No Regrets

His thumb swept over her temple in a soothing arc, pausing to lift her eyelids for a brief inspection of her pupils.

"I've checked you out and given you something to help clear the tranquilizers out of your system. The weakness will wear off. You'll be fine. I promise."

Noelle shot him a disbelieving glare. "I have no idea where I am or why those men broke into my house. I was shot.

Twice! And I have no clue why. I'm too weak to move and if more of those men come crashing through the door right now, there's nothing I can do to protect myself. In my book, that's a long way from fine."

Her rant went completely ignored. "How's your head?" he asked in a near whisper.

Noelle felt tears stinging her eyes in the face of her confusion and helplessness, but blinked them back before David could notice. She hoped. "Dancing elephants," she managed to respond.

A faint grin kicked up one shadowed cheekbone. "That bad, eh?"

"I've had worse—4.00 a.m. the morning before Friday finals."

He grunted and went to refill the glass at the cheap motel room sink.

"Where are we?" asked Noelle.

The clink of ice and the hiss of water filled the stale air. "Off I-70 not far from where we started. Before I could get you completely out of town I had to make sure you were okay and find out if there were any more copies of your work anywheres—including electronic format."

Noelle blinked in confusion. "My work? What work?" She'd been working on at least a half dozen projects, none of which would interest anyone without a burning love for Latin, Cyrillic script, or differential equations.

He turned. Her eyes bad adjusted to the light and she could now make out his features more easily, though they were still a bit fuzzy without the aid of her glasses. He was fairly tall—maybe just over six feet. He wore black military gear with a many-pocketed vest over the top of his tough, long-sleeved shirt. There was a gun neatly hol-stered under his left arm and in the mirror, she could see another pressing into the small of his back. His shoulders were as wide as her arm was long and though he didn't have the visible bulk of a professional wrestler, she could tell that his practical clothing hid a lot more than just skin and bones.

His face was shadowed with stubble that was only a little shorter than the close-cropped hair on his head. At his temples, a few gray strands glistened like slivers of moonlight on black water. At some point, he'd lost the gloves and washed the greasepaint off his face, and it made him look more human than he had in the darkness of Noelle's basement.

He had the kind of masculinity that could make a woman who normally didn't notice such things or care about men in general do a serious double take. Noelle did just that.

It shocked her to be looking at him with anything more than idle curiosity. Searching him for clues as to what was happening to her was one thing. Looking at him with thoughts of what he'd feel like pressed up against her was another. Maybe it was just the drugs talking, or maybe it was the fact that he'd pinned her up against that brick wall during a lime when her whole adrenal system was going haywire, but she was seeing David No-Last-Name as a man.

A very interesting, physically appealing man.

And considering her current situation, that itself was enough to make Noelle question her sanity.

David stepped closer and she watched as a sparkling bead of water ran down the side of the glass, over his tanned fingers and dripped onto the gaudy orange-and-red carpet.

She was suddenly quite thirsty again.

"I've been given clearance to know about your work with encryption algorithms for the military. You don't need to hide it/'

Noelle struggled to sit up, but her numb muscles refused, and she wanted to scream in frustration. "I'm not hiding anything," she snapped. "The truth is I'm not doing any encryption work for the military. I gave it up once I found out the U.S. Army was footing the bill."

"And all the files from before you gave it up? Where are they?"

"What little I did document was deleted. Sent to that great ones and zeros party in the sky."

"Bullshit." His voice was quiet, but his tone was still harsh enough to convey his disbelief.

"Excuse me?"

"I was informed about your work on project Cobweb. You were offered a lot of money to do the work. You wouldn't have just thrown that all away."

"I've never heard of project Cobweb."

"Not the name, maybe, but you were offered grant money to complete your research."

"Grant money? You mean blood money."

He gave her a casual shrug of indifference. "Call it Fred for all I care. My question is, where are the files?"

"I told you. I deleted everything that was on my hard drive—which wasn't much. I don't tend to write things down until I'm finished with them and ready to give the final report, unless they are truly complex, and I was only half-finished with that project."

David stood silent for a moment as if he was trying to determine the truth of her words. He ran a hand over his short, dark hair and shook his head. "The laptop hard drive?"

Noelle nodded.

"Are you sure there are no other backup copies of the work anywhere? Backup files on a network server? Disks?

Paper files? Notes written on napkins?"

What did he think she was, an idiot? She knew better than to leave anything that valuable lying around where anyone with half a brain could find it. And use it. Her parents—bom scientists—had taught her well. She had a responsibility to make sure no one could use her work to do harm. "I'm positive. When I decided not to take the grant money, I killed the files using a clean sweep deletion program created by some of the guys in the Computer Science Department. The files weren't just deleted, they were destroyed. There aren't even any remnants of them left on the hard drive to be recovered. I didn't want to be tempted to take the grant when the university fired me."

One dark brow rose in surprise. "You were going to be fired?"

She watched another bead of water slip off the glass and licked her dry lips. "The university couldn't afford my salary anymore with all the new budget cuts, so without that grant, I was outta there come spring."

"And even though you were going to be fired if you didn't take the grant money, you were still refusing to do the work?"

"Yes. I refuse to do anything in support of violence— even violence condoned by the U.S. government."

"Why?" He seemed genuinely baffled.

"Because I was raised by people who know what it's like to have their work twisted into something violent. They never wanted that to happen to my sister or me, so they made sure we understood that we have to be careful of what we create and whom we trust. It was a lesson I learned before I was able to walk."

David regarded her for a moment before nodding and sitting down on the bed beside her. The firm mattress dipped with his weight, but her body was too heavy with drugs to adjust to the movement. She rolled into his side until her hip rested against his. Having devoted herself to her education even before she hit puberty, Noelle wasn't used to the feel of a man's body against her own. Especially not a man as .. . manly as David No-Last-Name.

Her one and only boyfriend, Stanley, was an unimaginative toothpick of a man who generally preferred his PlayStation to sex with Noelle. After a couple of rompt in bed with him, she preferred the PlayStation as well.

David made Stanley look like a child by comparison, which made Noelle wonder what sex with a real man might be like. Probably a lot better than any video game if her guess was right. There had to be a reason so many babies were born each year. If she lived through this, she was going to devote some of her soon-to-be-copious free time to researching her theory.

David slid his arm behind her and propped her up in the V between his arm and body. He held the cup for her to drink, but a little spilled out the side of her mouth and ran down her chin and neck.

The cold water made her gasp as it slid down into her modest cleavage. David grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and followed the trail of water until it disappeared under the collar of her T-shirt.

She shivered as long, strong fingers slid just beneath the edge of her clothing.

"Cold?" he asked, moving his gaze to the far wall. "Depressants can sometimes do that. Not to mention shock."

Noelle looked away from his hand to his face and tried to concentrate on his words rather than just his mouth moving. It looked firm and mobile and she wondered if he knew how to kiss as well as he could kill.

What the hell was wrong with her? This was not the time or the place to be developing hormones. It had never happened before, so it must have something to do with the drugs she'd been given or maybe just her own personal reaction to over-the-top danger. Whatever it was, it was damned inconvenient.

"Shock?" she mumbled, staring at the way his tanned fingers tapered to short, clean fingernails.

He lifted an amused brow. "You don't think that being attacked in your house and shot at is enough to shock you?'

Even as he talked, he removed Noelle's shoes and folded the covers down on the far side of the bed. Without warning her, he lifted her, placed her in the downturned bedding and covered her up to her chin with the cheap, white sheet and thin blanket.

The weightless feeling of being lifted so easily made her head swim, not to mention the fact that she felt every bunch and shift of his muscles as he moved her. Being held by such raw strength was more than enough to muddle a girl's brain.

Noelle watched him with confused eyes. Nothing on his face gave away what he was thinking. For all she knew, this was the kind of thing he did every day. She'd been around military types enough to know that they weren't much for small talk and even less for telling you what's on their minds. They liked to be the one to ask questions while you give short, simple answers that preferably ended in the word "sir."

"Better?" he asked, his gaze shielded with coal black lashes. She could tell his eyes were a pale color, but beyond that, she saw little in the yellow motel lighting.

"I don't know. You tell me. Am I better off now? Can I go back home in the morning?"

This time, he met her eyes and she could see frost gray chips swimming in a cold blue sea. "No, Noelle. You can't go back home in the morning." He pressed a wide palm to her forehead, his rough skin oddly comforting. "You can't ever go home again."

It took a moment for his words to sink in, but when they did, Noelle struggled to breathe through the thick bar?of shock that gripped her chest. Never go home again?

"No!" was all she managed to say.

David pressed his lips together in a grim line and nodded. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it has to be. It's best you start getting used to the idea now."

"Why?"

David stared at her for a long minute, his pale eyes scrutinizing every angle of her face. "You really don't get it, do you?"

Fear, confusion, isolation swirled together within her, creating a cold, achy spot in the pit of her stomach. "Get what? All I want to do is go home."

"You're currently listed as the most gifted civilian cryptologist in the country—possibly in the world."

Noelle nearly scoffed at the ludicrous statement. "That's absurd. I don't even focus on cryptology. I just tried it for kicks and enjoyed the challenge. There are at least two men in the U.S. alone who have more knowledge, experience and brains in that area than I do."