SIX
Sophie’s eyes burned from exhaustion and overuse. It didn’t help that she’d been staring at a computer screen for most of the night—or was it day? She didn’t know anymore.
Jet lag had left her restless in that big king-sized bed. The fact that she was forced to share with a man she’d practically jumped for sex didn’t leave her feeling comfortable either.
Along with the sting in her eyes, her cheeks heated at the memory of the swimming pool. Could she be any more embarrassed? That perfume was one of the worst ideas she’d ever had, and she could name a lot revolving around her ex.
Now she could add giving in to her crazy desire and kissing Con to the list.
Even with a wall of pillows between them, lying in bed beside him was not happening. They could sleep in shifts.
Right now, she had a cryptogram to work on.
She refocused on the screen where three precise rows of letters were written. On the plane, she’d spent time splitting up the code and categorizing the letters into groups of size, shape and inconsistencies. So far, she’d noted the letter C had been written in four different ways, which rarely happened in everyday handwriting. The odds had to be one in one billion.
She settled into the plush leather sofa with the laptop on her knees and stared like an owl at the screen until the little letters swam in and out of focus.
She shook her head. Maybe she should go to bed. It was around four in the morning in Turkey time. That meant it was eight in the evening back in the States. At home, she’d be finishing up her chores, such as filling the dishwasher or folding a load of clean towels, eager to settle into bed with her book.
The prospect of going to bed with the big, sexy SEAL who’d had his hands all over her was a hard no . It was bad enough that she could still feel the echo of his touch, of his mouth moving over her throat…and his hands on her bare skin.
Con had been everywhere, kissing and fondling. Sophie had been eagerly responding too.
Then he had to throw her in the pool.
Was pool sex a fantasy for all guys?
She nibbled her bottom lip in contemplation, reliving that moment over and over again when she told him about the perfume. He’d looked at her like she’d just told him that Santa Claus wasn’t real.
Then he’d gone into the hotel room, leaving her to make her way inside, naked and wet.
From a scientist’s standpoint, she was pleasantly surprised at the outcome of using the perfume. If it lured in a man as hot as Ryan Constantine, then it was deserving of the hype.
From the perspective of a divorcee about to dabble in the dating world…she would definitely not recommend.
She’d been so close to sealing the deal with Con, and then it fizzled out the second that perfume washed off her skin. Dammit.
Without the perfume, he didn’t want her. But she wasn’t here to have a fling with a big, hot guy.
“I’m here to use my brain,” she muttered under her breath.
Too bad the man was a walking god. She’d never seen a man like him in person before, let alone been touched by one.
She gave herself a stern talking-to. “Focus.”
After another half an hour of toying with different variables in the cryptogram, she set aside the laptop and picked up the man’s phone that Con had given her. She wasn’t trained to go through phones, but it was no different from a computer, and she’d hacked a few in her day. To know how to fix something, you had to know how to break it. Or so the motto went.
She swiped through the guy’s browsing history. A lot of gaps revealed that either he didn’t use the device for long stretches or he deleted the history. A short while later, she switched to searching his maps and locations.
Their guy didn’t seem stupid enough to pin his locations. However, he had entered a few destinations into his GPS, both of them in the US.
Her brows puckered in concentration as she explored the addresses. One belonged to a hotel. If he’d stayed in that place, he enjoyed none of the bells and whistles of an establishment like the one she and Con were staying in right now.
The other address was for a gas station.
Hmm. That must mean he needed gas. Which meant he rented a car.
She did a search for any payment apps that could possibly tell her where he’d been over the past month and located one instantly. Hunched over the phone, she continued her search, aware of the silence and only the thump of her own heart in her ears. At least Con didn’t snore the way Benjamin did.
She scrolled through receipts for meals and gasoline purchases made in Turkey.
She researched the addresses and felt a tingle run down her spine.
These purchases were all made right here in Istanbul. The city where they were currently staying.
Pushing into a better sitting position, she tucked her legs beneath her and began her deep dive into his very detailed purchase history.
She shook her head in wonder. Dear god, this was almost too easy. Either the guy was missing a few brain cells or he was cocky enough to believe he wasn’t leaving a big glaring footprint everywhere he went.
Or it was a decoy trail.
She paused with a finger hovering over the screen, over a receipt that had been photographed as verification it had been paid in full.
That was a lot of money to pay for a dinner. Over eight hundred US dollars—
She sucked in a gasp. At the bottom was a scrawled signature.
Berkant… Was that Berkant Bayar? That wasn’t the name of the man detained at the airport. The discrepancy could mean another person was involved…or that their guy had an alias and fake passport.
Excitement flowed through her veins like she’d taken a double shot of espresso. All of a sudden, she was wide awake. Only the faint hum of the ceiling fan cut through the silence.
Unfolding her legs, she bounced to the edge of the sofa and cradled the phone. She didn’t know how long she leaned over the device, but her neck grew stiff.
She pulled Bayar’s contacts. All two hundred thirty-three of them. She rifled through his phone history, leaving no stone unturned.
Outside the french doors, the sky was beginning to fragment into that space between night and dawn.
Finally, she broke into the cloud again.
Clicking open every single file revealed more and more leads to search. Then she saw it.
She made a connection.
“Oh. My. God.”
Some of the files were named with a single letter.
A code of their own.
Her hands tremored with a fresh hit of adrenaline. She jumped to her feet and took off for the bedroom. And the king-sized bed where Con slept.
She padded up to his side of the bed. He slept on his side. One long tree trunk of a leg had plowed through their pillow barrier and now took up her side of the bed.
Reaching down, she nudged his thick shoulder. He’d donned a T-shirt for sleeping out of respect of her sensibilities. Or possibly he feared she’d attack him the minute she spotted that manly flesh.
She swallowed her groan and gave him a small shake. “Con! Wake up.”
“Eh?” He cracked an eye at her.
“I found something important.”
“You need to sleep.” He whipped out an arm, snagging her around the thighs. He tugged. She had no choice but to bend to his will. Against his strength, she was helpless as he hauled her into bed with him.
“Con—no. Wait!”
He pinned her against his chest, covering her back from her head that he tucked beneath his chin to her toes that hovered somewhere around his strong calves.
Heat enveloped her. Oh gawd . He was toasty warm.
This wasn’t why she’d come in here at all .
She wiggled to free herself from his hold. They had work to do. They had to find this guy and—
He nudged his hips against hers, cradling her backside.
Spooning her.
And she wasn’t wearing the perfume.
Against her will, a sigh trickled past her lips, and her eyes slipped shut.
Con didn’t seem to be in a working mood.
* * * * *
Con woke with a start, skipping over any morning grogginess as he fully registered a very unfamiliar warmth against him. Sophie was plastered against his chest, her slender legs tangled up with his.
If he wasn’t eagle-sharp and wide awake, he’d question the whys. But he remembered the moment she walked into the room with an important find, and how he’d cracked an eye, seen fatigue lining her pretty face, and dragged her into bed, forcing her to sleep.
Only he’d wrapped himself around her and passed out with the careless abandon of a person with much less responsibility on their shoulders.
Now he had to make the difficult decision of whether to wake her up to discuss this important finding or let her continue to sleep.
Listening to the deep, rhythmic breaths, and the sensation of her chest rising and falling against him, gave him the answer he needed.
He carefully disentangled his legs from hers and rolled over, coming up against the pillow barrier that had gotten kicked around and flattened during the night. As soon as he reached the opposite side of the bed, Sophie’s soft voice reached him.
“What time is it?”
Christ. That dusky tone of her voice helped his morning wood almost as much as the echo of her he still felt in his arms.
Even if the golden light filtering through the curtains already told him it was an hour or so past dawn, he passed a hand over his face and glanced at his watch he was rarely ever without. He croaked out, “Seven.”
He scrubbed his hand over the stubble on his jaw in an effort to dispel the feel of Sophie’s soft hair that had been caught in the rough growth of his five-o’clock shadow. But moving his arm only reminded him of how it had been curved protectively around her.
He faced the other wall, but he knew when she clambered out of bed. The mattress jostled beneath him, and a second later, she appeared in front of him. After the pool debacle, she’d changed into lounge pants that skimmed over her rounded hips and a dark green tank top that emphasized her figure. Her hair hung in straight glossy strands over her bare shoulders.
Hell. He knew all too well what her skin felt like under his hands…his mouth.
He bit back a growl.
“I found something important.”
“So you said.” He had to get some pants on. His shirt would never cover his massive erection. “Give me a minute and we’ll talk.”
Her eyes widened. The wide depths burned with understanding and that burn shifted to her cheeks. Redness bloomed across her skin—a hook in his gut.
Though she stood close, he jolted to his feet. The move brought his body close to hers—too damn close. Dangerously fucking close.
She quickly backed away from him, and he skirted around her and shut himself inside the bathroom. Relieving himself was out for the moment, so he brushed his teeth and splashed cold water on his face.
Part of him was still aching for a different kind of relief. Sophie was the first woman he’d laid a hand on in a long time. But she’d tricked him, and he was still annoyed by that.
He was a SEAL trained to withstand torture, and he’d been reeled in by some women’s perfume. Goddammit.
When he exited the bathroom, Sophie wasn’t in the bedroom. Con didn’t know whether to enjoy the reprieve or be more irritated that he couldn’t seem to predict her next move.
He yanked his jeans on, and barefoot, walked out into the sitting area. Her attention was already wholly fixed on the computer screen. As soon as he entered, she twitched her head to the sofa cushion beside her.
For a beat, he hesitated.
She flicked her gaze from the screen to Con. “I know you’re used to giving the orders, but I’m asking you to please sit down.”
“Can’t we even do this over coffee?”
She studied him. “I pegged you as a morning person.”
He could think of about ten different ways to peg her.
Damn. He had to get a grip. He didn’t want Sophie—he had been tricked by her damn perfume and his cock got fooled into thinking that having a soft, plump ass nestled against it meant it was getting some action.
He stomped over to the small counter that held a luxury coffee machine. Beside that was a mini bar. For a blink, he contemplated something harder than coffee but then he decided to do the right thing.
That’s me. Doing the right thing. Not fucking my cryptologist after waking up with her in my arms.
He fixed himself a cup of coffee and carried it back to the sofa. Sophie now held a phone in her hand.
The one that had been confiscated by airport authority.
Con sank to the sofa beside her. “What did you find?” He brought the coffee to his lips and gave it a tentative sip. It still scorched his mouth, but he forced it down his gullet.
She bubbled with excitement, squirming on her cushion. “This. It’s big, Con. It’s huge .”
He fought back his first response to her outburst about something else that was huge—he’d lived with rough men too long—and took the phone from her. After a quick glance, his gaze snapped to her.
“You should have woken me up for this.”
“I tried. You…” That flush was back, and she ducked her head to hide it from him.
He knew damn well what he’d done. His cock wasn’t going to let him forget.
He eyed her. “How did you find this when Kit didn’t?”
“Kit?” Confusion lit her pretty face.
“A hacker who works closely with our team.” He turned his attention back to the screen. “Sophie, this is bigger than we thought. This gives us proof of that. We knew he had taken an interest in the Federal Building, and again, this is proof that will hold up in a court of law. But there are more codes. ”
“I know and I think I might have one solved!”
His eyes bugged. “Well, what does it say?”
She had set the laptop aside and drew it into her lap now, twisting the device so he could see. She’d pulled up a blank document and typed a series of letters into it.
Tick-tock—by now you’ve felt the first tremor of my message.
Con gripped Sophie’s thigh. “How did you do that?”
She tripped over her words. “Studying the first cryptogram allowed me to unravel this one much quicker.”
“You did this last night?”
“No, it came to me while you were in the bathroom.”
He blinked. “You’re joking. Sophie, I couldn’t have been in there more than five minutes.”
She tucked her chin down and averted her gaze to the screen as if embarrassed by her own prowess.
He grabbed his phone. “We have to get this to my commanding officer. We’re going to transfer everything we know in a secure file. Start compiling everything you have into a document. The names you have, the signature, everywhere he was, every step he took in the US.”
She shook her head. “He didn’t have maps history on while he was in the US. We only have a couple addresses and charges on his digital wallet. And hotel records.”
“We have an entire team of FBI and CIA agents behind us to dig up more.”
She got to work as he put in a call to Commander Barrett.
The call revealed far more than he was expecting. As he ended the call, Con slid a glance to Sophie.
She had moved to the table and continued digging through the phone. He could see this was fun for her. A puzzle to be solved.
He approached her. “I have news.”
She looked up from the phone, waiting.
“There are more bomb threats that match with the intel the CIA has already uncovered.”
“I was afraid of that.” Some of the rosiness in her cheeks faded under a new layer of paleness. “I need to get back to work.”
He settled at the table to work through the information Barrett had provided. Long minutes passed in silence.
Suddenly, Sophie sat back in her seat, a stunned look rippling over her beautiful features. “My god. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.”
“See what?”
“I know how to find him now.” She snatched up the phone again. After a few taps, she synced the phone that she held with the new one that he had obviously replaced it with.
Apps popped up all over the screen.
“Holy shit.”
Her words tripped out. “He thought he buried them. But there are footprints. Look at this! Hotel booking. Uber Eats!”
He leaned over her. “Or he wants us to believe this is his information.”
She bit down on her lip. “I considered the possibility.”
He skimmed the screen. “Jesus. We can see he had Thai food at three in the morning. Are there records from lifts he got from point A to B too?”
She dug around for a long, silent moment. Finally, she shook her head. “He didn’t catch a ride from this hotel to the next. So how did he get there?”
“He rented a car. Or he has a friend who picked him up.”
Their gazes locked as they both processed what that could mean. Men like this didn’t work alone. They had whole groups of people helping their cause.
“The even bigger question,” Sophie’s voice wobbled, “is where was he in between?”