An odd thing to say, but this was my first glimpse of actual spy stuff since we walked in to the gray building. I didn’t want him to be distracted.
I followed Riley into the new room, and my mouth fell open at the sheer size of it. Did they buy the building next to them? The space the room took up was much larger than the building they appeared to be in. The place here just kept going.
And it wasn’t gray. Rather than being colored in the boring shade, the room was stark white—from white-tile floors to bright white walls. Everywhere you looked white was the only color. Except the cases, which gleamed with metal and other instruments.
I didn’t see swords or battle axes, but bullet-proof vests hung from three rows of hooks on the walls. And there were guns. All bunch of them. Big ones, small ones, long ones, and even two blue ones. My head bobbed as I took in each of them and I sounded like Dr. Seuss in my head.
At the far back wall, a long table stretched out for eight feet. The top was completely cluttered with radios, a few charging on little stands while others stood in silence waiting to be used.
I walked further into the space, and when Riley didn’t hold me back, I kept going. My fingers trailed over the thick material of the bullet-proof vests, and for a moment I pictured Riley wearing one with nothing underneath.
Then I envisioned how I’d help him take it off at the end of the night when he came home tired after a long day of chasing the worst criminals in Maine. I was just about lost in the fantasy when something a few feet ahead caught my eye and pulled me back to reality.
I walked up to the item and grabbed it. “Really? A gas mask?” I asked, turning back to Riley and holding out the item. It sat heavily in my hand. Heavier than I expected. How long could you wear it before your neck hurt?
He shrugged. “We need to be prepared.”
Were they preparing for a shootout or a zombie apocalypse?
I put the gas mask back and let my gaze wander the place again, curious to find anything else interesting. Except I didn’t make it far because right then Riley was beside me. He crowded me in the space, which was once huge but then shrank exponentially until it felt like the two of us barely had room to breathe. His cologne, a woodsy scent, returned me along with my thoughts to the bullet-proof vests.
I grabbed on to his arm, and our gazes met. We both looked starved, as though we’d gone years without the other rather than being surrounded by one another of the last few days. I figured this was my mind’s way of making up for lost time.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what he planned to do before he did it. I was ready when Riley’s lips crashed into mine.
13
RILEY
Holy shit.
Kissing Cass only grew better each time. I refused to think about who she’d been practicing with during the years we were apart. Even if, at times, I wanted to ask her for everyone’s name and then run a search in our database to track them down, I had to work on calming my cave dweller tendencies and making sure I came out as the best man Cassandra had ever kissed.
She moaned into my mouth as I slipped my tongue past her lips while backing her up against a blank space of wall. This room was one of the few places we didn’t have under surveillance. It wasn’t exactly where I pictured Cassandra and my first time happening, but if she didn’t plan to object, I wouldn’t either.
Five quick beats sounded from speakers in the ceiling and I tensed. Cassandra had her fingers wrapped into the material of my shirt, but I tore myself away. My duty to this company, Ridge, and the people in Pelican Bay giving me the strength to do so.
“Dammit,” I said, staring back at Cassandra and finding her eyes wide in dismay. She blinked and wiped her eye like she saw stars.
Damn it again. I put that look in her eyes, and now I couldn’t do anything about it.
“What?” she asked, her arm reaching out and grabbing on to mine. “Is that a fire?”
I shook my head, the last remnants of lust fading away. “Still not firefighters, babe. It’s a warning. We need to leave.”
“Why?” She didn’t take her hands away for my arm, which was good. I enjoyed her touching me, and it also allowed me to lead her out of the weapons room without complaining.
“One of the bakery girls just walked into the building,” I said, leading her back into the janitor’s closet. We used to only have an alarm for Katy, but as she pulled more and more women into her circle, we stop discriminating, and any bakery girl who walked in without a teammate accompanying them received warning beeps. We didn’t leave any out.
I stepped on the level opener and pulled the fake wall back into place right as the pounding on the janitor’s door started.
“I know you have her in there!” Katy yelled through the thick metal. “We need friend details.”
“No!” I yelled right back.
Was it childish?
Yes.
