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“Why, yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”
Exhaling, I ignored her continued defiance. “Now, how did you bypass the security? It’s important that I know.”
“I didn’t bypass it, although I’ve been known to be a pretty good hacker.”
Something I didn’t want to hear about at this moment. Somehow, I had a feeling the woman had several skills that might not be considered on the right side of the law. “So what did you do?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that you left it unarmed?”
All I did in response was to tilt my head. She was hell on wheels, but that had kept her alive and on her toes.
“Okay, confession time,” she continued. “I’m very good at playing cards, which helped made me a highly respected dealer. I’m also extremely good at observing body language and knowing a liar by the twitch of a single muscle.”
“What’s that have to do with the security system?” I took a gulp of beer, finding it fascinating that she’d become animated with her confession.
“Because when you armed the system last night, I watched you and learned what the code was as soon as your fingers hit the keypad.”
“That’s impossible. I always stand in front of the controller by habit.”
Madisen shrugged. “Maybe so but your shoulders, arms, and hands were a dead giveaway. Five. Nine. Two. Asterisk. Six. Exclamation point. One. Eight.”
Holy fuck. She got all that from my body language? I’d heard of people who had the skill but had never met one. A good hacker, huh? I was beginning to believe her, especially since she’d found my address. “I don’t believe you.”
“You know what? Contrary to what you thought all those years ago and the way you obviously see me now, I’m not the helpless pipsqueak any longer. I’m a woman of high intelligence, with tremendous skill in several areas and I earned my blackbelt in karate while in college. But you wouldn’t know about that because you left for the Marines without as much as telling me goodbye. Not that you owed me anything since you made it clear you wanted nothing to do with me. But just like you said I don’t know you, well, flip the situation. You know nothing about me.”
Wow.
Other than asshole clients, no one had read me the riot act in years. With her, everything was different. How could I tell her that I hadn’t had the guts to say goodbye because I couldn’t stand the thought of hurting her any more than she’d already experienced in her troubled life?
Lie more to yourself, why don’t you?
I had no words of comfort or admonishment.
She kept the rebellious look on her face, obviously happy that she’d finally told me how she felt. Then she returned her attention to the sauce, resuming her lilting hum, ignoring me as if I had the plague.
My God. I didn’t just have my hands full with the woman. I had a tiger by the tail and somehow, I had a feeling I’d end up raw and bloody.
* * *
Madisen
You can’t continue being reckless.
The words swirled in my foggy mind, an understandable yet unwanted reminder of all the horrific decisions I’d made over the last few days. At the beginning of the nightmare, I’d argue with anyone, including the brooding force standing in front of me, that it hadn’t been my fault.
Wrong place at the wrong time.
Unfortunately, the little voice inside my head that usually kept me out of trouble would remind me that I’d known exactly what I’d been getting into by accepting the position. It had seemed perfect at first, providing everything I needed including money. Now I knew better.
That changed nothing, including the fact I’d continued my foray into unseemly, risky behavior. Viper had no qualms about reminding me of that ugly little fact.
The quiet drifting between us wasn’t welcome. And I didn’t feel vindicated for telling him off. Although I’d experienced a fleeting moment of satisfaction by seeing the look of shock in his eyes.
Seconds later, I sensed he’d collected himself, likely ready to bark out new orders. I tried to concentrate on what I was doing, angry with myself for lashing out at him.
I knew he was continuing to both grill and admonish me, although at that moment, every word out of his sultry lips was muffled, like one of those cartoons where you weren’t supposed to know what the character was saying.
It was all because of the way he looked in the deep forest green Henley, the rich color providing the perfect backdrop for his luminescent eyes. Then there was the way the ink crawled from the material banding the skin just above his wrists, the exposed flesh teasing me with a view of the dazzling art painted on his muscular body. I blinked several times, bringing my fingers to my lips.
