CHAPTER 17
Reece
Guilt swamped me at the suspicious look Artemis gave me.
It was such a stark contrast from our most recent interactions, and I hated it.
I wanted to go back to the little flirty comments and the trust we had worked so hard to achieve between us.
I knew I was just beating myself up over nothing, but I felt like I’d had multiple opportunities to bring up my concerns and I hadn’t taken any of them.
Yet whenever I thought back over the past few days, there hadn’t seemed to be any opportunity at all.
No, that wasn’t true.
I could have found the time to talk to her or at least brought it up when I had her attention.
It wasn’t like we hadn’t run into each other or anything.
Even just this morning, I’d had her all to myself and still hadn’t mentioned anything.
But I’d been so focused on other things, too busy telling myself it was nothing but paranoia, that there was nothing to be truly worried about because we’d searched the cells multiple times and had found nothing to indicate my worries were substantiated in any way.
None of that mattered now, however.
I was out of time.
I never should have hidden my concerns in the first place because secrets always had a way of coming out in the worst possible moments.
There were too many people around to have that conversation, though, so I mouthed the word later to her and hoped she would let it drop for now.
Thankfully, the unspoken promise seemed to appease her, but not enough for her to let it drop.
She handed Bal over to Dorian, who took the boy with far too much eagerness for someone who wasn’t even related to the kid and stepped away from the crowd.
She grabbed my hand, tangling our fingers together and tugged me out of the room.
‘Give us a moment, we’ll be back in a tick,’ she called over her shoulder before the doors slid shut and blocked us from them both visually and audibly.
She swivelled on me as soon as we reached the end of the hallway, pushing me against the wall with a force that should have been intimidating, but I was too hung up on how turned on her manhandling made me.
Not the time, Reece.
Get it together.
‘All right, spill it.
What are you hiding?’ she demanded, and my cock jerked inside my clothes.
I was immensely glad she wasn’t close enough to feel my physical reaction to her or that she was too focused on my face to see what was stirring below, though I wasn’t so pleased when I felt my face heat all the way to the tips of my pointed ears.
Stars-damned fair skin.
It was such a fucking curse, sometimes.
‘It’s nothing I’m keeping from you, I just haven’t brought it up yet.
I don’t have any evidence,’ I told her, fighting my body’s insistent urge that I reach out to her.
She backed up a bit at that, and I mourned the loss of her proximity.
‘Okay.
What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know.
It could just be paranoia, or at least that’s what I’ve been telling myself,’ I admitted.
‘I’ve personally scanned the cells for any devices or such like you told me to multiple times and found nothing to indicate the prisoners are planning anything, but I don’t trust it.
It all feels too easy, and I keep getting the thought stuck in my head that I’ve missed something. That we’ve all missed something.’
She released a long, slow breath, grim understanding tightening her expression.
‘I know what you mean.
I’ve thought the same thing over and over again ever since we rescued the captives.
It was just far too easy. Everything seems to be going our way for once, and it just doesn’t make any sense. The Program are far too advanced to just let us keep getting away. They’re either plotting something or they’re enacting their plans and we just don’t know it yet.’
‘It’s not just that,’ I started, unsure how to put into words what I’ve been feeling.
What I’ve been suspecting.
‘What if it’s not the rooms that are the issue?’
When she frowned and bit her lip my brain short-circuited as my gaze homed in on the way her teeth dented that plump, pink, oh-so-biteable bottom lip.
It took me a beat to realise she had spoken.
‘What do you mean?’
I shook those thoughts from my brain and forced myself to focus on the conversation.
‘Their experiments are largely biological, correct?’
‘As far as we know, that’s where their focus lays, yes.’
‘So what’s stopping them from implanting something inside themselves?’
She inhaled sharply, her eyes widening in fear as my words sank in.
‘Nothing.
There is absolutely nothing stopping them from enhancing themselves as well.’
We shared a long look of mutual horror.
‘Shit.’
I could tell from the way her muscles tensed that she was about to rush straight there to try to find proof of our suspicions, but I finally allowed my arms to move to hold her in place.
I tried not to pay too much attention to the way her body felt beneath my fingertips, or how much I wished there wasn’t a jumpsuit separating my skin from hers, but I wasn’t very successful.
Instead, I pushed it to the back of my mind and let my attraction simmer there, not forgotten but temporarily sidelined.
‘Wait.
We need to think this through.
If we rush in we could cause a panic,’ I told her.
‘And if we’re wrong then it would have been for nothing,’ she finished, a new plan already forming in her mind.
‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.
Those of us with nanites will take turns guarding the prisoners to search them discretely during our shifts.
We keep this between us for now, unless we find evidence that proves our suspicions, but we keep our eyes and ears open for any sign of an incoming attack. Their silence makes me believe that any attempts to capture us will be quiet.’
‘A sneak attack,’ I surmised.
She nodded.
‘Exactly.
I knew it was too easy.
They were too quiet. Too compliant.’
‘Hey,’ I palmed her face and tilted her head down to meet my eyes, our height difference making the position more difficult than if I had been taller but neither of us cared in the moment.
I couldn’t help but get lost in her brown depths, flecks of honey creating the illusion of a shimmer inside her irises that were ringed with a darker, almost black shade of brown that enhanced the colours. Stunning.
‘Reece?’ she asked, her gaze darting between my eyes as she took in my dazed scrutiny.
I blinked away the haze of lust that attempted to overtake me and realised I had moved closer, our lips barely a breath apart.
I cleared my throat but refused to move away, enjoying the way she let me manipulate her body in this moment to my will.
It was a rare show of submission, of trust, and I didn’t want it to end.
‘I can see you beating yourself up in there,’ I accused, tapping her forehead with the forefinger on the hand not holding her chin.
‘You’ve done nothing wrong, and you’re not to blame.
If we’re correct, then at least we caught it before the worst could happen.
We might not have all the information but we’re not flying blind, and we’re not stupid enough to let them catch us in their web of lies and manipulations.’
She sagged against me, her breasts brushing against the top of my chest close enough to my face that I could have tilted my head down and sucked one of her nipples into my mouth through the black fabric of her jumpsuit.
Nipples that I felt hard and erect against me like her body was reacting to mine just as mine was to hers.
When her hips brushed against the erection straining against my own jumpsuit her pupils dilated, her breaths coming in shorted pants that I felt against my face as she processed the position we were in.
But then the door to the cockpit slid open and the two men she was actually in a relationship with walked out.
She jumped away from me like I’d burned her, and with the heat emanating from me I may as well have.
‘Everything good here?’ Bromm asked, eyeing me curiously.
Cadmus just smirked knowingly and I knew I wasn’t getting out of this unscathed.
‘I think we’re gonna need a bigger bed.’
‘That’s not… We weren’t… I don’t…’ Arty stammered, the flush covering her cheeks soothing that part of me that feared her rejection despite her words.
What had just occurred between us was confirmation that I had a chance, and I knew that if I allowed her to slip through my fingers now I might never get another change.
It was now or never.
Which was the excuse I gave for what I did next.
I closed the distance between us, terror chilling my veins while my blood ran hot from desire and pulled her lips down to mine.
She didn’t stop me as I pressed out mouth together, but she didn’t kiss me back either.
I didn’t give up, however.
I needed to know if she was just in shock of if she didn’t actually want this.
Either way, our relationship would never be the same again.
Relief spread through me like a wildfire that burned away the lingering ice from my fears when her lips moved against mine.
She pressed more firmly, a little moan that was both lusty and surprised barely escaping her throat, but I greedily swallowed it.
It was mine, and I wanted to continue tasting the sweet little noises I could draw from her.
Against every atom of my being I pulled away, breathing heavily even though our lips never even parted, but the gravity of the moment was impossible to ignore.
‘I’d start looking for that bigger bed,’ I whispered, afraid to break the spell of the moment by speaking too loudly.
Her strangled squeak of surprised shot satisfaction through me at lightning speed, charging up my energy faster than I thought possible.
I felt it bolstering me, filling me with confidence and hope, and I knew I’d be walking with a spring in my step for the rest of the day.
Bromm chuckled as he perched against the wall nearby.
‘Well, that was unexpected.’
‘Bullshit,’ Cadmus’ smirk grew.
‘I’m only surprised it took them that long.’
‘Nah,’ Bromm disagreed.
‘I was sure they were going to be a slow burn.’
All the jokes dissipated, however, when Artemis turned on her heel and stalked back into the cockpit, not a word spoken between us.
Cadmus turned compassionate eyes on me, but Bromm was staring after Arty, concern darkening his expression.
Yet, when he did turn to me there was no sign of anger or jealousy.
‘She’s freaking out.
Give her some space to process.
She’s not rejecting you.’
I nodded numbly, my head a whirlwind of conflicting emotions and thoughts that I struggled to compartmentalise.
I felt a bit better when both men clapped me on the back as they headed for the elevator.
I saw why a moment later when everyone trickled out of the cockpit following Artemis’s lead.
She had Baldr in her arms again, Dorian following so closely their arms brushed with every step. She didn’t push him away or recoil from the touch and I wondered how many men she would be open to expanding her relationship with.
Surprisingly, and completely out of character for me, I wasn’t worried about any of the extra stuff as long as I got what I wanted.
I wanted her, and it seemed she wanted me too.
The rest of it and anyone else she wanted to be with didn’t concern me as long as I was a part of it.
These feelings must have meant something. These desires must have been significant. They had come on so fast and strong that I was as shocked by them as she was, but it settled that niggling piece of doubt in the back of my mind when Bromm and Cadmus had accepted it so easily.
I was definitely overthinking things again.
She may have walked away, but she wasn’t hiding and she wasn’t say no.
An overpowering urge to secure my spot in her steadily growing harem had me pushing forward, desperate for more of her attention.
I was tired of overthinking.
I was tired of being responsible.
Where had that gotten me? For once in my life, I wanted to be reckless. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and put myself out there. I wanted to let go of preconceived ideas and carefully planned futures and let the stars decide for me.