Sweet Seduction Stripped (23 page)

With a sigh I opened the door and headed out into the unending twists and turns of ASI HQ.

I met Adam first. Tearing down the hallway too quickly to offer anything other than, "Hey, gorgeous! Glad you could join us." And then he was gone with a mischievous grin and sexy wink.

Briefly closing my eyes and sucking in air to centre myself, knowing Adam's haste was all due to what had happened at C&C, I used the moment to recall the correct pathway back to the staffroom. Thinking that was my best bet in finding directions to control, like Ric had suggested.

The room was buzzing when I arrived. Loud chatter, the clack of utensils on crockery, the kettle boiling in the corner.

"Do they have any idea how it happened?" someone was asking.

"Not yet," another voice replied. "But HEAT have moved in to the wreckage, the Fire Service still damping down hotspots here and there. It's like the CTV building all over again."

The CTV building was an iconic symbol of the devastation and destruction Christchurch received in the 2011 earthquake. The building collapsed and caught on fire, trapping hundreds of people. It burned for several days. It was not an image I needed to recall right now.

My hand trembled as I ran it through my hair, realising I hadn't even combed it since I'd stepped out of the shower. I glanced down at my feet, shocked to see them bare. Then realised I was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and the room had gone silent.

I couldn't lift my head and tears had started to threaten. I didn't want to cry. I wasn't sure Jaxon deserved it. And I didn't want to show that weakness in front of these people who already had enough ammunition to judge me from here to eternity and back.

"Darling," a soft voice said to my side. "Let me help you." Then she ordered someone to make a cup of coffee and grab some food and meet us back in safe room one.

I let Katie guide me back down the hall I'd just traversed and back into the room I'd shared with Ric.

"Right," she said. "First things first, darling. You simply cannot wear that."

I blinked back at her as she fumbled through the dresser, then with hands on disgruntled designer skirt covered hips, glared around the room. She perked up, and rushed over to the tote bag I'd used yesterday, pulling out a soft violet camisole top I'd decided was actually underwear, and waving it at me.

"This will do nicely with your complexion. Your hair colour is similar to mine, so I should know," she declared.

"What will I wear over it?" I asked, dumbly.

"Darling," she replied, walking towards me with a sensual - and I was guessing natural - swing to her hips. She could have been a pole dancer, her body flowed sinuously. "Panache," she added. "You'll wear panache."

I wasn't sure I had any panache left.

"But first," she announced, "we'll deal with your hair."

The door opened and the second blonde from Sweet Seduction walked in carrying a plate of croissants and a cup of coffee.

"I swear they all think because I work in a café I'm the only one suitable to make the freaking coffee," she complained, setting both items down on top of the dresser. "Gen's holding Ollie, so she got off scot-free."

"What about Lucas, darling?" Katie asked.

The woman snorted. "He's arm wrestling Drew, and placing bets with Finn and Dom on who will win."

"Drew will," Katie declared.

"Of course he will," the blonde replied matter of factly. "Have you seen his biceps lately? Fan-fucking-tastic. That man just curls my toes when he gets the dumbbells out."

"Is that all it takes, Kelly?" Katie asked. "Dumbbells?"

"Sweetie," Kelly replied, placing a hand on her cocked hip. "He just has to look at me and I'm gone."

"I know the feeling," Katie replied, running a brush through my hair, having forced me to sit at the edge of the bed before I collapse onto it. "Jason just has to walk through the door and look at me and I'm ready."

"Panty-dripping delicious, that's our hot-rush-hottie boys," Kelly added on a growl that did all sex-kittens proud.

Katie laughed. It was light and carefree and happy. "Where would be without them," she said wistfully, the brush stilling in her hand on the last two words.

Kelly's eyes flicked from where Katie stood down to my face. For a second tension hung in the silence, and then Kelly smiled. What could only be called a naughty smile, and said, "So, you dress her, I'll go grab some make-up."

"Oh, bingo!" Katie exclaimed, offering one final brush and pat with her hand of my now silken locks. "This is going to be so much fun."

Despite everything, I smiled back at Kelly. How could I not? Katie was so enthusiastic. Bubbly in the way that makes it impossible not to be affected by her effervescent fervour. It was a small smile, but considering where I'd just been, it felt huge.

Kelly winked back at me, flicked her hair over her shoulder, and sauntered from the room.

Then with Katie's help I redressed, this time getting into my demi-cup bra and slipping into the figure hugging camisole. I even let her wrap a bandage around my newly injured hand. But I felt more exposed, when we were done, than if I had been dancing on stage in nothing but golden glitter and an itty-bitty thong.

"There," Katie said, leaning back and surveying the final ensemble. "Never let it be said that what can break us can never make us shine. He didn't deserve you, but you deserve your tears. And once they're gone, you rise from those ashes, you hold your head high, and you show the world that you're a woman. Strong. Fierce. Capable. Confident. And hot."

I held her gaze for a moment, then felt compelled to say, "You guys are all a little intense."

She blinked back and then started to laugh. Before too much longer I found myself laughing with her.

Feeling strong. Fierce. Capable. Confident. And yes, hot in a violet camisole covered with panache.

Fuck! I didn't want to leave her. She looked so fragile, scared even. Swamped in confusion and heartache and no small amount of guilt. She didn't know what to feel, she just knew she was feeling too much. But I left her. Because I had to trust that she'd come back once she'd sorted through that shit. Come back stronger, braver.

And, God please, certain of her place in my heart. A place I will treasure, will nurture, and will never let it go to ruin like that fucktard Harding did.

Who currently was taking up the better part of the largest screen in the control room, while he slumbered on his too short couch. Seconds before detonation.

"Have we heard from Pierce?" Nick barked.

"Nothing," Koki offered from my chair. I still hadn't taken a step further into the room from the door. The need to escape was thrumming through my veins like a drug; cloying, eager, too tempting by far.

I wanted back in that room with Amber. I wanted in that shower that I knew she'd be having by now. I wanted to pretend this fucked in the head shit hadn't happened. But life just kept on piling up the crap, didn't it?

Nick turned steely eyes on my face.

"You with us?" he asked, and every man in that room heard the subtext. My gaze skittered over the guys, landing on Abi, and I was forced to change that thought.

Every person in that room heard the subtext.

I didn't want to be here. I had somewhere else I'd rather be. But until this shit got sorted, Amber would be suffering. I nodded back at Nick and took the necessary steps to reach Koki's side. He was up and vacating my chair in an instant. Eager to hand over the reins and get the fuck out of there.

Some guys handled the monotony well. Some guys even thrived off the technological aspect. The change of pace giving them respite. The different tension that swirled in this room when a job was on, compared to out there on the front, offering a high.

Koki had never been one of those guys. Too twitchy by far. With an extremely short fuse to boot.

You needed patience and concentration, and an ability to distance yourself when the shit hit the fan, to get the job done.

I worked on doing that right now, but it was fucking hard. What with Harding's sleeping form plastered all over the screen.

"I'll try and get into their system, see if we can find recordings of earlier security footage before the explosion went off," I said, fingers already flying.

"You can do that?" Jason asked and received a whack over the back of his head from Ben. "What the fuck, man?" Jason exclaimed, punching Ben solidly in the upper arm. Ben didn't even move with the impact.

"It's Eric,
e hoa.
Of course he can do it."

I appreciated the support, but...

"Well, actually, it all depends on how good their UPS is, whether they had continuous data protection and a remote backup service, and where that was stored. After that I have to crack their walls, bypass their snares, and find a way inside. Then after all of that, they may not have recorded their video surveillance. Or if they did, they didn't back it up off site. It's a crap shoot, but it's the best I can suggest."

"Do it," Nick ordered and instantly I was back between Amber's breast.

Fuck me, you perverted fucking bastard, concentrate!

The guys discussed various scenarios, probable causes and out-there wild guesses at what had gone down at C&C, while I continued to delve deeper and deeper into cyberspace, following Amber's trail back to her now useless key.

My eyes caught movement in one of the halls on a separate screen. Adam, jumping past a figure who stepped in his path as he ran by. He said something, offered a smirk and wink, and then was on his way towards us, gunning it with pertinent news, no doubt.

But my fingers had stalled. My mind was blanking. All I could see was Amber, sex-messed hair hanging limp from a shower down her pale face, baggy top that did nothing to hide the fact she was braless under there. And suddenly I'd pushed back my chair and stood up.

Which was the most fucking God awful thing I could have done because half a dozen sets of eyes swung to the screen I was glued to and saw my Dancer as well.

"Fuck," someone muttered, clearly seeing the lost look on her face that I was witnessing.

"She OK?" someone else whispered, but there was a roaring in my ears and I couldn't recognise the voice.

We all watched as she moved through the hallways like a wraith, gliding listlessly down one and up the other until she came to stand in the staffroom, her face now lit up on another screen. My head hurt when I moved the small distance to keep my eyes on her petite frame, drowning in a borrowed t-shirt.

Ah, fuck it. I couldn't stay here. I couldn't fix this from here. I had to move.

Move!

Katie appeared at her side. Jason sucked in a breath of air. At least I was recognising sounds now. Then in the next instant she said something to my girl and ushered her out of the room, Kelly jumping up and moving quickly across the kitchen at some unknown command.

I tracked their progress back through the halls. My fists clenched, my chest aching, my breaths coming in short pants.

"Katie's got her," Nick murmured at my side. "You know she'll take good care," he added, and I found myself nodding. "Why don't you leave her in the capable hands of my sister and do what you can do from here to help your woman out."

My woman. Amber was
my woman
.

Another stiff nod and I sat back down in the chair, pulling the keyboard closer.

Voices began to rise again in the background, as my eyes flicked between the now shut door on our safe room and the screen where I was writing code.

Dual desires waging a war inside me.

Get to her. Hold her. Comfort her.

Offer closure on a part of her life that had brought her to
me
.

In the end, it's quite simple. I'm not only a perverted bastard. I'm a selfish one.

I worked harder on cracking C&C.

Katie and Kelly insisted I eat two croissants and the cup of coffee before they'd let me out of the safe room. I didn't think I could do it, but three bites in and I was practically inhaling the pastries. I'd forgotten how long it had been since I last had any food. The coffee was sweet, Kelly must have placed extra sugar in it. Not my usual preference, but that too got completely consumed.

I let a long sigh out once I'd filled my belly.

Two beaming smiles came my way, taking in the fact that I had eaten every crumb on the plate, and drowned myself in caffeine, then Katie actually clapped her hands.

"Super!" she exclaimed. "
Now
you're ready to face the day."

Kelly had brushed some blush on my too pale cheeks earlier, added a little mascara to widen my puffy eyes, and a generous helping of lip gloss to hide where I'd been chewing. I wasn't catwalk ready, but I was a damn sight prettier than when I first appeared in the staffroom door.

"You up for this, chickie?" Kelly asked, and it wasn't just words for the sake of them. She meant it. As though she understood emotional turmoil and the hurdles we sometimes have to navigate.

"As ready as I'll ever be," I replied, offering a smile in return. They'd been wonderful to me. Better than wonderful. They'd been uplifting, non-judgemental, and a barrel of laughs.

I was still reeling from some of the "red" experiences Kelly and her partner Drew liked to have. The girl was not afraid of sharing too much detail, but I had the impression, although she and her man were definitely wild, most of what she said had been filtered to some degree. The look she sometimes got on her face when she talked about Drew could only be described as private.

I wondered if I got that look on my face when Ric's name was brought up. I couldn't bring myself to discuss my relationship with him, and neither girl pressed. Not with Jaxon's death hanging in the air. Instead they regaled me of their own adventures. Katie surprising the hell out of me when she explained the difference between a throwing knife and a throwing star, and just what the wielder would hope to achieve with each. Her preference? SOG Fusion. Whatever the hell they were.

I gathered the women who hung around the ASI men - not that Drew was an ASI man, but clearly Kelly was familiar with Nick's team - were capable of defending themselves. Holding their own when things got a little rough. I wasn't a fighter, not in the physical sense. But give me a computer and access to the internet and I could bring a person to their knees with relative ease.

As yet, I wasn't quite sure which type of protection was better. It's not as though what I can do could be considered self defence, like Katie with her knives. Had I chosen this path subconsciously? Am I a bad person at heart and therefore gravitated towards Jaxon and his ill gotten gains?

Katie had good written all over her. Kelly was a bad-girl, but only in the sense of being dirty-bad and capable of living life to the full. Me? I worked for a drug lord, I hacked computers for fun. Where was the good in that?

It was an epiphany I really didn't need right now. My mental walls crumbling, my body too emotionally spent to battle a crisis of conscience. Anger and disappointment raging through my veins at Jaxon cheating me out of my revenge. If I wasn't careful, this could lead me down a very bleak path.

And suddenly, I
needed
to see Ric. He was like me, insomuch as his desire to hack anything with decent codes. But here he was working for the good guys, using his skills in a way he could be proud of. Perhaps there was light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps there was still time to get off this path and choose another.

Jaxon was gone. I was no longer working for C&C. All I had to do was let go of my vengeance.

Easy.

I followed the women out of the safe room, Kelly taking the hallway back to the staffroom, Katie branching off down another leading me to control.

"What should I expect in there?" I asked her quietly.

"Oh, you know. Computers, TV screens, lots of blinking lights. An electronic cave, really. Eric's domain and everyone knows it."

A different emotion swirled inside. Excitement at seeing where Ric worked thrummed through me. Making my heart beat harder and my palms begin to itch with sweat.

Under any other circumstances this would have been a happy day, seeing where Ric sat talking to me on-line for all those years. But I didn't fool myself. I knew why he was in there now, and it wasn't to flirt with a girl in a chat-room.

I sucked in a deep breath of air as Katie knocked on the closed metal door to a room. There were cameras overhead, and one directly pointed at our faces off to the side. Several more dotted down the ceiling of the hall. No door knob. No keypad. The only access inside would be through the person on the other side of this door. And if I wasn't mistaken, the door was reinforced steel. A battering ram couldn't dent it.

Trepidation joined the excitement making for a seething mass of nerves.

The door clicked and Katie pushed it open peering inside. She wrinkled her nose at whatever she could see.

"Do you really all need to pile in here like sardines in a can?" she queried.

"Katie," a man said with what sounded like exasperation. I was picking it was Nick. The familiarity of his tone reminded me that Ric had said he was Katie's brother. It certainly sounded like something an older brother would say. "Let Amber pass," he instructed.

Katie turned back to me and mouthed, "Ready?"

I nodded, she moved, but not out of the way. She surprised me by wrapping me up in a bone crushing hug. Then with a hand smoothed through my hair, as though making sure her protégée was presentable, she smiled brightly, and nudged me inside the door.

I immediately wanted to back right out, but the door had closed and I was betting there'd be no handle, or you'd need someone to flick a switch to allow it to open, because security in here would be tight. Going by the electronics which currently were stealing all cognitive thought.

I was vaguely aware that people - and there were quite a few - inside the room were watching me, but my eyes were all for the wall to wall LED screen display, the motherboards stacked to the side behind temperature controlled glass fronted doors, but accessible should you need to do some hardware manipulation, the multiple keyboards and differing connectivity stations along a thin bench that went from one side of the room to the other. The joysticks to control camera angles, the touch screen command modules, the components, peripherals, servers, interfaces and every imaginable tool required to tackle them. There were CPUs, a Mac NuBus, PCIs, various types of ports, routers and terminals, and the obligatory UPS. All of it stored appropriately and in an orderly fashion.

In short, this was Mecca.

"You never said," I murmured, still not looking at anyone, but my statement had been for Ric.

He knew.

"You never asked," came his reply.

"I would have, if I'd known," I argued.

"And then I would have always wondered if it was me or my hardware you fancied."

Someone snorted, someone else muttered, "Fuck me," and there was a wolf-whistle in the background too, but my eyes had found Ric's. Vibrant green; hungry, amused, needy, excited.

That last one matched the look in my eyes, I should think. Oh, the things we could do in here. And they were
not
all computer related. His lips spread in a sexy smirk. His mind right next to mine in the gutter.

And then he frowned.

"What did you do to your hand?"

I lifted both hands in front of my face and stared at them for a second.

"Balanced them out?" I offered.

"What happened?" he pressed and I sighed. Did we really have to do this here? Now? In front of everyone. "Amber?" he growled.

My eyes flicked around the room, some of the men were pretending they were busy, some were outright watching with ill concealed amusement flashing in their eyes, and some like Nick were scowling at Ric, arms crossed over broad chests.

When I brought my eyes back to Ric's reluctantly, my gaze snagged on an image on the largest screen. A person, it looked like, asleep on a couch in an office. No, not just any office, but Jaxon's. The picture was from the bug I'd placed. The body, covered by a blanket I had used many times in the past, had to be Jaxon's too.

I stared at it and waited for the grief to hit. I just felt numb. Which, quite frankly, was better than rage.

"That's the last live shot?" I asked. Ric's head turned slowly to look at what I was seeing. He stiffened, rubbed a hand through his hair and then nodded.

No one said a thing, but all eyes were back on me.

"Have you located the back-up?" I asked.

"Do you know where it is?" Ric shot back, sitting up taller in his chair. Some of the tension that had been there, at the sight of my new injury and then compounded by my acknowledgement of Jaxon's picture on the screen, had dissipated.

"Yes. Are you in?"

"Not yet, but I'm back at your key and trying to reinstate it."

I walked closer, ignoring everyone else. I had to concentrate on one thing at a time, too many variables would send me over the edge. I was balancing on a high wire, and I knew it.

"That won't work," I said as I took a seat beside Ric which had appeared out of nowhere, offered to me by one of the guys. I'm not sure who, I was too busy looking at the code Ric was writing.

"Why not? I'm trying a reverse algorithm, it should mirror your code."

"I didn't have time to do anything clever, I just used a basic hack with a one time use, thinking I'd only get one shot anyway."

Voices had started up behind us, just conversational tones, probably picking up where they had left off when I walked in the room. The show was obviously over, all of the ASI team happy to let Ric and I work on our own.

"So, we'll have to start from scratch, then," Ric surmised.

"I could try my login," I murmured, knowing it was a stupid suggestion.

"You think he didn't have a tracer on it?"

"Oh, I'm sure he did, but we don't need to be quiet, we just need in. Maybe from inside the server hacking their back rooms will be easier."

"What security level did you have?" Ric asked, bringing up the front door of C&C's system. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the internet could do this, but bypassing the safeguards at the front door was another thing. I should know, I helped write them. Which didn't mean I could necessarily hack them. Inside knowledge is beneficial, but I wasn't the only one working on C&C's IT.

"Let's see," I replied, not feeling confident.

Ric let me try logging on, but as expected it failed. I'd been locked out of the system, sometime after I ran from Jaxon's office last night.

"OK, we do it the old fashioned way," Ric said giving me a wink and sly smile.

"The old fashioned way being break down the door with code," I replied, smiling back. It was getting easier.

"Baby," he murmured, tapping away on the keys. "Not just any code, but sexy code. Your type of code."

"You don't think your code is sexy?"

"Sweetheart, I'm all over sexy with my code, but you." Another smirk, a flash of wicked delight in his beautiful eyes. "You are beyond sexy. Your code is pure seduction." His voice had lowered and roughened on the end.

I was such a goner, until someone over our shoulders said, "God, really? They're flirting in computer lingo? This is definitely whacked."

"Totally screwed, my man," another said.

"Freaky and I gotta say, a bit of a turn on."

"Everything turns you on, Brook. You're a walking, talking horndog."

"I try my best."

"Yeah, it's your best that gets you in hot water."

"How was I to know the redhead thought I said 'lick' and from that would extrapolate ice-cream."

"Who the fuck knows. 'Why don't you come and sit on my dick' seems pretty self explanatory to me."

"And uninspiring. You need to bone up on your pick-up lines."

"Argh. Don't give him anymore ideas. Next he'll be telling chicks to come and sit on his boner and then blame it on you."

"Well, it's better than lick his dick."

"I had a German girl tell me that once."

"What? Lick your dick?"

"Yeah, but she'd actually said,
Ich liebe dich
. Go figure."

"Enough! Did any of you bastards consider we have ladies in this room," Nick said.

"Don't look at me," Abi offered. "Never claimed to be a lady, not starting now."

And slowly all eyes turned to me, where I sat, open mouthed, eyes wide, back to the screens watching the hilarity unfold around me. I flicked a glance to my side at Ric, who was leaning back in his chair watching me, not the screens, or code, or even the men. But me.

"Are they always like this?" I asked him.

Ric said, "Pretty much," as Nick barked, "No. We're usually more professional."