Heath was up the next morning before dawn, as usual, and got himself ready as quietly as possible to avoid waking Aileen. Sleeping with her had been… a revelation. Hot, sexy, sweet too. Honestly, he’d enjoyed himself more last night with her than he could ever remember with another woman. And that was a problem.

Because sleeping with Murphy’s little sister wasn’t a pleasure he intended to repeat. No matter how he might wish he could.

As he stood beside the bed in the pre-sunrise gloom in just his jeans, Heath stared down at her sleeping form, her dark hair fanned out on the pillow. He’d carried her up here last night, not wanting to spend the night on those uncomfortable mats downstairs. Aileen looked so soft and innocent as she dozed. She’d been anything but pure last night though, with her dirty mouth and killer moves. He’d figured he’d teach her a thing or two about self-defense when in truth she’d handed him his ass on a platter.

He snorted. So far, nothing about Aileen had been what he’d expected.

And everything I wanted…

Nope. Heath frowned and stepped back from the bed to tug a T-shirt over his head, then padded out to the kitchen barefoot to start some coffee. Years in the military had made him an early riser. Now that he was out of the service, he still enjoyed getting up before dawn. Made him feel like he got a jump on the day ahead.

After fixing the coffee, he pushed the Start button, then grabbed his phone from the charger on the counter to check his emails. Nothing but junk. There was a voicemail from Daveed though—he and Murphy both rose before the sun too. Turns out Daveed’s years serving in the intelligence community had paid off. One of his contacts had intercepted a call last night from Senator Lawrence to his nephew. A nephew, it turned out, who just happened to be Mr. Frank Kent, CEO of EnKor. As he listened to Daveed’s rundown of the call, his tension grew. Seemed not only did the senator admit that the whole green energy invention he’d been touting was a fraud, he also insisted on moving up the timeline on the deal with EnKor. He’d also, apparently, promised to make sure the bill issuing government funds to Kent and his company for their “research” was a done deal.

It almost sounded too good to be true.

He was still contemplating it all when Aileen came out and joined him in the kitchen an hour or so later. Her hair was damp and her cheeks were flushed from her shower and she looked so young and cute that he wanted to hold her tight and never let her go. Instead, Heath grunted when she asked about coffee.

Once she’d fixed her mug and taken a seat beside him at the breakfast bar, she thumbed through the morning paper he’d brought in earlier.

“So, what’s on our agenda today?” she asked, glancing at him over the sports section.

“Not sure yet.” Heath didn’t mean to act like a grumpy ass this morning, but he wasn’t quite sure how to handle things after last night. They hadn’t exactly been close friends before the sex and now he was afraid things would be even more awkward between them afterward. But if he didn’t mention it, then she could get the wrong idea and get her feelings hurt, and he really didn’t want that either. In the end, he took the coward’s way out and changed subjects altogether. “I, uh, got a voicemail from Daveed this morning.”

“Yeah? About what?”

“His buddies at the NSA intercepted a call from the senator last night.”

Aileen halted mid-sip, her eyes wide over the rim of her mug. “No shit?”

“No shit.” Heath cleared his throat and shifted slightly on his seat, the warm scent of his soap and shampoo on her skin doing weird things to his senses, making him feel far more possessive than he had any right to being. “Seems he came right out and said the super-secret green energy invention that EnKor’s been bragging about for months is a fake.”

“Seriously?” She frowned and set her coffee and paper aside. “But why would he do that? Sounds like a stupid move on his part. If anyone found out about it, there’d be hell to pay.”

“Who’s going to find out though?” Heath asked. “For all he knew he was on a secure phone line talking to his co-conspirator. Not like he was telling Frank Kent anything he didn’t already know.”

“That’s true. Man, it’s all so wrong though. There’s so many people’s lives at stake and they just don’t care.” She shook her head, her expression disgusted. “Makes me ill.”

“Me too.” Heath gulped more coffee then continued. “There’s more. He wants to move up the timeline for the EnKor deal and he all but guaranteed the government grant money to Kent.”

“Damn.” Aileen straightened and bit her lips. “They were already cutting it close with the January fourteenth deadline. Christmas is only two days away now. If he wants to push things up, that means something’s probably going down before New Year’s then.”

“Probably.” He exhaled and rubbed his eyes. “Listen, about last night…”

“Yeah, yeah. It was wonderful, magical, made me see stars and all that shit.” Aileen slid off her stool and stretched, causing her fuzzy red sweater to rise and show an enticing expanse of smooth, creamy skin near her middle. Heath froze, his gaze riveted to the spot, even as her words sank in, stunning him even more. Never in all his years had he had a woman blow him off after sex and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Part of him was glad, admittedly, seeing as how things would be a whole lot less weird between them if she truly wasn’t bothered by what had happened between them last night. The other part of him though, the part that had been blown away by her passion and her fire in his bed, was a bit bummed. He’d hoped that she might have enjoyed spending the night with him at least as much as he’d enjoyed the time with her.

If Aileen had fuzzy, warm thoughts about them together last night, however, she wasn’t letting it show. In fact, she laughed as she took her cup to the sink. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to get all clingy now. It was fun. We had sex. I enjoyed it. A lot. If the opportunity arises again,” she chuckled, “see what I did there? If we happen to do it again? Great. If not, I’ll carry the fond memories of it with me forever. How’s that?”

“Uh…” Heath blinked at her.

“Awesome.” She finished rinsing her cup then walked back out into the living room, already working a mile a minute while Heath stood there unsure what the hell to do next. “So, I just saw in the paper that Senator Lawrence is doing another meet and greet today at the Meridian Hotel to support some local charity, City Harvest. They’re having a bunch of gingerbread houses on display from local restaurants and bakeries and the proceeds go to help feed the homeless this holiday season. What’s say we get dressed up again and go snooping?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she must’ve taken his silence for assent.

“Great. I’ll head up to the second floor and go through that trunk again. See if I can find another good disguise.” She was halfway up the stairs, her eyes a bit too bright and her smile a bit too wide for his liking. There was something he was missing in all this, but his head was spinning so fast right now, Heath didn’t know which end was up. Aileen seemed to have that effect on him. “If I find something for you, I’ll let you know.”

Then she was gone and he was alone, all the bluster vanishing along with her.

He’d always prided himself on having a clear head and doing well under high-pressure situations but goddamn if he didn’t feel like a tornado had just hit him. Even worse, he didn’t like the look Aileen had had as she’d hightailed it upstairs. It was almost like she was manically trying to avoid him all of a sudden. Ever since he’d brought up last night…

Well, shit.

Seemed he wasn’t the only one with mixed feelings about it. Worse, what if she actually had thought it was something more between them and then played it off as nothing to protect herself? He didn’t want to get involved with Murphy’s little sister. That had disaster written all over it. But he didn’t want her to get hurt either. He liked her. A lot, way more than was wise, truth be told. If circumstances were different and he wasn’t him and she wasn’t her, then maybe they might’ve had a real shot at more. But things were the way they were and it was difficult.

Heath rinsed out his own cup then placed them both in the dishwasher before heading over to his laptop. Usually he and the guys would have a face-to-face pow-wow each morning, but with him staying at the brownstone and it being so close to the holidays, they’d decided to do everything remotely.

He took a seat at the desk and fired up his computer, hoping time with his buds would help him get his head back on straight, help relieve the strange pang of yearning that had settled in his chest since the wee hours of that morning when he’d opened his eyes and seen Aileen cuddled up beside him, her face nuzzled in his neck and her hand over his heart. For that one brief moment, all had been right with his universe and he’d wanted to hold those precious seconds tight and never let them go.

And that, more than anything, was the biggest problem of them all.