Intrusion (18 page)

His lips brushed at the sensitive spot behind her left ear and sent a shudder through her. “Ah, is that line supposed to reduce me to a writhing puddle at your feet?”

“You mean it’s not working?”

Yes, damn him, it was. But after his rejection last night, she’d douse herself in sulfuric acid before she admitted it.

His hands cupped her waist and turned her in his embrace. “Then I guess I’ll have to try the truth.” He dipped his head to meet her eyes. “I have a lot of friends in low places who don’t mind doing favors for someone whose done them a good turn in the past.”

She loved the way he studied her. It unsettled her, and yet she understood that at his core he was every bit as analytical as she was. When he looked at her, it wasn’t to explore her features, but her heart.

And right now her heart leapt at the sight of his casual grin.

“So there you go. The truth.” He caught a strand of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. “Was it good for you? Because I’ll tell you, it didn’t do a hell of a lot for me. I like a little bit of fantasy in my life to keep from stagnating.”

“I could never imagine you stagnating.”

“No? Then maybe I’ll try another truth. Just to keep you on your toes.” He rubbed at one of her choppy curls. “I like your hair much better like this. It’s not long enough for you to hide it in that repressed little bun.”

“Repressed, huh?”

She had to put some distance between them before she crumbled in his arms. Why did she have to like everything about him? Every single one of his quirks endeared him to her even further. Not good when she was
trying
to keep her distance.

“So, what’s the plan here?” She walked out of his embrace and slid her fingers through her hair in an attempt to twist it up behind her head. But the strands just sifted out of her hands.

Behind her, Cam chuckled. “I don’t know yet. I’m too busy contemplating how to keep you flustered.”

Her stomach flip-flopped, but she crossed her arms in front of her. “What if you figure out how we’re going to get into Coburn Industries without the cops hauling us off to prison instead.”

“Can’t. Those blueprints aren’t going to tell me a thing. I need a closer look.”

“You mentioned that before. How close are we talking about here?”

He shot her a grin. “You up for a little recon?”

***

Ivan closed his eyes and ran his thumb across his cell phone’s keypad. The moment of truth had arrived, yet his fingers hesitated.

Am I following the right course, Mina?

His wife had always believed each person had a singular destiny, a path written into their genetic makeup that would carry them from birth to death, their triumphs and trials all part of the greater good. To everything there is a season, she used to tell him. Birth, death, violence, peace, they were cycles that all served a purpose—to bring about change.

His strong convictions told him he was the person to bring change to Serbia. To save his nation from ruin at the hands of its oppressors. But every once in a while his faith wavered and he wondered if his willingness to kill to obtain the armor had more to do with vengeance for his family rather than the saving of his country.

He snapped on the desk lamp and the sudden glare stabbed him in the eyes. He blinked spots away from his vision, his finger running along the edge of the latest letter from his brother.

“Kosovo sleeps,” Miloje wrote. “But it still pulses with our people’s blood. It is time to awaken the eagle and let her sink her talons into the Albanians. I’m on my way, dear brother. The ghosts of our family are here, awaiting our victorious return.”

The letter ignited a fire in his gut and he welcomed the burn as the flames licked their way into his heart. Whether his motives were poisoned with revenge mattered not. This was his path. His destiny. Mina would want him to follow it.

Everything had to be in place for his brother’s arrival tomorrow. He punched a number into his cell phone and listened to the grating ring for several seconds before the man answered.

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow night. Eleven p.m.” He named a section of desert along the Salt River. The secluded area was the perfect spot to make the exchange.

“I can’t—look, I told you—I changed my mind, all right? The armor’s not for sale.”

Anger sparked, pumping blood to his temples. “Even if the cost is your life?”

“No. Wait. I’ll offer you something else. Something better—”

“I want the armor. Tomorrow night at eleven. Or you won’t live to see the sunrise.”

He pressed the end button with a shaking hand, cutting off any further communication with the man. It was done. In twenty-four hours he’d shed his American identity and immerse himself in Serbia once more.

“Boze pravde,” he whispered, the opening words from the Serbian National Anthem falling from his lips.
God of Justice.
“Novu srecu Boze daj.”

Serbia anew is born.

***

A little recon turned out to be a full-scale stakeout. Parked high on a small hill that sloped down into Coburn Industries’ main entrance, Audra helped Cam unpack his gear. Binoculars, high-res cameras, laptop—

“How long are you planning on staying here?”

“I’ll plant the video camera to record through the night and we’ll retrieve it late tomorrow morning.” He picked up his digital SLR camera, fitted it with a long-range lens and then started snapping pictures of the entrance. “But for now, I want to just observe and get a feel for the place.”

She tried to mimic his quiet focus on the massive facility, but after about thirty minutes she wanted to jump out of her skin. Cam, however, continued to study the entrance. His brows were drawn together in concentration, and his body thrummed with awareness.

“Do you do this often?”

His shoulder lifted, the first sign of movement since he’d planted himself into a crouch over a half hour ago.

“How do you stand it?”

He aimed the camera and snapped off a shot. “What, you don’t like to be alone with your thoughts?”

“Not if I can help it.” Especially since
he
had started featuring prominently in all of them.

He lowered the camera and stared at her over the rim of the lens. “What about alone with me?”

Her heart picked up its pace. She arched her brow. “Not if I can help it.”

“You didn’t seem to mind last night.” He laughed and bent to rummage through the backpack at his feet. He dragged out the binoculars and tossed them to her. “Maybe if you make yourself useful it will put you in a better mood.”

Her cheeks heated. “I doubt it,” she said, but she raised them to her eyes anyway and zeroed in on the visitor’s parking lot. Her stomach squirmed. “I still don’t like that we’re doing this. It’s too risky.”

“A calculated risk. There’s a difference. You should understand that. A scientist makes calculated risks all the time.”

She adjusted the focus on her binoculars, turning to catch Cam in the lenses. “It’s not the same. I make educated guesses. I don’t have to worry that a mistake will be fatal.”

He grinned. “Nah. I’m too good looking to die. Give me another thirty years to get a beer belly and age spots, then I’ll have reason to worry.”

She slid her binocular-enhanced gaze over Cam’s stomach, watching the way his magnified abs contracted with his movements. “Let me guess, the Goddesses of Good Genes enjoy admiring your body too much to want to see you decay in death.”

“Ouch. That’s not even a nice visual. But I give you points for admitting you have the hots for me.”

“Hmm. I don’t believe that’s quite what I said.”

Fierce longing tugged at her as she panned the binoculars over his broad chest. She wanted to press her mouth there, touch her tongue to his skin and run it along the hard ridges of muscle.

She jerked the binoculars and Cam’s mouth filled her limited vision. His lips curved into a slow and sexy grin.

“Subtext. You’re saying one thing, but you’re studying me like I’m a rare specimen under a microscope.”

She dropped the binoculars into her lap. “I wasn’t.”

“Were too.” He thumbed the controls on his camera for a moment and then froze, a frown weighing down the corners of his mouth.

“What is it?”

He moved to sit beside her and tilted the LCD screen so she could see the image. “Nothing. She just reminds me of my mom.”

He’d captured a picture of a woman as she’d exited the building. Her light brown shoulder-length hair held a slight curl to its ends, her lips curved into a small smile, face tipped to the sun.

“My mom used to soak up the sun just like that.”

Her heat pinged. “Used to?”

He leaned to his left and set the camera on top of his backpack. Then he rubbed a hand down his face. “She died when I was sixteen.”

A fist twisted in her stomach. “Oh. I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

He reached for her hand, threaded his fingers through it. “No, that’s okay. It was a long time ago, but I still think of her all the time. Wonder if she’s having a party up in heaven. She loved to dance. She was...”

His voice trailed off and he bowed his head.

She squeezed his fingers. “She was what?”

Holding hands with Cam should’ve felt as innocuous as having a conversation, but it suddenly struck her as far more intimate than a kiss. There was nothing separating them but a whole lot of honesty, nothing to hide behind, not even lust.

He lifted his head, a small smile tipping one corner of his mouth. “Perfect. It sounds trite, but that’s the only way to describe her. When I was six or seven, I was convinced she was Wendy, you know, from Peter Pan. And that she held the secrets to Neverland.”

She cocked her head. “Neverland, huh? Never liked the place myself. Didn’t seem fair that only boys were allowed.”

The faint lines around his eyes crinkled, chasing away the shadows. “I would’ve smuggled you in.”

“Yeah, in exchange for my virtue.”

He laughed. “You think so highly of me.”

“Actually, I do.”

The admission slipped out and she waited for the familiar panic to crush the breath from her, but it never came. When had she started to feel so at ease with Cam?

Warmth spread through her under his intense scrutiny, heating her blood like a catalyst and prompting another confession to pass her lips. “For the record, I probably would’ve handed you my virtue.”

His brow lifted. “Yeah?” He reached up and captured a strand of her hair, holding it hostage against the soft breeze. His gaze locked on her mouth. “I want to kiss you so damn bad right now. You should slap me before I do something stupid.”

“Ah, so now kissing me is stupid?”

He cupped her jaw. “Kissing you is like...hacking into the National Security Agency’s network while sitting inside the FBI headquarters...a huge rush, but a very bad idea. At least while my focus is needed elsewhere.”

She smiled. “Then stop looking at me like that.”

He shook his head, then leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. The brief kiss left her lips tingling and her pulse thrumming.

She let a weak breath escape into the air. “I thought we were supposed to be working here.”

He picked up his camera as if nothing had happened, zoomed the lens in on her and snapped a shot of her face. “I’m working.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yeah, but only because I already know what’s going on over there.”

“Prove it.”

“We can’t park in the lot because they have surveillance cameras mounted on the lights.” He pointed to the nearest post. “So we leave the car here and slip around the perimeter. The building has one main entrance, although according to the blueprints, there is a side entrance that we might need to utilize. Coburn’s lab is most likely on the third floor, west side. See how the windows are tinted in that corner?”

She squinted at the building. The bank of windows Cam pointed out was indeed tinted darker than the others.

“Okay. But how do we get in there?”

He pressed his mouth tight. “I’m not sure. Yet. I need a closer look.”

Nerves skated through her belly. She bit down on the inside of her lip. “How close is closer?”

“I need to get inside. The blueprints won’t tell me what kind of security system they have. I have to find their control room so I can evaluate the system and figure out how to bypass it.”

“So we have to break in twice?”

“No. The first time we go in broad daylight. We want people to be there going through their daily routines.”

“But then they can identify us.”

He shook his head. “Have you ever heard of social engineering? I’m good at what I do not because I can crack any code but because every security system has a weakness. That weakness is the human element.”

“So you...manipulate people?”

She didn’t like the sound of that. Codes and systems were one thing, they didn’t have thoughts or feelings, but pretending to be something you weren’t in order to get information? Was that what he was doing to her? Pretending to care, pushing to get to know her when all he wanted was to make sure he could save his own butt.

He stood and began packing his camera away. “It’s part of my job. If someone’s laying out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a security system, they need to know if it’s sound. And that includes finding out whether one of their employees will blow it for them.”

She could understand the logic in his words, but it still felt like he conned people for a living. There was no clear cut right or wrong. Right was whatever it took to get the job done.

She brushed dirt from her jeans and got to her feet.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I can’t do it alone though. I’ll need your help.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Just create a distraction.” He shot her a smile. “If everyone is focused on you they won’t be able to look at me too closely.”

His statement revolved around in her brain as they got in the car and navigated through the streets of Phoenix on their way back to Lake Pleasant. She’d spent almost half her life trying to make sure that no one ever looked at her too closely.

Being invisible had its perks. If people thought she was boring and clinical, they didn’t bother to probe deeper. But Cam saw past her façade, and somehow brought out another side of her—one that was bold, even a little bit flirty. He made her feel…interesting. And even though his single-minded determination unsettled her, she couldn’t help but crave his attention.