8
ALEX SIPPED his after-dinner eggnog and watched the lights twinkling on the Christmas tree. Around him, the ebb and flow of conversation lulled him into a half trance, the sort he remembered from his childhood that only came with being content and surrounded by family and friends.
He’d enjoyed hanging out with this group, talking over dinner and watching with detached amusement as half of them got into a heated debate over Trivial Pursuit. He was even having trouble remembering he was supposed to be someone else. Sure, there was the lying he’d had to do about his career, but he’d rehearsed that story so many times he’d almost started believing it.
And now, here with all Yasmine’s friends, he felt as if he belonged, as if he was with a woman he really cared about and not one he was secretly trying to gather evidence against. It occurred to him, when he finally remembered his situation, that his life had gotten seriously screwed up.
Not only did he think Yasmine was the hottest thing since the discovery of fire, he was pretty sure he liked her just as well outside of bed. So far, she hadn’t done a single thing to make him feel justified in secretly investigating her.
If she didn’t start acting like an obnoxious criminal soon, he was going to develop a guilty conscience. Okay, who the hell was he kidding? He already felt guilty, and if he didn’t find some solid evidence against her, he’d feel like the world’s biggest jerk for ever having lied to her in the first place.
The Trivial Pursuit game ended with a resounding victory for the women—owed entirely to Yasmine’s amazing wealth of useless knowledge—and she flopped down next to him on the sofa where he’d been sitting content to watch, not contributing much to the game.
“You’re looking awfully contemplative. Ashamed that your team lost so badly?” she asked, her dark eyes sparkling.
“You know more than any normal human should about American history.”
“Side effect of attending expensive boarding schools.”
Which must have made going from a stimulating intellectual environment to a youth correctional facility an even bigger shock for her. He’d blocked out that fact before, but now, sitting here with her, he had a pang of empathy for the spoiled little genius girl who’d been locked away thanks in part to him.
“Did you get to wear hot little plaid skirts and white tops knotted at the waist?” he half whispered.
She laughed. “Yeah, and we dressed in little pink teddies on Saturday nights and had all-girl pillow fights.”
“A guy can dream, right?”
“And you’re also pretty good at evading questions. What’s with the brooding expression you were wearing a minute ago?”
“Seriously? You want to know the truth?”
Yasmine leaned in close and propped her head on her elbow against the back of the sofa. “Absolutely.”
“I hate eggnog. Why on earth do people drink this crap?” He gazed down into his cup as if worms were emerging from it.
She laughed and swatted his thigh. “You’re a freak.”
“Only in the bedroom.”
Around them, people were donning coats, gathering purses and unwrapped gifts, saying goodbyes. Alex realized, out of the blue, that as much as he loved Yasmine’s company, this was truly an awful way to celebrate Christmas Eve, spending it deceiving a woman he didn’t want to deceive. He was so far removed from the spirit of the season that he might as well have donned a devil costume and called it Halloween.
“Let’s go,” Yasmine said, “before you do anything violent to your eggnog.”
“Definitely.”
The darkest, ugliest part of him had brought Alex to this point, and he realized now his mistake was in thinking that a good end justified dishonest means.
Five minutes later they’d said their goodbyes and were outside, walking back to Yasmine’s apartment. She was tucked into his side, her hip bumping against him as they walked down the street.
“I hope my friends didn’t drive you crazy,” she said.
“They were great. I had fun tonight.”
“Thanks for being my date—and for keeping me company over the holidays, too. You’re still staying the night tonight, aren’t you?”
“Truckloads of eggnog couldn’t keep me away. And I’m the one who should be saying thanks.”
“We’d better stop the lovefest before we make each other sick, don’t you think?”
“I think if you show me any appreciation, it should be for sharing my piece of Yule log with you.”
“Oh, right. My dear friend Cass is many things, but talented chef is not one of them. That Yule log tasted like—”
“Like something better used for kindling?”
Here he was again, nearly forgetting that Yasmine wasn’t his girlfriend or even his date. She was a woman whose company he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying, and damn if he could help himself.
Focus. He had to shove aside his feelings of pleasure, of guilt, and focus on the task at hand. Time to dive into his investigation headfirst. He couldn’t change his plan now, regardless of how underhanded it might be. “It’s great that you’ve moved on from your time in juvenile detention and built a new life for yourself. Your friends seem really nice.”
“They are. I’m lucky I have people who don’t judge me.”
“Except when it comes to Trivial Pursuit.”
She smiled, and he could sense her relaxation. “Right,” she said. “I like them because they don’t care what I can or can’t do with a computer.”
“Aren’t you ever tempted to test out your hacking skills?” he asked, casual as he could be.
She sighed. “I’ll admit, it’s a temptation.”
“I can imagine. I mean, honestly, I used to play around, trying to break into systems, but I sucked. I’d make a terrible hacker,” he lied.
“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly a skill to be proud of.”
“Sure it is. I mean, assuming you were doing it for the right reasons.” His stomach clenched. This was the point where he could ruin everything if he wasn’t careful.
“Now there’s a daring idea.”
“What?”
“That it’s okay to do something wrong if you’ve got a good reason.”
“Sort of like Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich to give to the poor.”
“You really believe Robin Hood was a good guy?” she asked, and Alex’s heartbeat quickened.
He knew he was close. So damn close.
“Yeah, doesn’t everybody?”
“Not the rich people he stole from.”
He glanced over at her and caught her smiling. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Promise you can keep a secret?”
“Sure,” he said as evenly as he could.
“Remember that story in the news a while back, about the hackers who were attacking terrorist Web sites?”
“Yeah,” he said, a weird sense of anticipation settling over him. “That was great—why?”
She smiled, all mock innocence. “Well…”
“That was you?”
“Me and some friends. It was a blast.”
Alex felt as if someone had clubbed him in the head. It made sense now. She had been hacking again, but perhaps not in the way he or any of his fellow agents had thought. At least in this case, not for any nefarious purpose.
Holy shit.
“You’re kidding!”
“No, I’m not. But please keep it quiet, okay? I’ve never told anyone, and…given my history, I don’t want word getting out.”
“My lips are sealed. But that’s awesome. I mean, how many Web sites did you take down?”
“Between me and my friends, probably about twenty hits over a two-month period. That’s counting repeats—when they got their sites back online, we took them out again.” She smiled, and he could tell she was proud of herself even if she didn’t want to admit it.
“What made you stop?”
“Guilt, and a weird feeling, like this sense I had that I was going to get caught again. I started feeling like I was being watched.”
“Who would prosecute you for hindering terrorists?”
“I guess I’m just paranoid. I know it sounds crazy.”
“Not at all.” His chest filled with an odd sense of pride in her. In her own way, she’d been helping to defend her country.
“I’ve always felt—I mean, since the first time I got in trouble—like I had to walk the straight-and-narrow path or else. I just had this little impulse to do something rebellious, but then I got scared.”
“Is that what this weekend with me is about? Being a little rebellious?”
“No,” she said too quickly. “I mean…maybe, a little.”
“I see,” he said, smiling.
And now he understood his appeal to her. She was a rebel without an outlet for her urges, and he was her way to rebel. He was dangerous, but not too dangerous. It wasn’t the way he’d intended to gain her trust, but it had worked nonetheless.
“You’re not offended, are you?”
“Let’s see—a beautiful, intelligent woman wants to spend the weekend with me. Which part should I be offended by?”
Yasmine shrugged and looked ahead as they walked. There was some shift in her mood then that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
And the question remained—had she engaged in any other system intrusions? Was she only telling him part of the truth? Was her daring to hack into terrorist Web sites just a hint of her secret activities?
Alex glanced at Yasmine again, her perfect features aglow in the streetlights. He couldn’t fathom her, this rebellious beauty who’d captivated him from the moment he first saw her. And he hoped like hell that she was innocent.
But then what? What if she really was innocent? Did he think he could just tell her the truth and that they could continue as they’d started this weekend? No, he knew there would be repercussions, and no matter what he learned from his investigation, both of them were going to get hurt.
ALEX HAD SET HIS WRISTWATCH alarm to sound at two in the morning, and as soon as he heard it go off, he pressed the button to stop the tinkling alarm. Beside him, Yasmine slept soundly, her steady breathing marked by the occasional pauses of deep sleep.
He allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark, then lay in bed biding his time. He could get up right now and search her computer, search her apartment, look for any and all answers to the question of her involvement in illegal activities.
Part of him couldn’t wait to know the truth, was eager to prove that she was innocent. And another part of him dreaded the other possibility—the chance that she really was still a hacker. If his attraction to her had clouded his judgment that badly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know that, either.
But he’d come this far. He’d concocted a false identity for himself, lied his way into Yasmine’s life, and he couldn’t back down now.
One more glance in her direction to confirm she was sleeping, and he slipped out of the bed, silent and easy. Grabbing his boxers from the floor, he slid them on and eased his way out of the room and into the living room, where the lights on the tree still twinkled.
Alex sat at the computer desk and with a nudge of the mouse, took the monitor out of low-power mode. Yasmine’s flat-panel screen came to life, bright blue in the near darkness, inviting him to explore whatever secrets the hard drive held.
The type of people who spent their free time invading other people’s systems tended to be a paranoid sort when it came to their own computer’s security. Passwords and firewalls abounded, but Yasmine’s system came to life without a single password request.
Without that hurdle to jump, he easily started exploring. Through folders hidden and not so hidden, he looked for clues about her Internet activities. That everything was so easily accessible was a good sign, a sign that she didn’t think like a hacker anymore.
And after a half hour of poking around her hard drive, he’d have to say, if she had any secrets, they were hidden extremely well. On the Internet, she seemed to have a penchant for Ebay and online shopping sites, a couple of news sites and blogs, and that was it. Nothing nefarious. She didn’t haunt any of the sites attractive to hackers, didn’t even go to sites that suggested she might have an interest in system security anymore.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
His eyes glazed and his body telling him what he needed most was sleep right now, he glanced at the dark hallway that led to the bedroom.
No sound came from that direction, but something made his hackles rise. He went totally still and listened.
Nothing. Maybe it had just been the cat. But his muscles remained tense, his senses on alert, so he turned back to the monitor and set it to low power again.
When he was about to rise from the desk chair, an almost imperceptible sound caught his attention. He turned and saw Yasmine standing in the living room doorway squinting in the soft light, her long hair tousled, falling over her shoulders and breasts.
The fear of nearly getting caught shot through him, seized his chest, sent his brain scrambling for an explanation of his late-night visit to her computer desk. It occurred to him now how horrified he was at the thought of Yasmine finding out the truth about his deception. He didn’t want her to know, regardless of her guilt or innocence. He didn’t want her to hate him.
She was still naked, and if it weren’t for the cold spike of adrenaline that now had him on edge, he would have gotten hard at the sight of her. Shielding her eyes from twinkling lights on the tree with one hand, she frowned at him.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “I heard a noise and thought Santa had come.”
He forced himself to breathe. “I’m kind of an insomniac. Couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d get up and check the news on the Internet.”
A slow smile spread across her lips as she closed the distance between them. “I thought I’d properly tired you out tonight.”
Alex stood and took her in his arms, relaxed into the warmth of her body. Thank God she’d bought his story.
“Mmm.” He dipped his head down and kissed her. “I may need a little more exercise before I’ll be ready to sleep.”
“Exercise? Is that what we’re calling it now?” she asked, and then she placed a kiss on his neck that he felt all the way to his groin.
“Call it what you want,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s addictive.”
The swiveling computer chair was behind him now, and she molded her body tighter to his. He brushed her hair back off her shoulders to give him unobstructed access to her breasts, and his cock went hard, while his balls tightened.
“Do you think Santa will still come if we’re awake and…exercising?”
He silenced her with a long, hungry kiss, forcing his tongue into her mouth, overwhelming any doubts she might have had about his intentions. She was what he wanted more than air, more than food, more than water. She had to know that by now—and yet she was the last thing he should have wanted.
“I guess you could say Santa’s already here and about to give you his own special kind of holiday cheer.”
“Ohh, bad Santa,” she purred. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve got for me.”
“It’s something every girl can use,” he said as he urged her toward the bedroom.
But she held her ground. “No, let’s do it here,” she said.
“On the desk?”
“It’s sturdy.” She tugged him toward the side of the desk, pushed aside a stack of papers and sat, while he grabbed a condom from the stash they’d left on the coffee table earlier.
Alex wedged himself between her bare legs as she tugged down his boxers. Then he slid on the condom. His attention, torn between his guilt over snooping on her computer and Yasmine’s irresistible body, found its focus where their bodies met and generated maximum heat.
Alex pinned her on the desk, pressing his body into her, finding the point of least resistance and sliding in. She had such a sweet, hot p-ssy, and an incomprehensible ache built inside him as he began moving inside her, probing as deep as he could go, then withdrawing and probing again.
He rested his weight on his elbows and looked into her eyes, wanting to see what was really there. Some hint of the truth about Yasmine. But all he saw was their dark depths. She was, as always, secret, hidden away, unfathomable except when it came to her sexual desires.
And then he saw something else. She looked at him with such vulnerability, it transformed her into a girl instead of a woman.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
He stilled. “You tell me.”
She tightened herself around him. “You just seem kind of intense right now.”
“This…” he said, easing deeper into her. “What we’ve been doing…it’s getting intense.”
No other way to describe the crazy, hot, burning, aching need that kept pushing them into each other’s arms. It was intense like nothing else he’d ever known.