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this, will you?"
    Her friend stepped forward. "I'm sorry, big
guy," Natalie said to Dillon. "You'll have to leave. I've told you
before, the kitchen belongs to Richard and no one is allowed back
here."
    Claire left the kitchen and hurried down the
hall to her office. Heavy footsteps sounded behind her.
Anticipation and a delicious sense of dread glided along her
spine.
    She heard the chirp of a cell phone and
glanced over her shoulder. Dillon answered the call and picked up
speed. He grabbed her elbow, pushed her through the door and
slammed it shut. He snagged her with those bedroom eyes. Claire
wanted to look away, but couldn't.
    "Get over there and start the trace," Dillon
barked into the phone. "I'll work this end. Right." He cut the
connection.
    The walls of Claire's office closed in on
her. Dillon's fingers burned through her sweater. He still stared
at her.
    "Who was that?" Her voice was a whisper; her
throat dry. "My partner," he said. "K & G Research has been
hacked into. Again."
     

CHAPTER THREE
    Dillon released Claire's elbow. He didn't want
to. He wanted to pull her close. Taste her. Touch her. The job,
Anderson. Focus on the job.
    "You think the hacker did it from here?"
Claire stepped away, scooted around her desk and sat down.
    "Probably. I've started a trace. Should know
something in a few hours." Dillon lowered his frame into the chair
opposite. Why was he so attracted to Claire? He'd been around
beautiful women before. What was different about the woman on the
other side of the desk?
    "Do you know what kind of attack it was?"
Claire picked up a pen and scribbled something on a pad of paper.
She kept her eyes lowered.
    "Smurf. Floods the email host with fake
messages--"
    "I know what it does," she said, looking up.
"Ties up the server. Puts them out of commission for a while. Kind
of juvenile, don't you think?" Her low melodic voice washed over
him.
    "Yeah, our sophisticated hacker doesn't seem
above using a schoolboy prank. Six months ago, he installed a back
door to the systems at the three targeted companies. That made it
possible for him to enter their networks anytime he wanted, from
anywhere and do anything."
    "And he's working out of e*Claire's." She
fidgeted with the pen.
    "That's right." Dillon watched her hands,
mesmerized by the movements. Claire stroked the pen slowly between
her fingers and thumb. Up the length, then down. His body responded
to the rhythm of the motion. Up, then down. Up, then down. He could
almost feel those beautiful fingers caressing him. Up and down. Up
and down. Damn.
    Dillon cleared his throat. "For months, he's
been entering the systems and altering data with subtle changes.
Skewing research results in such a way that it took a while for the
companies to figure out someone was hacking them."
    Claire grasped the pen with both hands and
nudged the end with her chin. "So why the Smurf attack? And why
now?"
    Never before had Dillon considered a
ballpoint pen to be an instrument of erotic torture. The job.
Keep the mind on the job.
    "It may be a diversionary tactic," he said.
"Maybe he found the patches my partner installed over the security
holes in the systems. Maybe he's playing with us. Getting ready to
do more serious damage."
    When Claire stuck the tip of the pen in her
mouth, Dillon nearly lost it. He must have made a noise, because
her hands froze and her eyes flew to his. The pen dropped and
clattered on the desktop. She snatched it up and stuffed it in the
pencil holder.
    Tension hung thick and heavy between
them.
    It was her turn to clear her throat. "So you
think this is the same guy?"
    Dillon shifted in the chair. He couldn't
believe he was aroused just because she'd been fidgeting with a
pen. The woman was lethal. He needed to be careful. "If it's traced
back here, we can assume so."
    "Do you think it was done this morning?" She
crossed her legs under the desk. Dillon fought the image of him
grasping her knees, pulling them apart and sinking into her soft
body.