Page 121 of Hunt Me
His other hand joins the first, framing my waist. Thumbs stroke small circles against my hipbones.
“Once you’re inside?” The words rumble against my ear.
My hands tremble over the keyboard. “We establish persistent access. Rotate through compromised credentials to avoid detection patterns.”
He crowds closer, chest pressing against my back. The solid heat of him short-circuits rational thought.
“Then?” His lips brush the shell of my ear.
“Then we—” My voice catches when his teeth graze my earlobe. “We inject the false intelligence through legitimate command channels.”
One hand slides lower, fingers splaying possessively across my lower abdomen. The other trails upward, tracing my ribcage with maddening slowness.
“Very thorough.” His mouth moves to my neck, finding the sensitive spot below my jaw. “What else?”
I should push him away. We have work to do, and our lives depend on flawless execution.
His hand cups my breast through my shirt.
A shuddering breath escapes me.
I twist in his grip, planting both palms against his chest. “Stop.”
The command comes out breathless, undermining my intent.
His eyes darken, that predatory gleam intensifying. “Make me.”
“Alexi.” I push harder, creating inches between us. “We don’t have time for this.”
“We have exactly—” He glances at his watch. “Eleven hours and forty-three minutes.”
“Which we need to spend ensuring Sentinel doesn’t kill us all.” I duck under his arm, putting the width of the tactical display between us. “Not fucking in the command center.”
He stalks around the table. Each step deliberate, measured. A hunter closing distance on prey.
I back toward the opposite wall. “I mean it. We have three insertion points to map, encryption protocols to finalize, and contingency plans if their security detects the breach.”
“Then talk me through it.” He stops advancing, leaning one hip against the table edge. “I’m listening.”
The sudden shift throws me. That’s the problem with Alexi—he pivots between modes faster than I can track. Unhinged obsession with tactical brilliance in heartbeats.
I pull up the network topology again, forcing my brain into analytical mode. “The satellite relay system here.” My fingerindicates the primary hub. “It’s their weakest point because they assume air-gap security makes it untouchable.”
He circles the table, approaching from my blind side. Not touching. Just close enough that awareness prickles across my skin.
“How do we bridge the air gap?” His voice stays professional now.
“We don’t need to.” I zoom into the relay architecture. “They use automated firmware updates from their Virginia headquarters. We intercept the next scheduled update, inject our payload, and wait for their own system to install it.”
“Timeline on next update?”
“Seven hours, eighteen minutes.” I pull up the maintenance schedule I’d extracted from their network earlier. “Plenty of time to prepare the payload and establish monitoring.”
His hand settles on my lower back. Not sexual this time. Just... there. Grounding.
I lean into the touch despite myself. “Later,” I whisper. “If we survive this, I promise?—”
“When we survive this.” His fingers spread wider, spanning my spine. “Not if.”
