Zero Day Exploit (Bayou’s End #1.5) (16 page)

It didn’t matter. She knew the truth. And friends who wanted to judge her based on their nasty little assumptions weren’t friends worth keeping.

At her desk, she peeled the George Romero posters from her cube walls and rolled them up, then carefully tucked her plushies away inside her satchel. Alejandro leaned over the top of her cubicle, lips still curled in that damnable sneer.

“You’re seriously going through with it?’

“It’s part of the job.” She shrugged and tucked Zombie Hello Kitty safely in a corner pocket. “Just doing what I have to do.”

“Sell-out.”

Zero closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Don’t let it get to her. She couldn’t. “Grow up, Ale,” she said. “Just…grow up.”

With a derisive sound, he turned and walked away.

Groaning, Zero sank into her chair. She just…had to let this blow over. And until then, she had work to do—and didn’t have time to think about infuriating men.
Either
of them.

She managed to avoid thinking about Evan for a good four hours, while she plowed through a backlog of bug reports and code fixes. There was something immensely satisfying about whipping a program into shape, finding all those little problems no one else could ferret out and coming up with just the right solution, the perfect elegant little line of code to make everything fall into place. It was enough to make her forget Evan, forget Alejandro’s nastiness, forget the whispers around her, forget even the itchy slacks trying to crawl up her ass while she lost herself in her work.

Until a new email notification dinged in her taskbar, flashing
New Message from
evanevenstevens@­gmail.com
. She paused, the sound of keyboard gunfire silencing, and arched a brow. Evan Even Stevens? He had to be fucking kidding her. She fought back a smile as she pulled up Outlook and clicked the message.

Hey, beautiful
, he wrote.
Sneak out through the back way and meet me in the alley on your break. We’ll go for lunch.

Zero tilted her head, then fired back an answering email.
There is no “back way.” I don’t think there’s even an alley.

She’d barely closed her email before another notification popped up.
Okay, well just meet me at that little skewers cart down the street. Try not to be seen. Cloak and dagger.

Okay, Mr. Bond.

James
, he sent back.
Evan James
.

She bit back a laugh, then rattled off,
Stop emailing me. I’m trying to work
.

And not two seconds later…
Yes, ma’am
.

…
that’s still emailing me
.

Stop replying
.

You stop replying!

Nothing. Dead silence; empty inbox. She glanced over her shoulder, but he was nowhere in sight. Must be on the top floor with the C-level hotshots. Shaking her head, she pulled up the code compiler window again—only for another notification to flash.

…
I stopped
.

Go home, Evan
.
You’re drunk
.

I’m laughing like an idiot
,
and your CEO is giving me crazy looks
.

With an amused, exasperated sigh, Zero sent back one last email.
Goodbye
,
Evan
.
I’ll see you at lunch
.

That’s my girl
, came back, and she froze, heart twisting tight.

When the hell had she become
his
girl?

She pushed the thought out of her head. It was just a figure of speech. And she wasn’t fucking
going
there, because she would hate herself forever if she had to admit out loud that he was starting to get under her skin. There was something bizarrely endearing about a guy willing to keep making an ass out of himself however many times it took to make amends, even if she couldn’t figure out
why
.

She dove back into work, but spent the next half-hour watching the clock instead of her screen. She wasn’t that eager to see him again. She couldn’t be. And she wasn’t in the slightest hurry when she locked her workstation, slung her bag over her shoulder, and headed for the elevator. As she followed the sidewalk flow down the street toward the skewers cart, she straightened her coat. Calm. Cool. Composed.

So why did her heart start bouncing on her stomach like a trampoline when she saw him lounging on the sidewalk near the cart, standing head and shoulders above the crowd?

His slow, cunning smile spread across his lips when he caught sight of her; he raised a hand as she drew closer. “Hey.”

Rough fingers curled against her waist and drew her in. In his other hand he balanced two Styrofoam trays. Without so much as an if-you-please, he pressed warm lips to her cheek, lingering with a familiarity that made her ache, as if he had any right to kiss her in public. As if he had some claim on her. And she closed her eyes and
let
him, sinking into the heated sensation of contact, the momentary roughness of his beard against her skin, the crispness of his suit brushing against her, saturated in his scent. God, what the hell had she stumbled into?

Taking a sharp breath, she pulled back from him and forced a smile. “What’d you get?”

“Lemongrass tuna skewers in peanut sauce.”

He passed her one of the trays, and she opened it to peek inside. The savory scent of grilled tuna cubes speared on bamboo skewers hit her like an assault on her hungry, roiling stomach. As they cut across the current of the crowd to a sidewalk bench, she fished one out and took a nibble. The rich peanut sauce nearly exploded on her tongue. “I feel like we should be eating at the Ritz, dressed like this. Not a sidewalk food cart.”

He laughed and sank down onto the bench, prying his tray open. “Tomorrow it’ll be gyros in the park. We have a stereotype to defy.”

“Dumbass.” She pointed her skewer at him and settled on the bench at his side. The concrete seat nearly froze her bottom, icy cold soaking up through her coat and slacks, but he was more than warm enough to drive the chill away. They sat arm to arm, and she had to stop herself from leaning into him. “You really are. I can’t believe you, emailing me when I’m trying to work.”

“Would you rather I showed up and dragged you off in front of everyone?”

“Point taken.” She savored a few more bites. “Evan Even Stevens, though? Seriously? That’s such a dorky email address.”

“You haven’t heard the saying? You know, Even Stevens. Being fair, objective, and impartial about things.”

“But your last name isn’t even Stevens.”

“That’s not the
point
.” He glanced down, gaze raking over her. “I thought I told you to wear the green.”

“Which is exactly why I’m not.”

“Would you believe me if I said I knew you’d do that?”

She rolled her eyes and elbowed him. “Nice try, Machiavelli. Stop talking and eat. I’m ravenous.”

But his gaze lingered on her, his smile melting away, his eyes scorching. He traced a precise path over her with lingering looks, as if marking a roadmap he had every intention of following. Her lips. Her throat. The curve of her body, the length of her thighs—until by the time his gaze rose to hers she could almost feel his mouth, his touch, branding her with a ghostly manifestation of his desire. “So am I,” he rumbled, every soft sound pulling on her strings and tugging at something deep and hot inside her.

She lowered her eyes, forcing her attention back to her food and away from the way he fucking
smoldered
like he’d melt the snow from the streets. She wasn’t letting those looks get under her skin, damn it. And she told herself for the millionth time: he
wasn’t
coming home with her again.

*     *     *

He came home with her again.

She wasn’t even sure how it happened. One moment he was lurking to kidnap her outside the office building and drag her to a little Thai restaurant tucked in a back alley. The next he was crushing her against the wall of the alley while she kissed the taste of red curry coconut sauce from his lips, the spice and fire of it burning her mouth, the wild hot headiness of him burning
her
. His hands slid under her camisole, imprinting his granite-rough touch on her skin, and she gasped “Yes” before he even had to ask.

Secret, teasing kisses on the subway turned into a hot, urgent crash of mouth to mouth in the foyer of her apartment building; into grasping hands dragging each other up the stairs; into clothing torn away and left in a trail on her floor, and then into the warm soft plushness of the bed yielding under their weight as he tumbled her down and enveloped her in the heat of his body. He was like magma, this simmering, explosive, molten inferno caged inside stone skin, and he dragged her into his heat until she breathed sparks and bled fire.

Over and over he took her, filling the safe private space of her little apartment with the sounds of them, with the quiet swift rush of their breaths and the mingled rhythm of their voices that blended into counterpoint until she couldn’t hear herself without hearing him. Winter’s chill fled from their mounting heat, and sweat rolled over their skin in trickling, licking tongues, slicked under her touch as she clutched at him and tangled her legs with his and pulled him deeper, deeper, ever deeper. He pushed her limits. He pushed
her
, took her where she’d never go on her own, challenged her and met her every challenge in return until they drove each other to a wild and precarious edge.

And when she fell…when she fell, as her vision misted strange and a tempest poured through her…she wondered how she’d let him get in so deep, so fast, as if the harsh scrape of her anger had sanded away all their rough edges to let him fit into the quiet spaces of her life, filling them up as if he’d been made for them.

Spaces he would only leave empty when he packed up and moved on.

And as he sank against her, as their heavy breaths began to settle in lazy tandem, as he gathered her close in his arms and pressed his lips into her hair…Zero told herself it didn’t matter.

Who’s the liar this time?
A nasty little voice mocked.

She closed her eyes and held him tight, and when he whispered her name in the dark she couldn’t say anything at all.

*     *     *

He was gone again when she woke the next morning. And the next, when she somehow found herself bringing him home again. They’d curled up on the couch with Chinese takeout and talked about the office and watched
The Walking Dead
, with her head on his shoulder and his arm around her waist. He couldn’t watch the zombies and eat at the same time, couldn’t even stand to look at the screen, and she laughed and hugged his arm and told herself it shouldn’t be this easy. This fun. This comfortable. This sweet, until it wasn’t sweet at all when he lifted her into his lap and parted her thighs around his hips and drew her down on him until she rode the swell and rush and sigh of need with a sensuality that felt as if it would eat her alive, sweeping over her in a firestorm and reducing her to nothing but cinders.

“I feel like I tripped and fell down the rabbit hole,” she murmured as she tucked her head under his jaw and let herself melt into the slow, deep burn she loved to savor, with their bodies still locked together and that deep sore pull warming her from the inside. The silver-flicker light of the television flashed over them, strobing in the darkened living room. “One minute I’m screaming at you and telling you to go to hell, the next you’re just…here, and I’m okay with that.”

“Life just happens that way sometimes.” His voice rumbled in her ear, intimate and close. He smoothed his hands over her back, firm and slow, as if his touch could hold her together. “We’ve done everything else backwards. Is it really so surprising we’d get all our fighting out of the way before anything else?”

Zero closed her eyes. She didn’t understand the hot hard hurting feeling digging into her chest. “Out of the way of what?” she whispered, but he said nothing. “Of
what
, Evan?”

“I don’t know,” he said, voice thick, and gathered her into his arms to carry her to bed.

*     *     *

It is what it is, Zero told herself over a morning mocha latte that was already starting to feel like a routine. For the third morning in a row he’d left a latte, a lemon bar, and another note.

You’re lucky it wasn’t noodles in red sauce. Never watching TV with you again.

See you at work. Try not to be so distractingly sexy.

-E

Why was he so stupid? And when had it started to be so cute? Zero smiled to herself and tucked the note atop the stack of the previous two days’ notes. This would probably be the last one. He’d walked into her life on Monday, and somehow she’d tumbled right through a tumultuous week straight into Friday. He hadn’t said when his flight was leaving, but management had been pretty clear. Best behavior for a week. He was gone from the office after today, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask if he was sticking around for the weekend. Like she’d said before…it was what it was. She’d remember him for a few nights after, miss the sex, and then they’d both go on with their lives, doing whatever it was they were meant to do with or without each other.

Yep. This is me being practical. Adult. Not acting like a special snowflake teenager who falls for the first guy to act like a dick and then kiss her until the world turns sideways.

Maybe
she
was the stupid one here.

She breathed in the steam rising from her coffee, and doggedly ignored the pang below her ribs. She should get dressed. Go to work. And pretend she didn’t notice when he cruised past, lethal and arrogant and handsome in those suits that still looked so very
wrong
on him, when every night he reminded her what an animal he was. But as she glanced over the apartment, over her little space that had started to pick up traces of him—from the notes on the kitchen counter to the leather jacket on the hook and the boxer-briefs draped over the hamper—her gaze fell on the plushies lined up on the windowsill, nestled among the candles where she’d left them after rescuing them from exile in the bottom of her bag. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and tilted her head, frowning, before her frown melted into a smile.