“I don’t know. I think we got too far away.”
“From what?”
He couldn’t be sure. Too far from Ellie’s home perhaps—the only place he ever woke. Too far from where she felt herself safe and grounded? Or from his own body, wherever that was. “I’m not sure. Maybe from myself.”
“Okay.” Her fingers gripped his thigh a little tighter. “I’ve got you.”
With every mile they drove, the darkness receded, and the harsh smells eased. His body began to feel more solid, and the pain eased until it was only a vague echo in his head. And through it all, Ellie didn’t falter. She did have him.
She faced the darkness at his side.
Chapter Seventeen
Ellie tooka sip of her coffee, forcing herself not to look at Josh. Or, if she were being honest with herself, look at Joshagain. Damn, the man was distracting. A low thrum of awareness pulsed through her whenever he moved, whenever she caught sight of his big, competent hands, or the way the muscles moved in his tanned arms.
She’d set him up on her spare laptop so they could work side by side in her office. She usually worked at home on a Monday anyway, and after the stress of almost watching him fade during their drive yesterday, it was a relief to stay at home where she knew he was safe.
Josh was browsing; looking for anything that might be familiar. Places. People. Jobs. Somewhere to start. While she was finally going to crack the mayhem in her e-mail inbox. Which would probably be moving a lot faster if she didn’t take a break every ten seconds to watch him.
Her body was still responding after the night—and the morning— they’d shared. Nearly losing him yesterday had created an urgency in them both. A constant need to touch and be touched. And of course, the touching led to more touching, until they were both naked.
Waking up and finding him still in her bed was magical. An unexpected, thrilling gift that she hadn’t dared to hope for. He’d been watching her, those clear blue eyes locked on her. On her hair, spread out over her pillow. On her breast, half peeking out from under the fallen sheet. And then his calloused hand had stroked over her body to take hold of the sheet and slowly drag it away, his gaze never leaving hers.
He’d leaned down and whispered, “Are you awake, Ellie?” and she’d gone from half asleep to wide awake and tingling with arousal as his hot breath whispered against her ear, the cool air flowing over her tightening nipples.
She’d reached for him, pulling him over her… and it had taken another hour before they finally managed to leave the bed. And yet another hour after that when he joined her in the shower.
The temptation to suggest they take the day off and go back to bed was almost irresistible. But her inbox had become totally insane, and she had to get it in order first.
She dragged her eyes off him, took another fortifying sip of her now cooling coffee, and dived in. And almost immediately lost the will to live. So much of it was junk. Even when it wasn’t outright spam, there were multiple copies of meeting minutes she didn’t need to see, bills that accounts should deal with, a few blatant covers—copying her to prove a point—and…
That was weird.
She opened the e-mail from ProClimate Air. It was a cost estimate for an annual service plan for a precision cooling system designed for a server room. For a very specific dedicated server room. A server room for Dangerous Business Games. Her company. The only thing was, they didn’t have a server room.
“Huh.” She leaned back in her chair and opened the attachment, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
“What’s wrong?” Josh watched her, his brow creased.
“I don’t really know,” she replied slowly, reading further. It was the fifth e-mail in the chain, but the first time she was copied. Someone had added her, perhaps accidentally, because she certainly hadn’t been copied before. Not on any of it. “Something isn’t right. I have to?—”
She let the sentence fade, already picking up her phone, dialing, waiting with increasing… worry? Anger? Some combination of them both.
“Hi, Ellie,” Victoria answered eventually. “How are you feeling?”
“Right now, I’m feeling a whole lot of things.” She forced her voice to calm. “Vic, why am I looking at a quote for air-conditioning for a server room we don’t have?”
There was a long silence, and then footsteps, followed by the sound of a door closing. Presumably Vic’s office door.
When Victoria spoke again, it was with the measured calmness someone might use to talk to an overtired child. “We do have a server room, Ellie.”
“No.” She had to fight to keep her voice steady, to not give into the rising fury. “That’s not possible. Because I distinctly remember deciding that the costs of setting up and maintaining a server room were prohibitive—and it wouldn’t add any kind of value anyway. Because our games have always been intended to be played either as a single player or locally hosted for couples and small groups. TheShadowbound Riftis meant to be experienced as astory. It’s not designed to be a massive multiplayer game. That’s the whole point.”
Vic huffed. “Part one, maybe, but when the new game comes out?—”
“Notmaybe. God, Vic. You know this.The Bindingcontinues the story with the same characters and the same style of play.”
Vic continued as if Ellie hadn’t even spoken, and for the first time her tone contained a hint of something less patientand a lot less friendly. “What I know is that you weren’t here, and somebody had to decide what direction to take. I made the choices that were best for everyone.”
