Page 13 of Covert Temptation (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #4)

T he effects of Dante’s cold shower wore off the instant Kennedy pranced past him, all whispers and curves and the sweet pull of her body he wanted so damn bad.

He watched her disappear down the hallway and into her bedroom before running his hand over his face. When he pulled his hand away, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find it covered in drool after seeing the slippery glide of those hips.

Hell. He never should have given in to his urges last night. He should have asked her to leave his bed.

But the way she’d felt against him, soft and pliant with liquid desire in her eyes, had been his downfall.

He couldn’t crack again. From now on, he was steel. Her teases and that feminine flick of her eyes couldn’t make his walls crumble.

Dropping his hand to his side didn’t dispel the reminder of her silky-smooth skin.

Or her soaking wet pussy.

“Fuck.” He stood there another heartbeat, grappling with the urge to follow Kennedy.

When he lifted his head, his stare rested on the desk. He peered harder at the laptop.

Son of a bitch.

In a few strides, he crossed the room and stared down at the device.

It sat at a slightly skewed angle. Moved an inch to the right.

Did he shut it down? Fuck, he didn’t. He’d been so distracted by Kennedy that he’d jumped up and practically run to the shower, hoping cold water would clear his head and drive away his lust.

At least he had closed out of the open windows, and the software possessed a level of safety that would keep prying eyes from entering the pathways he used.

But he was kicking the hell out of himself for being so lax. Letting down his guard at all—especially with a woman who wasn’t totally cleared of suspicion—was dangerous.

Dropping into the seat, he tapped the trackpad.

The screen blinked to life, revealing a sign-in page.

Only it wasn’t his sign-in.

A second profile had been made.

Kennedy.

Her name resonated in his mind, echoing and growly as if he spoke it aloud.

He blinked at the username—Diana Prince.

His brows creased as he stared at the name, then shook his head, equally annoyed and impressed that she had managed to get into his device. Not so much that creating a guest login was high tech, but that she’d been smart enough—and gutsy enough—to do it at all.

She had access to his laptop for fifteen minutes tops, and she hadn’t just breached it—she’d set herself up like she owned it.

He logged into her profile with a brief hack of her password, which wasn’t nearly secure enough. When the screen flashed to life, he nearly choked.

Pink flowers filled the entire screen from corner to corner. He wasn’t a flower person, but he recognized that they were Japanese cherry blossoms. A pagoda was tucked between the blooms and branches.

“Seriously? Japan? It’s not even Washington DC!” He ran his hand over his face for the second time in five minutes.

With a few practiced keystrokes, he clicked the browser and pulled up the user history.

He almost sat back in his seat when he saw that she’d visited social media. Jesus Christ, was she insane? The woman was in hiding. In a freaking safe house .

As soon as he clicked open the profile, his mind stuttered to a halt. She wasn’t checking her own profile for comments or posts. This wasn’t Kennedy’s profile—it was her mother’s.

Because the government knew everything about Kennedy, Dante had access to her parents’ names, but he hadn’t dug deep into her past. Until now he never had reason to take a closer look. The FBI did all that.

But he wasn’t prepared for the unhinged mess that appeared to be Kennedy’s mother.

After a brief skim of the content, cringing at every post, he clicked on the other profile she’d visited, already guessing before it popped up on the screen that it belonged to her father.

He wasn’t wrong. Her father shared a profile with his new partner, and the content there raised a lot of questions in Dante’s mind.

Kennedy didn’t seem to be anything like her parents. Not that that was so unusual—he wasn’t anything like his either.

Tracking every move Kennedy made on the device was the easy part, but the hot feeling in his chest wasn’t something he wanted to deal with.

No way could he get closer to her, not after this.

Confusion rolled through every corner of his mind. This was his chance to prove he was right—Kennedy was guilty.

Diana Prince. Where had he heard that name?

With an ear trained to the shower and his focus on the screen, he hastily followed the next path she’d taken.

What he saw made him sit back in his seat and stare in wonder at the screen.

Surely not. The woman wouldn’t be so careless with her information.

But he was looking at her email login and password.

Heart pounding faster, he opened the email, holding his breath as though all the treasonous things she’d done would explode onto the screen in plain sight like so many pop-ups.

A quick sifting through the email inbox revealed that she hadn’t hidden anything from him. Maybe she didn’t know how to cover her tracks, but she obviously didn’t take steps to even try.

Another thought occurred to him.

Maybe she wanted him to see her activity.

What he saw wasn’t a traitor with nefarious intentions. He saw a daughter checking in on her parents—crazy as they were—from afar, and she didn’t interact with them in any of the posts.

Her email was a private account and showed nothing but a few pieces of junk mail. The last message sent had been to Alyssa, practically proving she really didn’t have another friend in the whole wide world.

Emotion swelled inside him, hot and unfamiliar. Dante drew a deep breath through his nose and held it, letting the air stretch and burn his lungs.

Kennedy hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d only left a trail of pink blossoms and family scars…and loneliness.

He thought of how desperately she clutched at him whenever he shifted in sleep, like she was afraid that he’d disappear and she’d wake alone to cold sheets.

She’d spent weeks on her own in that safe house, with only occasional check-ins to make sure she didn’t require anything and hadn’t run. But that wasn’t caring. It was hardly treating her like a human being.

Guilt spread through his conscience, thick and spiky.

She might have gone behind his back to enter his computer system, but he owed her an apology.

Dante exited her profile. He couldn’t see any evidence of suspicious activity.

But they still had reasonable cause to believe she could be a traitor.

He felt the burning need to strike fast, to uncover the truth they’d been searching for. If that meant getting closer to Kennedy in hope that she would reveal her secrets…was that a game he was willing to play to protect his country?

Even as the idea came to him, he knew he couldn’t uphold that kind of duplicitous behavior. He’d never justify falling into bed with her as a method of uncovering espionage.

Last night hadn’t only been about lust. Her laugh, her body, her stubborn streak—that told him she was more than just eye candy and a brainless shopping habit—they were all picking apart his defenses. He was already one foot too deep.

Whether Kennedy Bloom knew it or not, she hadn’t just hacked his computer.

She was hacking into him.

* * * * *

Kennedy stood under the shower spray so long that the hot water ran out. It was just as well—there was no amount of water hot enough to make her feel better about her life.

After carefully dressing in leggings and her ecru Mongolian cashmere sweater again, she took a moment with her appearance. Even though she had nobody to look good for, it had always been her armor.

She brushed her hair and used a few mists of hydrating toner on her face with a grimace. The travel-sized bottle wasn’t going to last forever, and at this point, she had no way of telling when she might be free.

She swept lip balm over her bottom lip and then rubbed them together. Her reflection in the mirror showed a woman with too much in her past and a future that was at a standstill. Her eyes weren’t filled with any life either.

With a big sigh, she stepped out of the bedroom. No sounds drifted from the living room, but that didn’t mean Dante wasn’t sitting there working.

Her nerves kicked in. He must have seen her new login. She hadn’t exactly gone to lengths to hide what she’d done. She’d been careless, but the urge to check on her parents after so many weeks had taken over.

She should just come clean with the SEAL. Tell him what she’d done. It would smooth things between them, and maybe some of that awful tension throbbing in the air would dissipate.

The living room was unchanged, other than some of the shadows in the corners had been chased away by morning light. The blanket she dropped haphazardly on the sofa was still where she left it, pooled on one cushion. But Dante wasn’t at the desk.

She swung toward the kitchen. Twenty-three steps to the front door, with no Dante in her way.

She strained to hear any sounds. Maybe he went to lie down? He probably hadn’t gotten the recommended daily amount of sleep last night.

A quick check of his bedroom showed another empty space, neat and orderly with his black duffel sitting at the foot of the bed, zipped up and ready to go at the drop of a command.

“Dante?” Her voice cracked in the silence.

Worry stole through her. She traipsed to the kitchen to peer out the windows at the driveway. Seeing the SUV still parked there only filled her with a small trickle of relief. Her overactive imagination had seen too many action movies to stave off the adrenaline kicking into her system.

“Dante?” she called out again, only to be met with more silence.

Then she heard it—a low thumping sound coming from the back.

There was a back door leading from the living room. She hadn’t bothered to explore it, but she guessed it led to the back yard.

Moving to the door, she stood there for a long beat, her lungs pulling in air that felt too hot and prickly. Then she gripped the handle and turned it.

It was unlocked.