Page 70 of Play the Game

I scowled. Wouldn’t that look great in a report, explaining how someone hacked through my personal firewall. “He’s not going into any classified systems where he’s not allowed.”

“At the very least, it’s insubordination.”

“Hm,” I grunted. “He’s not wrong. I’ve been meaning to set up more security on my own machine and database, but haven’t had a pressing reason to move it the top of the list. Now I do.”

Alder grinned. “Youlovehaving him around to keep you on your toes.”

“I don’t,” I said. But it wasn’t much of a stretch to say maybe I liked it.

Tam stepped into the room. I clocked her every movement, and the way her hair was pulled back from her face with a headband, and the long stretch of legs from her sandals to her denim shorts. Over the months when she was off-limits, I’d mastered hiding my pounding pulse and raised awareness when she was near. But I couldn’t help smiling, thinking about her and me alone in this very room just last night.

“Something funny?” Tam asked Alder.

“Just discussing Jensen’s man-crush,” Alder answered.

“Aw, are you and Pasco playing?”

“Et tu, Sparks?” I glanced up at her and tried to look offended, but only smiled wider. Shit. I still had occasional lapses where I couldn’t quite hide my feelings.

“Well, I need a break.” Alder stood and gathered her phone and water bottle. “If you need me, I’ll be in the lounge for, say, an hour.” She winked at Tam as she walked past her, then pulled the door closed behind her.

Tam arched an eyebrow at me. “Subtle.”

I shrugged. “She’s happy for us. Wants to give us some alone time since we’re working such long hours and not going home to your apartment at night.” I put my computer to sleep, pushed a button under the desk to darken the glass on the upper half of the wall, and slid back my chair. “Come over here.” I patted my lap.

“During the day, with most of the team twenty feet away in the lounge?” she asked, but she walked over to me and straddled my lap anyway.

Yeah, she was officially my bad girl now. She bent her head to kiss me and I slid my hands up under her green tee shirt. I skimmed the bottom of her bra. It was a front-hook, which I undid with one quick movement. Our lips parted and she slipped her tongue into my mouth. I moved my thumbs higher, stroking her pebbled nipples.

The comms unit alarm rang and we both jumped. I barely caught her, saving her from tumbling to the floor. “Fuck me,” we said together.

She jumped off my lap as I put the comms on speaker. “You’re on speaker, TJ. What do you need?” I asked.

To my chagrin, Tam re-hooked her bra and stepped back to the room door, which she eased open. Nothing to see here. Two colleagues taking a call from their boss.

“I’m coming in,” he said.

No surprise, since he’d only gone off-comms an hour ago so he could have a word with one very nosy investigative reporter, Ashlee Armand. The Alpha Team had rescued her from the Carbonados back in February, although she hadn’t know who we or they were. In the past week, as we’d worked a new angle on the criminal enterprise, we’d crossed past the reporter and figured out she was investigating her own kidnapping. We couldn’t risk her exposing our operation or—maybe worse—being kidnapped again.

“Okay,” I answered my boss. “Anything else I need to know?”

“I’m bringing Ms. Armand with me.”

“To HEAT?” I shot a glance at Tam, whose shocked face mirrored my reaction. “Does X—”

“Already talked to her,” he said. “She’s on board with the plan and bringing the paperwork.”

“The paperwork for WitSec?” Tam asked, stepping closer. “So we’re going to “disappear” a high-profile journalist? Fake her death, the whole nine yards?” She shook her head at me.

We were both thinking the same thing. Our boss had lost his fucking mind.

“We’ll deal with the details later,” TJ said, easing exactly zero of our concerns. “Sparks, since you’re there, you drive the van. We’re meeting at UG-2.” He was referring to one of the underground garages HEAT owned through shell companies. It was very private, the perfect location for just this kind of operation. “Jensen, bring everything you need to scan and wipe her devices. Bond will be joining you so she can sedate Ms. Armand.”

“And bring her here without knowing where she is,” Tam finished.

“Right,” TJ said. “I’ll be in touch when Ms. Armand and I are on our way to UG-2.” He clicked off his comms, which was against protocol during an active operation.

“Goddamnit,” I muttered. I woke up my computer and clicked into a program that controlled all the phones and comms for our team. I turned on the tracker in all TJ’s devices, so if everything went sideways, at least we’d have a location for his last know whereabouts. “Tam, can you tell the rest of the team?”

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