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Hazel shrugged. “It seems like you’re pretty perfect.”
“Babe, that’s because I am.” I kissed the area behind her ear and took a big breath, putting my face in her hair that no longer smelled like peaches. “You need to tell me your shampoo brand and I’ll have Cyrus pick it up at the store.”
CHAPTER15
HAZEL
Something didn’t feel right. I woke in a panic, bolting straight up in the bed with a hand clutched against my heart as my eyes searched the dark room. I saw nothing. No one holding a gun to my head or little pinging bullets forever ringing in my nightmares.
Something was amiss, however. The bed beside me was empty and cold, as if nobody had lain there for a while. The panic rose again, and I continued to clutch my chest, my eyes searching the empty room for Corbin.
Did he give me an evening of orgasms and then leave me? No, it was impossible that this ended up like a terrible one-night stand. He had my thumb drive, so he didn’t skip the state and leave me alone in bed. He wouldn’t do that. Right?
Of course not.
It was fine.
But what if he cracked the encryption on the thumb drive and whatever those files said was so horrible that he left me alone in the middle of the night to fend off the Grandmaster by myself? It was the most ridiculous name for a mobster, but the man was obviously serious since he had henchmen with guns. No petty thug drove through Pelican Bay shooting at someone.
More than likely.
In truth, I really didn’t know how gangs and criminal elements worked. I didn’t even watch true crime shows because I found them too scary. Horror movies had me sleeping with the lights on for a week.
The bad people should stay in the shadows where they belonged, and we’d never meet because I would only go out in the daytime. The plan suited me fine. I had no desire to put my life in any danger, which was laughable that somehow, I’d ended up in an action hero movie. I didn’t make a good heroine.
I slipped from the covers, needing to go out and confirm Corbin’s presence somewhere in the house. We flung our clothing everywhere last night, but one of Corbin’s long white shirts hung over a chair in the room’s corner. The material fell to my knees, covering me enough for a quick trip around the house.
All the lights were off as I walked with a hand held out in front of me to feel in case I ran into anything. The only glow came from a window in the kitchen, where the streetlights cast shadows on the refrigerator and counters. A brighter glare from a laptop screen lit up Corbin’s face as he sat on the couch, scowling at it.
“Corbin,” I whispered.
He nodded, not turning toward me. “You’re awake?”
It was a question, but I didn’t feel the need to answer it since I was obviously up and walking around.
I took a seat beside him, leaving a few inches of space between us. We’d been so close a few hours ago, but now a rift formed between us. Things were awkward, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
Corbin didn’t have the same hesitation, and he looped his arm around my shoulders until we sat side by side with barely any air between us.
I smiled, glad he wouldn’t see it in the dark. His attention never left his laptop, and he didn’t see my expression of happiness. Everything in my world might change, and it didn’t seem the time to be smiling and getting silly over small things like the amount of air between two thighs.
A small black box in the middle of Corbin’s laptop screen slowly filled up with green. The readout said eighty percent complete.
“You’re close,” I said, staring at the little box and waiting for it to tick up to eighty-one percent, but it didn’t.
“Yes, I came to check on it and make sure everything was going well.”
Since he didn’t continue, I assumed things were going the way he expected. We sat together for another moment in silence and I laid my hands on my knees, not sure what to do with them.
It didn’t look like he was doing anything at all. It was just a black box on the screen and he wasn’t typing. The numbers just magically ticked from eighty percent to eighty-one percent. “What exactly are you doing to crack this password?” I finally asked.
“I’m not only a hacker,” he said, turning his head and smiling at me for the first time since I’d sat. “This is more a software hack. Something I developed. Coded it myself a few years ago.”
“Still, I can’t imagine many college classes are teaching something like this.”
He blew out from his nose, sounding like a snore. “No, these skills are self-taught.”
“What made you want to learn?”
