Dangerous Protector (Aegis Group Book 5) (11 page)

“Tell me how you’re going to fuck me.” Marco’s hands curled around her hips, tilting them a bit so her belly slid against his as she moved, her breasts rubbing his chest.

“Slow. I want to savor it.”

“You like the way I feel inside of you?”

“Yes.”

He slid his hands down her ass, giving it a squeeze, and then followed the juncture of her hip and pelvis between their bodies. His fingers massaged her vagina. Her pulse jumped and the coil of need tightened.

“Fuck,” he muttered again and lifted, driving deeper. “You feel so damn good. I don’t know if I can do slow.”

“You will.”

“Fiona…” He glared at her.

Did this big, strong man mean to say that he lost his cool because of her? There was a thought, and not one she’d expected.

She reached back, holding onto the edge of the tub. She rose and fell harder, Marco staring deep into her eyes.

Had he ever looked at her during sex? This soul-deep stare of two people honest about what they wanted. How they felt. Even if it was just for a weekend, he mattered to her. The way he touched her, how he protected her, they were parts of them, just like the intimacy, and they fit together.

His fingers brushed over her clit, and her eyes rolled back into her head. She felt the touch all through her body.

Marco moved with her now, thrusting in time with her movements. He gripped her hips, holding her in place. She tried to move, to something, but his hold was too tight.

No!

She’d been so close.

Fiona squirmed, but her body relaxed, the near-orgasm tension easing.

“Marco,” she groaned his name in frustration.

“You said slow.” He lifted his hips, grounding their sexes together.

Oh, fuck him!

“There.” He lifted her, a motion that seemed to take no effort at all, which was a whole other turn on.

Maybe slow was a mistake.

“Marco.” She dug her nails into his shoulders.

“I love it when you say my name like that, like you want me to fuck you.”

“Yes!” She squirmed, shifting her hips, but he was in control now.

“You like feeling me inside of you?” He held her there on the bench above him and slid out of her.

“Yes.”

“Like this?” He thrust up, deep and hard.

“Oh—yes!”

“Thought so, sweetheart. Look at me.”

She stared deep into his eyes, the depth of his desire staring back at her.

He wanted her.

It wasn’t a one-way road. They were both here, wanting the same thing.

Marco pistoned in and out of her, slow forgotten. Water splashed her breasts, her face, and the cool air kissed her, creating a perfect storm of need. Again and again, he drove her toward the edge of pleasure, only this time, he didn’t back off. He thrummed her clit with his fingers.

She came, shouting his name, the world apart from their joining forgotten. He kissed his name from her lips, and she felt the moment his body tensed. It was beautiful.

Scott’s gaze slid left,
then right.

His car was the only one in the mall parking garage at this hour.

This was bullshit.

He’d been waiting for over an hour, but Lila hadn’t shown. The bitch. If she didn’t owe him money, he’d have been gone already. He needed that money in order to get his hands on Fiona. He had plans for her. Plans that were years in the making.

The hum of an engine somewhere below signaled he wasn’t alone.

His luck, it was the mall rent-a-cop coming back to see if he was okay. Last time, Scott had told the guy he was waiting on a friend who worked in the mall. He doubted the lie would suffice this time.

Headlights slashed across the concrete wall, and a silver sedan rounded the bend.

If this wasn’t Lila, he was gone.

She was some sort of spook. Scott had worked with a number of companies. Espionage was big business for the right people. Wherever Good Global had found her, he hoped she was the only one of her kind.

The silver sedan pulled up next to Scott’s and the tinted window rolled down.

The Ice Queen herself.

Lila regarded him for a moment, her perfect face revealing nothing. He’d thought she was hot the first time they’d met. Now, she might as well be a statue. Those blue eyes revealed nothing. Not a bit.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Scott demanded.

“Wading through your shit. Here.” She handed over a small, black satchel.

Scott took it and peered inside, hoping for cash. Instead, a gray external hard-drive sat nestled inside the case.

“What the hell is this?” he asked.

“Everything you’ve given us that matters.” Lila stared straight ahead, her tone…bored. “Your parameters were too wide. There’s too much data to sift through and we need to know what NueEnergy is up to. Crack the encryption on the files and figure it out. Now. Before NueEnergy’s CEO and COO get in tomorrow and find out what they’ve been hacked.”

“I—no. No, I can’t do that.” What she was asking would take…days. Weeks.

“What about your contact? The woman? She’ll know.”

“Fiona?” Scott barked out a laugh. “She isn’t going to help us.”

“Then figure out how to make that happen.”

“Wait—wait—wait.” Scott shook his head. “I have a secondary device that’s gleaning data. From her phone.”

“Her phone?” Lila frowned, the only true expression she ever wore.

“Yes.” Scott scrubbed a hand over his jaw. He’d meant to use that back-up device to cover his ass. “It’s a data crawler. Fiona has database access on her cell phone. She does a lot of tweaking permissions. I’ve been able to pinpoint some of the more sensitive data by following who gets access to what. The portable drive doesn’t hold as much information, but it’s got very narrow parameters. I’m trying to get it back from her without her realizing what she has.”

“Get it. Tonight.”

“I can’t! She’s gone. She hasn’t been home since Saturday.”

“Then you have a lot of work to do before tomorrow.” Lila rolled up her window.

Scott clenched the steering wheel. What he wouldn’t give to choke the life out of those bitches. Both Lila and Fiona.

11.

George Trent strode off
the elevator. He glanced at his admin’s empty desk, but Fiona wasn’t going to be in for a few days. Pity. He’d really have preferred a cappuccino from the place down the street.

Mondays were garbage.

He settled in at his desk, glancing over the notes someone had left stuck to the surface.

The ruse was that he needed both so that the older machine could interface with outdated software that managed something electrical and fancy, and the new machine for everything else. The truth was that George hardly did anything for NueEnergy, except fill a seat and show up to meetings. Most of his NueEnergy duties were performed by his admin, which left him plenty of time to work for NueEnergy’s parent company cooking their books.

It made for some interesting lies at industry cocktail parties when people asked why he hadn’t stayed on the finance side of things for NueEnergy.

Keeping all the books showing the right numbers was a time-consuming and labor-intensive job. Which was why Fiona being out was such a pain in his ass. He’d actually have to do both jobs until she got back.

The phone on George’s desk buzzed and he flinched.

Fuck.

Fiona wasn’t there to take his calls, either.

“What? I haven’t had coffee yet.”

“Come to my office. Now.”

George frowned. The CEO, Eli, wasn’t a chatty man, so the short, clipped sentences were normal but…something was wrong.

George didn’t power on his computers. He picked up his bag and made the trek across the floor to Eli Lindale’s office. The receptionist glanced up, smiling. But that was probably because Eli was fucking her. He always shacked up with his secretary, and they never lasted more than a few months.

George let himself in.

Eli stood at his desk, one phone crammed between his shoulder and ear, his cell phone in hand. He waved at the vacant office chairs, but George was more interested in the coffee cart.

He really had to get one of these little disposable cup machine things.

Eli’s side of the conversation wasn’t very illuminating, a lot of one-and two-word sentences. His tone more than anything clued George into the fact that something not good was happening. Well great. And here he was without his admin to handle half the work. Of all the times for her to have a family emergency.

Fuck.

Come to think of it…Fiona had never taken more than one or two days off before.

Had she ever mentioned family?

He couldn’t remember. He hardly knew anything about her.

Eli hung up his phone, his face twisted into a scowl.

“What’s wrong?” George sipped his coffee.

“We have been hacked. Everything—all of it.”

George spit his coffee back into the cup, on the floor. Some even dribbled onto his shirt.

“What?” He stared at Eli. “Not…”

Everything?

He couldn’t mean everything.

All the books lived on NueEnergy’s servers.

“Everything,” Eli said slowly.

George groped for a chair, sinking onto it.

This was…bad. Oh, so very bad. For him. For Eli. For everyone.

Marco glanced at the
bathroom door once more. Fiona could always come out to grab something she’d forgotten. He needed to take this call downstairs.

“Hang on,” he said into the receiver.

He padded down the stairs and let himself out onto the porch before holding the phone back up to his ear.

“Okay, go ahead.” He paced around the porch to the back, where he could look out over the desert.

“I can’t stop the data crawler without direct access to NueEnergy’s system,” Ghost said.

“Fuck…I thought you could?”

“I never said I could. I tried. All you told me to do was stop it. I can’t.”

“Ghost…” Marco turned in place and stalked back across the porch.

“I am getting things. It’s kicking back the right kind of data.”

“That doesn’t help us with this situation.” He gestured at the house, as though Ghost knew Fiona was there, nearby.

“I told you to think this through before we committed, and now you’re having second thoughts. It’s too late, Marco. I told you someone would have to take the fall for this, and you were okay with it until you slept with the mark. You’re fucking her, aren’t you? God damn it, Marco.”

“What can we do now?” There was no point in rehashing Marco’s mistakes. All that mattered now was how to handle the backlash, try to keep it off Fiona. “How long do we have?”

“NueEnergy was alerted to a security breech…Saturday? Or Sunday? It’s hard to tell, but someone clearly muted the alerts. My guess is that dick bag has someone else inside NueEnergy helping him. I’m working out who now, but they know they’re compromised. What they do now…I don’t know. My guess? They’ll clean house. Delete everything. Get rid of people who know too much. It’s…not good for Fiona. One way or another, they’ll track one—if not both— breeches to her. It’s a matter of time and how good their people are. With the kind of secrets we think they’re hiding, their people are going to be good.”

“Clean house, you mean…?”

“I mean they might try to kill her. From what I can see, NueEnergy is a front company. It’s not even the head of the snake.”

“Shit.” Marco sat down on a bench, the chill inside his body having nothing to do with the temperature outside.

They’d guessed at that fact, but they hadn’t known. Not seriously. But now they did.

“Who owns them?” Marco asked.

“Working that out.”

“What’s our next move?” Marco had assumed that they’d plug the USB drive in, get what they wanted, and it would be done.

“What do you want to do?”

“You tell me. This is your field of expertise.” Marco was so in over his head. All he’d wanted to do was make the authorities realize that NueEnergy was into illegal dumping. Make someone pay for what they’d done to the land around his grandparent’s property.

“Lay low. Stay there. Let me figure out who we’re really dealing with.”

Fiona peered down the
stairs, listening, but she didn’t hear or see any sign of Marco.

He’d been sawing logs when she’d gone in for her shower, now he was gone.

Or maybe he was just outside.

Or at his parent’s place.

She dropped her towel and stretched, feeling all the soreness from all the activities. Her Zumba routine wasn’t enough, clearly. She picked out clean clothes and dressed for comfort. Once she knew what Marco planned for the day, she could change if need be. He’d said something about doing a zip line course or hiking. Hopefully, he’d remember she wasn’t as fit as he was and scale down his expectations.

How long would he be gone for, though?

She’d brought her laptop with her. Maybe…this was her chance.

Fiona usually stayed off the darker areas of the internet, the places where hackers and people who didn’t want to be found went to satisfy themselves. Every now and then she did a run through of all the old sites, the places she remembered. The FBI had shut a number of them down using her knowledge of how they worked, but a number still remained. And there were always more cropping up.

Like the most wanted list.

Sure, the FBI had theirs, but so did the bad guys.

Last dozen times she’d checked, her picture had moved on and off the list.

Growing up had altered her appearance. Thinned her face. Aged her eyes. She still bore some resemblance to that girl, but she hoped it wasn’t enough to identify her at a glance.

Maybe it wouldn’t be there this time…

Fiona crept toward her bag.

She could be on and off in less than ten minutes…

The door opened, closed and heavy footsteps thumped against the hardwood floor.

Shit.

“Marco?” She leaned over the railing, peering down the stairs.

So much for having a lookie-lou.

The footsteps came closer and Marco stepped into view. He had three plastic containers stacked on top of each other and he was fully dressed.

“You shower quick.” He took the stairs two at a time.

“I…guess?” She turned, tracking him with her gaze.

Marco crossed to the bed and flopped down, those curious containers still in hand.

“Breakfast in bed?” His slow grin was…suspicious. He cracked open one of the containers and tilted it toward her. “I stole the last of mom’s homemade whipped cream and all the strawberries.”

“You did not!” She scampered across the room and bounced on the bed like a kid. She grabbed for the container, but Marco pulled it away.

“Nu-hu-hu.” He opened the second container of strawberries and sat up. He very carefully pinched the green bits and dipped the fruit into the cream, then held it out to her. “It’s more fun this way.”

She paused for a moment, a hundred thoughts soaring through her mind at once. Feeding her breakfast in bed was…romantic. They weren’t supposed to be romantic, were they?

Fiona leaned forward and bit off the cream-covered fruit. She rolled her eyes in bliss.

“You really like that, don’t you? Here.” Marco dunked another strawberry in the sinfully good concoction and held it out to her.

“Shouldn’t I feed you now?” She reclined next to him, the easier to be Fed, and accepted the treat.

“It’s way more fun watching you eat it.”

She wiped some juice from her chin and studied him.

Marco was…she didn’t know what he was. He was a hard man to figure out, but she liked what she saw.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked.

“I don’t know. What do you have in mind? Something else that’s going to kill me?” She grinned. Sure, crawling around rocks in an ATV and zip lining across hundred yard drops were terrifying, but they were also thrilling in a way she’d never experienced before.

“How’d you feel about floating down the river?”

“Floating? As in easy, relaxed and—you’re lying?”

“Okay.” Marco grinned. “There’s a motor involved.”

“And?”

“And we’ll have to wear wet suits.”

“And?”

“And my buddy said we could take the boat out. Just us.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re going to try to kill me?”

“Hey, it’s no fun if someone’s not bleeding by the end of it.”

“Right.”

“I think you’d look hot in a wet suit. Come on. It’ll be fun. I promise.”

“Feed me another strawberry and I’ll think about it.”

“Deal.”

Marco held out another glistening red berry covered in the best homemade sweet cream she’d ever tasted. She practically groaned with every bite, it was so damn good. She needed to talk the recipe out of Sue before they left.

Fingers dug into her hair and pulled her forward.

Fiona’s eyes snapped open a second before Marco pressed his mouth to hers. She gasped, but that was just foreplay. His tongue licked her lips and he tugged her closer. She leaned into the kiss, hungry for more than just fruit.

Marco leaned back, a sly smile on his face.

“I think I like the taste of this stuff better when it’s on you.”

Fiona sputtered and laughed.

She could be down for that. So what if she’d just showered?

“Question for you.” He swirled the next strawberry in the cream, his gaze on the sheets.

“Hm?” His tone was different. Thoughtful even.

“Why’d you come talk to me at the bar?” He glanced up now, his gaze seeing…everything.

“Oh.” Fiona inhaled and it was her turn to glance away. She bit her lip. The only thing to do was tell him the truth, sad as it was. “You looked at me.”

“So?”

“You saw me.”

“Lots of people saw you.”

“No.” She turned her head and stared at him. “Most people…look through me. I walked in that bar an invisible person and…you saw me. You looked right at me and…I don’t know. Usually I’m okay being invisible. It means less drama, but…I needed someone to see me, I guess, and you did. You probably regret that now.” Look at what she’d dragged him into. And the poor guy didn’t even know the half of it.

“Regret is a part of life, but I don’t regret you.”

Oh, dear God, that was a line. A line right out of a Romance movie and she wanted to swoon right into those big arms of his.

“My guy’s still working on Scott.” Marco set the container on the bed and shifted.

Right.

Scott. And Marco’s friend, doing her a solid.

That stuff.

She swallowed.

“He’s got some good leads. I think we’ll be able to take care of this.”

“Oh, good. Thank you.”