Though desire had filled him, her sleeping in his bed had allowed him to get some good sleep. He was thankful she didn’t stir when he crawled from bed and left the room. He started the coffee and texted Stanley, telling him he was awake. Stanley said he was about a minute away. That helped him get rid of his hard-on fast.
As Bean waited for his buddy to arrive, he was thankful he had friends willing to help. “Have some coffee if you like. I also have eggs if you want any.”
“Thank you. I need to eat breakfast.”
He headed into his room, noticing that Garnet rolled over as he entered the bathroom. He locked the door and stripped off his clothes. Just thinking about Garnet in his bed was making him hard again.
He washed quickly, but had to jerk off so he didn’t embarrass himself. It only took a few strokes before he came. After he finished, he turned off the water and dried quickly. He hated that he had to jack off, but his skin felt too itchy to just ignore it.
After pulling on his clothes, he stepped from the bathroom and saw that the bed was empty. Then he heard laughter in the kitchen. At first, agitation slid through him, but he pushed it away. Stanley wasn’t flirting with Garnet. He was just talking to her.
He stepped out, and Garnet hopped up from the stool at the bar. She had on his sweatshirt, which made heat flash through him. No question, the woman was incredibly sexy, even if she wasn’t trying to be sexy.
“I’m going to shower, then I’ll be ready to go.”
He nodded. “Did you eat breakfast?”
“Yes. Stanley made me an egg. We ate two of your bagels that were in the freezer.”
“Good. We’ll be ready to head out when you’re done in the shower.”
She flashed him a smile, then turned to Stanley. “Thank you for making the egg. That hit the spot.”
Stanley waved his hand that was holding the spatula. “Anytime.”
The door to the bedroom closed, and he turned back to Stanley, who had a shit-eating grin on his face now that Garnet wasn’t in the room with them.
“Shut up.”
Stanley lifted both hands. “Hey, I didn’t say anything.”
“It’s not like that.”
Stanley moved to the counter closest to him and leaned in. “Only a dead man could sleep in bed with her and not feel something.”
Bean’s lips thinned, and he shook his head. “Really, it’s not like that. We only slept, so you’d better behave and not say anything to make her embarrassed.”
“Okay, if you say so. But I wouldn’t wait too long. That woman is special. Only an idiot would let her walk away without telling her how he felt.”
Bean rubbed his chin. He had to tell her eventually, but not yet. She didn’t need this pressure in addition to all the other crap she was dealing with.
Maybe once they figured out who was after her, he would mention his desire. It would be hard to sleep in the same bed with her night after night, but he would behave for her to be safe. It might drive him to insanity, but he could deal with the desire.
Chapter 20
When they arrived on base,Garnet was placed in a room where she could work while Bean and his team went off to talk to someone. There was a young ensign who was outside the door in the hall to escort her to the bathroom if she needed to go or arrange for her to get tea or coffee.
After she was alone, she opened her computer and connected to her hotspot, then the VPN that would help keep her location secret. She downloaded the files she needed and connected to the system that would help her see the vulnerability she needed to correct.
She could change the code, but it didn’t change the connection this system had with the next system, and the one after that. Eventually, one of the systems would lead her to the system that gave her access to the weapon that possibly could be used to destroy DC. It was very involved, much more so than any simple explanation she would use to tell anyone else the scope of the situation.
Every extra moment she had, she’d been thinking about how to fix this problem. Of course, the other problem was that someone had figured out the system could be jumped over andfinagled to bring about what they wanted. Who could have figured it out?
She closed the connection and pulled up a list of all the conventions she’d spoken at. It had only been three, and her talks had only drawn about seventy people in each one, but that was enough to worry her.
She had another convention coming up in a few weeks, and she figured she had to cancel her speaking engagement. It would be the wise thing to do.
She went back over her notes for the talks she’d given, but didn’t see anything in them that would lead someone to believe she could send a missile to DC. She hadn’t once disclosed the truth about the fault in the system. None of the information she spoke on had come close to the topic of hacking into systems and gaining access to weapons.
