Risky Love (Dirty Hacker 2)

He slowly looked into her eyes and held her gaze. “I think you’re an amazing woman, Alex, and I’m damn glad I know you.” He took her into his arms then, pulling her in close against his strength and warmth. Every worry she had that if she let him in, he’d disappoint her, vanished. “Thank you for sharing that with me,” he murmured.

She shut her eyes and leaned into him, wondering…maybe, just maybe…this would be the second time her life changed right at this very spot. She opened her eyes and leaned away, catching Rowan’s intense gaze watching her carefully. “Rowan, I…I want you to…” Her cell phone beeped and startled her out of his arms. She glanced at the screen and then back at Rowan. “It’s Ryder. We need to go.”

Rowan captured her chin and kissed her. Not a fast kiss that made her feel urgent and needy. No, this was a slow, savoring kiss that made heat tingle in the tips of her toes right up to the top of her head. A kiss that no one had ever given her in her life. One that made her move closer without thought and that had her reaching for him. One that made her whimper when he backed away.

He pressed his forehead against hers. “There will be a time when there is no killer to catch, no missing woman to save, and then we can talk about all the things sitting on the tips of our tongues.”

She nodded, but as she looked into his strained eyes, she wondered if they would keep that promise.

CHAPTER 8

They made it back to Blackwood Security in record time, but when Rowan followed Alex into the command center, his mind stayed in the cemetery. The more he learned about her, the more he kept coming back to the same truth: She had no reason to trust anyone. She’d had a terrible childhood. She’d lost the only family she’d had. And her greatest mentor had been a hacker on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. A man who clearly passed away without the Feds ever hearing about it.

All she knew was a life of abuse, loss, and crime, and yet, somehow through all of that, she’d come out fighting for the good guys. Rowan knew he had something special with Alex. He’d known it from the second he set his eyes on her. At first, his thoughts were lust-filled. Five years after their week in Paris, that same lust remained, but hovering below that simmering heat was a warm spot in his chest for her. She made his cold, dead heart beat again, and he couldn’t ignore that anymore.

“Good, you’re back,” Ryder said, breaking into Rowan’s thoughts. “We’re just about ready to go here.”

“Any new developments?” Alex asked, taking her seat at her desk.

Rowan settled just off to the side of her, trying not to hover, as Ryder reported, “Nothing seems out of sorts at the storage unit, but we’ve cleared the area anyway. We’re not seeing any heat signatures on the drone’s thermal camera or explosive devices.”

Rowan considered and then asked, “Did the owners of the business have anything to say about the unit?”

Ryder shook his head. “No one is on site. Anyone can gain access to their unit using their keycard, and the unit is paid for by cash that is left in the business’s secured mailbox every month.”

“A perfect set-up for a criminal,” Rowan grumbled, and heard everyone agree with him as he moved closer to the monitor that showed the storage unit. “Get a look into this security footage?” he asked, pointing to the camera across from Lewis’s unit.

“Not yet,” Ryder said, stepping in between Alex and Jeff’s desk, crossing his arms. “I want to see what’s in that unit before we spend hours combing through any of those videos.” He glanced at his team, first to Alex then to Jeff. “Ready?”

“Ready,” they said in unison.

Rowan sensed the united front in the room, the adrenaline rushing through the air, and at the center of all that was Ryder, a leader with a plan. Rowan turned, catching Alex’s stare. She gave him a little smile that was like a punch to his chest. All she’d done to help him find Mia. All she’d done to catch Lewis. She amazed him, and he knew he wouldn’t be anywhere near this close without her help. The moment they’d been working hard for was right there, nearly within their grasp.

He returned her smile, hoping she understood his gratitude, as Ryder clicked a button on the telephone next to Jeff. “Durango team, are you in position?”

“Ready, sir,” a deep voice replied.

A body cam suddenly sprang to life on one of the monitors on the wall.

“Proceed,” Ryder ordered then hit the button on the phone, cutting off his communication with his team, letting them do what he likely trained them to do.

Rowan had seen men in power need to be in the center of it, even from a distance. Rowan had never witnessed the level of trust Ryder had for his team. Not like this. Not for himself when he always worked alone. A team. He’d been a rogue soldier for so long, the thought of working as a unit enticed him. The seconds drew on as Rowan watched through the body camera as the team moved closer to the unit, the television screen looking more like a video game, with the AK-47 out in front. A game he wanted to be a part of. Rowan felt the steady rise of his heartbeat when he moved back into position next to Ryder. “I want to be out there,” he admitted.

Ryder chuckled, leaning against the table behind him, but his focus was glued to the monitor. “It takes time to get used to being behind the camera, instead of in the action.”

“You don’t miss it?”

“Not when I have a wife and child who need me.”

Those words lingered deep into Rowan’s chest as Ryder stepped farther into the command center, placing himself directly in front of the rows

of monitors. Silence sank heavily into the room as the team closed in on the storage unit. The team clearly did many missions together, they moved and worked as a unit. Flawless. Stealthy. In minutes, they had a small camera beneath the storage door and on the right side of the storage unit on the monitor, the camera’s view popped up.

“Oh, my pretties,” Alex purred, slowly rising from her seat at the computer set-up in the storage unit.

“You seeing this, boss?” the deep voice asked.

Alex said, “Hold.”