Page 86 of Sins of Arrogance

He’s mil­i­tant about that af­ter I got my first UTI. When I’m done, he guides me into the fra­grant, swirling wa­ter of the bath.

The heat en­velops my body and I groan with plea­sure as overused mus­cles find com­fort in the hot wa­ter. There are two bot­tles of wa­ter.

One for him. One for me.

He brings mine to my lips so I can drink. Al­ter­nat­ing be­tween frozen grapes and sips of wa­ter, Mick pam­pers me like I’m re­ally some­thing pre­cious.

When his fin­gers slide be­tween my labia in the oil soft­ened wa­ter, I re­spond with soul deep pas­sion. And he ten­derly makes love to me again in the bath, the wa­ter slosh­ing around us as he takes me on a gen­tle climb to an or­gasm that leaves me in­sen­sate.

I don’t re­mem­ber him dry­ing me off or car­ry­ing me to bed, but when I wake up in the morn­ing, he’s gone like al­ways.

Only this morn­ing, there’s a red rose on my pil­low. He’s done this a few times, leav­ing the sweet fra­grance of the long stemmed rose to tease me from sleep.

I wish that rose meant abid­ing pas­sion and love, but lust based pas­sion is the only emo­tion I’ve ever got­ten from my hus­band, or ever will get.

Chap­ter 23: In­trud­ers

MICK

Lasers criss­cross the re­in­forced tun­nel, dis­ap­pear­ing and re­ac­ti­vat­ing in a pre­cisely timed pro­gres­sion as I pass through.

They’re re­act­ing to the DNA spe­cific bio­met­ric chip im­planted in my bi­cep.

If any­one at­tempts to travel the tun­nel – with­out me or one of my three lieu­tenants as­signed to this project – walls will drop at each end, seal­ing them in with a non­lethal dis­abling gas, piped in through a duct sys­tem com­pletely sep­a­rate from the rest of the bunker’s fresh air sup­ply.

Even Hex doesn’t en­ter or leave the lab un­escorted.

Af­ter press­ing my eye to the reti­nal scan­ner, I place my en­crypted phone against the dig­i­tal panel and it reads the pass­code only good for the next ten sec­onds.

Only then does the bank vault wor­thy, steel door swing in­ward on silent hinges. It al­lows me one-point-eight sec­onds to pass through be­fore au­to­mat­i­cally clos­ing again.

The NSA would have a lot fewer leaks if they had se­cu­rity this tight, but they don’t have my guys work­ing for them.

The whis­per gun pro­to­type rests on the long steel ta­ble in front of me.

Matte black and sleek, it looks unas­sum­ing. From looks alone, it could be mis­taken for just an­other semi-au­to­matic pis­tol.

But the fir­ing mech­a­nism in­side the gun is pow­ered by elec­tro­mag­netic propul­sion, re­quir­ing no gun­pow­der.

Which means it has no bar­rel flare, no sound and no foren­sics. The idea is to bring mil­i­tary grade rail guns into per­sonal weaponry. If any­one can make that hap­pen, it’s Hex.

There have been some mis­starts, but un­like the man who first showed me the weapons tech con­cept, she’s been smart enough not to run tests hold­ing the weapon in her own hand. That’s what ro­botic arms with su­per­heat re­silience are for.

Hex claims this weapon is safe for use in the field.

Ac­cord­ing to the test videos and heat met­ric mea­sured by the ro­botic arm, she’s right.

Hex comes to stand be­side me, giv­ing the gun a look most peo­ple re­serve for their lovers. “You ready to watch the first test with a hu­man sub­ject?”

“I’m ready to fire it my­self.”

The bril­liant Columbian-Amer­i­can’s eyes go wide be­hind her safety glasses. “I thought we’d start with a lab tech.”

She’s smart not to risk her own hands, but the fact she was will­ing to use some­one else’s says more about her than she’d ad­mit. There’s a ruth­less­ness un­der the sar­casm. I ad­mire that.

But I don’t wa­ver. “Ei­ther it’s ready, or it’s not.”

Hex rolls her eyes. “It’s ready. I tested it with the ro­botic arm enough times to make a statis­ti­cian blush.” She flicks a fin­ger to­ward the cas­ing. “The graphene com­pos­ite lin­ing in the bar­rel needed an ex­tra two mi­crom­e­ters.”