Toeing the Line (The Complete Serial) (4 page)

Seemingly from nowhere, someone collided with Riley, and beer spilled over her top. Zane let go, as she gasped and jerked back, her hands flying up. The booze soaked her pale shirt, suctioning it to her body so it clung to every curve. Zane struggled to pull his gaze from her tight form, full breasts, and rigid nipples, visible through the lace of her bra.

“Watch where you’re going.” A large man stood next to them. He slammed a mostly empty beer stein on the pool table, dribbles running over his clenched fist.

Fury nudged Zane’s senses. Loudmouth had run into her, not the other way around.

Riley flinched away, brow furrowed. “What the hell?” She shook her hands, and drops of beer splattered the floor around her.

“Watch where you’re going, bitch.”

Anger spurred Zane forward, powered by protective instinct, and unrequited lust. In an instant, he was nose-to-nose with the loud asshole. “Apologize.”

“Fuck you.” Loudmouth pushed Zane’s shoulder. The stench of warm beer radiated from him. “Tell your bitch to watch where she’s going.”

All conversation stopped around them. People turned to stare, and camera phones came out.

“It’s okay. It’s not a big deal.” Riley’s pleading voice was soft amid the growing murmurs.

Zane didn’t like fighting, but there were some things a person just didn’t back down from. Like seeing his friend blamed by a drunken jackass for something she didn’t do. He grabbed Loudmouth’s wrist and pulled it away from his own shoulder. In a single movement, he twisted and was behind Loudmouth, pulling the other man’s fingers toward the base of his neck. Zane applied enough pressure to convey he could do worse, but not enough to cause injury. “It is a big deal. He owes you a new shirt, but a genuine
I’m sorry
would be a good starting place.”

Loudmouth growled and jerked away, breaking Zane’s grip on him. “Fucking asshole. I’m sorry your stupid girlfriend got in the way of my beer.” He tensed his shoulders, spread his feet shoulder-width apart, and brought his fists up in a boxing stance. He wavered in his stance before steadying himself.

Zane kept his posture casual, staring back without flinching. If Loudmouth lunged, he’d find himself on the ground with a mouthful of carpet. Zane only partly hoped it would come to that. He made sure the anxiety of his hammering heart didn’t show in his movements. The seconds ticked away, seeming to stretch into eternity.

“Asshole.” Loudmouth narrowed his eyes for a moment, and then turned toward the exit, grumbling under his breath.

There was no need for Zane to go after the guy. All he wanted to do was diffuse the situation. As his adrenaline receded, the reassurance repeated in his head until he believed it.

“Excuse me.” A firm voice jarred Zane from his brief meditation. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Zane eyed the bar employee, adrenaline still coursing through him. The guy was shorter by a couple of inches but bulkier, and the way his shirt stretched over his chest said he was muscular. Zane swallowed the resurge of instinct. He didn't want to start a fight; he’d already dispatched the threat.

He shook his head, to clear out any residual argument, and wrapped an arm around Riley’s waist. “Right. Sorry about the floor.” He tossed a five on the table before leading her outside.

Almost every gaze in the room followed their short path. The stench of greasy food and booze threatened to resummon Zane’s dinner. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that last slice of pizza. They pushed outside, and the cool air washed over them.

Riley should have been embarrassed, about what happened inside with the drunken asshole, or upset about being asked to leave or something. Instead, all she could focus on was whether or not she’d made a mistake suggesting no-strings sex with Zane. Her thoughts were still stuck on his cock digging into her, moments earlier. The dampness that pooled between her legs when he grabbed her wrists. Her desperate desire to find out how he kissed.

Zane opened the passenger door of his truck and reached behind the seat. He grabbed a spare T-shirt and handed it to her. “I should take you home.”

The dismissal nagged her, but she hid her disappointment. She had to resurrect this somehow. He was as interested as she was. If she could change out of her ruined top here, she didn’t need to go home. She dropped into the passenger seat. “Don’t move.”

She reached behind her back to unclasp her bra, and his eyes grew wide.

“Do you want me to turn around?” he asked.

The flush was sexy, and the propriety was endearing. If he hadn’t already turned away, maybe he was still considering what she’d said. She let out a tiny laugh, trying for seductive but—she was pretty sure—coming off as nervous instead. “I said, don’t move. You’re my human curtain.”

In a single fluid gesture, she managed to pull off her soaked shirt and bra and slip the new one on without completely exposing herself. As she poked her head through the top of the shirt, she caught a glimpse of him forcing his gaze from her chest back to her face.

“That takes talent.” A tiny quaver ran through his voice.

She ducked her head, feigning shyness. “Thank you for what you did in there.”

He leaned against the frame of the truck, studying her. She couldn’t read the thoughts behind his eyes, but she could almost convince herself the worst thing she saw was uncertainty.

He finally spoke. “Does this mean you don’t need to go home and change after all?”

So she hadn’t completely ruined things. Relief flooded her. “Not yet. Did you have something in mind?”

“Let’s drive and talk.”

He closed her door, and seconds later, he was seated and pulling onto the road. However, he wasn’t talking. His gaze stayed fixed on the road, his hands on the steering wheel.

Riley shifted in her seat. What should she say? She hadn’t planned to proposition him, but as the night wore on, the idea had climbed into her head and refused to budge. It made perfect sense. And when he all but laid out that ultimatum, she had to grab her chance.

Though she was done falling for every guy she dated, and the best way to break the habit was to stay single, she still missed the sex that typically came with being half a couple. More than six months without a guy to cuddle up against, clothed or otherwise, left her with a longing that her toys didn’t sate.

Zane made sense. He wasn’t looking for commitment, and they already knew so much about each other. Besides, she didn’t love him—not like that. In all the years they’d been friends, it would have reared its head long before now.

She watched the road fade into the darkness, as his truck climbed farther away from the houses dotting the side of the mountain. They were on the east side of the valley, high above even the multi-million-dollar homes. The valley floor with its endless lights made the sky and its stars look like a reflection.

They pulled onto the shoulder of a familiar dirt road. Riley didn’t know how many nights they’d spent on the side of the mountain, either wanting a view of the fireworks shows below or just plain talking.

He shut off the engine and stared ahead, gripping the steering wheel. He finally turned to her. Something heavy and sad lingered behind his pale eyes. His smile was weak. “I hope this is okay.”

“Of course.” Her fast reply sounded too loud—too chipper—to her ears.

He climbed out. “You coming?”

She scrambled to follow him to the back of the pickup. He dropped the tailgate and slid into the bed, back to the wall, one knee pulled up to his chest, and arm resting on top.

She hid her frown. His posture wasn’t a good sign. There had been a time when they’d have lain down in the back of the truck to watch the stars, her head on his shoulder, and never thought anything of it. Now he looked as though he didn’t want her anywhere near him.

They could talk through this. It would have been nice if he’d agreed to take things to the next level, but she’d said
no hurt feelings
if he wasn’t interested. She crawled into the truck bed opposite him and leaned forward, legs tucked to the side.

“So, not that it’s a big deal…”

Oh geez, she really had screwed up. “You know it sounds like a very big deal, right?”

“I do.” He dropped his forehead onto his knee for a moment before looking at her again. “You wanted to know where I’d been for the last two years.”

Her breath caught, and her pulse slowed. That was what this was about? “I was curious, but I figured
top secret
, right?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “They’d like you to think so.”

The conversation about no-string sex could wait. This felt infinitely more important than how she got off at the end of the night. “Now I’m extra curious.”

“A couple of years ago, I got a new assignment. They wanted me doing some heavier surveillance. It was a huge challenge, so I jumped on it.”

Of course he had,

“They told me I was getting them into some really tough places. Networks most people couldn’t crack. Then they gave me someone new to report to.”

“Okay…?” She wasn’t sure why it mattered.

He ran his fingers over the stubble on his head. “We did this differently than I’d ever done surveillance before. The woman they had me working with was very good at it, and the entire idea was scary brilliant.”

Riley forced back her wince at the unabashed compliment for another woman. “How so?”

“You know how phishing and spoofing work, right?”

She nodded. The recipient clicked on a link they thought was taking them to one place, and it took them to another instead, while capturing the associated login information.

“This is spoofing meets psy-ops. She would interact with specific people online. Chatting, friendly shit—
How’s the dog? Did you have a good vacation?
—the kind of casual conversation you see everywhere. If she couldn’t get connect with someone online, she’d do it in person, posing as a waitress, whatever, for the target. She didn’t need anything critical from them, just the standard kind of stuff anyone might tell a stranger. How work’s going. How the kids are. Stuff like that.”

“My job…” He paused, as if thinking how to best phrase what he’d say next. “My job was to send those people email. Spoof it and make it look like it was from someone they knew and trusted. A boss. A girlfriend. A daughter. I had to make the email completely real and passable, so no filters could tell it was from anyone other than who it should be from. The recipient clicked the link—I don’t know, social media, whatever—and it passed through a gateway that downloaded the tiniest little Trojan in history, and we had full access to their computer. They ended up where they thought they were going and never questioned it.”

“Wow.” She was wary enough not to click those stupid links from strangers that said things like,
guess what I just heard about you online
, but never hesitated when the messages from her friends looked genuine.

“Yeah.” He dragged out the word. “It wasn’t my job to look at where we were going, just to get us there and make sure we stayed.”

Riley’s head spun with the information.

“Except one night, things changed.”

“What?”

“She left me alone for the first time.”

“Before that, you were together twenty-four, seven? Long stakeout?”

He let out a dry laugh. “Something like that. I only figured out later, but it had a lot more to do with the fact that I wasn’t under the same watch restrictions as before.”

“Watch restrictions?”

He nodded. “I poked harder than normal that night. I got bored and skimmed one of the computers I’d planted the back door on. The name caught my attention. American name. American IP… There was absolutely nothing top secret about that machine. It was some teenager’s laptop. The worst things on it were a couple of emails she’d sent a friend, about sneaking out to get drunk that Friday night.”

“Why were you spying on American teenagers?”

“I wondered that too. Every time my CO left me alone after that, I dug into another machine. The further I went, the more I looked, the more I realized I was no longer fighting the same war I’d signed up for.

“We weren’t doing Air Force work. She’d sucked me into some serious CIA shit. We were spying on civilians. The kind of people no one realizes are a threat to national security. Eventually I was told it was to make sure they held true to their non-disclosure agreements. Not selling plans on top secret weapons. Not fixing pricing on government bids. Things along those lines.”

She didn’t know what to say. It was so Tom Clancy, but digital, with a heavy side of invasion of privacy. “So what did this first computer you looked into have to do with that? How does knowing someone’s teenager got drunk on Friday night tell you if they’re selling out their country?”

“No one is tight-lipped every hour of every day. Especially not the arrogant guys who think they’re too smart to get caught. Some senior VP for a military contractor finds a second source of income from a country who may not be so fond of us, or he takes a bribe during contract negotiation—anything like that. He may not brag about it, but he frequently tells his wife. Even if he doesn’t, suddenly the family has things they didn’t before. The kids are going to expensive private schools, or they’re bragging to their friends about the new swimming pool, or the wife has a new car. A new wardrobe.”

That made a scary amount of sense. “So you looked for anomalies.”

“
I
didn’t, but I made it possible for someone else to.” He shook his head, doubt and anger hiding behind his gaze. “As I dug some more, I realized she—my new commanding officer—was on location with me, to try to make my job change to the CIA official. Which made sense, when I thought about it. There was absolutely no reason for us to be working in the same room otherwise.”

What could Riley say to that?

He stared back, a sad smile on his face. “So I confronted her. She didn’t deny any of it. Instead, she offered me a job. The kind of work we’d been doing, but more of it, and good money on top of that. They were impressed I’d scraped all I did without them knowing. Basically, I’d passed their test.”

“So when you say you turned down the job for ethical reasons…”

“Spying on armies and rebellions and organized groups trying to take down governments is different than peering into private lives because they might be selling government secrets—but probably aren’t.”

Riley couldn’t hide her wince.

“Besides. Part of me still needs to prove…”

She waited for a moment. “What?” she asked when he didn’t finish his sentence.

“Nothing.” The single word was soft in the night. “Stupid shit.”

A gust tore through the night, making her pull in tighter on herself. She saw the guilt and pain in his expression. Heard the hesitation in his words. He wasn’t telling her everything, and whatever he held back devoured him. “Like what?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter.” He drummed his fingers on his legs.

She felt the wall cropping up between them again. “Okay. It doesn’t have to.”

He stopped moving his fingers and clenched his jaw. “I didn’t mean to ruin your night with this.”

No. She wouldn’t let this happen. She expected some things to be tough for him to talk about, and while this wasn’t the deadly secret she’d feared, it still ate at him. “You didn’t. I promise. I’m always here; that hasn’t changed.”

He forced out a breath through clenched teeth. “We should head home. You have to work in the morning.”

She wanted to help him sort through this. As much as she’d tried to ignore it up to now, he wasn’t the Zane who left six years ago. He was haunted by choices she couldn’t fathom having to make, and she wanted to help him through it. “We can stay out here a little longer.”

“And do what? Not talk? I’m sorry, Riley. I can’t. Not tonight.”

The shrug-off hurt more than she thought possible, gnawing inside and chipping away at her core. She couldn’t push him if he wasn’t ready to talk, though. The only solution was for her to be available when that happened, and hope he understood she was listening without judgement.

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but what else was she supposed to say? “I understand.”