Valerie couldn’t remember a more perfect, more magical moment in her entire life.
Then a softdingcame from her computer.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Falls Church, VA
Wednesday, 6:30 a.m.
SCOTT SIGHED INWARDLY AT THE sound of the bell and tightened his hold on Valerie. He finally had her in his arms and, goddammit, he didn’t want to let her go. She was beyond sexy, all warm and pliant, her soft breasts mashed pleasantly against him.
He was drawn to the feel of her skin on his in a way he’d never been with anyone else. Attraction was one thing, but with Valerie it went to a whole new level. He couldn’t stop touching her, stroking, caressing, kissing.
And what the hell did he do with that?
Don’t overthink it.
There was too much going on to worry about whether they had a future together. For now, he’d take what he could get and try to make sure they survived.
Valerie groaned and crawled off him toward the nightstand. “Who the hell is in at this hour?”
“What is it?” he asked, trying to cover the unpleasant shock of losing contact with her skin.
“Someone took the bait.”
“Holy shit.” He sat up. “Really?”
She slipped under the comforter, unfortunately covering her nakedness, and propped the laptop on her knees. Within seconds, she was typing away madly on the keyboard. “Someone plugged in one of my USB drives.” She gave a triumphant fist pump.
Whatever that meant. Unable to push aside his disappointment at being interrupted, he used a tissue from the box on the nightstand to remove the spent condom and then held up his shirt and skivvies like a shield as he stood to cross the room. He needn’t have bothered. Valerie was so engrossed in whatever was on her computer, he could have danced naked on the bed and she might not have noticed.
He understood that kind of focus. His life’s work was based on it. That, and patience. Valerie shared those qualities with him. Whereas he could spend weeks in the desert tracking and observing a target, she willingly spent weeks—or even months—attacking her target’s defenses until she found a vulnerability.
Patience and focus. His had been legendary, even among scout snipers.
But around her—with the exception of delaying his own gratification while tending to hers—both traits pretty much went out the window. Now, all he could think about was how soon he might be inside of her again.
Obviously, she wasn’t similarly affected at the moment.
Christ.Time to cowboy up and shift his focus back to what mattered here.
He cleaned up in the bathroom, and then returned to the bedroom and slid on the pajama pants Tara had bought for him. “Want some coffee?” he asked Valerie, resigned to staying up despite being dead on his feet.
She glanced up and frowned. “You’re dressed.”
Maybe she wasn’t as immune to his presence as he thought. With a shrug, he said, “You’re working.”
“Not much longer.” Her attention returned to the keyboard. “It looks like this is Eli’s laptop. He’s not connected to the corporate network right now, but I uploaded a script that’ll get me everything I need if he logs in. Otherwise, we’ll have to hope one of my other schemes works.”
Scott sat next to her on the bed and rested his palm on her knee, unable to be this close without touching her, even with the comforter separating them. “How did you get a flash drive into Eli’s hands?”
She grinned in triumph. “My usual social engineering techniques were out. One, because I couldn’t be there in person, and two, because Aggressor is more on alert than usual with me on the run. When I was in Missouri, I bought some drives and Ethernet cables on the dark web that have radio transmitters embedded in them, along with a transceiver with a WiFi hotspot. Then I repackaged the drives and cables to look like they had come from Aggressor’s normal supplier, mailed them off, and hoped it would take a while before someone realized the shipment didn’t match any orders.”
“So, whoever opened the box stuck everything in the supply closet, and at some point Eli grabbed one.”Damn.Scott whistled his appreciation. “But where’s the transceiver? I’m pretty sure no one would be dumb enough to leave that lying around.”
“The range is several miles, so I sent it general delivery to the nearest post office. They’ll hold the package for thirty days, so we still have about two weeks left before I lose the ability to intercept a signal. That’s assuming they’re diligent about clearing the general delivery bin.”
“I’m a little bit scared and a whole lot turned on right now,” he said.
