Hard and Fast (20 page)

“Hold on,” he instructed as he grabbed the condom and slipped it on between their bodies.

Alex barely had time to think before Lucas gripped her hips and pressed forward, inch by inch until his hard, thick length was sheathed in her body to the hilt. He filled her fully, so completely, she felt merged with his flesh. They were both panting with acute arousal and anticipation for what was to come. But Lucas remained still for several seconds, his eyes closed and jaw clenched hard. Alex watched the sexy, masculine contours of his face, knowing she had never seen a man so perfectly beautiful.

As though aware of her stare, he opened his eyes to look back at her. They shone with deep fervor and something else she could not identify but really wanted to understand. Did it echo this feeling that was budding in her stomach? As though he was now closer to her than anyone could be, and ever was? That he might take a vital and irreplaceable piece of her with him when this was over?

“Hi,” Alex whispered, feeling the need to fight the emotional lump in her throat, reminding them both that this thing between them was supposed to be fun, casual, and convenient.

Lucas gave her a strained smile before leaning forward to touch his forehead against hers. He gripped her hips, squeezing her soft flesh to create subtle friction. She felt his arousal thicken and lengthen within her, and her body pulsed in response.

“Jesus, Alex,” he growled deeply, his lips so close that his warm, moist breath brushed her skin. “I want—”

He swore deep with frustration, then stroked hard into her, pinning her against the wall. Every nerve ending in her body tingled in response. Her body wanted and needed more of the same. He was now entering with powerful thrusts, touching her so deep that Alex moaned over and over with approval. His lips brushed her face in feathery soft breaths while his harsh breathing echoed around them.

“Lucas,” she panted, loving every minute.

“Yeah,” he gasped, increasing his speed and intensity until she could only hold on for the ride, craving whatever the journey would bring her.

Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her waist to hold her still and carried her across the room. Within seconds, she was flat on her back and Lucas barely broke his pace. His driving rhythm had them both breathing hard and damp with sweat. The new position added more stimulation to her sensitive bud, and Alex was quickly climbing to ecstasy again.

“Alex . . . Alex . . .” chanted Lucas as his thrusts became wild and untamed.

She wrapped her legs tighter around him knowing they were at the edge together. Then another incredible orgasm swept through her body and mind.

CHAPTER 20

There was a long, still silence as their breathing calmed. Eventually, Lucas turned, taking Alex along so they were both lying on their sides facing each other. With his eyes closed, he stroked his hands along the length of her back, savoring the silky texture of her skin as their bodies cooled. He would be content to stay like this for as long as possible, even all night. But that wasn’t possible.

When Lucas finally got up, it was too soon. Alex sat up on the bed also, sweeping her tangled mass of hair away from her face. He strode into the bathroom, feeling the warmth of her gaze against his back before closing the door. Lucas quickly cleaned up and washed his hands while his thoughts remained fixed on the woman he’d left naked on the bed.

How the hell had that happened? He had only sought her out to provide an update on the case. Yet, the moment she entered the room, smelling sweet and clearly naked under the thin loose T-shirt, Lucas was rock hard.

With his hands spread, he leaned on the counter of the sink to look closely at himself in the mirror. There were two things very clear to him at that moment. He wanted Alexandria Cotts with a hunger and ferocity that was now impossible to ignore, and her protection remained his single most important priority. Now, he just had to figure out how to ensure both those two things weren’t mutually exclusive.

When he returned to the bedroom, Alex was dressed in her T-shirt again, and sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed. She had also picked up his clothes off the floor and draped them over the footboard.

“I need to talk to you about something,” he stated as he pulled on his underwear.

“I thought we already talked about it,” she replied, watching him openly. “Though I guess we really didn’t finish the conversation, did we?”

“That’s not what I came here to talk about,” Lucas explained, zipping up his black cargo pants. “I have an update on Cesar Hernandez.”

“Oh,” Alex stated, clearly taken aback. “Okay.”

“We have a lead on who tried to sell him the battery design that Adam North had developed for you,” he told her.

“It wasn’t Adam, right?” she insisted. “He would never do something like that. I know it.”

“No, it wasn’t North. It was his wife, Susie.”

“Are you serious? Why?”

“That we don’t know yet, but we should have more information soon,” he assured her.

Alex covered her eyes and let out a deep breath.

“I should call Adam,” she finally muttered. “Does he know yet? He must be freaking out.”

“Sorry, Alex, you can’t say anything to him until we know all the details. Including what he knew about his wife’s activities, and when,” he instructed.

She looked back at him with her shoulders low, but finally nodded with understanding.

They looked toward each other for a few moments, until it became awkward. Lucas dug his hands into his pockets.

“Alex, about earlier,” he started, knowing he could not just walk away without saying something to explain his unplanned behavior.

But she shook her head, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed to stand up across from him.

“Maybe we should just forget about it for now,” she then stated.

She seemed confused and uncertain, and Lucas found himself frustrated at the knowledge that he had caused it. He stepped toward her, ignoring her stiff spine and raised chin.

“I’m not sure I can,” he whispered before leaning down to kiss her softly. “Good night, Alex.”

Then Lucas walked away while he still could.

Over the next week, they fell into a predictable routine. Alex still spent all day in the shed working, only taking breaks to eat. But each afternoon, shortly after lunch, they met out back by the steps down to the dock and took a walk into town for a coffee. Each night, when she returned to the house, Lucas watched her head off to her room and resisted the driving need to join her.

During that time, he and Fortis made great progress to reveal the full network involved in the Magnus assignment. The follow Friday morning, Lucas called Marco Passante to provide a report on the assignment and Lucas’s recommendations for next steps.

“Once the Optimal driver confirmed that Susie North was the woman who had approached him to sell her husband’s new rechargeable battery technology, everything else fell into place. While North was building the battery for you and Alex, his wife was trying to sell it for more money through the racing club that North belonged to in Chicago.”

“I have my lawyers reviewing the situation right now with North and his wife,” Marco stated. “He thinks there is a good chance we can sue for damages.”

“Well, the feds haven’t charged her with anything yet. It will depend on what North provides in his official statement about what he shared with his wife about the technology. So far, he’s not provided them with that information.”

“So what about Cesar Hernandez?” Marco asked.

“Hernandez admitted that he wasn’t interested in just a new battery, he wanted the whole new hybrid design that Magnus was rumored to have in the works, and hired a firm called Crow to steal it back in January,” Lucas explained. “He claims they had three months to deliver and we know that Crow planted Timothy Pratt at the University of Illinois in Chicago to get into North’s computer in order to hack into the Magnus network through his access rights. When Crow realized that Adam’s access was limited to uploading encrypted files on the Magnus file-sharing server, they had to wait until he delivered the final battery design, to which Pratt ensured that a Trojan horse was loaded along with it. Once we shut down the intrusion, Crow could not deliver the Cicada designs to Hernandez. Hernandez then cancelled the gig with them and hired Frank Nunez to have it destroyed.

“We know most of that is true based on the statements from Nunez and the Petrov brothers. So, he’s now charged with a list of offenses, the least of which is the destruction of property, and conspiracies to commit theft of trade secrets and copyright infringement.”

“Jesus, what a greedy prick!” Marco swore.

“Even if he manages to escape jail time, he’s ruined financially. His partners in the venture capital firm, Red Stream, have already filed several lawsuits based on other shady deals they’ve now discovered,” added Lucas.

“That’s something, I guess. So, where does that leave us with Alex?” Marco continued.

“I would like to tell you that all is safe for her to return, but I don’t think it is, Marco,” Lucas explained. “We believe that this firm Crow that Hernandez hired is now after the Cicada design.”

Lucas then explained that attempt to hack into their networks after the Crow contract was cancelled.

“Maybe it was just a mistake, a delay in communication?” suggested Marco.

“We considered that at first,” Lucas acknowledged. “But early in the case, we made a copy of the laptop the hacker, Pratt was using. It had a copy of North’s design, e-mail exchanges between him and Alex with technical specifications, then search strings on hybrid engine design. All of that would be beyond the gig that Hernandez hired them to do.”

“Shit!” cursed Marco. “So what now? Can’t we find these Crow people and shut them down?”

Lucas stood up and walked across the living room of the cottage to look out at the shed where Alex was working.

“That’s the problem. They’re a ghost organization of expert hackers. You don’t find them unless they want you to,” Lucas explained.

“But you guys know one of them. The one with the laptop you copied. Timothy Pratt, right?”

“Yeah, we did. But someone killed him after Hernandez cancelled the job.”

There was a long moment of silence as the seriousness of the situation sank in on the other end of the phone.

“What are you proposing?” Marco finally asked. He sounded tired and spooked, and Lucas couldn’t blame him.

“I would like to keep Alex here for the next three weeks until the engine is rebuilt,” Lucas explained. “The good news is that we haven’t seen any more activity from Crow since Hernandez was arrested, so there is the possibility that the threat has been eliminated. But it’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”

“Okay, I understand. Does Alex know all of this?”

“Most of it, but I haven’t told her my recommendation. I wanted to secure your approval first.”

Marco sighed.

“I spoke to her this morning and she seemed optimistic now that Hernandez was charged. I’m sure she’ll be disappointed not to be returning home until after the Sea-to-Sky race.”

“I agree,” Lucas added. “But I think she’ll quickly realize it’s for the best.”

“Well, you now have my approval,” Marco finally stated. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

The call ended soon after, and Lucas spent the next couple of hours confirming logistics with the Fortis team, then analyzing all of the information they had gathered about Crow, Pratt, and the network attack over a week ago. He also called his neighbor, Kathy to let her know he’d need Lita’s cleaning services for another few weeks.

Occasionally, he was distracted by thoughts of Alex in anticipation of their conversation about extending their stay at the cottage through June. He wondered how she would react to the news that they would be staying at the cottage for the long haul. Lucas expected that she would be disappointed. Who wouldn’t be, cut off from friends and family and her real life? Yet he couldn’t deny feeling a sense of relief to know she would be safe with him until the threat to her and her design was neutralized. And that they would have more time together for him to figure out what to do with the unnerving feelings she stirred in him.

He worked through the lunch that Ned made, then walked out to the edge of the lake at the usual time. Alex was sitting on the top of the stairs to the dock. They smiled at each other before starting their usual walk along the boardwalk.

“I spoke with Marco this morning,” he stated when they were a few houses down. “I gave him a summary on the case.”

Lucas then quickly gave her the same information about Cesar Hernandez, Susie North, and the shadow organization known as Crow, but left out the murder of Pratt.

“What’s going to happen to Adam’s wife?” Alex asked when he had finished.

“It depends,” Lucas replied.

They were approaching the edge of the town center.

“On Marco,” she finished, with a sigh. “I spoke with him again this morning. He still wants to sue.”

Lucas looked over at her, but she was staring blankly ahead

“It’s more complicated, unfortunately. Marco can only sue her if it’s determined that the nondisclosure agreement North signed with Magnus covers his wife. That he shared the information about his technology with her, under the expectation that she would also act under the stipulations of the nondisclosure,” he explained. “Then they both breached the contract and could be sued for damages.”

“If he didn’t share it with her, then she stole it,” Alex continued.

“Right,” he confirmed. “In which case, it’s criminal. And since Adam North isn’t talking to anyone but his lawyer right now, it’s hard to say which way it will go.”

They sat in silence for a few moments.

“I wish I could talk to Adam, see how he is doing, what he’s thinking,” she noted wistfully.

“Alex, we’ve talked about that,” Lucas warned.

“I know, I know. It’s too dangerous. I get it,” she conceded. “I just feel responsible, I guess. Like I talked him into working with us, and now his life is a mess.”

“The only person responsible in this instance is Susie North,” he reminded her.

She nodded and looked down at her feet.

“There is enough evidence to suggest that Crow might still want to steal your engine design. So, I’ve recommended to Marco that we keep you here until you’ve rebuilt the engine, and he agrees,” Lucas stated finally.

Alex was silent for another minute or so.

“Okay,” she finally conceded. “I was prepared for that anyway.”

They walked some more, until they reached the coffee shop and ordered her usual latte. Lucas got a bottle of water, then they started back to the cottage.

“I saw you and Ned fighting this morning,” she stated, looking up at him with a big smile. “What’s that all about?”

“Not fighting, sparring,” he corrected. “It’s good training, keeps us sharp.”

“Training for what?”

Lucas knew where she was going with the discussion. They had talked a lot over the last few days on these walks, about the investigation and her work on the Cicada. Sometimes just random things that they found funny or interesting. But he had not talked about Fortis beyond the work with Magnus.

“Training for what we do, Alex,” he finally replied. “Fortis protects people and valued assets. In order to do that, sometimes we have to engage with the threat.”

The words hung heavy between them, and he wondered what she was thinking. Lucas also considered why it was so important what she thought of what he did for a living.

“I guess I knew that,” Alex finally responded in a neutral voice. “You don’t carry a gun as a fashion accessory, right?”

He stopped and gently took her arm so they were facing each other.

“Alex, we’re not thrill seekers or adrenaline junkies out looking for the next battle,” he told her firmly. “The best way to protect something is to secure it, keep it out of harm’s reach. That’s what my team does best. But if that’s not possible, then the threat has to be neutralized. We’re damn good at that, too.”

They looked at each other for a while, until Lucas started to regret his outburst. This was not something that he’d ever told a woman he was with. He had never needed them to understand the inherent danger in his business and accept it. Accept him.

“Is that what happened with your shoulder?” Alex finally asked.

She brushed her hand along the top of his trapezius muscle. He had removed the stitches a few days ago, but the area was still sore. The sparring session with Ned that morning was the first since the incident, and his muscle would take another couple of weeks to fully heal.