Hard to Be Good (Hard Ink #3.5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

appeared featured a detail of that mark. Everyone leaned in. It appeared to be a silhouette of a man’s head.
    “I know it’s not great, but when I pair the enlargement with this image—” A logo of a knight’s helmeted head in profile appeared next to Marz’s photograph. “—I think it becomes clear what we’re looking at.”
    Murmurs rose up from among Nick’s teammates.
    “A tattoo of the company logo for,” Nick said. “Sonofabitch.”
    “That’s some of the best evidence we have, right there,” Beckett said, leaning in to compare the images, “that Seneka was behind yesterday’s attack. Which only makes sense if they were also involved in what happened to us in Afghanistan.”
    Running his dark hand over his close-cropped hair, Easy nodded. “Yeah. Because, otherwise, what would’ve motivated Seneka to attack?”
    “Exactly,” Marz said. “So now we’ve identified Manny as a Seneka operative and at least one of the other attackers, too.”
    “Finally we’re moving past purely circumstantial evidence to the hard stuff we can use to nail them,” Shane said, anger making his southern accent a little more prominent than usual.
    Marz nodded and rubbed his hands together. “Now what we need to put all the details together is the information on the colonel’s chip.” Nods all around. “So Charlie and I will get to work on networking the machines and I’ll set up an organizational system to keep track of which files have been read.”
    “Do it,” Nick said. “For everyone else, if you don’t have an immediate task this morning, rest up. Between reading those files and the watch rotation, there might not be much of that in the coming days.”
    The group broke up into side conversations, and Jeremy continued to hold the projector as a few people from the back came in for a closer look. When they were done, he finally returned the projector to the desk, dropped his hands to his sides, and shook them out. His shoulders had started to ache from holding the position for so long. Looking down, his gaze snagged on Charlie, who was giving Jeremy’s body a good, long look.
    Jeremy felt it like a physical caress as Charlie’s blue eyes seemed to latch on to Jeremy’s hips, groin, thighs.
    Holy shit. So much desire radiated off the other man that it took everything Jeremy had not to climb down from the chair, pull Charlie into his arms, and kiss him until neither of them could breathe.
    Charlie’s gaze snapped upward and collided with Jeremy’s. The blond man’s face turned beet red and he made himself suddenly busy with some papers on the desk. Blood rushed southward through Jeremy’s body, and he jumped down before his erection became obvious to everyone in the room.
    There was only one person he would like to have made his erection obvious to. If he didn’t find a way to get Charlie alone soon, he was going to lose it. He really was.
    Jeremy scrubbed his hands over his face. When he dropped them, he found Jessica standing right next to him, her gaze glued to the computer monitor and her mouth hanging open.
    He glanced from her to the screen, still filled with the image of the enlarged tattoo next to the Seneka logo, then frowned. “What’s the matter?”
    “Um, I don’t . . .” She shook her head. “This can’t be happening.”
    Icy dread snaked down Jeremy’s spine. “What, Jess?”
    Ike appeared on the far side of the desk. “What’s going on?” he asked.
    It was right then that Jeremy saw something he’d never seen before—Jess’s cheeks filling with a bright pink heat. What the hell would make her blush, of all things?
    “I, uh . . . I hooked up with a man who had a tattoo like that,” she finally said.
    “What?” Ike nearly roared. “When?”
    Jeremy’s stomach made a slow slide to the floor. Please say it was a long time ago. Please say it was—
    “Friday night,” she said, the words nearly a whisper.

 
    Chapter 4
    C HARLIE ’ S STOM A C H K N O T T E D as