“Not even a little bit.”
Our lips collided, our mouths working hungrily as our hands explored. Our bodies were already hot from all the exercise. Bryce’s, from the tail end of a hard workout. Mine, from my several mile run.
None of that mattered. Right now, the only thing I wanted even more than a cold glass of water was to have him inside me.
“I’m going to smash you all over that bench,” he growled, his hands taking control.
I moaned a little, giggling into his mouth. “Go for it.”
“And then I’m going to—”
“Ah, there you are!”
We both whirled as Camden came rushing into the library — or the gym — or whatever we were calling it. He saw what we were about to do and stopped.
“Oh.”
“What is it?” Bryce asked.
“Oscar called,” said Camden. His gaze shifted to me. “He’s been trying to reach you, but you’re not answering your phone.”
“I left it charging,” I said. “Does he need something?”
“More like he found something,” Camden replied. “On one of the cameras.”
My hands dropped from Bryce’s stomach. My already racing pulse picked up a little.
“Did he say what it was?”
“No, but he gave me a time-stamp. It’s from late last night.” Camden paused, as if just noticing our sweatiness… and various states of undress. “If you guys wanna finish what you’re about to do,” he smirked, “I could show you afterward, or—”
“I’m coming now,” I declared. Extracting myself from Bryce’s arms, I grabbed the towel he’d been using and mopped my brow. “Sorry.”
“Raincheck?” he grinned, nodding casually toward the bench.
I turned back and bounced onto my toes for a moment to give him a long, deep kiss.
“Definite raincheck.”
Forty-Five
KARISSA
The footage was crystal clear, and sharp as hell: a car, circling the outer edge of the property. It stopped near the entrance and a lone figure got out, walking the perimeter of the newly-locked gates. We’d started locking them when the cameras went up.
“Wow,” said Bryce, leaning over my shoulder. “How much did we pay for these cameras?”
“Why?” I asked, hunched over my laptop.
“Because they’re fucking amazing, that’s why.”
“Probably too much,” I admitted. “But hey, having the place burned down by a mess of blurry pixels is way more expensive.”
Camden returned, sliding a glass of cold water into my hand. I gulped it down greedily, then punched the button on the laptop that would rewind the footage.
“So… any ideas?”
The man who approached the gates wasn’t short or tall, he was somewhere right in the middle. He had an average build, an average shape. An average-sized silhouette, against the bluish, two-in-the-morning sky.
“He’s too far away to get any features on him,” said Camden. “So no.”
“Enhance!” Bryce joked.
I pushed the footage back and forth at a quarter speed, hoping for a miracle. I only needed one frame. One small area where the man’s face passed through the dim moonlight, and gave us something to go on.
“Shit,” I said after a minute or two. “Nothing.
I took a few screenshots, and sent them to our printer. They didn’t amount to much, though. Just then Roderick entered the room. He squinted into the screen with a concerned look on his face.
“Apparently we’ve got a visitor,” Bryce told him. “Someone was snooping around the gate last night, but—”
“I know. Oscar told me.”
I’d given Oscar a couple of overtime hours to pour through the nighttime footage on the weekends. The motion sensors picked up all kinds of stuff on a windy day, and it got windy often. It was a lot to go through.
“So what do we have?”
“A guy trying the gate. Finding it locked.” I shrugged. “Not much else.”
“What’s he driving?”
I zoomed in on the car, which was parked some distance away. It was a sedan, not an SUV or a truck. And it looked a little on the smaller side.
I looked back at the guys. Camden was squinting extra hard.
“Think that’s—”
“I don’t know,” Roderick cut him off.
I was examining the guys’ reactions now, much more than the footage. I got the distinct impression there was something more to their little exchange, but I didn’t push.
“The car looks green to me,” I said finally. “Doesn’t it?”
Camden and Bryce exchanged glances. Roderick cleared his throat.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because I know what green looks like?” I quipped. “They taught me in preschool. The color green and I go way back. Purple, too. Also—”
Roderick’s resulting frown stopped me from going through the whole rainbow. I turned back to the screen again.
“I know it’s far away,” I said, “and I know it’s dark. But if you twisted my arm, and made me pick a color?” I shrugged. “That car’s probably green.”
Camden picked up the printouts and left the room with them. Bryce likewise headed for the exit.
“I’m well past due for a shower,” he said, looking me over. He added a sly wink. “In case you wanted to save water, or—”
“In a little bit,” I told him.
I waited until they were gone before turning back to Roderick. He was still looking down at the screen.
“You know who this is, don’t you?”
My lover scratched at his beard. He shook his head.
“Okay, let me rephrase that,” I amended. “ You know who this might be, don’t you?”
“It’s too dark to tell anything for sure,” Roderick maintained. “And that car isn’t nearly close enough to—”
“Roderick,” I blurted. “This is my house. I live here. If some asshole’s got a vendetta against one or more of you, I need to know. Especially if they don’t mind a little arson.”
He reached for the mouse and closed the viewing software. The screen flashed back to my wallpaper: a group pic of the four of us, making funny faces into the camera and sticking our tongues out.
“I’ll back you up,” I continued. “Vendettas are something I understand. Vendettas are easy to work on.”
Roderick only shook his head. “You’ve got quite an imagination.”
“Do I?”
“In this case, yes. You do.”
The room got quiet
