Savage Beauty (The Arrow Tactical Series Book 5)

Chapter 16

He kissed me. It’s all I can think of after he leaves the room. Four of my fingers lightly cover my still tingling lips.

His closed-mouth kiss, like one middle school kids share, circulated heat from my lips through my body with the same impact as my first kiss in fourth grade. And just like back then, he moved away as quickly as possible.

He returns with a platter of papaya, sliced cheese, bread, one bottle of water, and one glass of orange juice. Nausea rises at the sight of bottled water. I got incredibly sick after drinking bottled water. I know it’s irrational to stop drinking bottled water. If it had been Sage or anyone else, they would push me. Tell me I can’t afford to mark one more thing off my list of things I will eat or drink. But he hasn’t pushed me at all. He’s simply accepted it, probably because things don’t bother him.

We eat together in silence. I’m not hungry, but when I push the plate aside, he says, “Is that all you’re having? Have at least two more slices of cheese.”

Cheese and bread are two of my favorite foods, so I don’t fight him. I also like papaya if it’s not too slimy.

After eating, I follow him into the other upstairs bedroom and watch as he checks and re-checks guns and other equipment. Sam used to like to tinker with his guns, too. I don’t mind guns when they sit in a room. It’s when they are loud that I can’t bear them. The kick is jarring when shooting them, and depending on the kind of gun, the kick hurts. I also don’t like the acrid smell. Sam understood guns would never work for me. But, like Max, I would watch Sam clean and prepare his guns.

Every time Max passes, he touches me. Lightly. On the shoulder. Or my hair. My thigh. My knee. Whatever body part is close.

All the touching releases too much oxytocin, pheromones, and dopamine. I don’t need to test myself for it; I just know. A tingly, warm sensation affects me with every touch, no matter how light or meaningless. I’m far too cognizant of his presence. Of his movements. His breathing. When he swallows. Of his scent. And he doesn’t use cologne. His aroma comprises soap and possibly deodorant or aftershave, yet I have this irrational desire to rub my nose along his throat and breathe him in.

But he hasn’t tried to kiss me again.

And I won’t make a move. Not again. I’m used to men who respond positively when I first suggest sex. And he’s sending mixed signals. For all I know, he didn’t like the kiss. We don’t fully understand attraction. Research has found that it’s a mix of hormones and that attraction means our bodies are responding favorably to the mix of the other person’s chemicals. Reciprocation is not guaranteed. Based on the evidence at hand, it appears my body is highly attracted to the mix of hormones his body generates, whereas his body isn’t as receptive to my mixture.

I wish he was like William. Nothing was confusing with William. The physical attraction had been evident, and we both agreed to act on it. He would make sure I orgasmed, then he would orgasm. If we were at the office, we would return to work. If we were at my apartment, he would leave. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement without confusion or nerves.

I don’t recall being as affected by William’s presence. That was an easier situation to navigate. Being reactive to a light touch is irritating. The chemicals my brain is releasing lead to poor decision making and thought processing. When he kissed me, all thoughts stopped. That’s not a beneficial situation at all.

He zips a backpack. Sets it down. Then opens a suitcase of clothes. He takes out a black long-sleeved t-shirt and black cargo pants and drops them on the bench in front of him. He lifts the bottom of his short-sleeved tan t-shirt and pulls the material up his back, then over his head. The shirt tousles his hair, and his fingers brush through his scalp, settling the wayward strands.

I think he’s forgotten I’m in here. I’ve been sitting here lost in my own thoughts, and he’s forgotten me, but I can’t break my gaze away from his broad shoulders and tapered waist. His back isn’t as tan as his arms, and a faint tan line cuts across his biceps and around the base of his neck. His hands go to the front of his pants.

I sit back in the armchair and find my throat has tightened, making it uncomfortable to swallow.

“Do you have anything darker to wear?”

He turns, revealing his perfectly proportioned pecs and ripples along his abdomen. There’s a smattering of darker hair below his belly button to the waistband, where his hand rests. I can’t stop looking. I just saw him today in the ocean wearing a swimsuit. It’s the same thing as boxers, which are undoubtedly what he’s wearing below those shorts. Or maybe tight briefs. It’s all the same thing, and if it wasn’t for my body’s pheromones?—

“Sloane? Did you pack something that’s darker?”

“Yes.” I rush out of the room to change. Not because we need to hurry, but because I can’t stop staring and my mind isn’t functioning as sharply as it should.

When I exit my bedroom, I’m wearing a dark purple long-sleeve lightweight sweater and a stretchy black miniskirt that falls to mid-thigh. I’m not sure the two colors match, but he said to wear dark clothes, and most of the summer clothes I packed when I moved to Grand Cayman are light color combinations, like sand, gray, or light blue. Years ago, I concluded that monochrome outfits save time, so I buy outfits that are the same color, top and bottom. I sometimes buy dresses, but they aren’t as practical for biking.

“These are my darkest clothes. Are they okay? And I have leather sandals downstairs.”

He blinks, and I follow his gaze to my legs. They are quite pale, almost luminescent. My face and shoulders are pink, but the sun didn’t seem to touch the skin on my legs. “I have some lightweight tan pants. Do you want me to change?”

“Do your sandals have heels?” His voice is low and growly. What an odd question.

“No. I don’t wear heels. They are terrible for your feet. Also, with my height…” I shrug. “I have a rule against impractical items. Heels are highly impractical. I would probably trip and fall?—”

“What you”re wearing is fine. Let’s go.”

* * *

Origins Laboratories doesn’t have a security team patrolling the grounds. This is what the Arrow team has concluded. I told them they didn’t, but they insisted that they might have made changes since I’ve been gone.

The plan is to wait until Arrow overtakes the stream of the one camera by the front door. They’ll replay the footage from the night before, which consists of views of the parking lot with palm fronds swaying gently in the breeze in the background.

In the messenger bag slung over my shoulder, I have flash drives to copy the files I need. I also want to find my hard drives. Every Sunday, I backed my research up on the hard drives as a safety precaution. In theory, yes, the cloud is a secure storage location. But multiple storage locations are safest, and I know people who have lost significant work on the cloud.

“You ready?” he asks.

I’ve been avoiding looking at him because his black shirt is made of something akin to Lycra, and it clings to every single curve of his muscular form. It’s not fair how good looking he is. Men like him belong on covers of books or in movies, not out and about in the real world.

“Do you remember the plan?”

It’s a simple plan. “Of course.”

Yes, he flusters me, but not so much I can’t remember his rules. Watch for his hand signals. Be quiet. If he tells me to stay with a stop sign hand signal, I stay. If he motions for me to go with a wave of his hand, I move. Get in. Get out.

If we find them, I’m allowed to take my laptop and hard drives, but nothing else.

Our dark clothes ensure we don’t stand out, but there’s a nearly full moon overhead, and it’s a clear night. We blend into the shadows, but someone could easily see us. Darker clothes don’t make us invisible.

The hope is there’s no one here to see us. The cameras are hijacked. Although I’m not sure anyone watches those, anyway. As I told the Arrow team, I’m fairly certain those cameras are more for after-the-fact review, as in if there’s any theft, someone can review them later to determine who walked out with lab equipment. And in the eighteen months I worked there, nothing was reported stolen. We aren’t one of those labs dealing with highly addictive substances.

If someone notices something is missing, and looks at the tapes later, thanks to the tape hijacking efforts by Arrow’s tech team, they won’t see anything except two identical nights, and it would take someone with astute observational skills to notice that two nights are identical.

When we first arrived, Max parked up the street. He left me in the car while he scoped the property. And now he’s back at the car, opening the door for me, confirming my readiness.

There’s no one out here. It’s a business district, and all the businesses are closed. It’s just the two of us. He holds out a gloved hand for me, and I take it. Oddly enough, the leather between us does little to soften the prickling sensation.

He’s got a gun in a holster on his waist and one strapped in a shoulder harness. If I looked harder along his legs or crotch, I might find more guns, but I won’t stare at him. To do so risks distraction.

I pat my shoulder bag with my ID card, pocketknife, throwing star, and three sharp, flat blades. I, too, am prepared.

There are two men with Arrow covering us tonight. They have comms with Max. They’re positioned on opposite sides of the building. If anyone approaches, they’ll notify Max through his earpiece. He’ll give me a hand signal, and no matter what I am doing, I am to stop and follow him.

We cross the street like two normal people crossing the street in the middle of the day. Because that’s what makes sense. If anyone is out and about, there’s no need to look like we’re thieves in the night running from cops.

Max approaches a side door with a basic lock. There are no cameras on this side entrance, but the reason the team selected this door for entry is the ease of picking the lock. Shrubs line this side of the building, and the prickly leaves stab my back.

Max’s cargo pants drape over his glutes, but I can’t help but think if he wore jeans, he’d be sumptuous. His gluteus maximus is so well-developed that even a gun holster doesn’t detract from his yummy factor.

He fumbles with a brown suede cloth, rolling it and placing it into a pocket in his pants, then gives me the waving hand motion. Just in time. Standing around looking at him simply doesn’t work well for me in my current pheromone-overloaded state.

In the narrow hallway, I lead. The lights are off in the building, but thanks to the moon outside, there’s enough light I can easily find my way through the halls. I push into my lab and frown at the pristine state. The counters are clean. As is my desk. It’s as if I never existed. My work never existed. What did they do? Throw everything away?

I rush to the biosafety cabinets and am instantly relieved when I see the incubators. They didn’t throw out the tissue samples. I itch to bring a sample to a microscope, but that’s not why I’m here. And I’d need light, and we’re keeping the lights off.

The pen drawer in my lab desk is empty. In the file cabinet to the right of my chair there are hanging file folders, but none of the papers I stashed. The only thing I stored in these folders were receipts that I never got around to submitting for expense reports. Why would someone take those?

They wouldn’t. It was mostly trash. I frantically move the hanging folders, most of which I never used, looking to the back of the long, unwieldy drawer.

I can’t see a thing, so I shove my arm to the back, face planted to the top desk drawer until my fingers touch plastic. I grip wires and tug.

Thank god. When I stored my hard drives here, I hadn’t been trying to hide them. The lab desk simply didn’t have any drawers that would hold the drives and the long wires. The sight of the orange plastic and silver sided rectangle has me grinning. If I can’t find my laptop, I’ve got my research.

As I’m stuffing my messenger bag with the hard drive and the wire, I remember I hadn’t downloaded that Sunday. Which meant the report that theoretically caused so much trouble isn’t on this hard drive. Frock.

I push up off the ground. Max holds up his thumb. Then flips it down. Then up. The gesture questions if I’ve gotten everything I need.

With a quick shake of the head, communicating that no, I do not have everything I need, I scan the room. There’s no sign of my laptop. If they took my receipts and invoices, whoever packed up my lab obviously took my laptop. Where do they store former employee belongings? In a storage room?

The only storage rooms I remember had shelves holding supplies. One storage room on the second floor had a small square table that William and I made use of more than once.

Is HR in a different building? I think they are. If only I’d paid closer attention to colleagues’ names and functions.

“What is it?” We agreed to not talk in the building, but here Max is talking, breaking his own rule.

“I need to go into the building next door.”

“No.”

He’s being assertive. But his response is logical. They haven’t hijacked the security cameras for the other buildings. Although it’s quite possible there are no security cameras in that building. It houses offices and maybe storage rooms. What would someone steal? Paper. No, they have computers in the other building. People steal computers.

“Ready?” Again, he’s violating the stated rules.

This space has been cleaned, but maybe not the others. And what about Dr. Kallio?

I leave Max behind. We’re clearly the only people in the building. We pass the lab with the stacked guinea pig and rat cages, and Dr. Kallio’s office is next. My breaths pick up, and I’m sure my heartrate hits the eighty percent zone, but none of that matters. I need to find out — and turn the knob.

Her stuff is here. Dr. Kallio’s stuff is here. Or at least, someone is using the space.

There’s a laptop on a desk. Plugged in. I flip it open and pull up a stool.

The screensaver asks for a username and password.

I’ll never figure this out. There’s movement in the doorway. Max.

I pull open the long, flat drawer that runs along the desk. It’s identical to my lab desk. Huzzah!

This is still Dr. Kallio’s space. Taped to the bottom of the drawer is a list of passwords in her crisp, easily deciphered handwriting. She once told me she keeps a laminated list of passwords in case something happened to her unexpectedly. I always thought it was a rather morbid way of looking at life.

The question is… are any of these passwords for her laptop?

I scan the list, looking for something easy. Something a person wouldn’t mind typing in repeatedly all day.

There’s one password combo that fits. Her email and the password newday321.

Huzzah! I am in.

Max raises his handgun. The movement catches my eye.

The screen before me lights.

I search her app bar. Find the icon for the Origins server. Click.

“We gotta go.” Max’s voice is hushed, but he’s supposed to use a hand signal.

I hold up a finger to silence him. I follow rules.

Think. What can I do so Arrow can access this server after we leave? The gun wielding muscle man probably won’t let me sit here long.

I can’t, can I? You can’t just save access.

A tiny green light glows on the zip drive I’ve stuck in the laptop”s side.

The data is too extensive to transfer.

“Sloane. We’ve got to go.”

He grips my arm.

I yank it back. That’s not the plan.

“Sloane, we’ve got company.”

I can’t think. Between Mr. Muscles and pressure…

Frock.

I lift the laptop, drive and all, shove it into my messenger bag, push the stool back under the desk, and give a hand signal. One index finger pointed out, following the agreed to rules.