groped his hard
muscles with shaking hands. God, after two months of deprivation, I
was ready to combust just from the sizzling memories. I clutched at
him as he pulled my T-shirt free of my jeans, his hands burning
against the skin of my back. His teeth closed lightly on my
earlobe, and I gasped open-mouthed against him, drowning in
lust.

Through half-closed
eyes, I caught a flash of movement out in the parking lot and
moments later Tom’s truck roared away.

The heat of anger
displaced my desire as I stiffened in Kane’s arms.

“You can stop now,” I
snapped. “He’s gone.”

Kane released me and
drew back, his grey eyes black in the semi-darkness. We stared at
each other for a few moments, and I broke the silence first.

“You can be a real
asshole, can’t you?”

“Aydan…”

The anger drained out
of me at the look on his face, and I blew out a long sigh that was
half-groan. “Never mind.” I slumped forward and pounded my forehead
gently against the dashboard. “Christ, what a clusterfuck. I’m such
an idiot. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not an idiot.”
His voice was soft. “I know how hard it is to do without…” He
trailed off. “Everybody slips up sometimes. As you pointed out,” he
added ruefully. “I’m sorry, too. The last couple of months have
been… tough. I overreacted.”

“Thanks.” I met his
eyes tentatively. “Friends again?”

“Always. You know
that.” He hesitated. “Speaking of friends… I don’t mean to pry and
you can tell me to go to hell if you want, but… what happened
between you and Hellhound?”

I massaged my aching
temples. “Nothing. I just haven’t seen him since August, and I
don’t want to push it. We were… pretty vulnerable with each other
when we thought you’d died, and you know how he feels about getting
attached.”

“The same as you,” he
said quietly.

I glanced away from
his steady eyes. “Uh, yeah.” I squirmed a little in the seat.

Since August, I’d been
pretending he’d never uttered the L-word. I really didn’t want to
have that conversation again, especially with my lips still burning
from his kisses. Along with the other parts of my body that were
still smouldering.

I ignored the subtext
and stuck with the stated topic. “I hope he… I hope it works out.
He was… he’s a good friend.”

“Arnie doesn’t abandon
his friends,” Kane assured me. “He’s just been busy lately. I
called him a couple of times, but I haven’t seen him, either.”

“Oh.” My heart
lightened, and I changed the subject to conceal my relief.
“Shouldn’t we be heading for the office? Were you just blowing
smoke, or is there really something urgent?”

“Yes, we do need to go
to the office.” He started the Expedition, and I eased my stress
out in a long secret sigh.

Relief morphed rapidly
into worry as we pulled out of the parking lot. “What’s wrong? How
bad is it?” I demanded.

He shot me a quick
glance. “Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s life-threatening. If I
hadn’t already known you were in town tonight, I likely would have
left it until tomorrow morning.”

My shoulders attempted
to climb up around my ears. “You don’t
think
it’s
life-threatening? I told you, if it’s urgent, call me. No matter
what time it is. You know how I’d feel if something bad happened to
somebody because I wasn’t there to decrypt a message.”

Kane sighed. “Aydan,
you can’t work 24/7. There will always be something else that has
to be decrypted. You haven’t had a full weekend in two months.”

“Yeah, but…”

He pulled into the
parking lot across from Sirius Dynamics and fixed me with a severe
look. “But, nothing. I’m your handler. When I say you need a rest,
you need a rest. Stemp will have my head on a platter if you burn
out.”

“That’s pretty rich
coming from a guy who hardly eats or sleeps while he’s on a
mission.”

I thought I detected a
tinge of bitterness in his voice when he replied, “That’s
different. I’m supposed to be an agent.” He gave his head a quick
shake as if to rid himself of a thought, and continued, “You’re
not. You’re a civilian. Aren’t you?”

“Yes! Don’t start that
again. I’m a civilian. I’m not an undercover agent. I’m just
saying…”

“Come on,” he
interrupted. “We’re not getting anywhere with this conversation. We
need to get this done so you can go home and get some sleep.”

I grimaced and hopped
out of the truck to follow him into Sirius.

We collected our
security fobs from the guard behind the bulletproof window, and
Kane made for the heavy steel door that led to the secured area. As
he stooped for the retinal scan, I came to stand beside him.

“I’ll just come down
with you,” I told him. “We won’t be long, will we?”

The door released with
a muffled click, and he straightened and gazed down at me. “When
did you get over being claustrophobic?”

“I’m too tired to
panic tonight.”

He studied me for a
second. “No. Go on up to your office. If you’re that tired, I don’t
want to take a chance.”

I shrugged and trailed
off down the hallway as he stepped into the cramped time-delay
enclosure that always gave me the willies. Not for the first time,
I thanked my lucky stars I had Kane for my handler. I’d never take
him for granted again.

Up in my second-floor
office, I collapsed yawning onto the small sofa. I was hunched over
rubbing my temples when Kane’s voice startled me. “Are you
okay?”

“Fine. Just a
headache.”

He surveyed me, his
brow furrowed. “How long has it been since you
didn’t
have a
headache?”

“I don’t know.
Whatever.” I held out my hand for the tiny box that contained the
world’s most secret and valuable technology. “Let’s just do
this.”

Kane frowned down at
me. “Do you want some ibuprofen?”

“No, I’ve tried that.
Nothing touches it.” I wiggled my outstretched fingers. “Give.”

He reluctantly handed
me the network key. “Wait,” he rapped out as I leaned back on the
couch and closed my eyes.

“What?”

“I’ll come into the
network with you, since Webb’s not here to monitor. Just in case
you have problems in the sim.” He sat in the chair across from me.
“Okay, let’s go.”

I closed my eyes and
concentrated on entering the white void of virtual reality. As I
stepped into it, Kane’s avatar popped into existence beside me, and
we strode down virtual hallways to the file repository.

Inside, I scowled at
the stack of files. Damn, they were piling up again.

“Do you know which one
it is?” I asked.

Kane grimaced. “No.
You’re the only one in the world who can decrypt any of these. I
don’t know one from the other. But when I got the call, the analyst
said you should look for a timestamp of nine twenty-three p.m.”

“Okay, thanks.” I
flipped through the files, rubbing my head with my free hand as I
searched.

“Are you sure you’re
all right?”

“Yeah, fine,” I
mumbled, still sifting through the stack. “But I’d be so much
happier if I could just go back to being an ordinary bookkeeper
instead of a military secret.”

“Believe me, I wish
you could, too,” Kane said.

Something in his voice
made me pause in my search. I shot a glance his way, but his face
was composed as always. “I guess you must be going a little
stir-crazy just sitting around here all the time,” I ventured.

He twitched a
shoulder, and my attention shifted as I discovered the file.

“Here we go,” I said,
and plopped into a virtual chair to begin decrypting.

At last I looked up,
rubbing the kinks out of my neck. “Did that make any sense to you?”
I inquired.

Kane focused a
predatory grin on his virtual terminal. “Yes.”

I watched him work for
a few minutes, his gaze riveted to the screen while he typed
rapidly with his two index fingers. Despite my exhaustion, I smiled
at his single-minded focus. He was so dedicated, so ready to lay
his life on the line to protect national security. I was proud to
be part of his team, and lucky to be working with him.

And he must be hating
every minute of it.

Before I came along,
he’d been a field agent. Now he’d been stuck behind a desk for two
months, with no relief in sight. No wonder he was getting cranky. I
sighed, wishing there were a better solution than wasting his
talents babysitting me.

He glanced up at the
sound. “I’m sorry, I just need to get this tied up, and then I’ll
take you home.”

“It’s okay. I’m just
going to work on some of these other files while I wait.”

I held back a groan
and opened the next file in the stack. The encrypted words swam in
front of my tired eyes and I blinked hard, trying to focus. The
print crawled on the page.

Like bugs.

I sprang up and bit
back a yell as hundreds of black beetles skittered over my hands
and scuttled under the files that lay on the virtual table.

Kane was instantly on
his feet. He reached me in two quick strides and his powerful arm
wrapped around my waist.

“Let’s go,” he
snapped, already hustling me out the door of the virtual file
room.

“It’s okay.” I tried
to get him to slow down, but he continued to rush me toward the
network portal. “It’s okay,” I repeated. “I just lost my
concentration for a second there.”

“Out.” He stopped at
the portal and guided me gently through.

Pain slammed through
my head. Its familiarity did nothing to diminish its impact, and my
violent profanity was edged with an embarrassing whine of
self-pity. I shut up as soon as I was capable of controlling
myself, but my eyes stayed clamped closed while I breathed through
my teeth.

Kane’s big, warm hands
enveloped my head as he began to massage the pain away.

“Oh, God, I love you,”
I moaned.

His hands stilled for
a bare instant before resuming. “You love God, or you love me?” he
asked.

I couldn’t think of
any way to backpedal gracefully. I cravenly ignored his question
and groaned some more instead, silently berating myself for my poor
choice of words.

At last, I
straightened and opened my eyes. “Thanks.” He stooped to survey my
face, and I avoided his gaze by dropping my head forward to rub the
back of my neck. “You might as well go back into the network and
finish up. I’ll stay out until you’re done.”

“All right. I’ll only
be a few more minutes.”

When I looked up, he
had re-entered the virtual reality network and his physical body
sat propped motionless in the chair, his eyes staring blankly at
nothing. I shuddered, horrid memories replaying while I
compulsively watched the rise and fall of his chest. He was only in
the network. He wasn’t dead.

I glanced at my watch
and suppressed a whimper. A quarter to two. My head throbbed slowly
and I slid down to rest it against the back of the couch. I thought
of Tom and groaned aloud.

He was such a nice
guy. How long would it take before he finally decided I was a
flaky, pathetic slut and gave up on me? I knew I couldn’t risk any
explanation without endangering him, myself, and everyone in Kane’s
team. Oh, not to mention national security. No pressure.

Tom’s lean, honest
face and sky-blue eyes floated in front of me, and I smothered
another groan of self-pity. If not for the stupid network key and
my stupid decryption abilities, I’d be living the life of my dreams
out on my new farm, with a handsome cowboy neighbour thrown in as a
special bonus. He was my own age. Widowed, like me. And he liked
cars. And he was a good kisser. Not in the same class as Hellhound,
but that wasn’t really a fair comparison. Arnie was in a class by
himself.