Page 17 of Sweet Deception

On another window, faces of missing girls stare back at me.

I only started using my IT skills to help women escape dangerous fates and create new identities two years ago.

And I’ve never tried to find someone who’s gone missing.

Someone who was abducted. Stolen right out of her own life.

I’ve never gone after dangerous people before—not traffickers and certainly not the mafia. Not until Lucy.

“She’s all I have left, Nika.” Maya’s voice trembles. “She’s my Lucy-Lou. After everything…the group homes, the split placements, getting her back…I can’t lose her.”

“I promised you, Maya. We’ll find her.” I glance at the progress bar again. “This phone data might give us everything we…Bozhe moy!”

I break off in the middle of my sentence because of the message boxes popping up on my computer screen that alert me to even more layers of security.

“What is it?”

“I’ll have to get back to my equipment at home to crack these encryption barriers…”

I save everything to my secure cloud storage while trying to ignore how my skin still tingles with memories of Darren’s touch.

Focus on the mission.

Focus on Lucy.

Not on how great it felt to completely lose control for the first time ever, or how part of me already craves that experience again.

“I’ll figure this out,” I promise Maya and myself. “Just give me time.”

After grabbing a lightning-fast shower—which somehow does nothing to remove the imprint of Darren’s hands on my body—I trash my cocktail dress, change into my comfortable travel clothes, grab my bag, and head for the airport.

Time to hack the encrypted data.

Time to forget how good it felt to be in his arms.

Time to remember that men like Darren Kelly are why girls like Lucy Marlow disappear.

Chapter Seven

Water rushes over my face as I mull over how to get rid of the mystery woman. Every time I think about the fact that I fucked her into a coma last night, I smile.

It’s been a while since I last slept with a woman, so my endurance pleased me.

But that’s irrelevant.

Short and dirty, that’s my usual M.O. It’s nothing personal.

I tilt my head back and close my eyes, letting the warm spray relax my muscles. The truth is, I’m a little uneasy about how much I enjoyed last night.

That I let my guard down with her enough to have fun,normal fun…

My idea of excitement usually involves mayhem. Laying kindling to the world and then tossing a match over my shoulder as I walk away, everything burning in my wake.

But right now, I don’t want the story to end with a single amazing fuck.

For some reason, I don’t want to move on at all.

I want to spend more time with that ravishing, reckless woman, and that’s an enormous problem. I don’t even knowher damn name. I would’ve swiped her wallet by now if she’d brought anything up here with her, but she didn’t.