Justice (Bad Boys of X-Ops Book 2) (9 page)

And those fucking freckles glistened with her sweat—on her nose and across her shoulders and down to her constricted cleavage.

She moved to a machine stationed directly in front of me, sat her sweet ass down with her back facing me, grabbed the handles, and began lat pull downs.

The slow exercise emphasized the dip of her waist, the swell of her hips, the slim muscles of her arms and shoulders, and all the fucking way down her sinuous back.

Mesmerized by her sexy form, I licked my lips. “Hope you stretched first.”

“Are you my personal trainer or something?” Tilly glanced at me with a scathing glare.

Shut down.

Double goddamn.

I considered pulling some bodybuilder poses to gain her attention, but going all Mr. Universe wasn’t my style. Instead, I sat on an incline bench with my back to her, in
her
direct line of vision. My muscles rippled, flexed, relaxed with each upward crunch of my stomach.

She swallowed loudly then muttered quietly, “
Damn
.”

That’s right, babe.

The legs of my loose shorts came to rest on my upper thighs. Each rep carved out my traps, lats, and abs.

Behind me, I heard a muffled thud.

Oops.

Sounded like Tilly dropped something.

I grinned.

Standing, I stretched from toes to top, twisting my slick torso and glancing down to make sure my cock hadn’t ripped a hole through my shorts yet. I ambled over to the bench press—my gaze trained straight ahead—calibrated the weights, and lay down with my upper body on the business end of some serious punishment.

Tilly appeared behind me when I reached up. Stilling, I squinted at her upside-down through the sweat in my eyes.

“Spot you?” Her hands curled over mine on the bar.

Gettin’ Sweaty

WITH TILLY SO CLOSE, I didn’t trust myself to talk. A simple
sure
would probably come out as a
fuck yes
grunt. I nodded instead.

She was no newbie to bench-pressing. She hovered close but not too close. She didn’t distract me with talk or any sudden movements. She stood there as a safety precaution only, but I figured she was getting a good long look at my long hard body.

Couldn’t say I minded because I was doing the same damn thing. At this angle her thighs were so close I could lick them, and the view above . . .
damn
. . . her tits proudly jutted up and out from her chest.

I didn’t even feel the burn. At least not from the weight lifting.

The fire in my veins came from Tilly’s firm flesh so close by me.

I expelled a curse with one last heave-ho and placed the barbell on the stand. Sliding beside me, Tilly gave me a hand up. My fingers swallowed hers, and once topside I didn’t let her go.

Steam practically rose from our bodies. One more step and I’d be pressed against her. I inhaled her fragrance, looking down at her. This close up her eyelashes were an amazing gold-red hue at the base and thick and black and feathery where they brushed her eyebrows.

I cupped my other hand around hers, sandwiching her palm, tangling our fingers together. Beneath the flush born of physical exertion, a new blush spread across her face.

She glowed, a saucy grin lifting one corner of her mouth. “You usually hold hands with girls, Justice?”

“No.” I didn’t step back or release her.

Her fingertips tickled my palm. “So?”

Leaning back from my waist, I perused her head to toe. “What can I say? You have nice hands.”

“
Mmm.
” She tilted her head and gave me her own appraisal. “So do you.”

We stood there, smiling at one another, holding hands between us. That simple touch became more powerful than any kiss I’d ever had, any fuck or orgasm or blowjob. Thrills and chills shot all up and down my body, and I was gonna have a hard time hiding my hard-on if I didn’t break contact soon.

Extending a finger, I brushed the pad against her wrist where her pulse hummed. Her eyes drifted closed, and her smile relaxed into a soft parting of lips with the tip of her tongue curling into the corner.

I either had to make a move or cut her loose.

I knew this woman was not a fuck-and-run option. Not by a long shot. Not the way she got under my skin and inside my head in so short a time.

I couldn’t just take her to bed and write her off at the end of this mission.

And that was what I’d have to do.

She deserved better. Much, much better.

Gently, I pulled my hands away, stroking her palm one last time.

Her eyes fluttered open. This time there was no anger, just . . . solemn understanding.

“Friends?” I wondered if she could see how hard it was for me to smile easily at her, how almost impossible it was to make my voice work.

I held out my hand, for a shake, nothing more.

“Friends.” Tilly gave my hand a hearty shake before relinquishing it. “I might even make that batch of biscuits for you once we get out of here.”

An undeniable kick hit me in the chest at the thought she might want to see me again . . . no matter how impossible it would be and not gonna happen.

I couldn’t help myself from reaching for a tendril of her hair, kinked up into a tight curl from the heat and moisture. “I’d much rather see your photographs.”

In feigned relief, she swept the back of her hand across her forehead. “
Shew.
That’s good. I’m not much of a baker anyway.”

“I noticed.”

We laughed together, caught in that spell again, the attraction always present between us.

My thumbs tucked once more into my waistband, I shook my head at the floor, grinning. I backed away a few steps before turning around to retrieve my shirt.

“Justice?”

“Yeah?” I craned my head around to find Tilly lingering behind me.

I waited, watching her saunter closer. Her gaze locked on my back, and I tightened my muscles in anticipation moments before her fingertips danced from my shoulder to the base of my spine.

“This tattoo . . . it’s magnificent.” Her voice whispered across my skin like her fingers ghosting up and down over the full back piece.

I gulped hard.

Her hand curled around the thick bands of muscles covering my ribs, and I nearly choked.

I leaned one forearm on the wall, peering over my shoulder at her.

“What does it all mean?” she asked.

My back was covered in ink. Across my shoulders, an arc of Marine Corps helmets marked my skin. For Peterson. Danvers. Crockett. Hill Billy. All the rest, and lastly, Texas.

I’d added to the symmetrical piece. Year by year. Loss by loss. Wound by wound. Until designs in every color of the spectrum decorated my skin in memories I wrapped around myself like blankets, memories,
wishes
that couldn’t keep out the cold.

Tilly’s fingers dipped along my spine, and I knew she was tracing the words. Words marked on my skin in large bold color like graffiti tags:

Semper Fi

Live or Die

Honor, Strength, Courage

“It means I’m not a good guy.” My voice husked out.

“I beg to differ.” She ranged closer until she was right up against me.

The lush curves. The sweet heat of her. Her lips—warm and moist and wet—snuck onto my back.

A groan formed low in my chest, a rumble that shook through me.

Tension warped between us—sexual and heated.

Nope, the workout didn’t wind me, but Tilly sure as hell made my legs wobbly all of a sudden.

“I scare you. Don’t I?” Her lips moved to my shoulder.

“Yes.” I clenched my hands at my sides.

“You’ve been hurt.”

I inhaled deeply, nodding slowly, grinding my teeth. Unwilling to break free from her.

Goose bumps followed the scattered sensation of her fingers and mouth touching me. Thick desire rocketed to my cock, heavy with blood and ready to come. The bastard thing plumped up and thumped hard against the material of my shorts.

Fuck me. I was so ready my cock was tight, hot, and ripe to burst.

Tilly’s fingers halted between my third and fourth ribs on my right side before walking along the jagged inked-over scar as if she was reading braille, reading the history I wore on my wounded flesh.

“
Oh
, Justice!” Her lips pressed against my neck. “What was it? What hurt you?”

I wondered briefly if she meant only the scars on my skin or the ones I carried in my soul, too. “IED. That was a really bad night.”

She slid fully behind me, running and rubbing her hands up and down my entire back, now easily finding each wound I’d disguised.

Each caress healed me in a way surgery, stitches, skin grafts never could.

Folding her hands around my middle, she kissed the center of my back.

I stiffened all over, growling, “Tilly.”

She jumped back as if singed. “I’m sorry!”

I rolled around to face her, my shoulders and heels firmly planted against the wall. “Don’t be. When you touch me like that, I want . . .” I scanned her slowly—the hot cheeks, the disastrous hair, the bright green eyes swathed by eyelashes I’d been close enough to feel like moths’ wings. “I want you.”

“You said—”

“Friends. Yeah.” I laughed roughly. “I know what I said. And that’s the way it has to be. I’m dangerous for you.”

“
I’m
not scared.”

“You should be.” My nostrils flared and my fists clenched.

Then a bead of sweat formed on her temple.

My sharp eyes snapped to it.

The shimmering drop trailed from her temple to her delicate jaw to her long neck before meandering toward the valley between her breasts.

I ranged forward, tempted beyond sanity.

I lazily followed the trail with a single fingertip, delving into her slightly damp, very warm cleavage.

Tilly shivered, cheeks pinked, eyes hooded.

Removing my finger from her firm tits, I stared into her stunned eyes. No power on earth could stop me from tasting her. Just that one little bit. I licked the wet saltiness slowly from my fingertip, leaning toward the luscious invitation of her lips.

One final shred of common sense stopped me at the last moment.

“FUCK!” I barked, backpedaling like my ass was on fire.

I spun on my heels and stalked out of the room.

Master Hacker

1400 THE NEXT DAY, the chanting from outside gained volume.

The six of us met up in the kitchen where the wall still bore the mark of the friggin’ wet biscuit dough. I couldn’t get goddamn biscuits—AKA Tilly—out of my head.

“If I have to listen to this shit for many more days I’m gonna go ballistic.” Walker stabbed a knife into the tabletop.

“You’re defacing US government property.” Lawless stroked the whiskers on his chin.

“I’m gonna deface a whole lot more than a fucking table—pardon my language, miss”—he looked at Tilly who lounged against the counter—“when I get my hands on those wastes of oxygen out there.”

“I think I can handle a few curse words, Walker.” Tilly sighed. “It’s better than what they’re saying, anyway.”

“You speak the language?” Walker dislodged his KA-BAR and sheathed it.

“I’m more than a pretty face.”

With a chuckle, Storm said, “Yeah, that’s
pretty boy
over there.”

Asshole pointed at me.

I cleared my throat, scooting a chair up to the table. “It’s getting louder.”

“Not much we can do about it.” Bane’s heavy frown was elemental to him.

“We could take a look,” I said.

“A look? How?” Tilly approached me, sitting down right next to me.

“Yeah. I could see if any of the security cameras on the perimeter are still online.”

Fucking cakewalk.

Lawless pushed his hands onto the table. “The security room no longer exists.”

“Don’t need the security room.” I strolled out to retrieve my prized possession. Returning to the galley, I pulled out the mini laptop I used on missions. “I’ve got this.”

“A computer?” Doubt filled Tilly’s voice.

Walker came to my aid. “Justice here is a genius.”

Thank you very fucking much.

“He says.” Storm cut through my gloating moment.

I flipped open the computer I’d rigged with more personally coded programs than my tablet. I popped my knuckles, bent my fingers to the keys, then looked around at everyone watching me.

“Give me some space?” All hackers had their rituals. Their twitches. Their hang-ups.

Me? I needed room to think. I worked alone. I couldn’t stand someone breathing down my neck.

If that made me a paranoid motherfucker when it came to cyber ops, so be it.

Everyone backed off, and I went to work.

My fingers flew across the keys as black screen after black screen popped up on the monitor. White letters and digits and random-looking symbols fed from my brain into my fingertips and onto the screen, taking me deeper and deeper into an encoded maze that branched out in infinite directions.

I’d already investigated the embassy and the residence’s systems to test my theory about how we could escape. This time I focused on the vital organs of the binary structure.

Bringing the intel to life on my monitor was like bringing a person back from the dead. A code here. A stitch there. A plug-in. Then the nirvana of a heart beating, an impenetrable citadel spread out and open and all for the taking.

Infiltrating a
secure
system was a high. Sometimes I binged on piggybacking into datacores, funneling through wormholes just for the fun of it before deleting all traces of my presence when I backtracked the fuck out.

Sometimes
I timed myself. Like now.

Forty seconds later, and we were operational with three viewpoints from cameras scanning the grounds outside the building.

I spun the computer around and sat back in my chair. “The fourth camera was shattered, otherwise we’d be seeing its feed too.”

“
Holy shit
.” Storm looked impressed.

“Genius. Told you.” Walker smirked.

“So he’s really
not
just a pretty boy,” Bane added his shitty two-cents.

I flipped double middle fingers in their directions, but I felt pretty damn pleased with myself.

Lawless narrowed his eyes at the monitor in front of him. “So you could spy on other places.
Any
other place you chose to?”

“
Um.
I guess so. But that would be a serious breach of privacy.”

“And we never do that, sir.” Walker rolled his eyes.

They studied the visuals, live and on-screen. I rounded the table to join them, found myself standing way too close to Tilly, and moved
waaaaay
to the other side of the group before her scent had the chance to hit me way down hard.

The chanting we heard was echoed on the computer. It was louder for one reason only. The embassy compound was completely overrun.

Bonfires.

Tanks.

Militants.

And they were crawling all the fuck over our building. What remained of it. Which wasn’t very much aside from our enclave.

“They’re swarming.” Storm swallowed beside me.

“Must be a hundred or more out there.” Bane did the math.

“A full-fledged army.” Walker blew out a long low curse.

“I am not liking the tanks.” I pressed a button and zoomed in on an armored vehicle heavily loaded with machine gun turrets.

We all swore then.

Zooming out, I rotated one of the cameras. The field of vision filled with trumped up Houthi troops dosing on imminent victory. Burning American flags. Hanging effigies of Lawless. Shouting louder and louder.

A hoard. A hundred’s strong hoard with one bloodthirsty goal.

“Looks like a scene from
The Walking Dead
,
” Walker, of all the fucking people, said.

“I liked The Governor,” Bane mentioned. “He was twisted.”

“Twisted one-eyed fuckwit. Hershel, he was my man.” Storm screwed his eyes up. “Can’t believe they killed him off.”

“Shane was cool,” I joined in.

“Zombie cool.” Storm nodded. “When he turned. Epic moment. Until Rick killed him.”

“Thank fuck they haven’t done away with Glen.”

“Or Daryl.”

“Too bad those zealots outside aren’t zombies.”

“You’d rather face a post-apocalyptic living dead takeover than that bunch of rebels outside?”

“
Loser.
”

“I was rather fond of Merle.” Lawless leaned against the table.

I peered at the ambassador. Merle was straight-up cracker crazy.

“What happened to Beth just about broke my heart.” Tilly’s voice lilted.

“Beth was done wrong.”

Everyone agreed.

“We could call Storm Merle,” Bane added.

“Just ’cause I’m country don’t mean I’m a redneck.” Storm came back at him.

“And just because I was a street kid doesn’t mean I’m a thug.”

Clearly cabin fever was beginning to take a toll on all of us.

Fuck’s sake.

I slapped the laptop closed. “Thoughts about the real problem at hand, or are you all hoping to show up on
The Talking Dead
in your afterlife?”

“What crawled up your ass?” Storm kicked out a chair and settled his two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle in the seat.

“What looks like a hundred or so terrorists milling around outside with superior firepower.”

“I still have my C-4.” Walker’s eyes—dark brown and deep hard—narrowed at me.

“Great. Blow them all up.” I stretched, working the kinks from my neck and shoulders.

Tilly watched me.

Lawless watched her.

I stared at the fucking blank wall. No. Not blank.
Goddamn biscuit dough stain
.

This mission was on my shoulders, and the escalating stress wasn’t simply about getting us all out alive.

It was about Tilly, and what I wanted to do to her.

How much I wanted her.

One moment of weakness—personal or professional—could find us all dead.

“Can’t you just redirect that orbiting satellite weapons system?” Bane asked like it was no big deal pony-trekking the US military force’s space-based defenses.

“The SASSA? Sure. Could do.” Not quite a cakewalk, but not impossible. Not for me. “I don’t think that’d be real subtle though. Destroy this whole city. Sayonara Sana’a.”

“Screw subtlety. Nothin’ about this op has been quiet so far.” Storm spun his chair around.

“Frag you,” Bane uttered.

“Yeah. You already tried to do that once, didn’t you,
pahdnah
? And failed.” Raking his fingers through his hair, Storm’s scowl darkened.

“Shut it the fuck up. Both of you.” I pointed at the two men constantly stabbing each other in the back. “We stick to the plan. It’s solid. They’ll think they’re taking us by surprise.”

The chanting and insults reverbed in the background. I doubted anyone would sleep tonight.

Tilly disengaged from her dad’s side, stationing herself across the room. “So they’re closing in on us.”

I wanted to stride to her. Take her in my arms.

I wanted to fucking reassure her and tell her there was no way in
hell
I’d let her get hurt.

I couldn’t.

I was probably the man who was going to cause her pain—one way or the other.

“Yeah. They are,” I confirmed.

“And we wait?” Her fern-green gaze locked on mine.

“We wait.” My voice rolled out, rumbling chest-deep.

She knew what I was talking about. Not the mission. Not the Houthis. Not the threat.

Her and me.

She looked at me like she had sex on her mind.

I masked my features, pretending I wasn’t thinking the same damn thing.

Lawless was not stupid. He’d catch the first hint of the hunt. My sexual hunt for his daughter.

Clamping down on my jaw—and my need, my
want
—I stood.

Anger.

Fear.

Tenderness.

Temptation.

Avoidance issues. I had those aplenty.

I stalked out of the room.

Apparently that was my new MO.