Chapter 14 #2
Harmony was feeling the effects of spending time with Damien. Her body hurt in ways it hadn’t hurt in years, but it was so damn good. For the first time since she started her Ph.D., she was more interested in leaving the lab than being in it.
Especially when she looked up and saw Damien watching her from across the room.
“Stop looking at me,” she chastised.
“It’s literally my job right now.”
She glared at him. “Not when you’re giving me that look.”
“What look?” He was not cute, and she was not buying his innocent question.
“That look that says you’re thinking about me naked,” she hissed.
A slow smile lifted his lips. He leaned back in his chair and lifted his ankle to rest on the opposite knee. “I don’t think I can do that. The memory is too good.”
“I’m trying to work,” she said, fighting a laugh.
“I’m not stopping you. It’s not like I’m running my hands down your body or notching my cock in the folds of your ass or lifting you onto that table and having you for my lunch.”
Harmony pressed her thighs together to stop the throbbing his words caused. “I hate you.”
Damien chuckled.
“I’m going to remember this later.”
“I hope so. Because I plan to get you on the first surface in my place I can and lick you until you beg me to stop.”
“Dammit,” she hissed, her hands shaking with need. “If I don’t get this done, we’re going to be here all night.”
“We definitely wouldn’t want that. I have plans for later.”
“You do?”
He nodded, dropping his foot back to the floor and adjusting his pants, showing her he was just as affected as she was. “I plan to feed you, then eat you, then fuck you until you’re walking even more awkwardly tomorrow than you are today.”
Harmony gripped the edge of the worktable and closed her eyes. She was so turned on her knees were weak.
“Are you okay over there?” Damien asked, his chair squeaking as he moved.
She opened her eyes and saw him on his feet, walking toward her. “Don’t you dare come closer.”
He held up his hands, failing to hide his smirk. “I’m just trying to help. Maybe give you some relief from your uncomfortable feeling.”
Her gaze slid to the erection trying to break free from his pants. “It looks like I’m not the only one who’s uncomfortable.”
His smirk was positively sinful. “I’m not. You want to help me out with that?” He palmed his dick through his pants.
“I should have taken that office,” she mumbled.
“What was that?”
She glared at him. “I was offered an office last year. I turned it down because I spend all my time in the lab, not the office. I said I should have taken that office.”
Damien chuckled. “That would have been handy right now.”
The door behind Damien opened, and one of the grad students walked in. He nodded at Damien, then went to his workstation, oblivious to the sexual tension suffocating Harmony.
Damien winked at her, then returned to his chair, lifting his foot onto his knee again to hide his massive erection.
It was going to be a long fucking day.
The only thing Damien enjoyed more than watching Harmony work was teasing her while she was doing it.
For a full week, they spent their nights in his bed and their days in her lab.
He admired her focus and excitement in her work.
She was intelligent and worked hard to complete her project.
Not that he understood anything about what she was doing, but he knew she was making progress whenever she gave a little shimmy and grinned like she’d won something.
Damn, she was cute.
He was really looking forward to a weekend with her, though. It was Friday morning, and she was not working the weekend. She’d caught up on all the things she was behind on a week ago, and she decided to take some time off, something Damien got the feeling she didn’t do often.
Things had been quiet, but Captain Patrick still wanted her to stay with him since they hadn’t found anything about who was after her or why.
Damien parked in the employee lot and checked their surroundings before unlocking the doors. No matter how many times he told her to wait for him to come around, she always got out of the car before he made it there.
She did it again, smirking at him when he made it to her side.
“Just once, I want you to listen to me.”
“I listened last night when you told me to come.”
“Fuck, Harmony. I think you want me walking funny all day.”
“You like it when I am,” she quipped.
He snorted and kissed the side of her head. If it weren’t for the danger she was in, he would have admitted to himself exactly how hard he’d already fallen for her. Instead, he kept those words locked up tight. Her safety was more important.
She swiped her keycard and let them into the building. It was quiet, like it always was when she got there. Harmony was usually the first one to arrive and the last to leave, something Damien understood but hated now that he was aware of it.
He followed her down the short hall to the lab she spent most of her time in. They were almost to the door when she stopped on a dime.
“What’s wrong?” Damien asked.
“The door is open.”
He looked at where she pointed. Her lab was never open. Not when she was inside and working, not when no one was there. Anyone who needed access had a key, but otherwise, it was always closed.
Except now.
Every inch of him tightened. He was used to danger.
He knew how to act. If he was protecting a client, they would have already worked out a safe place for them to hide while he investigated the danger.
But Harmony was different. He had no backup since Jude, Rhett, and the others had been pulled into another assignment.
Damien had no way of knowing if whoever broke in was still in the lab, or the building, or if they were gone.
If he told Harmony to hide, and the perpetrator was hiding in the same place, Damien would be sending her right into their grasp.
“Stay behind me,” Damien whispered, grabbing his gun and pointing it at the door. He took her hand and brought it to his waist. She hooked her finger in his belt loop. He eased forward, hoping it was the right move and danger didn’t come up from behind them.
Damien pushed the lab door open and stepped inside.
Everything was shattered. The equipment was bent like someone had taken a bat to it.
Glass littered the floor. Cold storage was open and exposed.
Everything Harmony had been working on was ruined.
Everything all the students had been working on was ruined.
Damien continued through the lab, his boots crunching on the shards of glass as he moved, Harmony holding on to his belt loop. He knew she was cataloguing everything that was destroyed, but she didn’t say a word as they moved.
When Damien didn’t find anyone else in the lab, he pushed Harmony toward a storage cabinet. “Hide in there. I need to check the rest of this floor.”
“You think someone’s still here?”
Damien watched behind him as he encouraged her to hide. “I don’t know, but I can’t risk your safety.”
“What about your safety?”
“I’ll be right back, Harmony. I promise you.”
She grabbed his shirt and tugged his lips to hers. “You better be.”
Damien nodded, then closed her in the cabinet.