“She did it,” Sully said, and Jace breathed a sigh of profound relief. It had taken a huge leap of faith to let Lindsey take this on, but he’d wanted to see her work her magic, and she’d come through. The security feed was on Sully’s screen. “Now we’ll see who comes and goes through this bitch. And maybe you can exploit the connection and get into their servers.”
He’d already planned on doing that. “On it,” he said. “Thanks, Sull.”
Jace left her apartment and crossed over to his own, where Lindsey waited nervously at his kitchen table, chewing her nails. “It worked,” he told her, delighting in the huge, relieved smile that spread across her face.
“Thank God. After that hiccup during the install, I was worried.”
“I’m sure it was nothing. Sully will watch the feeds and go through old footage. She’ll make notes of everyone who comes in and show them to us. I’ll snoop around their servers and see if I can find out how N-Tech fits into this.”
She nodded. “Any theories on that yet?”
“Not especially. There must be at least some connection, since you saw Griffin there.”
“Have you tracked his phone lately?”
“No,” he said. “It didn’t move for so long, I haven’t bothered.”
“Maybe you should try again.”
“I can do that. Are you hungry? Thirsty? I know it’s late.”
“I could do with a gigantic glass of wine right now. One of those entire bottles with a top shaped like a glass? I need that.”
He laughed. “Better not. The last thing you need is a hangover. Who knows when we’ll have a big day ahead, depending on what we find.”
“True. Darn.”
“But one glass won’t hurt, Lindsey.”
“Even truer.”
“I’m not much of a wine drinker. So I’ll go out and get that, and you stay here and relax. What do you like?”
“Shiraz,” she said. “Cheap is fine.”
“Great. We’ll toast your success.” He expected her to beam at him, or blush, as she often did when he complimented her. Instead, she gave him a wan smile and looked down at her hands in her lap. He frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Sure. I’m fine.”
She must be tired. He assured himself of it as he went out in the cold, snowy December night. He didn’t mind the cold so much. It was the assault of Christmas lights and music that made him grit his teeth and wish Christmas would fucking get here and gone already.
He hated this holiday, something he didn’t admit very often, even to himself. He didn’t have many memories of his home life before getting kicked into the foster care system, but he did remember holidays being an excuse for his dad to get shitfaced. Afterward, when school resumed after New Year’s, all the kids showed up in their new clothes with glowing tales of all the toys they’d gotten from Santa, and Jace had often wondered what he’d done that was so bad, because Santa never came to his house. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that Santa was a crock of shit. He’d even told a few of the kids that, making fun of them for believing in fairy tales, starting fights, adopting his dad’s bullying ways.
A few of the foster homes had provided nice Christmases. Ill-fitting clothes he never would have chosen for himself, toys that he was too old for. It was one fateful Christmas morning, however, that he unwrapped his very first computer. Nothing fancy—cheap, not very powerful, but it had provided him a lifeline. And now that he was an adult, he knew he could make the holiday season what he wanted, make it his own…but he preferred to ignore it altogether. Seemed safer that way.
But the lights and carols and decorations persisted nevertheless.
So did Lindsey’s melancholy mood when he returned with her bottle of Shiraz—one that was a little more expensive than she had suggested was acceptable. She deserved it.
Since he wasn’t a wine drinker, he had no glasses, so they had to make do with tumblers. Unfortunate, because he would love to see her hand wrapped delicately around a fragile wineglass…and maybe even imagine that hand wrapped somewhere else.
That kiss in the backseat had been fucking with his head ever since it happened. For a moment, he’d forgotten he was pretending. Fuck it—he hadn’t been pretending. The second his mouth had touched hers, it had been real. It had been like drinking fire. And when the guard had rapped on their window, it had taken everything within him to pull away from her.
What did that mean?
It didn’t matter, because it couldn’t mean anything. Lust, chemistry, sure… He wanted to sleep with her, but he’d be out of his mind not to want that. Beyond sex, though, there could be nothing for them. Too much was at stake, and involvements made him vulnerable.
“What should we drink to?” he asked her, setting down the bottle and picking up his glass.
“Success,” she suggested.
“A job well done.” He clinked his glass with hers.
The wine was deeply, seductively purple, and he got a very particular thrill watching it ease toward Lindsey’s pink lips as she took her first sip. He’d been at those lips himself only a few hours ago, and as she drank, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Once she lowered her glass, she made a throaty sound of pleasure that he figured gave him a good indication of how she sounded when she came.
He’d like to hear that sound in his ear.
“God, that’s good.”
He’d like to hear her say that in his ear, too.
“Glad you like it.”
“You chose well.” Then, to his surprise, she quaffed the entire glass.
“I see you did need that.”
“Yeah. I needed some liquid courage.”
“Courage?”
“To say what I want to say next.”
Oh shit. He wasn’t sure he was going to like this, but he gave a chuckle to try to hide that fact. “Do I need to sit down?”
Lindsey’s green eyes, always a little shy but assessing, met him with a directness he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen there before. Until tonight.
“I need you to stop using me.”