Chapter Seven
Jenna followed Seb into his quarters, letting out a low sigh of relief as the door slid shut behind her, blocking the rest of the world out. She would never have suggested this, never would have invited herself into his home, no matter how pragmatic the idea might have been.
Yet, he had offered and she couldn’t refuse, not when being around him was so easy, so uncomplicated. He reminded her of who she really was, who she had been before she’d become a CI agent. It had been a long time since anyone had looked out for her the way he had, and certainly, for many years now, no one had cared much about her outside of what she could do as an agent.
That time alone in the dark of the maintenance hatch, after Seb had landed the shuttle and departed, had given her just enough quiet to really think. And yeah, it had been a little shocking just how lost she’d let herself get in the world of espionage, in the shadows of the war where most CI agents operated. She missed the carefree girl she’d once been, the one who hadn’t lived in the shade of death. Seb had exploded into her life and made her see she wanted that girl back.
For a brief moment, she’d entertained the fantasy of what she would be now if she’d lived a normal life. Or even if she’d taken a different posting out of pre-mil training, instead of going into CI. Would she have met someone and gotten married? Someone like Seb who she came home to every night to share her life with?
So maybe she could find the bright side of her own people trying to kill her. If she somehow managed to get out of this situation alive, she was going to find a new life, do something safe, something a regular, everyday kind of person would do. Have an actual relationship with friends and family, because the deepening isolation of the last few years had been one of the hardest things to endure.
“We’ve got a few hours up our sleeve, and then I’m due at a debriefing about yesterday’s mission.” Seb set her luggage beside the couch and then continued into the small kitchen. “So, what do you want to do with that time?”
She walked over and hopped up onto one of the stools bolted to the floor in front of the bench. “Actually, this would be a good time to decompress. I had a short nap in the shuttle, but we could both probably use a shower and some sleep.”
He pulled two glasses out of a cupboard and then poured cold water. “Well, that’s a bit of a letdown. I thought you’d have this kick-ass plan to sneak into the command center, or maybe hack into the ship’s primary controls. Something very illegal and most definitely dangerous.”
As she accepted the glass from him, she gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Don’t worry. That stuff will come later. We’ve got plenty of time to get ourselves into unbelievable heights of peril.”
“Then I won’t be disappointed.” Seb tilted his head back and took a long drink, then set the glass down and walked around the bench. “Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour. If you look to your right, you’ll see the shoe-box kitchen, where I have just demonstrated the types of beverages on offer. To the left, the sitting room with its single couch and one armchair, both made of the same lumpy cushions that ensure you won’t want to sit in them for more than five minutes.”
He took her hand, tugging her off the stool and across the room to the short passageway with several doors leading off it.
“Storage, which is so ridiculously small, you can’t even fit half your crap in there, bathroom, which has constant hot water, but funnily enough, a temperamental cold faucet. And lastly the bedroom, where you’ll be making yourself comfortable for the duration of your stay.”
They stopped just inside the bedroom doorway, and she turned to look up at him. “I’m not sleeping in your bed.”
He crossed his arms. “Well, obviously, I’m not going to be in it. I’ll take the couch. So, what’s the problem?”
“It’s more than enough that you’re letting me stay here. I’m not going to take your bed as well. I’ll be fine sleeping on the couch.”
“Seriously, you’re going to argue about this?” His brow lowered, and he sent her a slow-burning grin. “Well, if you insist, we’ll both sleep in the bed.”
Heat flash-boiled in her veins, her mind oh-so-helpfully bombarding her with images of him reclining on the bed mostly naked, ending with her eagerly joining him.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t.” He leaned closer. “I just wanted to see what kind of reaction I’d get. Gotta say, that pink tinge to your cheeks has got me intrigued. Tut tut, Jenna, just what did you think I meant?”
She crossed her arms. “You’re a tease. Anyone ever told you that?”
The grin he sent her in return held no shame whatsoever, telling her he’d enjoyed the way he’d ruffled her. “Oh, I’ve been told a time or two before, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about it.” He shifted a little closer, and she backed up a step, bumping into the doorjamb. “Are you complaining, Jenna?”
Just what was he playing at here? She tilted her head back, staring into his dark-amber eyes, her heart kicking up a few notches to drum in her chest. Having him so close, his teasing bordering on intimate, it was a temptation she shouldn’t be considering. The coming days would bring danger to both of them, and messing things up between them by getting involved would only end in disaster. Yet she’d been alone for so long, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d let anyone through her guard.
Somehow, Seb had gotten under her skin from almost the first moment they’d met. And while logic dictated she keep as much impersonal distance between them as possible, she didn’t want to. In fact, her instincts were telling her just the opposite—to grab him close and not let go until she had to.
But, did he reciprocate her burgeoning feelings, or was he just flirting, with no interest in taking things any further?
Jenna gave herself a mental shake. She didn’t have the time or luxury to be standing around wondering if a boy liked her or not, as though she were some teenager with her first crush.
“I already asked you once before if you ever take anything seriously. I guess there’s no point in repeating myself?” She set her hand in the middle of his chest, applying the slightest bit of pressure, but he didn’t move back. Warmth radiated off him, making her want to get closer like he was the damned sun and she’d been in the cold for too long.
“And I’ll tell you the same thing I told you then. This is my serious face, can’t you tell?”
She sent him an exasperated glare. “Your serious face looks an awful lot like your this-is-fun face. How am I supposed to tell the difference?”
“You got me there.” He shrugged and brought a hand up to brace against the doorjamb next to her head, half trapping her closer to his body. “When the time calls for it, I’ll be deadly serious, and you’ll know it.”
“Uh-huh,” she muttered, heavy on the sarcasm.
Somehow, he’d gotten nearer still, and her next breath was all Seb—lingering tones of his aftershave, mixed with the leather of his flight jacket and an undertone that was simply, undeniably male.
The hand she’d braced against his chest curled into a fist, gripping a handful of his shirt as she breathed out unevenly. She’d been making duty her number one priority for so many years, she’d almost forgotten what it felt like to want something for herself. Except, this was the worst possible time that her long-repressed desire for something beyond herself could have to risen up. Distracted at the wrong moment, it could mean her death.
Yet somehow Seb was closer, though she had no idea if he’d moved or she had. She tightened her grip on the front of his shirt, knowing she should pull away, but her body refused to respond to the command.
His lips touched hers, the contact brief, tentative, but entirely consuming. And then her eyes slid shut as tingles shot through her body like a forerunner of electricity. Seb closed a hand around the back of her neck and quite simply took over. He yanked her up against him, deepened the kiss, and the tingles exploded into a shower of sparks, lighting bright, hot, little fires all throughout her body.
Her breath stalled as he pushed harder against her, and then urged her back half a step until she came up against the wall behind her. Her insides were hitting melting point, all from what should have been a simple kiss. Yet there was nothing simple about the way he was kissing her, all dark heat and lush passion, like drinking at midnight on a beach in the tropics. Her head was spinning, the air seemed too thick to breathe, yet she couldn’t get enough of him.
Seb cursed, and it took a long moment for her brain to register anything beyond the feel of him against her. But when her mind at last rebooted itself as he pulled away, she realized she could hear a trilling noise.
He kept one arm at her waist, but used the other to pull out his personal comm.
“What?” His voice came out gravelly, and more than a little pissed off, as he held the comm to his ear. His lips thinned as he listened to whoever was on the other end, and he glanced down at her. Shadows of concerned chased away the warm gleam in his gaze, and he let her go to turn away.
“Actually, I was busy, and I still haven’t managed to catch a shower or any shut-eye. But I guess what you’re telling me is I don’t really have a choice. Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be there.”
Seb ended the call, and with his back to her, dropped his head for a long moment before rubbing the back of his neck. A welling of sympathy rose within her, because all of a sudden, he seemed tired. Of course, that probably had something to do with his night spent behind enemy lines after her mission had gone so wrong
“Sorry, Jenna, but I’m going to have to run out on you.” He faced her, and while he sent her a half smile, there were somber shadows in his gaze.
“Is everything okay?”
He shrugged as he slipped the comm back into his pocket. “My debriefing has been moved to now. Apparently, your handler wants to sit in. He wants every detail I can provide about how, where, and when I found your body, and exactly what I did between then and leaving the planet.”
Concern tightened her chest and she closed the few steps between them to take his hand. “Don’t worry. It’s the same thing he’d do with any of his agents. My guess is he’s wanting a full accounting because the information he was after wasn’t on the drive you gave him. Just stick to the facts as close to the truth as you can, without the part about me, and you’ll be fine. The more truth your accounting has, the less likely you’ll trip up.”
He nodded, a muscle pulsing in his cheek as he clenched his jaw. “I just hope, for your sake, I can pull it off. If they work out the truth, I might get demoted, but you’ll be dead.”
His sigh was heavy as he shoved a hand through his mussed hair, and her heart squeezed in her chest. Now that she’d gotten her hands on him, it seemed like touching him had instantly become addictive. She leaned closer to cup his cheek, where the muscles were like stone.
“You’ve been doing great, Seb, believe me. I know how hard it can be to deceive people, especially those closest to you. What you’re doing for me is nothing short of amazing.”
A short grin tugged his lips upward. “Yeah, I’m a pretty amazing guy.”
She let a small laugh escape, dispelling some of the tension. “And with not one iota of humility, either.”
His grin widened and he opened his mouth to reply, but she slapped her palm over the lower half of his face.
“And before you say something like when I look this good, who needs humility, let me stop you. Don’t go ruining my mistaken impression that you’re a good guy who’ll put a stranger before his own well-being.”
His hand encircled her wrist, then gently tugged her palm away from his mouth. “You got me there, honey-cakes. I’ll let you hold onto that fantasy for as long as you like, ‘cause you know this whole gig was just an elaborate ploy to get you into bed, which is totally working.”
She sent him an exasperated glare. “You’re risking death and going up against the most powerful intelligence agency in the entire universe, just to get some chick you don’t even know to sleep with you. Wow, talk about commitment to the cause.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
She shook her head as the light, teasing moment swiftly evaporated. If Seb said one wrong thing, even let the wrong expression cross his face, her CI handler would be all over it, and then her fake death would be blown right open. Despite the risks, despite the fact she’d known him for a little over twenty-four hours, deep down she believed Seb would go to any length to keep her secret.
“Be careful, won’t you?” She slid her hands up his arms to grip his biceps. He might be an ace fighter pilot, but he couldn’t have anticipated that this was where he’d end up when he’d agreed to take on the mission yesterday.
“I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.” His hand cupped her upper neck and lower jaw, then he leaned down and lightly touched his lips to hers.
“Don’t think I didn’t fail to notice you said nothing about keeping yourself safe,” she murmured against his mouth.
“I’m not the one they’re trying to kill,” he said, voice low. He sealed his lips against hers. This time the kiss was a little deeper, a little more intense, making her blood ripple with tingles. It would be so easy to lose herself in him, take whatever he offered and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist or wasn’t out to kill her. Yet her damned sense of duty wouldn’t be silenced, so she pushed herself back from him. He groaned as she broke the kiss, his hands tightening on her as he tried to pull her close again.
“You should go. Being late won’t win you any favors with my handler.”
“I don’t care,” he muttered against her neck. “Let them wait.”
She set her hands against his shoulder. “And what are you going to tell them when they ask you why you were late?”
He sighed as he leaned back and frowned at her in obvious thwarted frustration. “I don’t know. I’ll make something up.”
“Exactly.” She wiggled out of his grasp and took several steps across the room—well out of reach. “It’ll be yet another lie you have to come up with, when you’ve already got more than a handful to keep straight. Go, and arrive on time, and it’ll be one less way you’ll be covering for me.”
“Okay, okay. At least let me change this shirt I’ve been living in for the past day and a half.” He pulled at the fastenings on his shirt, revealing a chest-hugging, navy sleeveless top underneath. As he tossed the shirt and then yanked the muscle-top from the waistband of his pants, revealing a ripple of stomach muscles, she headed for the door.
“I’ll just wait out here. Maybe start unpacking.”
Seb’s low laugh trailed her out into the main room, where she retrieved her bag and lifted it onto the coffee table to flip open the front compartment filled with all kinds of tech and gadgets.
“Wow, that’s some serious hardware you’re rocking.”
Seb had followed her out, shrugging into a new shirt as he stopped beside her.
“I assume this means you’ll be off doing some super-secret-agent thing while I’m in the debriefing?”
“Actually, I’m planning on following you.” She grabbed a couple of pieces of tech.
“Infiltrating the command center, huh?” His fingers traveled over the fastenings of his shirt, snapping the material closed, then he did a half-hearted attempt at tucking the ends into his waistband.
“The thought had crossed my mind, since there’s a program on the command center computers that can help me trace the origins of the call that ordered my execution.” She stepped forward. “These are for you. First, this is a recording device. I want to hear what my handler has to say in your debriefing.”
She searched for a place to stick the small, rounded gadget, about a quarter size of her pinkie nail. A glint of chain at Seb’s neck caught her attention, and she reached into the collar of his shirt to retrieve his military tags. Once she’d stuck the recorder in place, she stepped back again.
“And this one is how you’re going to get me in to the command center.” She held up the square patch. “This emits a short, localized EMP pulse. Slap it on the door as you pass into the command center, and it’ll fritz out any nearby cameras and jam the door open. While the guard is distracted trying to work out what’s wrong, I’m going to slip in.”
Seb took the patch. “And how do you plan on getting out again?”
“Unfortunately for the security in the command center, that’s easy. You ever noticed how once you’re inside, no one ever stops you to ask you what you’re doing? That’s because everyone assumes that if you’re in the command center, then you’re meant to be there. It’ll be as simple as walking back out again.”
“Wow, I’d never thought about that before, but you’re right. How have they not realized they’ve got a big fat hole in their security procedures?”
“When this is all over, feel free to tell them all about it. In the meantime, it’s going to come in handy. Now, the only hitch to my plan… You wouldn’t happen to have a spare uniform about my size sitting around anywhere?”
Seb’s gaze ran up and down her body, but the measurement was impersonal.
“There are plenty of spare uniforms up on squadron level, but we probably don’t have time to detour if you’re serious about getting me to the debriefing on time.”
If her plan failed because she couldn’t get her hands on a uniform…well, it would be a bad start to the day. Falling at the first hurdle wouldn’t bode well for her overall scheme.
“Bren.”
The word broke through her spinning thoughts.
“My CO, Lieutenant Brenner, she lives just down the hall, I could ask her—”
Jenna slipped him a half smile as she headed for the door to his apartment.
“Perfect, she was about my size, maybe a bit taller. But that will do. We’re not asking her, though. We’ll just borrow a uniform and put it back before she realizes it’s missing.”
Seb shot her a skeptical look. “I suppose there’s no point asking how you’re going to get into the locked apartment of my CO?”
“None whatsoever,” she replied with a cheerful lilt in her voice. “Now, which one is it?”