“I’m not—” She was about to say angry with her father, but she was. She hadn’t realized it until Gabe said it, but she wanted to shake her father and ask him what he was doing so recklessly that it killed him. He was a scientist.
How could he leave me? He said he never would. He promised. The last thought was followed by a wave of shame. “You forgot me.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“I’m angry with myself for not being able to solve this. I should have the answer by now. Six months. I’ve never made this little progress for that long.”
Gabe waved a hand over the computer screen. “Josephine, you lost your dad. Yes, you’ve been working on this for six months, but you have also been grieving.” She sucked in a deep breath and looked to the floor. I miss my dad, and I didn’t have half the relationship with him that she had with hers. “I won’t pretend the numbers make sense to me, but walk me through your process. Tell me what you have, what you don’t have, and what your plan is for the next step.” He took out his phone and sent a text. A moment later there was a knock on the door of the lab. One of his men had arrived with a pot of coffee and muffins. Gabe poured two coffees, placed one in front of Josephine, then placed a muffin on a napkin beside her. “Eat and talk. Don’t worry about what I will or won’t understand. Don’t justify things to me. Just talk.”
Josephine took a bite of the muffin. She’d planned to give him an overview, but if he wanted to hear everything, she’d tell him everything. The likelihood that he’d be able to remember drastically reduced the risk of doing so. She started with how she and her father had started with an ion battery but had quickly realized it wasn’t viable. Once she began listing the many combinations she’d tried, she realized how good it felt to get it out of her head. The entire project from start to present poured out of her. She thought Gabe would quickly become bored or overwhelmed, but he didn’t appear to. Whenever she paused, he asked another question that revealed he was sharper than she’d given him credit for. He soaked up data and process descriptions like some people take in gossip. Hours went by. Lunch was delivered. She showed him graphs of other element ion batteries she’d reconfigured and left behind to focus on the potential of magnesium.
By evening, she felt drained and he looked tired. She hadn’t discovered any answers, but it hadn’t been the waste of time she’d imagined it would be. If nothing else, she’d clarified the problem to herself.
They locked the lab door and walked toward the house together. One of Gabe’s men started toward them, turned around, and walked away. “Sit for a minute. I have a few final questions for you.”
“You really want more?” she joked. When he didn’t laugh, she took a seat on the porch swing.
He sat beside her and a memory of the last time they’d sat on the swing came back to her. She’d been as confused about what she felt for him that night as she was now. He didn’t put his arm around her, and she was both relieved and disappointed.
She waited for him to ask a question, but he sat there looking at the stars as if he was in no rush to say much of anything. Her mind was racing; his appeared to have stalled. “What did you want to know?”
He looked at her. Even in the dark she saw the desire in his eyes. An answering heat rushed through her. This was the one constant in their relationship. She might not know what motivated him. He might not trust her, but they battled the same hunger. His gaze fell to her mouth, and it was impossible not to remember how good kissing him had been. She bit her bottom lip and turned to look at the stars.
He cleared his throat. “Don’t answer immediately. It would be better if you gave yourself time to think your response over.”
Better for me or for him? Is he going to ask me to go upstairs with him? Leave? He was using that formal tone again, which wasn’t a good sign. She clasped her hands on her lap and prepared herself.
If he propositions me, I have to say no. Yes would make an already complicated situation worse.
He might be about to ask me to leave.
Please don’t ask me to leave.
“I did a lot of thinking while you were talking through your research today.”
She grabbed his arm and shook it. “About what? Just ask your damn question.”
Her touch was a shock that temporarily knocked what he was about to say out of his head. There was only her and the way his body came alive beneath her caress. Okay, it wasn’t so much a caress as a jostling, but it was sexy.
When it came to Josephine, everything was sexy. He hadn’t thought it was possible to be turned on by scientific terms, but when they came from her sweet lips he lapped them up. She can combine her ions with mine anytime. He almost smiled, but she didn’t look ready to appreciate the joke. It wasn’t that he hadn’t listened to her, but any man’s mind would wander a few times during a day-long lecture of elements and their neighboring clusters.
He laid his hand over hers and stilled it. The last shred of his self-control was all that stopped him from leaning down and kissing her. “Are you okay?”
She pulled her hand back. “Sorry. I guess I’m tired.”
I really am an ass. She spent the day trying to convince me that she’s telling the truth. Of course she’s tired and jumpy. I’d have asked the question, though, if she hadn’t grabbed me. Hands to yourself, missy. I’m trying to problem solve here. “As I was listening to you today I started thinking—are you doing everything you would have done before your father died? You said you were making better progress before. When I have difficulty with a project, the first thing I do is gather information. It seems like you’ve done that. Next I ask myself what is standing between me and what I want. You’ve done that as well. Finally, if I hit a wall, I circle back to my last success in a similar situation and look at what I’m doing differently. I understand you lost your father, and that is horrible on every level, but how else did it affect your work? Did you bounce ideas off him? Was there someone else you turned to? A friend? A colleague?”
She gave him a funny look. “You sound like you care.”
“I do.” Crazy as the situation was, he did.
“Does that mean you believe me?”
He pressed his lips together. He wasn’t ready to go that far. “I believe you’re close to solving the power issue. I believe that if you do, it could benefit many people.”
She looked back up at the stars. “I haven’t accessed the dark web since I’ve been here.”
“The dark web. I read an article on it. Isn’t that a hub for criminals and pedophiles?”
“Yes and no. It simply means it’s not searchable and the users are usually untraceable. There are deeper levels than your average criminal would know how to access. What you’re referring to is the layer just off the grid. Anyone who wants to be anonymous and has basic computer skills can go there. I’m talking about the deeper web where people use encryptions so secure most governments couldn’t crack them. I normally would have taken this problem there and incorporated some of their ideas into my testing.”
He didn’t understand. “So, let me get this straight, you’d post your research on the web and work off anonymous tips?” Not a sound process in his opinion.
She shook her head. “I have a closed network of contacts who exchange ideas with me. I know who they are.”
Something in her voice prompted him to ask, “Do they know who you are?”
“No. I’ve been very careful. They think I’m actually three people.”
Here we go down the rabbit hole. “How do you know they’re any more honest than you are?”
“I personally invited each of them to join the network based on years of communication and collaboration.”
“As yourself or an alias?”
“As whoever I thought they would talk to.”
Shit. “Is this where I find out Josephine isn’t your real name?”
She let out a shaky breath. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but I’m being completely honest with you—more
honest than I’ve been with anyone. When I was in my teens, my father was shot and injured because the Army couldn’t afford a bulletproof vest for him. I knew I had to do something. He had an idea for a cheaper material, but his wasn’t fail-safe. I understood the problem, but I didn’t have the knowledge base to help him so I wrote to some of the top people in the field. I knew they wouldn’t talk to a high school student so I lied about who I was. In the beginning I was a professor at a university in Europe. Then I was a top-secret government think-tank participant. It didn’t matter who I said I was, the ideas we exchanged were real. I took what I learned back to my father and that was his ticket out of the military. I went back and shared what I’d learned with the others. They started asking me questions, and it evolved over the years. I’ve known them for over a decade, and I have helped each of them as much as they’ve helped me. You could ask any of them and they’d tell you that.”
“I could ask anonymous people online to vouch for you even though none of them know your real name?” He heard the skepticism in his own voice.
She deflated beside him. “You asked me what I’ve done differently this time, and I told you the truth. I usually run ideas by them but I haven’t, not since I’ve been here.”
He hated to see her sad almost as much as he hated the idea that she could still be lying to him. He took her hand in his and laced his fingers through hers. He didn’t know much about the dark web, but he had built a solid company by building and maintaining a variety of networks. No, not a geek squad like she was describing, but that didn’t change the fundamentals of where her process had failed. “You closed yourself off from your network. That’s why you’re not moving forward. You’re attempting to do in isolation what you used to do in collaboration.”
She was quiet a long time. “I was afraid to bring it to them. My father’s death was well publicized. Everyone knows what he was working on. If I take this to the network, they could figure out who I am.”
“Why would that be such a bad thing? You just said these people are indebted to you. You’ve been handling this alone when you may, in fact, have allies.”
She looked down at their linked hands. “I have trust issues.”
“No kidding?” So do I, but this shit has to be real. Who could make this up? “You need to tell them who you are.”
“It’s not that easy,” she said.
“Unless it is. You said you know these people. Do they have a reputation for stealing the ideas of others? How cut-throat are they?”
“They’re philosophers, physicists, doctors, engineers. They don’t need to steal ideas; their names will already go down as some of the greatest minds of our time.”
“So the only thing holding you back is fear.”
She elbowed him. “You’re such an ass.”
He smiled. “A pattern is emerging. You swear at me when I’m right.”
“Oh, I’ll swear at you.”
His hand tightened on hers. He wagged his eyebrows at her. “Do it, I’d love it.”
She laughed, and he let go of her hand to swing his arm over her shoulder. She tensed, then relaxed against his side. “What if Raymean finds out I’m still pursuing this? What if they find me? You?”
He was willing to shoulder that and anything else as long as she stayed right there in his arms. He kissed her forehead and said, “You’re safe, Josephine.”
She snuggled closer to him. “I want to believe that.”
He didn’t move, opting instead to simply hold her. Wanting something to be true didn’t make it so. Not for her and not for him. He wasn’t a gambling man. He didn’t put himself in situations where the outcome was this unpredictable.
He looked up at the sky and said, “I used to know the names of all the constellations. Amazing what you can forget when remembering isn’t relevant.” It was a white lie, but he guessed she wouldn’t be able to resist showing him that she knew them. It was a side of her he doubted he’d ever tire of. She was truly brilliant but with a humility that was endearing.
She tentatively started to point them out to him. He hugged her closer, letting himself enjoy the feel of her in his arms and the soothing tone of her voice.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, with Gabe sitting next to her, answering his own emails, Josephine wrote a long letter of explanation and posted it on the encrypted message board her network used. She apologized for never being forthright with her real name and explained why. She briefly described the wall she had hit with her prototype power cell and requested fresh eyes.
A moment later a message came in from one of the first scientists she’d contacted, a physicist from Yale. He said her identity was irrelevant in the face of her contributions to the community. He promised to think about the problem and send suggestions. He said the world had lost a great creative mind when her father had died, but it was a relief to know she wasn’t Roy. When news of his death had spread, and all contact with her had ended, the network had assumed she was Roy. The email ended by saying, “None of us believed your father was a fraud.”
Another email came in with a much more eloquently worded message that said essentially the same thing.
Josephine burst into grateful tears. When Gabe looked over in concern, she waved dismissively. “It’s good. It’s so good.”
She read the emails to him and loved that he seemed proud of her. Does it matter if something is wrong when it’s this right? She leaned over, whispered, “Thank you,” and kissed him.
He pulled back in shock.
What am I thinking? He doesn’t trust me with the keys to anything because he thinks I could be a criminal. Do I actually believe he’s still interested in me?
“I have never felt lower than I did after we were together the first time. Are you sure?” he asked.
“I am.” His concern fanned her confidence. “I’m me now. This time we wouldn’t have the lies. This time would be real.”
“I want you so much I can barely think, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Sometimes a little hurt feels good.” She winked and his expression changed. Gone was the tentative man. Gabe pulled her to him and kissed her hungrily. They began tearing at each other’s clothing. She couldn’t get enough of him or give enough of herself to him. His mouth was everywhere. Her hands sought to free him. This was no gentle lovemaking. This was an explosion of pent-up mutual lust.
She caressed the eager hardness of him. He undid the front of her shorts and delved into her wet sex. His fingers were not enough. She needed more of him.
Their feverish kisses turned to an exchange of moans when he lifted and turned her so her back was propped against the wall, and he thrust upward into her. She still had her shirt and bra on. He had his trousers around his ankles. Nothing mattered beyond the connection they shared and how completely he filled her.
He kissed his way down her neck, tore open her shirt, and suckled her through the thin material of her bra. She clung to him, arching to give him more access to anything he wanted. That was the power of their passion. Everything fell away in the face of it. She wasn’t worried that he didn’t believe her. All she could think about was how much she didn’t want him to stop. When his mouth moved upward and claimed hers again, she buried her hands in his hair and kissed him desperately.
Faster and faster. Harder and deeper. He took her with the hot, unrestrained passion she’d always dreamed of. She came and he followed a few strokes later. They stood there, catching their breath against each other.
He slowly lowered her to the floor. He looked down in a daze at his pants around his ankles and pulled them up before meeting her eyes. What she saw warmed her heart. He looked uncertain, which made sense considering how she’d acted after the first time they’d had sex.
She grabbed his tie and pulled his mouth down to within an inch of hers. “That was amazing.”
His face transformed with a huge smile. “You have quite a way of showing your gratitude.”
??
?Only with you,” she said huskily.
He grabbed her naked ass and hauled her against him. “Good.” His hand slid between them and into her wet center. “I want to watch you come this time.”
She could barely breathe when his finger began to circle her clit. Heat began to build within her again. He took a step back and sat down on a chair, pulling her across his lap, facing him. It spread her wider for him and she steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder.
She threw her shirt to the floor, unclasped her bra, and tossed it aside as well. Fully naked on a man who was dressed should have been embarrassing but she felt sexy and powerful. His mouth loved one bare breast then the other. Wherever his mouth trailed, pleasure followed. All the while his hand brought her closer and closer to losing control.
When she threw her head back and clenched on his fingers he raised his head. “Come for me, Josie.”
This time the name didn’t bother her. It wasn’t a lie any more, it was a nickname. She’d never had one and was discovering she liked it. He knew her better than any man ever had. He could call her anything he wanted.
She cried out in release and the door of the lab flew open. One of Gabe’s men said, “Sorry, boss, I thought—” He didn’t say more, choosing instead to make a hasty retreat and slam the door behind him.
Josephine didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Gabe helped her off him and stood. He dropped his pants to the floor, stepping out of them this time. His shaft stood proudly erect and ready for round two.
Security man? What security man?
Later that night Gabe held Josephine in his arms while she slept. She’d been shy at first about joining him in his room, but he wore her resistance down in the best possible manner. He was enjoying his reward, the feel of her naked body cuddled against his.
He could only imagine what the women he’d dated over the years would think of him when it came to Josephine. He’d escorted enough of them to the door while explaining that, although he enjoyed their company, he needed his space as well. It was completely different with Josephine. Every time she left the room he wasn’t sure she was coming back. Every time she came back, he hated the idea of her leaving again. She was every bit the addiction he’d called her.