Chase Me (8 page)

Not at all what he expected from Lorin Schlessinger.

“Do you need some help over there? Hurry up.”

He glared at his unruly cock, currently standing at attention. Damn her for lobbing such an incendiary comment over this flimsy, ineffectual wall. She had to know where his testosterone-poisoned brain would go. Did she think him so neutered that he wouldn’t take her up on it? His cheekbones throbbed as he let the silence lengthen.

You
can’t take her up on it, asshole. She reports to you—and she’s the Valkyrie Second.
He might temporarily outrank her at work, but in every other way that counted, she was fathoms out of his league.

“Coming,” he said through the gravel in his throat. Let her make of his comment what she would. He quickly stripped off his clothes, folded them, and stepped into his swim trunks. He took a deep, cleansing breath and looked down at his groin. At least the baggy surf shorts provided some coverage.

He swished back the curtain and choked back a groan. Lorin was bent over in the bathing area, pouring warm water over her hair, her sighs of pleasure audible over the splat of falling water hitting the concrete floor. His eyes zoomed in, fetish-close, on her ass, on the skimpy red bikini bottom that revealed as much as they concealed.

Gabe closed his eyes. He was a dead man.

“Lorin, we can’t see you. Could you move closer to Gabe?”

I’m practically in his lap already.
“Sure,” she replied to Willem Lund, who was helming the hastily called meeting from the Sebastiani Labs boardroom. When she’d suggested to Gabe that they dial in to the meeting from the workroom, her only thought had been keeping Gabe out of her cabin, its floor space dominated by the sturdy double bed. Gabe’s laptop had an integrated camera—ideal for the conferencing needs of the person at the keys—but for two people? Completely inadequate. “Should have brought my own,” she muttered, shifting the chair closer to Gabe.

“Why didn’t you?” Gabe took a big slug off his—
her
—thermal coffee mug.

He’d missed a patch when he shaved that morning. Five black bristly hairs stood at the side of his Adam’s apple.

“Lorin, we still can’t see you,” Elliott called.

She tore her gaze from Gabe’s moving throat.

Shit.
Someone needed to commit her to the nearest psychiatric facility. Her idea to take a nice, friendly sauna with Gabe last night had been utter freaking lunacy. Who could have predicted that Gabe Lupinsky would look so great nearly naked? For all the excess yardage in those unexpectedly exuberant surf shorts he’d worn, the thin fabric clung quite faithfully to his dimensions. She’d wanted to take him in her hands. She wanted to see him, taste him.

Take him.

“Sitting side by side won’t work,” Gabe said. “Your shoulders are almost as wide as mine are.” He pushed her chair, with her in it, forward a few inches. “There. Now lean in.”

His damp, warm breath drifted across her neck. The position put Gabe not two inches behind her. The heat of his body bled into hers.

“That’s better,” Willem said.

Better
for
whom?
Lorin disguised her reflexive shiver by tipping her head and scratching under her ear.

“Fighting already, I see.” Elliott’s amused voice made Lorin suspect that he knew the true source of their tension.

Gabe shifted his weight in the squeaky-wheeled office chair, clearly uncomfortable.

It was all her fault.

Last night during their sauna, Gabe had prattled on about their breakdown of responsibilities, their processes and procedures, with an erection tenting his shorts, asking cogent, focused questions, mentioning their reporting relationship a lot more often than necessary.

How convenient for Gabe that he could ignore basic biological functions, could ignore… her not-very-subtle pass.

She closed her eyes in mortification.

“Could you stop squirming?” Gabe grumbled from behind her.

Lukas looked up from his mini, nostrils twitching.

Damn
it.

“I know some of us have other meetings in a half hour, so let’s get started,” Willem said. “Recording started. Let’s take roll, please. Elliot Sebastiani.”

“Here.”

“Lukas Sebastiani, Jack Kirkland, and Bailey Brown, representing Sebastiani Security.”

There was a trio of responses from the side of the table closest to the window where the Sebastiani Security contingent sat together. The slight blurring in the windows at their backs indicated the security shades were fully engaged. “Good to see you when you’re not diving for the corner, Lorin,” Jack added with a smile.

She smiled back. “Hi, Jack.”

Beside her, Gabe cleared his throat.

“Wyland.”

“Present.”

From across the table, Bailey mouthed something that looked a lot like “unfortunately.”

“And Julianna Benton from Physical Sciences Ops. Welcome.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Julianna said. The gorgeous redhead was Alka’s—now Gabe’s—operations manager.

Gabe leaned forward, placing his hand on Lorin’s shoulder for balance. “Apologies for the short notice, Jules.” To the room at large, he said, “Julianna will be coordinating some of our work while I’m on-site here with Lorin.”

Lorin’s head whipped to Lukas. “Security clearance?”

“Completed and upgraded late last night,” he responded around a jaw-cracking yawn. “You should have a copy in your Council email.”

Of course she did. And her question to Lukas simply exposed the fact she hadn’t even cracked her laptop open that morning, much less read her email. Upon waking, she’d been in such a twitchy state that, after two self-administered orgasms, she’d gone for a punishing run, barely making it to the workroom in time for the meeting. And despite the light burning in Gabe’s tent long into the night last night, this morning he looked disgustingly poised and alert. Somehow, he’d managed to get his Council work environment installed, configured, and functioning without her help.

Just how much work had he knocked off last night while she’d been taking care of… business? She was out of the loop, and it was her own damn fault.

Lorin shifted her weight to the side as Gabe leaned in to use the keyboard, opening a chat window with Julianna. On-screen, Lorin noticed Julianna’s tiny smile as she read what Gabe quietly typed.

How…
cozy
. Was there more than business between them? The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Last night in the sauna, after declining her clumsy pass, Gabe had kept a careful distance between them. Mr. Scruples wouldn’t screw around on his girlfriend.

Her face flamed, but she kept her tone cool. “There’s no reason for Gabe to be stuck here when the box—and the action—is down there,” she said. She turned toward him, bumping into his chest with her shoulder. “Go home, Gabe. Where you belong.”

Their gazes locked in a private battle. “For the time being, I belong right here.”

“Yes,” Elliott seconded. “Lukas and I feel better knowing there are two of you there, especially with the visitor you recently had.”

“Nothing on that footprint so far,” Lukas added. “We’ll keep on it.”

Lorin blinked. When had Gabe sent Lukas—

“Shall we look at the agenda Gabe sent?” Willem said.

An agenda? Of course Gabe had sent an agenda—and the first thing on it was a quick review of her own quarantine results. All the tests had, so far, come back negative. Her clean bill of health was great news, but the fact it had been mentioned at all simply re-emphasized that she’d made a huge mistake in the first place. Julianna’s sympathetic expression made her feel even more stupid. Wyland continued with an update on the box itself, which had been catalogued, carefully crated, and placed in the archives until they were ready to examine it.

Gabe was up next, and the rest of the meeting went very smoothly—too smoothly. The details Gabe walked them through were well thought-out, exhaustive, and smacked of fait accompli: while Gabe and Lorin worked the dig for two more weeks, Julianna would coordinate a retrofit of the secure lab located in Sebastiani Labs’ sub-basement. Once the buildout was complete, they’d run the box through a battery of tests. After reviewing the results, the box would be carefully opened, and the items inside extracted, carefully catalogued, and then analyzed.

“Lorin will coordinate expansion of the grid in the area where the box was found,” Gabe said, looking at his watch. “The summer crew starts arriving in a few hours.”

“We’re keeping the discovery of the box confidential for now, correct?” she verified.

At her side, she felt as much as saw Gabe nod.

Elliott concurred. “No need to tell the students anything specific until we know what we’re dealing with.”

She sighed. “I know it’s the right decision, but these workers were selected for their brains. It’s going to be a challenge.” Shooting a glance at Gabe, she said, “Explaining Gabe’s presence here will be challenging enough.”

Elliott’s hooded gaze encompassed them both. “I have every confidence that the two of you will come up with a convincing explanation.”

At her side, Gabe sat up straighter. He’d felt it too. Elliott’s patented “nested Russian doll” requests were powerful—an order at the core, couched as a request, wrapped in an expression of confidence that made his employees kill themselves to fulfill his expectations.

Gabe leaned forward, pressing his hard, muscular chest against her shoulder blade, quirking a smile and gesturing with his hand while he and Julianna discussed the specific chemicals, tools, and equipment Gabe required for his work. His voice vibrated through her torso, painfully acute, but she couldn’t quite seem to find the muscular will to shift her body away, or to ask him to move. There was a smudged fingerprint at the rim of his glasses, and she could smell the coffee on his breath when he laughed.

As the meeting went on, there were no disagreements, because Gabe gave everyone an opportunity to build upon the plan. He asked for input. He accepted feedback gracefully. Though Lukas scowled, no doubt mentally beating the bushes for risks he hadn’t yet seen or considered, Elliott, seated at the head of the boardroom table, smiled like a pasha.

Lorin sat silent and numb. He’d thought of everything. In a mere twenty minutes, she’d officially and totally lost control of her mother’s project, her own contributions relegated to tasks and sub-tasks on a freaking project plan.

Finally, Julianna snapped her stylus into her e-tablet with a decisive click. “Gabe, I’ll have an updated lab status to you by noon.” She turned toward Elliott Sebastiani. “Thank you for the opportunity to work on this project, sir. And Lorin?” Julianna’s gaze met hers from the open window on the desktop. “Congratulations on your find.”

There was no wordless warning in Julianna’s expression, no evidence that she knew Lorin was fighting not to jump her lover’s bones. Gorgeous, smart, and… nice. She had no defense against nice.

Lorin thanked Julianna, choking out something she hoped was appropriate, and then shoved out of the chair, its legs screeching against the floor. “Excuse me,” she said, walking quickly to the door.

“Lorin?”

She kept walking, ignoring the question in Gabe’s voice. “I’ll be up at the site.”

Ducking out, she hurried down the stairs. With each step away from the workroom, she lengthened her stride. Before she was halfway across the compound, she was running full-out, running like the wind.

***

Gabe threw his pen down on the battered desk in disgust, his concentration shot. What was wrong with Lorin? He’d expected some fight from her at the meeting, some healthy give-and-take. He’d looked forward to it. But she’d been too quiet, and when she left, she’d looked positively… wounded.

Just when he thought he had a bead on the woman, she did a one-eighty on him.

His Bat Phone chirped. He plucked it off the desk, looked at the display window, and swore. Something must have gone to hell in a handbasket for Lukas to be calling him not a half hour after they’d all left the same meeting.

“Lukas. What’s wrong?”

A pause on the other end. “Why does everyone always ask that?”

“Lukas, you manage risk for a living. Go figure. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to let you know that the footprint run finished and came up empty.”

Gabe heard Lukas’s vocal shrug and sighed. Even if they managed to identify the make of the shoe, they would then have to match the shoe to its owner—and all this for a piddly trespassing charge that probably wouldn’t stick.

“You said there was no indication that the person got into Lorin’s cabin? Nothing missing?”

“No,” Gabe replied. “The lock wasn’t tampered with, as far as I could tell. Lorin mentioned that it’s not unusual for them to get the occasional curious local wandering through. Whoever it was could have just smashed the window if he really wanted to steal something.”