Come Home Again (The Donovans) (12 page)

“Better than every fucking fantasy,” he whispered.

The jolt of electricity was instant and hit her molten center as she rotated her hips into his. Nate sucked her tongue into his mouth before slowly drawing back. With her eyes still closed, Delilah tried to follow his lips, but he held the back of her neck firmly. Eyes heavy with lust and longing, she dragged them open, the question ready on her lips.

He watched her with clear need and fire in his eyes, but his gaze held hers as if he needed to see the connection to convince himself it was real.

Still holding her gaze, he rolled her nipple with his thumb and forefinger, gently plucking.

“Oh, my God. Nate, I—”

“Damn. You are so fucking soft.”

She just needed him to do that one more time, and she'd be so close to—

His lips descended onto hers, and she gave a muffled cry of relief. The hazy fog of lust started to drown out the real world again and she sank into the feeling.

But then he drew back. This time drawing a slow circle around her exposed nipple. When he spoke, his voice was ragged. “I want to taste you here.” He rocked his erection against her center and added in a whisper, “I'm going to taste you here too. In fact, I'm going to spend the majority of my time here, exploring every inch of you with my tongue.”

Delilah drew in a shuddering breath.
Yes
. She wanted it all. Wanted to feel his mouth on her. “Nate, I—” But he interrupted her by kissing her softly instead of doing that delicious thing with his tongue again.

“Shit, I don’t think I can stop.” He groaned against her lips.

She arched her back. “Then don’t.” Her brain scrambled for purchase, but she couldn’t stop either. She
needed
him.

He dipped his head and drew her nipple into his mouth again, taking deep pulls. Heat snaked down her spine, making her skin tight and itchy, and her body bowed into his. She slid her hands into his hair and moaned as he sucked harder.

Nate released her and let out a low growl as he panted. “Jesus, Lila. I need to stop before I can’t.” As if to punctuate his comment, his body pressed into her.

She moved her head up and down.
Yes. Storage closet
. It didn't matter. As long as he kept touching her and rubbing that delicious spot where—wait a minute. She blinked rapidly and tried to make sense of what he was saying.

Instead of his skilled thumb teasing her nipple some more, he brushed the bodice of her dress back into place. His strong fingers kneaded the back of her neck, but in relaxing motions, not the fevered grip he'd had on her before. Gently, he slid his hands to her waist, picked her up again before setting her gently onto the ground.

Her brain barely registered any cohesive thoughts as it attempted to come online and failed. “What—I—”

He cleared his throat loudly. “You pack a hell of a punch, Delilah.” He then took a very deliberate step backward.

Delilah fought to clear her clouded brain. When clarity slowly dawned, so did the reality of where she was. “I-I have to go.”

Nate narrowed his gaze and studied her closely. “I’ll take you down to your car, then I’m going to come back and see my date home. After that—”

She shook her head. “Nate, it’s been a really long night. I need to crash and get my head straight.”

He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Eventually, we’re going to have to talk about what’s going on.”

She squared her shoulders. “I know, but right now, I don't feel like talking. Not about this.
This
—” she gestured between the two of them “—is dangerous.”

He opened the door for her, and she slid out. Slipping off her shoes, she padded down the stairs, not daring to look back to see if he followed.

O
f all the things Delilah needed the next morning, getting chewed out by her boss wasn’t one of them. Coffee she needed. Chocolate she would kill for. A night of Nate-free dreams she would have given her first born for. An ass handing, however, she could pass on.

She knew what he was mad about. Celeb Juicy had gotten a picture of her, Nate, and Michael in a tense moment at the Gala. The photo was of her with her hands on Nate’s arm before he could beat Michael to a pulp. But given she’d had a smile plastered on her face to keep up appearances, the blog site captioned it to make it sound like she was at the center of some love triangle. She vibrated with anger. The moment she’d seen it, she’d come straight to his office. Better to take her lumps early.

“Do you want to explain yourself?”

“Look if you’re talking about the story in Celeb Juicy, I—”

He arched a brow and crossed his arms. “You think this is about Celeb Juicy?”

She swallowed hard. “That story they posted about me with Michael Ross is bullshit.”

He cracked his neck. “Maybe you should start with the instructions I gave you last night. All you had to do was stick with Michael. Instead, I have him barking at me that he needed more of your time, and next thing I know, you’ve vanished.”

Oh
.
That’s
what he was angry about. She licked her lips. “He’s a problem, Jake.” She hated dragging her boss into this, but Michael was out of control.

His brows snapped down. “What the fuck do you mean?”

“His attention is becoming more than just a nuisance.”

“Spit it out, Delilah, I don’t have all fucking morning.”

Okay, well, he was asking for it. “He’s lewd and unstable. At the Gala, Michael grabbed me, and when Nate stepped in on my behalf, it almost turned into a fight. When he’s sober, he’s manageable. It’s mostly innuendo, and I can divert his attention, but when he’s been drinking, he’s out of control. He nearly gave me bruises, he grabbed me so hard.”

Jake paled. He sat silently for several moments then scrubbed his hand in front of his face. “Fuck, Delilah, why didn’t you tell me before?”

“He’s never put his hands on me before.”

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, okay, give me a second to think.”

What she wanted him to say was, “I’ll switch him to another associate,” or even better, “I’ll drop him as a client.” But she knew Jake well enough by now to know he wouldn’t. Besides, Michael’s production company had poured money into the firm two years ago. There was no dropping him. By Jake’s deep frown, it didn’t look like he was going to reassign the grabby idiot either. And not like she could really issue an ultimatum—Michael or her. She didn’t have the funds to pay them back for graduate school. Rock, meet very cold, dank, hard place.

“Okay look, I can’t drop him. And we’re stretched a bit thin. Both he and Nate have personally requested you, and they are both important clients, so I can’t reassign you.”

Shocker. “Got any ideas of what I’m supposed to do if he tries to put his hands on me again, because my preference is to taze him. Or maybe I need to talk to legal about personal safety.”

Jake put up his hands and shook his head. “Easy, Dee. I’m not suggesting you put yourself in harm’s way, okay? I know he’s an ass, but I wouldn’t say he’s dangerous. But your safety is my biggest concern. Right now, I’m going to assign you someone to accompany you to any meetings you have with him.”

She narrowed her eyes. That was his grand plan? To have Willow accompany her everywhere? “That’s the best you can do? I mean Willow is great, and if I’m being honest, she scares me a little, but honestly, Michael won’t be fazed.”

“No. Of course not. Like security. Like a big hulking, Samoan, Dwayne Johnson type fucker. I’m taking you seriously, Dee. It’s just a delicate situation. Can you work with me on this?”

“I don’t want a permanent bodyguard.”

“And you won’t have one. Every time you have a meeting with Michael, we’ll call him in.”

“And if anything unexpected comes up?”

“Then Michael Ross will have to wait.”

Delilah studied him, trying to discern any hint of dishonesty. She could go to legal and file a harassment complaint, but the only outcome involved her paying back a lump sum she couldn’t afford. “That’s a good temporary solution, but Jake, anything else happens, and you need to pull me off this case. Or I swear to God, I’ll walk.”

“Deal.” He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “And while we’re on the subject of pain in the ass clients, how do we control Nate Williams?”

She swallowed. “What are you talking about?” She prayed he hadn't seen the article. And hadn’t he been on Nate patrol last night?

“Did he, or did he not, have some words with Ross last night?”

Delilah breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, but I dealt with it.”

“What was it about?”

Damn
. “They just didn’t seem to hit it off. But I diffused the situation.”

He nodded. “Good. I saw that bullshit photo on Celeb Juicy. I don’t want that to become a problem. I would have killed for Lachlan Murphy as the replacement CEO. Not this guy. His edges are too sharp for my liking.”

She knew what he meant. “I’ll deal with him.”

“Good. You have a meeting with Michael today, right?”

She bit back a groan. “Yeah, at three thirty.”

“I’ll replace your usual driver with someone who specializes in security.”

It wasn’t the best outcome, but it was one she could live with for now. “Okay. Thanks.”

“It’s just another two months until the release of his movie. You can do anything for two months.”

She had serious doubts about that.

D
o not call Delilah.

Nate tried to force his eyeballs to focus on the screen in front of him. He really did. Problem was, every time he tried to focus over the last day, his mind wandered to Delilah in that storage closet.

“Williams, we got problems.”

Didn’t Nate know it? Instead of sleeping last night, he’d spent hours trying to forget Delilah. Given his lack of sleep, he couldn’t concentrate on the work in front of him. He was supposed to provide a comprehensive financial projection for some investors later, and he had to know his shit to pull this off.

He looked up from the stack of financials to find Taraby in his doorway. “What's up? I'm kind of tied up here.”

“Well, I thought as our CEO, you'd want to know there is a pretty nasty set of hackers bombarding our firewalls right now.”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

Taraby rolled his eyes. “Pretty sure I just said hackers and firewall.”

Nate’s body went stiff. He shoved aside the financials and turned on his laptop.

“You know you won’t be able to see or stop what's going on from here,” Taraby said. “Besides we have a team of developers down in engineering doing their best to thwart the attack.”

Nate didn't listen as he got to work accessing the servers. As calmly as he could, he asked, “And do you know how these hackers have managed to get to this point? I thought your security protocols were state of the art. At least that's what you led me to believe.”

Taraby shifted from foot to foot as he jammed his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “We traced a worm that was sent directly to someone in the marketing department. An assistant who checked her personal email.”

Nate frowned. “Was it intentional?”

Taraby shrugged. “Not sure yet. I came to find you first.”

Okay, maybe that had been the better call. “Get your laptop and come back in here. I need some help. One of us has to stop the malware that's weakening the system from the inside, and someone else has to stop the external attack.”

“Like I said, this is just a FYI. I have my whole team dedicated to stopping the worm and the attack.”

“I heard what you said.” He kept the ‘Douche Bag’ implied for the sake of professionalism. “But I'm also of the belief that in situations like this, all hands on deck. Or is the safety of our customer information not particularly important to you? I'm not trying to be like Sony or Citibank or, hell, even the CIA. I have no intention of having to make some big mea culpa to our customers after only being in the position for a few days. So if you want to keep your job, go get your laptop and join me up here.”

Taraby frowned, and his eyes shifted to the door.

Nate glared at him.
Yeah I get it, asshole, you don’t want to have to show me that you're completely useless, but you started this.
“Is there a problem?”

“Uh, no. No problem.”

As soon as Steven was gone, Nate concentrated on the code he was looking at. With a smirk, he started building his own line of defense that would keep the hacker or hackers busy for some time. He liked to call it the Great Wall of Nate. It wasn't the first time he'd had to build something like this.

Most hackers were merely testing their skills. Most of the time when they attacked a private site or business, they were just curious if they could.

When Taraby returned, he looked displeased but plugged himself in across the room.

Nate waved him to his desk. “No, Steve, why don’t you join me? Since you built the system, I'd love to see the kind of code you put out.”

The other man's eyes widened, and the muscle in his jaw ticked. “Oh, I don't code anymore. I'm here to observe my team as they fight what this is. If you want, I’ll just keep you posted.”

Nate had to stop himself from laughing. “So all that posturing and telling me that this should be your job, and you can't even code anymore?” When the other man remained silent, he nodded and continued. “That's fine. Unlike you, I actually do still code. And I've already started on a wall of defense that will attack any system that tried to get too close. Just have your guys focus on the work and cleaning it up. Then we figure out how something like this could have happened on your watch.” Although, Nate already had a good idea.

“Y-y-yeah. Fine.”

Nate dismissed him with a look then went back to work. He missed this. Pitting his brain against others, testing his skill to see if he still had it. He loved programming games, but he preferred hacking. Too bad that in all instances but this, who he had been and who he was could never co-exist.

After several hours of shoring up the company’s firewalls, a knock at his door had him tensing. He really didn't need any more bad news today. “What?”