Chapter 4
FOUR
When Mason reminded Elin she had work to do, he’d only meant to get her inside—dressed. Not to watch her bury herself in code until she forgot to breathe.
In the last hour, he’d passed the computer lab five times.
Every time, she was still there—motionless except for her fingers flying over the keys.
Though she hid behind the monitors, he knew how riveted she got when she was working, how the monitors threw sharp light across her face and carved shadows under her eyes.
The base had gone quiet. And through it all, Mason couldn’t stop tracking the steady hum of Elin’s workspace, like her heartbeat was wired to the building itself.
He really fucked things up earlier. All the things he meant to say flew out his brain the minute she climbed out of the hot tub, practically naked with water streaming off her sleek skin.
He’d damn near yanked her against him and kissed her. Christ, he ached for the sweetness of her…but if he laid a hand on her, he’d never stop.
Taking her to bed would feel so good, so right. And it would kill him when she finished her contract with Blackout and returned to her life.
He paced the corridor for the eighth time, glancing into the lab with every pass. Dante and Sophie had both taken breaks, but Elin refused. It looked as if her short soak in the hot tub was the only respite she would take, and he’d ruined that for her.
His footsteps thumped on the marble floor, a feature of the house that was as out of place in a military base as Elin herself.
As he approached the door again, he only thought to glance inside. But his body had other ideas—his legs jolted to a halt with a will all their own.
Before he could change his mind, he walked in and circled the long desk where she hid behind her monitors.
Her fingers paused on the keys but she didn’t look away from the screen.
“You’ve been working a long time.”
Her long brown lashes swept downward, the only indication that she heard him. System code flashed across the screen, foreign to him but Elin’s only language right this minute.
He tried again. “You’re allowed to take breaks. Eat. Drink. Rest.”
Her chest rose and fell on a sigh. The sound was barely audible, less than a whisper, but it sent a shockwave through Mason’s body carrying the memory of her moaning out his name.
Of him moving inside her.
Her cheeks flushed with pleasure, mouth open on a silent scream of pleasure.
Fuck.
He curled his fingers into fists to keep from reaching for her.
“Elin, did you hear me?”
With an exasperated sigh, she said, “I would love a cup of coffee.”
He stared at her profile for a long heartbeat. He wanted to give her so much more than a cup of coffee, but he’d start small.
When he left the lab, the soft click of her typing as she broke through firewalls and sifted through hidden pathways faded.
As soon as he walked into the oversized chef’s kitchen, he almost turned around. Kennedy and Sophie were seated at the island having a snack.
Seeing him frozen in the doorway, Kennedy shot a sidelong look at Sophie, then waved at him. “Come in, Mason.”
He didn’t immediately move, then forced his legs to work. He walked straight to the cupboard and grabbed a mug. Neither woman spoke as he poured coffee from the pot that was always hot if not always fresh and added just a splash of cream, the way Elin liked it.
“When did you start using cream? I thought the whole team only drank high-octane black coffee.” Sophie lifted her own mug to her lips, but it didn’t conceal her smile.
“It’s for Elin.”
“Hmm.” That small noise of interest from Kennedy made him want to walk right back out and avoid what that little hmm meant at all costs.
But the big pan of cinnamon rolls, thick with cream cheese frosting, beckoned to him. Elin would love the rolls that were Izzy’s specialty, and if he didn’t grab one for her now, they would all be gone within the hour.
He pretended he didn’t feel the ladies staring at him. Or see the questions in their eyes as he grabbed a plate and a sidled up to the island.
“Elin will love Izzy’s famous rolls. It’s her grandma’s recipe.”
He only grunted at Kennedy’s comment.
“Elin’s working really hard today,” Sophie added.
That didn’t even garner a response from him.
“Exactly how well did you know her?” Sophie tried again.
Bingo.
He inflated his lungs with too much air, but it didn’t calm the flap of nerves. “Well enough.”
Kennedy shifted on her barstool as if settling in for a long chat he had no intention of having.
Compassion softened Sophie’s eyes. “She must have been really upset when you vanished from her life.” She shook her head. “I can’t even imagine how I’d feel if that had been Con.”
Using the spatula, he scooped up a cinnamon roll and practically threw it on the plate.
“Have you talked to her yet? Really talked to her?” Kennedy’s question made him drop the spatula on the granite counter with a loud clank.
He settled his stare on both women. “No. I haven’t talked to her. Because she hates me. And who can blame her? I left without telling her anything, without even breaking things off. But there wasn’t time, and going back would have put her in danger. I wasn’t going to do that again.”
They blinked at him, and saw that he’d played into their game. They got him to talk.
Only he hadn’t spilled even a small kernel of his guts, and he should have spilled them to Elin.
“That has to be a heavy weight to carry.”
He almost couldn’t bear to see the sadness in Sophie’s eyes. It reminded him too much of what he’d put Elin through.
Bowing his head, he scrubbed a finger between his brows. “She was working with my team, and we dated for a few months. It was getting…serious. And she came too close to danger. If she hadn’t been stuck in traffic that day, I would have lost her.”
“Instead, she lost you.”
His head snapped up. For a heavy beat, he met Kennedy’s eyes.
“I got attacked. My team jumped in, and we ended it. But when I returned to the safehouse, a Blackout recruiter was waiting for me.”
“So you left, and Elin stayed safe,” Sophie said softly.
His chest burned. “Yes.” He couldn’t do this. He shoved the plate away and started out of the kitchen without the coffee.
“Mason, wait!” Kennedy called out.
Against his better judgment, he stopped and slowly turned around.
To his surprise, Kennedy was smiling. “I have an idea.”
He should have kept walking because he knew that idea would lead straight back to Elin.
* * * * *
Elin barely noticed the ache in her eyes anymore. The world had narrowed to numbers, encrypted data in cold blue and white light from the monitors.
Her fingers moved fast, tracing the root of the breach and rewriting the power plant system that had almost given Cipher a way in. Each keystroke was a stitch sealing a wound no one else could see.
Con stood behind her, arms folded, the quiet weight of command radiating from him.
“This is buried deep,” she told him without removing her focus on the screen. “It bypassed all their firewalls.”
He didn’t speak until she hit Enter and the scrolling lines finally stilled.
“It’s fixed.” She leaned back, stretching the stiffness from her shoulders. “He can’t get through that channel again.”
Con stepped closer. “You’re sure?”
“As sure as anyone can be when chasing a ghost,” she replied. “This breach wasn’t meant to destroy—just to test. He wanted to see how fast we’d respond.”
Con grunted. “If he really wanted in, and you hadn’t been there to stop him, how bad would it be?”
Elin exhaled slowly. “Entire states blacked out. Commerce would be frozen—credit systems, trucking routes, even air traffic control comms. Hospitals and emergency services locked up. People would die.”
He swore under his breath.
“Unfortunately, the infrastructure wasn’t built for a total blackout, but the good news is the hole’s patched. I rerouted relays and wrote a phantom patch I designed to make Cipher think it’s his own footprint. I also built in notifications. If he circles back, I’ll know.”
Con nodded, the tight line of his mouth softening. “That buys us time.”
“Time’s all I need. I’ll finish running diagnostics tonight and head out in the morning.”
He studied her for a beat. “You sure you’re done?”
“Yes. The system’s stable. I’m leaving before I start dreaming in binary.”
He chuckled once, low, then headed for the door. “You did good, Elin.”
When the door closed, the hum of the machines filled the silence again.
She leaned forward, watching the green lines blink across her display—soothing and hypnotic. She couldn’t shake the idea that if she left now, Cipher could slip in and reap more chaos.
Next time he made an attempt, it would be worse.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Could she really walk away now? It went against everything she knew about herself, what she’d built her whole life around.
Saving people, protecting them. Hacking for the right side.
She rolled her neck, intending to refocus—but a faint scent drifted through the room, stopping her mid-breath.
Clean soap. Metal. And something warm and enticing beneath.
Her neck prickled before her mind even caught up. She didn’t have to look to know who was standing right behind her.
Liam.
He hovered over her, not announcing himself or apologizing for disrupting her flow.
Just watching her.
She turned slowly in her chair and took in his empty hands. “You didn’t bring coffee?”
His eyes flickered over her face. “They’re brewing a fresh pot.”
She arched a brow. “Then why are you here?”
His mouth opened, but he hesitated.
Never in a million years would she ever have guessed this was the point they’d come to—holding banal conversations, saying nothing when there was everything in the world to say.
There was once a time when neither of them could stand to be in the same room without touching. Now an invisible gorge spanned between them.
He cleared his throat. “Kennedy and Sophie need you in the kitchen.”
Her spine stiffened. “The kitchen?”
“Yeah. They asked for you.”