Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) (5 page)

But after the last month, he also knew that wasn’t exactly true.

His grandfather had been murdered. Why did someone feel it necessary to eliminate a group of people within twenty hours on roughly the same day? What connection did they all share that caused their deaths? And who was the bastard who had engineered the killings?

He had pieces of information but Zeke was convinced he still didn’t have the person responsible for making it all happen.

The actual assassin who murdered his Grandpop was long gone. But Zeke would stake his career, his life on the fact that the person who’d called for the deaths of those people was alive and well and...possibly still maneuvering situations to his or her own benefit.

Rage bubbled inside him. He wanted five minutes alone with whoever had destroyed his childhood.

That was the single most defining moment of his life. His grandfather had been everything. His father had always been cold, disconnected from Zeke. It was no wonder his mother had taken off. So when Grandpop died, Zeke had disappeared into the cyber world. Yeah, in the end it had all worked out, but Grandpop had always been suspicious of the government, and he’d passed that suspicion on to Zeke. So, as Zeke grew and learned, he’d felt the need to poke at the government, that was when he’d begun his hacking in earnest.

Zeke loped down the uneven sidewalk taking note of what was happening in the little town. A French coffee shop, whose patrons spilled out onto the sidewalk, a gas station, and the local market were the only businesses open. Otherwise the streets were fairly deserted. It was too early for the retail stores to have customers.

Outside a collectibles shop, a guy in his forties swept the sidewalk with a brush broom, another woman in her sixties watered flowers in a cut off wine barrel, and further down the quaint little street, two terriers were tethered to a wrought iron fence surrounding an outdoor sales space with paintings propped on easels.

Everyone he passed had a smile and a wave.

His tension wound tighter. His muscles stiffened up rather than loosened as he settled into a rhythm. This town seemed picture perfect. Almost old-fashioned in its demeanor.

Why that set him on edge, he didn’t know.

He slowed his pace to check out the stores and wondered what Sunshine Smith did for a living. That had not been in the 5491 file. In fact the file had been supremely light on details, the emphasis of the content had been on the other members who were involved in the espionage community.

As he jogged by an older stucco building that looked like it belonged in Switzerland or some Alps town, he glanced inside.

Crystals hung in the window, twisting and catching the light and refracting the light beam into a myriad of different colors and lengths until they were absorbed by a fall of long black hair. Sunshine.

Zeke slowed his pace. His heart leapt in his chest. Something about her posture screamed distress.

How he could tell he had no idea, since her back was to him and he couldn’t see anything or anyone else inside the store’s shadowed recesses. All he knew was he had to get to her.
Now.

Zeke swerved across the street, thankful there were no cars to get in his way, and ran up to the store. He yanked open the door and took two steps inside, cataloguing details as he moved.

Three people, a big bear of an older man with bed head and arms the size of anchors, an older woman impeccably dressed, and Sunshine, tension in the arch of her neck and the set of her shoulders, stood inside the store. She turned toward the entrance, her mouth curved in a totally fake smile.

“Welcome to....” she trailed off.
Scents of the Sea.

“Are you okay?” he demanded. Zeke had enough training to realize that just because the two older people looked harmless didn’t mean they were, especially since the woman had her hand on Sunshine’s upper arm. And the man was awfully close to both of them. Coercion could be accomplished through many methods.

Sunshine shot a furtive glance at the woman, then returned her gaze to Zeke, eyebrows raised, alarm on her face, suspicion in her voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you need help?” He wanted clarification that she was fine and not being pressured or intimidated in any way. His body primed, muscles hardened, he readied for violence. He would protect her, he would defend her. “Are you being harassed?”

“What?!”

“Excuse me.” The older woman in the pale pink sweater stepped in front of Sunshine, placing her out of Zeke’s reach. As she stared at him hard, Zeke took in other details, the woman’s dirty blonde hair cut in a short pageboy, her slender build, and the familiar shape of her eyes. “And who are you?”

Great. If he wasn’t mistaken he’d just accused Sunshine Smith’s mother of trying to harm her.
Way to stay in the background, way to be a shadow, a ghost, Hawthorne.

He ran his hands through the curls of his hair, pulled them out in front of his face and then let them spring back into place.

“It’s fine.” Sunshine’s hands fluttered, then she placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “I’ll help him.”

Zeke nodded to the older people who both still stared at him suspiciously.

Sunshine floated around her mother, a long slate blue skirt with some sort of lace nearly brushed the ground and a paler blue sweater hung down almost over her hips and fell off one bare shoulder, revealing her delicate collarbone and the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

As she leaned closer to him, the heat from her body and her perfume surrounded him. The scents of the ocean, the beach, the sand, the eucalyptus, and the cool foggy air flooded his body, awakening his hormones, and he reacted to her nearness. A flush of desire spiraled from his head to his groin, hitting his organs, brain, lungs, heart, sex in rapid succession as he pictured them together like they had been last night. Him between her thighs. Except this time they were naked.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered with an unmistakable bite in her tone.

So much for his hormones. He’d been fantasizing about taking her and she was taking him to task. Awkward.

He took a moment to compose his thoughts, compose his answer. Because he’d messed up a minute ago by rushing in, by assuming that he would come in and defend her like the hero in the old black and white movies he’d watched with his Grandpop. He needed to formulate an appropriate answer for the level of intimacy they had right now—which was zero.

Fuck it. There was no appropriate answer.

“I thought you were in trouble.”

“Trouble,” she said flatly. She looked very aware of the fact that her mother and the guy were still in the store near the back. And she stepped in closer to him. Her shoulder was nearly brushing the exposed skin of his bicep. “Why would you care?”

Her look said she could take care of herself.

“Maybe I was just trying to return the favor and rescue
you
.” He wanted to trail a finger down the side of her neck, where her pulse flickered with frenetic urgency. “I didn’t have a chance to properly thank you.”

She ignored that. “How did you find me?”

“It’s not that difficult, the whole town is what, a mile long?”

He’d like to think she was leaning in closer because she found him irresistible but the truth was pretty obvious. She didn’t want her mother to hear what they were talking about. Great. He was the only one affected by this incredible pull of attraction.

Subtly he inhaled her scent...which had changed in the last minute. A more heated, intense aroma now perfumed the air, as if their pheromones were mixing and blending while they stood together. The scent was enticing and enervating and wrapped around his senses like he wanted to wrap around her. Maybe he
wasn’t
the only one affected.

She licked her lips, her pink tongue swirling before disappearing inside her mouth. “Consider me thanked.”

“Why were you on the beach in the middle of the night?”

“None of your damn business.”

But he wanted it to be. Somehow she’d shifted even closer, the threads of her sweater brushed against his bare arm, her mouth mere inches from his. She was so far inside his personal space, half a step and their bodies would be touching. And he was pretty sure she was unaware of their proximity.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

What did he want? One taste. One taste of her mouth. One taste of paradise. He knew with certainty that it would be the most incredible kiss of his life.

Jesus, she was bewitching him. Like the magnetic pull of the moon to the tide, he couldn’t seem to resist her.

“One.” He leaned in closer, tilted his head, careful to give her time to move away. This was such a monumentally bad idea. On a completely un-scientific scale of one to ten this was a negative eleven thousand.

“One what?” Her breath was minty, as her lashes fluttered downward before she glanced back up at him.

“This.” He lowered his mouth to hers, brushed against the softness of her lips with tender, deliberate slowness, and let his eyes drift closed, so he could experience the sensations of their kiss.

Her lips were warm, flavored with a subtle honey, and he wanted to lap her up, and draw every bit of her essence into him. Make her part of him.

His hands slid up the tactile warmth of her sweater, stopping at her elbows, resting there even as her strong fingers traced up the corded tendons of his forearms. Every single hair on his body stood at attention, his nerve endings tingled from the pads of her fingers trailing up his arms, until she stopped at his fiercely tensed biceps.

He leaned back against the entryway doorframe, tugging her gently against his body, and as she softened against him, he cupped her jaw in his hands and sipped at her lips. He wanted to go deeper, wanted to move harder, but the purity and intensity of this first kiss was so amazing, he didn’t want to ruin the moment, so he played with her mouth, exploring her lips but not delving past the entrance to her hot, wet heat.

“Sunny?” A voice broke through his intense concentration, way too close to where they were entwined.

Sunshine broke away from him and whirled around. He noted the wide panic in her gray eyes and guessed she hadn’t gotten caught making out before.

“Introduce me to your friend,” her mother said firmly.

Sunshine whipped her head back around to stare at him in mute horror as the reality that she’d kissed a stranger blossomed in her gaze.

Because he realized...she didn’t know his name.

Eight

Oh. My. Goddess.

What had I just done? I didn’t even know his name! Thirteen years of caution blown away in a single moment. I could have jeopardized my mother and myself and everything we’d sweated blood and sacrificed for by...by....

“Zeke Thorn.” Surfer dude extended his right hand toward my mother as his left arm curled around my shoulder. The heat of his body warmed me, his bare arm burned through the cotton of my sweater. He was practically naked next to me in miniscule running shorts and a tight runner’s bro tank. Didn’t he ever wear clothes?

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Smith.”

Oh, it was worse than I thought. I stiffened, prepping my body, going over possible defensive moves, calculating the angle of his body next to, and slightly behind, mine, analyzing how to protect my mother. If I needed to. Maybe his knowledge of our names was nothing to be scared about. Then again, maybe it was.

Shit, shit, shit.

Had we been found? Would we have to leave this town, the life we’d built here?

Waiting for his next move, I stood mutely while he charmed the suspicion out of my mother. My body primed, and vibrating with tension.

Suddenly Blue was there. Right next to Mama.

“Blue Harrison.” His deep voice rumbled in his chest. Blue didn’t seem as charmed as my mother.

Big, scary, former-Marine Blue, owner of a bar and apparently my mother’s
fiancé,
was sizing up Zeke. I was used to dealing with things alone, but in this instance I’d take his help. Blue would back me up and things would be fine.

Blue shook Zeke’s hand, his own large, strong hand fully engulfing Zeke’s long slender fingers. Blue was a giant bull.

Zeke on the other hand was built like a wrestler. Wide shoulders tapered to a small waist, his arms were corded with muscle, veins prominent, and his long fingers were filled with strength. I remembered the resilient, smooth skin of his naked shoulders in the moonlight.

Blue let go of Zeke’s hand. “How do you and Sunshine know each other?”

Another gauntlet. “It’s a little embarrassing.” Zeke straightened and looked like he was going to call Blue sir.

And I knew, without a doubt he was going to tell them the truth, that I’d been on the beach in the middle of the night. That I’d pulled him from the surf after his ill-fated wipeout. I absolutely did not want that 411 to come out.

I needed to get him out of our store, make sure he wasn’t dangerous to my mother or me, and then send him on his way.

“Cal Poly,” I blurted out.

Surfer dude—Zeke, I repeated to myself,
Zeke
—canted his head and raised a brow. A tiny smile played around his mouth. His mouth. His lips were a little red, and we’d hardly even kissed. It had been chaste and romantic and—

“Are you a student?” My mother asked politely but I could see speculation in her gaze.

“Teacher’s assistant.” Desperately I tried, my brain going at about a hundred miles an hour, terminal velocity as I accelerated toward an absolutely catastrophic crash, to come up with something believable and get him the heck out of our store. Last night he’d referenced Hanlon’s razor, so hopefully he’d know something about physics. “Remember that physics class I audited last year?”

My Goddess I wanted to get out of here. I wanted this stranger away from my mother. Away from our shop. I had to protect her, protect us.

“How is that embarrassing?” Blue asked. His gaze moved between me and my supposedly former ISA, arms crossed over his chest, his appearance bigger and bulkier than it had been a minute ago. My mother put her hand, the one with the
engagement ring,
on Blue’s forearm.