Secret Contract. Dana Marton

as hot as she was beginning to think, anyway. Most likely, it was a case of even stale bread looking tasty to a starving woman.

      It ticked her off that she would find him attractive even while thoroughly disliking him. Wasn’t that abnormal? Weren’t women supposed to be attracted to men to whom they felt an emotional connection? Men were supposed to be the ones who jumped at hormones and visuals.

      There wasn’t a micron of a connection between the two of them, that was for sure. They were as different as two people could be. She was a loner, a hacker—antiregulation and therefore antigovernment by definition, one hundred percent intellectual. He was on some kind of commando team, a soldier who jumped to decisions made by politicians, a breed that hadn’t got a single thing right since the Declaration of Independence, and he was a muscle man through and through.

      She clipped on her harness and stepped away from the wall. Her thigh muscles were trembling, but she held steady, envying Nick’s graceful ease. A flick of her thumb released the catch, allowing her to slide fast enough to catch up with him halfway down. He hadn’t been going full speed.

      They finished the rest side by side, unhooked the harnesses and let them drop. Sometimes, when they worked in sync like this, it almost felt as if she were catching up to him in skill. Then he would pull ahead and leave her in the dust—mud tonight—and she would realize how wide the gap between them really was.

      “Why pick me for this mission? Everything I know about information-technology security is outdated.” She spit out the question she’d fallen asleep thinking about.

      He stopped to look at her. “It wasn’t factual knowledge we were after, it was a way of thinking. You’re good both at logic and creative problem solving. You have outstanding intuition when it comes to complex systems. As far as what you’ve missed—” He shrugged. “You’re a quick learner. It won’t take you long to get up to speed.”

      The compliments—although, he probably meant them as simple evaluation—felt nice. And they wanted her to get up to speed, which implied longterm access to computers and the Internet and free time to spend on them. She was out of prison, years early, and what they were asking in exchange was the one thing that had been on top of her do-once-I’m-out list. Visions of computer code danced before her eyes.

      “Barbed-wire crawl.” He moved toward the next obstacle. “Let’s go. On the double.”

      She recited a colorful string of swear words under her breath—stuff she’d learned in the can—as she followed.

      The sun wasn’t exactly breaching the horizon, but the sky was beginning to lighten. He looked like a life-sized action figure in the odd light. His body was hard, carved with muscles, his biceps stretching the black T-shirt that seemed to be part of his uniform. He wasn’t tall, five foot ten maybe, just an inch or so taller than Carly, but you wouldn’t notice until you were right up close. His intense presence and attitude made him seem larger than life.

      She dropped to the ground when they reached the barbed-wire grid and crawled through the mud on her stomach, made it without losing any skin off her back. They moved on to the next obstacle, Jacob’s ladder—two poles reaching to the sky with boards between them, which she had to climb, the trick being that the distance between the boards grew the higher up you went, until the last one was wider than anyone could reach so you had to jump to get a hold of it. She gripped the wood with the tips of her fingers, pulled herself up, went over then started her descent.

      The inverted platforms came next, an exercise where they had to help each other up a structure that looked similar to an upside down pyramid—square platforms in increasing sizes on top of each other, the gap farther and farther once again. It was an obstacle that couldn’t be conquered alone except for the first level or two. When she reached the critical point, Nick was there, with his hands on her waist to push her up. Then it was her turn to pull him to the next level. As lean as he looked, the man was damned heavy.

      By the time they got to the rope bridge, she was beginning to have serious doubts about whether or not she would be able to complete the course tonight. She’d worked too hard the day before, and the day before that. Each day since she’d arrived at Quantico, he’d pushed her to the limit. This time, he was pushing her beyond. Didn’t he understand that her body needed time to recover? She was unsteady with exhaustion, every part aching, pain pulsating through her muscles in protest.

      He walked a few feet in front of her, the coarse ropes swaying under them.

      “Wait—” Her feet slipped and she reached out on instinct, her fist closing around the back of his shirt instead of the rope that served for railing.

      He turned to catch her, but she was flailing with her other arm and shifting her weight too rapidly. The rope bridge swung wide. She fell forward, onto him, bringing down the both of them.

      He was splayed on the bottom, as hard as a prison mattress. She lay on top of him, dueling instincts warring inside her, one pushing for her to get up and away, the other to hang on until the bridge stopped swaying.

      When he shifted, she was startled by the sudden, sharp awareness that ran along the length of her.

      “If you ever find yourself on a rope bridge, trying to bring down an enemy, remember this move,” he said, deadpan.

      He was probably laughing his butt off at what a klutz she was. She hoped he couldn’t see her cheeks burning and if he did, he didn’t realize the reaction wasn’t purely the effect of acute embarrassment.

      They’d been body-to-body pressed together during self-defense training, but this was different. On the mat, she was too focused on figuring what his next move would be, anticipating the pain when he flipped her and slammed her to the ground. He had told her she had to learn how to fall, how to roll, how to come up and fight even if she was hurt.

      This time, as he waited for her to get her bearings and stand up, her focus switched too easily from the exercise to the hard body beneath her. Oh, God. She shouldn’t be noticing him like that. She pushed away and scrambled off him, scooting across the bridge as if she were chased by a full platoon with machine guns.

      By the time she made it through the entire obstacle course, the rain had stopped and the sun had cleared the horizon. She dropped where she was, breathing hard and staring at the sky, not caring what he thought.

      He stood over her with a shuttered expression. “When you recover, I have a surprise for you.”

      “As soon as I can get up, I’m going to bed.”

      She was so tired, death would have been a relief. Then slowly, another sensation came seeping up through the fatigue. She was feeling kind of…pumped, she realized. She’d done it. Even in the wet night with no sleep, she’d conquered the course. As much as she dreaded the pain and exhaustion of her training each day, a part of her reveled in the challenge of it all, in pushing herself to the limit and discovering new reserves. She found unexpected joy in conquering physical obstacles and she liked the feeling of satisfaction that came with that.

      In prison, all they had wanted of her was to keep quiet and out of trouble. But once again, after a long, long time, something was expected of her. That part felt pretty good, actually.

      “Ever wonder where the computer labs are?” he asked.

      He got her attention. She sat up, hating how effortlessly he was reeling her in. “Am I going to be allowed to go near a PC finally?”

      Her stomach growled over the last words. Ever since she’d gotten here, she’d been eating like a pig. She didn’t even want to think about the number of calories she had consumed in doughnuts alone. It was a testament to the grueling training that she hadn’t gained an ounce.

      “After target practice.”

      “You’re kidding.” After the training she’d just had?

      “Seven a.m. every day. The schedule didn’t change. Two straight clips into the bull’s-eye and the PC lab is yours. I’ll make sure your ID is authorized for 24/7 access.”

      “Wow,