Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

January 30 th

10:47 A.M.

She'd made a mess of things.

Not what she'd intended.

Cassie had been so annoyed with herself when Luis sent her out of the room and ordered her off to bed. She hadn't even felt the urge to be protective about her space and the independence it afforded her to tell him off for ordering her around in her own home.

Following his rules to be safe was one thing, but this was her space and she needed to protect it.

Instead, she'd realized too late how she'd come across. Too intent on trying to protect her secret pastimes, she'd forgotten about everything else, including her manners. At least the room had been locked. She tried to keep it that way because occasionally, one of her friends would show up unannounced, and she didn't want them to see what she did in her spare time and judge her.

Just because she was twenty-three didn't mean she'd ever lived a normal life. Heck, she'd never even been on a date.

Pathetic.

What kind of twenty-three-year-old was still a virgin?

It wasn't even like she had a really great reason for being one. She had no trauma in her past or anything like that. She'd just been too young in college, and then hopped straight over to work for Prey, and that kept her so busy that she didn't date.

Besides, she'd always sort of thought there was something wrong with her.

Never before had she been attracted to a man. Given her age, she'd just sort of assumed she was never going to have feelings like that.

But last night when she slunk away into her bedroom, she'd curled up under the covers, pulled out her iPad, and done a little digging. There had to be an explanation for the warm and fuzzy feelings she kept having around Luis, and she wanted to know if possibly they could be the tingling of attraction.

Turned out they could.

Her research showed her that people often described attraction as being a warm, fluttery sort of feeling. Yep, she was that much of a geek that she'd actually looked it up, using multiple sites for reference to make sure her findings were unbiased and accurate.

So …

She was attracted to her bodyguard.

A man who didn't seem to like her all that much.

After she'd been rude last night, she couldn't blame him, but he hadn't liked her even before that. He had seemed to dislike her on sight though she had no idea why.

In her bathroom, she stripped off the fuzzy pajamas she'd worn to bed and inspected her body in the mirror. She looked okay … at least she thought she did. Part of her daily routine—a rollover from her days in her parents' house—was an hour-long run and stretching routine. So her body was toned, and she ran self-defense drills with the Prey guys at least once a week, so while her muscles weren't going to win her any prizes, they were okay to look at.

Her face was alright, too, she supposed. Smooth pale skin, brown eyes with little flecks of gold, and long brown hair with reddish tints. She wasn't bad to look at so she didn't think he could hate her body.

She certainly didn't hate his.

In fact, as she drifted over to turn on the shower, she felt a tingle between her legs and a heaviness to her breasts. It was like her body was aching … only not in a painful way, she was almost positive it had nothing to do with the black and blue marks marring her skin.

Stepping under the hot spray felt wonderful on her sore muscles even if it did little to ease the ache between her legs. It was like something was missing, like she needed something to fill her up.

Doing her best to ignore it, Cassie squeezed a generous amount of shampoo into her palm and went to work lathering up her hair. Thankfully, all her wounds were either covered with waterproof glue or waterproof bandages over stitches so she had permission to shower. She just had to make sure water didn't get in around the sides of the bandages and prevent her wounds from healing properly if they got too soggy.

Shampooing her hair felt heavenly. Once she rinsed it out, she added a generous amount of conditioner and worked through the tangles in her long locks before standing under the hot spray to rinse it out.

The longer she stood under the spray the hotter she got.

Not temperature-wise, but inside.

Luis' face hovered in her mind, and she imagined what it would feel like to have his lips on hers. Pathetic child geek that she'd been in college, she'd never even kissed a man. After joining Prey, she'd grown enough confidence to put up a profile on a dating website, but when she started looking through the other profiles she'd gotten so intimidated. They all seemed so experienced, and she was … as unexperienced as it was possible to be.

She'd read about sex, she even wrote about it in her books, and she'd even gone so far as to draw a few pictures of couples engaged in sexy times.

But that was it.

That was all she knew.

And none of that was firsthand knowledge.

When she grabbed her loofah and squirted some body wash onto it, almost without realizing it, she began to run it over her heavy breasts. The friction of the scratchy material against her nipples felt nice.

Nice as it was, it wasn't really where she was craving touch.

As she rubbed the loofah down her stomach she wondered.

Could she … touch herself?

She was an adult, and there was no reason why she shouldn't, only it felt … wrong somehow.

Which was totally crazy.

But every time she thought of pleasuring herself, she always pictured her parents' rebuking voices in her head, reminding her that she was too smart to waste time on such base pleasures of the flesh.

Still, despite that, the loofah moved between her legs, brushing against her center. What would it feel like to give herself an orgasm? According to her research, it was an amazing feeling, pure bliss … only that didn't really tell her anything.

Letting the loofah tumble to the floor of the shower, Cassie watched as soapy suds filled the floor, took a deep breath, and just went for it. With tentative strokes, she tried to find the elusive bundle of nerves that was said to bring about those magical orgasms. Although she'd studied pictures, it was harder to find than she'd thought it would be, but she knew when she had because she felt a little tingle low in her belly when she brushed across it.

Uncertain, she circled it with her finger, not sure how hard to press or how fast to go. Something was building inside her, something wonderful, but it was like she was chasing something, only the faster she ran, the further out of reach it got.

Giving up in frustration, she reached down and snatched up the loofah, running it quickly over her legs and arms then rinsing off.

She felt embarrassed and frustrated.

What kind of woman in her twenties couldn't even get herself to come?

There had to be something wrong with her.

Annoyed with herself for wanting orgasms, for wanting to be normal, for wasting her gifts by lusting after a man, she shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. There was a bomb out there somewhere, six of them including one that would kill hundreds of people at least, and she was supposed to be working on finding them.

Not wasting time fantasizing about how good Luis' large hands would feel touching her naked body.

And that was her problem.

She wanted his touch, not her own.

Fighting off tears, she quickly dried and pulled on a pair of yoga pants and an oversized pink sweater. Pink was her favorite color and she usually felt better, happier, when she was wearing it, but not today.

Today she just felt anxious and on edge.

Running a comb through her wet locks, she left them hanging loose to air dry and padded through her bedroom and out into the living room. At least this day couldn't possibly get any worse. Luis already hated her and didn't want to be there, she'd already made things weird and awkward by panicking over him finding out about her drawings and writing, and there was already a mole out there determined to sell her drug and kill people to get it.

What could make the day worse?

Nothing.

With that sense of security soothing her anxiety, Cassie forced herself to go out into her living room and face the day. She had a lot of work to do, and she couldn't do it hiding out in her bedroom like a coward.

Only as soon as she stepped into the living room, she wished she hadn't.

Spread out on her coffee table was an array of paintings she'd done over the last couple of years.

The most graphic ones.

Couples naked and in sensual poses.

And Luis was sitting on the couch grinning at her as his gaze bounced from the drawings to her.

Cassie wished a hole would open in the floor of her living room and swallow her whole.

January 30 th

11:07 A.M.

From the look on her face, Luis knew he'd gone too far.

Not what he had intended.

It just annoyed him that this woman made him feel off-kilter and like he was never going to be good enough. Her disdain for the very idea of him sleeping in her spare bedroom had really gotten to him, dug up all those old feelings he thought he had done such a good job of burying.

So, he'd had to see what she was hiding behind a lock in that bedroom.

There were no locks on the master bedroom or the study door, so she was hiding something in there, he knew she was, and he wanted to know what it was.

Picking the lock wasn't hard, but his shock when he'd seen what she was hiding behind what had to be the world's flimsiest lock about took him to his knees.

His little genius princess had a kinky side he hadn't seen coming.

Drawings and paintings of couples engaged in a range of sexy time fun hung on the walls and were scattered about on tables and easels. Then there were the pages and pages of detailed stories of couples engaged in sexy times that seemed to be part of some romance series she was writing.

Who would have guessed that the genius did this in her spare time?

Bringing some of the paintings into the living room had been done with the intent of embarrassing her. Yeah, he knew that was petty and made him a jerk, but he just couldn't stand how this woman got under his skin. He wanted her gone and didn't like that she was taking up residence in his head where she wasn't wanted.

But now, seeing the utter defeat in her eyes it didn't seem worth it.

Sure, he'd achieved his goal and mortified her, but he'd expected her to get angry, yell at him, tell him off for being a jerk, and stand up for herself.

Only that wasn't what she'd done.

She'd merely hung her head, shame visible on her features even though she had nothing to be ashamed about. Her writing was actually good, and she had a natural talent for drawing, all her people looked realistic. And reading her stories and looking at those pictures had definitely turned him on. There was nothing wrong with sex, having it, writing about it, or drawing it.

Before he could tell her so and apologize, she walked past him without a word and over to the kitchen where she set about making herself some breakfast.

If she wasn't going to talk about his major invasion of her privacy, he'd go with that. "Thought you would have slept longer after last night."

"I spent eight hours in bed," she said. While there was no edge to her voice, no hint of anger, there was no warmth there either. While he'd always gotten the sense that Cassie looked down on everyone else for not being as smart as she was, now that he thought about it, there was never this tone to her voice.

How many of his judgments about Cassie were his own insecurities talking, and how many were true?

Now Luis wasn't so sure what the answer to that question was, although this time yesterday he would have sworn it was all Cassie.

But things changed.

And now the woman was stuck in his head, and he couldn't get her out.

"Spent eight hours in bed or slept for eight hours?" he asked, noting the way she had phrased the comment.

Giving a shrug, she sat at the table with her bowl of cereal and glass of juice and reached for her laptop. "Eight hours rest a night, that was enough. Now I need to work."

"Work? You should be taking a day off, relaxing today, taking it easy, giving your body a chance to heal." Why did he feel so protective of her all of a sudden? If she only wanted eight hours in bed that was her choice. Yet the dark circles under her eyes soured his gut, and he didn't like the idea of her working when she should be resting.

"I'm not injured, just bumps and bruises," Cassie countered with another shrug.

"And a concussion," he reminded her.

"I'm fine, and I need to work." Her gaze slid sideways to the pictures on the table, and she straightened her back. "There's someone out there who wants to steal the drug I helped create. A drug that was my idea. I'm responsible for everything that's happened since. If I'd never had the idea then Scarlett and Lucy wouldn't have gotten hurt, and there wouldn't be bombs sitting out there somewhere just waiting to kill people."

The fact that she sounded so absolutely dead serious angered him.

It was like she was taking on the entire weight of a situation that was outside of her control, shouldering it on her own for reasons that didn't even make sense.

He didn't like that.

"Hey, princess," he growled as he prowled across the room, catching her gaze and holding it. "Did you force your friends to help you make the drug?"

Her eyes widened and he could see her pulse fluttering in the hollow of her throat. "N-no?"

"You asking me, princess?"

"No. I didn't force them to help me. They thought it was a good idea. Believed we could do it."

"That's right. And do you know who the mole is?"

"If I did, I would have told someone."

"Right. So, you haven't done anything wrong. Don't pretend you have, I don't like it."

"Why not?" she whispered, almost in awe like she was both afraid and excited to hear the answer.

Only hell if he knew the answer.

All he knew was that this woman drove him crazy, and he didn't know how to make it stop.

"Eat your breakfast, princess, then go back to bed and rest for a while."

There was confusion in her big, doe eyes, and then a flash of hurt, followed by pure determination. "No. I'm not going back to bed. I got my eight hours of rest, that's enough. Now I'm going to figure out where those bombs are."

"We're not supposed to figure that out," he reminded her. The bombs were just threats, motivation to get the Athena women to cave and hand over the formula. It was a way for the mole to try to get what they wanted, and it wasn't going to work.

"Well, I will figure it out," Cassie said, tone haughty, and he knew that she truly believed that she could do it.

Arrogant woman.

Yet why was it a turn-on to see the determination in her gaze as she opened her laptop and found a copy of the email the mole had sent?

There was no way Cassie would give up on this, no way he could talk her out of it. If he couldn't stop her, he'd just have to join her.

"All right then, princess, let me take a look at that email," he said, pulling up a chair beside her.

Cassie froze, spoon halfway to her mouth, eyes wide with surprise. "You want to help me look for clues to see if we can figure out where the bombs are?"

"Think you're the only one who can figure it out, princess?" he sneered, making her brows bunch together.

"No. I never said or thought that. I don't know why you'd think I would."

"Sure, princess. You think everyone is as smart as you are," he muttered, knowing that she thought she was better than everyone else just because she had a high IQ.

Hurt flashed through her eyes, but she didn't say anything. It seemed the princess didn't express her emotions, just bottled them up. Not healthy, but who was he to tell her to yell at him if she chose not to?

Both doing their best to ignore the other, they studied the email the mole had sent. The sound of the video playing over and over was the only sound in the room. Breakfast forgotten, Cassie had picked up a notepad and was jotting down notes after each listen of the recording. She filled pages and pages, and the more she wrote the stupider he felt just sitting there doing nothing.

Damn the woman for making him feel so inadequate and damn himself for caring.

"That second sentence is weird," Cassie muttered, but he got the feeling she was talking to herself and not him. "There's something about the way she says ‘its'. It's not natural. It's like they're clues."

In the next playthrough of the recording, Luis focused on that second sentence, trying to allow his mind to open and allow anything and everything to flow into it.

Maybe it was because he was determined to prove to Cassie that he was more than just brawn, that he had more he could contribute to the world, but something clicked in his mind.

"Peer. The voice says peer, but what if what it really means is a pier, as in down by one of the piers?" he suggested.

Cassie's head whipped in his direction, her eyes widened in surprise. "How did you figure that out?"

"Not just muscles and a pretty face, princess," he sneered, ignoring that there was once again hurt in her eyes. No matter how hard he tried to stuff old insecurities down, Cassie kept making them rise to the surface. It wasn't fair to keep taking his frustration out on her, but he couldn't seem to help himself. The woman got to him in ways no one else did and he didn't like it.

Didn't like it at all.