Chapter Twenty-Six
Knox scrolled through what felt like an endless list of log entries, the black text against his dimmed white background not even penetrating his otherwise occupied thoughts. The clock in the upper right-hand of his screen showed 3:23 p.m. A whopping five minutes later than the last time he’d checked the time and going nowhere fast. Kind of the same feeling as when he couldn’t sleep and the night went on forever. Except instead of staring at the ceiling and thinking about everything from app ideas to possible data vulnerabilities, this time all he could think about was the answer Darya had promised him by the end of the day. Two more hours—three at most—before she’d let him know if she’d dump her skip tracing gigs and join his crew full time.
Shoving his mouse out of the way, he pushed back from his desk and stared out the thick tinted windows with a straight-line view of the busy street out front. Over two months, she’d poured herself into the training and opportunities he’d given her and made more ground in that short time than even the most gifted coders he’d worked with. To say that watching her devour information was a turn-on was the grossest of understatements. More like serving up napalm to a guy determined to dance in a bonfire. Add to that how things had gone between them on a personal level in the last month, and he was more determined than ever to tie her to him any and every way possible. Now he got why Jace had taken the tack he had with Vivienne. Hell, if he’d known then what he knew today, he’d have just packed her shit and moved her in with him on day one.
He sighed and dropped his head back on the top of his desk chair. She still hadn’t shared about her past, though. She’d come close a few times, the far-off look on her face and the way she’d chewed her lower lip before she’d abruptly steered them into lighter territory the stuff of secrets dancing on the tip of her tongue. At least he assumed the past was what was on her mind. It damned well better not be their future.
A soft knock sounded on his door.
Knox jerked his head up, gaze shooting straight to the camera feed with a straight-on shot of his office door.
Well, speak of one very gorgeous devil.
He spun in his chair. “Yeah.”
The knob turned slow and silent, like a burglar was on the other side of the door instead of the woman he was half out of his mind for. She poked her head through the opening. “Knox?”
“Sweetheart, you know you don’t have to knock.”
“But your door was closed. I thought maybe you were in the middle of something and didn’t want to be interrupted.”
He motioned to the door with a lift of his chin. “You shut and lock that door then we’ll both be in the middle of something I don’t want interrupted.”
Her coy smile matched the pretty flush that swept across her cheeks, but her hips swayed with natural sensuality as she drifted closer. “I thought we had a no-hands policy at work.”
The second she was within grabbing distance, he snapped forward, grabbed her around the waist and tugged her into his lap. “Oh, we’ve got a no-hands policy all right. You promise no-hands on any man but me and I promise no-hands on any woman but you. Between the two of us, it’s a free-for-all.”
Her husky laughter was the stuff of wet dreams, a sensual rasp against his ears that fired all kinds of dirty thoughts. She cocked her head to one side and peeked playfully up at him through her soft lashes. “You sure you don’t want to talk business?”
Instant. Focus.
“Are we talking something you’re trying to work out code-wise, or long-term career plans?”
Her gaze slid to his chest where her fingers were pressed above his heart. “Long-term.”
Thank Jesus. He probably could have made it to the end of the day, but if she was willing to bring things to a head early he might actually be able to get some much needed oxygen to his brain. “Well, then that depends. If you’re going to give me the answer I want, then we can talk. If you’re not, then we’ll take a sidebar so I can spend extra time extolling the virtues of being my employee.”
Her mouth quirked in an adorable smile. “Perhaps you should tell me about those virtues regardless.”
“Sweetheart, I won’t be telling you anything. I’ll be showing you. Likely with your ass perched on the edge of my desk and your thighs around my hips.”
One second. One infinitesimal second and her eyes grew weighted. Her lips parted just a fraction, a welcome invitation he was halfway tempted to take regardless of how serious the root of their conversation was—or where he wanted it to lead. He palmed her hip and cradled her closer instead. “Say yes. The skip jobs don’t pay you anywhere near what I can, let alone what you’re worth. And you said from the get-go you didn’t like the work.”
She pressed her hand more firmly to his chest, as though seeking something to steady her.
He tightened his arms and lowered his voice. “Take the jump. Let me catch you.”
“I already jumped,” she whispered. “Months ago.”
Pure pleasure fired through his veins, a high-octane rush that even some of his more dangerous exploits couldn’t rival. “Is that a yes?”
She dipped her head, keeping her gaze on him.
“Good, then you won’t mind if I push my luck while I’m at it.”
Her lips pursed in a cute little mew. “You always push your luck.”
Hell, yeah he did. Especially with the physical aspects to their relationship. He might be hesitant to voice the depth of everything he felt for her, but he had zero problem expressing it sexually. In the weeks since they’d settled into a routine bouncing back and forth between her place and his, he’d not only put her meager toy collection to good use, but had built a more sizable arsenal at his place. “Then you know you’d be wise to give in now. I’ll get my way in the long run anyway.”
“Give in to what?”
He swallowed hard, the magnitude of what he was about to propose the biggest step he’d taken to date. If she said yes, postponing a deeper conversation with his brothers wouldn’t be an option anymore—whether she’d opted to share her past with him or not. “Move in with me.”
For long, gut-wrenching seconds she sat motionless in his lap, so still it was hard to tell if her lungs were even working.
“We spend half our time at my place anyway,” he said. “We can’t do anything without your neighbors hearing and I don’t have nearly the room I need to work you in the shower. Not to mention the place is a security nightmare.”
“But what about Beckett?”
“What about him? He adores you. And outside of him inhaling the food before either of us can get to it and hogging the late-night television, we never see him.” Except maybe that was the kicker. Maybe she wasn’t big on the idea of co-habitating with another guy besides him. “Unless you want a place of our own,” he tacked on. “We can leave him that floor and take on another one for us. I own half the building so we can do whatever we want. Or I can buy something—”
“Shhh.” She pressed two fingers over his lips and smiled that soft smile that always made him wonder if she wasn’t more angel than human. “I don’t mind being with Beckett. I like your place. I just don’t want to do something that would make him uncomfortable.”
“You’re kidding right? Most of my better memories come from making Beckett uncomfortable. I’d just have a partner in crime this time.” He cupped the side of her face and pulled her in for a kiss. “Seriously. Just think about it. No pressure.”
She pulled away from his lips and cast an incredulous expression on him. “No pressure? From you?”
“Okay, maybe a little pressure. In fact, I vote we spend the night at your place tonight so I can spend adequate time pointing out everything that’s wrong with it.”
God, her smile was beautiful. Just as powerful and blazing as the August sunshine outside his window, but tinted with the cooler hues of a full moon. “Okay. My place tonight. And before I give you an answer, you have to promise me you’ll talk with Beckett.”
Oh, he’d talk to Beckett all right. Along with all the rest of his brothers. “I’ll talk, but he’ll be on board.” He patted her hip and straightened in his chair. “Now, hop up and get your butt to work. I want us out of here before the sun goes down this time, and I haven’t got half the shit done I need to.”
She swiveled in his lap, but paused before she stood to lean in and study his screen. “You’re working on something new?”
“No, combing through log files.”
“That doesn’t look like anything out of an application log file. Those look like websites and IP addresses.”
He chuckled at the confused frown scrunching her face. “They’re login hack attempts against one of our mail servers. I set up honeypots to draw nosier types away from the real stuff. When they try to access the data, it fires an auto-blocking trigger for their IP. Reviewing them is about as exciting as overnight infomercials, but I like to keep an eye out for persistent attempts.”
She reached for the mouse, but paused just before wrapping her hand around it and glanced back. “Can I look?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
Eyes back to the screen, she scrolled from the top of the screen. “What’s a honeypot?”
He couldn’t help it. Not with her lobbing up such an easy one for him to swing at. He slipped his hands between her thighs and rubbed his finger along the center seam of her jeans. Looking back, talking her out of wearing those prim skirts and the easy access they provided was a serious misstep. “Well, this is one of my favorite ones.”
She giggled, squirmed in his lap and batted his hand away. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Sighing, he sat back and let her refocus on the long stream of text on the screen. “It’s exactly what it sounds like. A diversion. A lure. I set out fake data and draw the people interested in nosing into our business there instead of to the good stuff. When they bite, I block ’em.”
She nodded, but the motion seemed distracted. Her finger stilled on the mouse wheel and a subtle but very real tension held the rest of her locked in place.
Knox sat up and looked at the screen. “Something wrong?”
Releasing the mouse, she stood and took two shaky steps away from his desk. “No, I just...” She smoothed her hands against her hips and cleared her throat, stopping just short of meeting his gaze. Her smile was about as empty as they came. “I just don’t know what any of it means.”
Bullshit. Not once in the time he’d known her had he ever got the feeling she’d lied to him.
Until now.
Maybe it was more avoidance than an outright falsehood, but it still stung. He’d given her everything. Knocked down barriers he’d never even considered dismantling for anyone else, and she couldn’t even give him this? He stood, tempted to prowl closer, cage her against the wall and demand answers. Instead, he fought it. He’d already told her he wanted her past and more than anything he wanted to earn it. To know she trusted him enough to give it. Still, if what she’d seen had shaken her this bad, he needed to know. “What did you see?”
She swallowed huge and her gaze slid to the screen behind him. “There was a word—Koschei.” Just uttering the term made her face blanch.
He turned, leaned into his desk and scrolled through the list. “Yeah, what about it?”
“It’s probably nothing.”
Having isolated the line she’d called out, he highlighted the text, pasted it off on a separate document and scowled back over his shoulder. “You look like the boogeyman just flashed a heinous set of nuts on my computer. Don’t tell me it’s nothing. What’s it mean?”
“It’s a figure from Slavic folklore. Koschei is...” She circled one hand and her gaze grew distant, as though scrambling for the right mix of words to convey her thoughts. “Deathless.” Her gaze sharpened and she locked stares with Knox. “He cannot be killed because his soul is kept separate from his body.”
Knox straightened. “So, it’s the folklore that shook you?”
Pain flashed behind her eyes, and for a second he thought she’d deflect with some bullshit excuse as she had minutes before. “No.”
Fuck distance. Fuck waiting and worrying and everything else that came in between it. He stalked to her and wrapped her up close. “Whatever it is, just tell me. I can’t fix what I don’t know.”
“You can’t fix this,” she whispered. Her attention slid to the screen then back to him. “Maybe it’s nothing. I hope it’s nothing. But you deserve the truth.”
Finally.
“Okay. Good.” He hugged her tighter and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s shut down. We’ll get out of here early and just chill at your house.”
She pressed her hands against his chest and pulled back to meet his gaze. “No, you finish your work. We’ll do our normal routine and talk tonight. Okay?”
An uncomfortable prickle danced down the back of his neck. Whatever thoughts were moving through her nimble head, he had a pretty good idea he wouldn’t like them. Still, if she needed him to wait two more fucking hours, he’d give them to her. Then he’d make sure the demons from her past never darkened her thoughts again.