In Too Deep (19 page)

Chapter
38

Did I do something wrong? A moment ago, Colt was kissing me, and now he’s flipped like a light switch and
is pulling me toward the door. He leads me down the stairs, still holding firmly onto my hand, like he’s determined to end our date.

Tears prick at my eyes irrationally. Why
does he have this effect on me? I hate how weak I am. I cling to his hand for support.

The first time we kissed, he stopped abruptly too.
Why doesn’t he want to kiss me? I know I should keep my mouth shut. I know this more than I know anything, yet I can’t.

I stop walking and free my hand, anger blazing in my eyes.
“Why don’t you want to kiss me?”

He turns to face me, shock written all over this his flushed face. He didn’t expect me to call him on it.

“That’s what you think?” He laughs.

I’m glad I amuse him. I cross my arms over my chest.

“You are so far off, it should be illegal.”

Huh
?

He steps closer until he’s fl
ush against my body, his leg in between my knees, his hands on my waist, pressing me firmly against him
Oh
.

He breathes in my hair, his breath ragged against my ear.
“I want to kiss you. In fact, I want to do much more than kiss you. Which is why I made myself stop while I was still in control.”

I look up at him completely bewildered.
Whoa.
“Who told you to stop?” My voice is quiet, but my eyes are wide as I look up at him, challenging his logic.

His surprised expression matches my own.
Then his eyes grow dark and he shakes his head. “No.” A frustrated growl murmurs through his chest. “I’m taking you back. Now.”

He pulls my hand once again, leading me to his BMW and tucks me safely inside
like a small child.

Annoyed and teeming with frustration, I ignore him the rest of the ride home.

***

In the morning I’m awoken way too early for my cell phone to be buzzing. After the fourth ring, I fumble for it and pick it up.

“Hello?”

“Taylor. This is McAllister. You’re needed in the lab for an assignment right away.”

“What time is it?” I rub the sleep from my eyes.

“Four-thirty. I expect you here in five minutes.”

I groan and hang up. I consider rolling over in bed, and ignoring his request, but I know I can’t do that.

Within a few minutes, I’ve dressed, brushed my teeth and thrown my hair back in a ponytail.

I climb the stairs to the fourth floor, pleased to see all the physical training no longer leaves me winded from doing so.
I step inside the computer lab.

The bright lights glow overhead and McAllister has several computers pulled up to various screens charting the ship’s progress.
I stand at the door for a moment, trying to get my bearings. I know it’s stupid, but I’d half hoped Colt would be here. I was more confused than ever after how our date had ended yesterday. I needed answers. I needed to see him, to see if he was going to be back to his playful, charming self or still brooding like at the end of our date.

McAllister impatiently motions for me to join him.
I slide into the seat next to him.

“Today’s the day, Taylor.” He grins at me. I don’t trust the glint in his eyes. “I want you to set her off her current course by four degrees. He taps the screen indicating what he means.

I lean in closer. The ship will be closer to land if I do that, but not nearly enough to do any damage or send her ashore, I see with relief. Four little degrees. I could do that.

After all, I’d spent the last several weeks figuring out how to get inside
the ship’s command center. And now that I had it cracked, I very much wanted to see if it would work. I stifle a yawn and lean back in my seat.

McAllister runs his hands together. “You get to work.”
He stands. “And I’ll get you a Diet Coke. Colt told me it is your drink of choice.”

My gaze flashes to his. Colt talks
to McAllister about me?

He’s out the door before I have the chance to ask anything else.

I go back to my assignment and begin working. My fingers tap furiously at the keys. I’m using multiple computers in the room, my heart thumping with a steady energy as I set everything into motion.

I sit back and wait.

I notice that somewhere in the mayhem, McAllister brought me a can of soda. It sits warm and unopened beside me. I look at the clock and notice that somehow two hours have passed. I send a quick email to McAllister letting him know that everything worked out perfectly.

I yawn again and rub at my eyes.
Time for bed. Hopefully Bria won’t mind me missing Zumba… 

When I wake up the sun is casc
ading through the dorm windows. I’ve slept way longer than I intended to. The room is hot and sticky and I kick off the heavy duvet.

I glance at the clock. I’ve missed both
Bria and Colt’s classes, but if I hurry, I’ll be in time for lunch.

I take a quick shower, and dress, combing my hair into a simple bun so I won’t have to style it. Then I make my way to the cafeteria.

Right away I can tell that something’s different. The normal hum of conversation, the scooting of chairs, and occasional fits of laughter are missing. It’s dead silent.

I hesitate at the door, trying to figure out what’s going on. A group of student
s huddle in the corner facing the TV mounted on the wall. I make my way over to them. The news is on, showing a ship in the ocean, it is listing badly to one side. My blood goes cold.

I take a step forward and get
closer to the TV. I have to hear what they’re saying. MJ and Logan and are amongst those crowding around the TV. I squeeze between the bodies, making my way to the front. I can hear them saying my name, asking where I’ve been, but my mouth is completely dry and I’ve forgotten how to speak. My head spins and I do my best to focus on the TV. The blood rushing in my ears is deafening, but I focus on the newscaster until her voice comes into focus.

“Breaking news…massive oil spill…oil tanker, Alliance has collided with a coral reef…”

I suck in a breath and my knees go weak.

“Officials for World Oil Corporation have no comment at this hour about how this disaster could have happened…”

Oh my God…

“Pending a full investigation…”

I turn and run. I hear my name being called, but I don’t stop. I push through the doors and stumble blindly down the empty hall.

My
legs feel weak, but I can’t collapse here. I push myself to keep moving, trailing my hand along the wall for support.

This i
s no coincidence. I heard the news anchor – she said Alliance. The name of McAllister’s assignment for me. I push my legs faster, needing to get someplace where I can break down.

I’m only vaguely aware of footsteps behind me when I feel a hand clasp around m
ine.

Colt.

His strong hand encloses mine completely. His face is hard, serious. “Come on,” he commands, and pulls me down the hall.

Colt
must have seen me leave the cafeteria and come after me. My heart fills and expands. Colt will help me fix this. He has to.

He leads me to the stairs and helps me climb
up; stopping once we get to the second floor. He pulls me along. For a brief second I wonder where we’re heading. Then I realize: He’s taking me to his room.

I don’t put up a fight, thankful at least I’m not alone.
He unlocks the door and holds it open for me.

I step around him and hear the door close behind us. All at once he’s pulling me into his arms, folding me into his embrace. I lay my head on his chest, letting myself fall into him completely, balling my hands in his shirt. It’s only then I let the tears come.

We stand like that for I don’t know how long. Colt doesn’t press for details, or ask any questions. He just holds me, rubbing my back while I sob into his neck.

After a little while, I lean back and meet his eyes, wondering why he’s being so nice to me, why he’s taking care of me right now.

When he meets my eyes, his hardened angry look falls away revealing his concern and worry.

“Are you okay? Talk to me,” he pleads. He takes my face in his palms, wiping the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.

“I did that.” I sniff. “That ship. That was m-my fault.” A fresh wave of emotion hits me, racking my chest with sobs.

“
Shhh.” He pulls me to him again, patting my back. “That was not your fault.”

“Yes it was!” I shout, pulling back from him.

He drops his hands, confusion all over his face.

“I need to go to the lab. I need my computer.” I wipe at my face with my shirt hem, knowing I look a mess.

“I’ll get it for you. Stay here.”

I blink up at him.

“I’ll be right back.” He turns and leaves me alone in his room.

I know it’s irrational. I know it’s too late to stop the commands I released, but I need my comp
uter. I need to do something.

I pace Colt’s room,
convincing my pounding heart to slow, and eventually coaxing my tears to stop. I find a box of tissues beside Colt’s bed blow my nose, and wipe my eyes dry.

When I’m slightly
calmer, I sit down in the center of his bed and scan my surroundings.

The room is larger than I expected, I don’t know why but I was expecting a tiny dorm room with cement walls and a narrow twin bed.

His bed is large and at the far end of the room with his dresser and a small table, both in rich wood. The bed is neatly made in rich navy and crisp white bedding. I bet if my nose wasn’t so stuffy it would smell deliciously like him.

On the other end of the room, closer to the door is a seating area with a small couch and a desk with Colt’s laptop and files. A narrow book shelf leans against one wall with a few books – mostly text
books stacked messily on the shelves. On the center shelf, at eye-level is a photo in a silver frame. The one personal artifact in his room. I walk closer to inspect it.

The boy – no more than eleven or twelve is clearly Colt. Messy, dark hair, a smile like he knows something the rest of us don’t and he’s tall, nearly as tall as the woman beside him. She must
be his mother. She’s striking, and way too young to be gone. I can see where he gets his full, dark eyelashes.

Colt comes through the door
with my laptop and stops when he sees me holding the picture of his mother.

He swallows and steps closer to me, slowly, tentatively. He holds a hand out for the picture frame, offering me the laptop instead.

“What’s her name?” I ask before parting with it.

“El
aina.”

I hand it over.

Once I have my laptop, I go back to Colt’s bed and sink against his pillows, propping the computer across my lap.

Chapter 39

I watch Taylor move around my room. She sits down in the center of my bed, scooting up until she can lean
back against the pillows. She opens her laptop and begins typing furiously as she studies the screen. Fresh tears spring to her eyes, and she presses her lips together, forcing them away.

I watch her work for a few minutes, unsure of what to do.
In this moment the only thing I know for certain is that she is beautiful, and that I hate my father even more than I thought.

I could quite literally kill
him right now. I’m itching to track him down and raise hell, but the only thing keeping me here is Taylor. The look on her face when she saw that news footage felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I hate to see her cry.

I’m not sure what made me follow her out into the hall and drag her up here, I just didn’t like the thought of her alone an
d crying in the hall. It reminds me of that time with Samantha. I still feel guilty as hell over her catching me with another girl, the same night I asked her to hang out. Guilt was a strange feeling. New for me. Taylor was invoking all kinds of new feelings in me. I both liked it and didn’t.

I
set the picture of my mom back on the shelf. If anyone else had touched this, it would have bugged me. But not her. I look over at her and watch her sink back against my pillows. Something tugs in my chest. I take a breath, flexing my forearms and move closer to her. Confusion, anger and something else I can’t identify swirl around inside me.

I sit down beside her, the bed dipping under my weight. “
I told Tate you wouldn’t be in class this afternoon.”

She looks up meeting my eyes.

“What else can I do?” All my concentration is on her. Making her feel better. Helping her. Just like at our last assignment gone wrong. I remember getting her in the bath, feeding her, kissing her. My head swims with the memory.

She
turns away from the screen, momentarily at a loss for words. “Why did you bring me here? Why do you even care?”

Her words sting, but given my track record, I suppose it’s a fair question. “I thought I made that clear. We’re friends Taylor. And I know better than anyone the shit McAllister is capable of.”

“Friends?” she chides. “Friends who go on dates and kiss and then run away from each other?”

My palms itch. Why do I have the urge to hit something? Damn
, this girl challenges everything I do. I release a breath slowly through my teeth. “I thought I explained why I ended that date.”

She blinks up at me.

Fuck
. She’s going to make me say it. To admit to her again how I feel about her. I’m quiet while I consider her question. The silence in the room hangs heavily around us.

I sigh and run my hands through my hair.

She bites her lip, still waiting, still blinking up at me with those big blue eyes that are at least no longer wet with tears.

“Let’s not get into this right now.” I meet her eyes, my voice firm.

Her face tightens, her forehead creasing.

“We have more pressing things to figure out, don’t you think?”

I resist the urge to reach out and touch her, to comfort her again. She seems to be doing okay now – which means I need to keep my hands to myself.

She nods in agreement, letting me off the hook.
For now.

“What have you found?” I nod to her computer.

She turns it to me, setting it on the bed between us then presses play on a news video.

We listen in silence to the segment, which doesn’t offer up many new details. But she
breathes a sigh of relief and her shoulders visibly relax when she hears there were no causalities and the crew made it safely off the ship.

“Are you worried they’ll trace this back to you?” I ask once the video ends.

“Of course. But honestly I don’t think they’ll be able to. It’s more the gravity of what I’ve done. The damage I’ve caused.” She looks down again at the computer screen, which shows images of silty black water slick with oil, and brown waves crashing against a rocking shoreline, leaving the thick deposits in its wake.

“I just don’t understand…” She looks lost. “Why would he do this? Why give me this assignment? He had to know right?”

I look down. Of course he did.

She inhales, fighting off the emotion in her voice. “I thought our assignments were taking down bad guys, the criminals. I thought we were on the good side of the law. McAllister said I’d work with the government, that I’d be helping. That’s why I stayed – that’s why I’m here.”

“I know,” I say, softly, reassuringly. “That’s why I’m here too.” Our eyes meet and lock on each other’s for a moment.

“Why would he make me do this? What’s his motivation?”

I shake my head. “He’s just hungry – he won’t say no to business. Running this place is his entire life and I don’t think he has any moral compass
outside of seeing his company succeed.”

“Is he married?” she surprises me by asking.

“He was. A long time ago.”

“How do you know so much about him?”

“I just do.” I clear my throat. “I’ve been here for three years trying to keep him in line.”

She nods, accepting my answer without question.
If she knew the truth, I doubt she’d be sitting here right now, so calmly discussing this with me.

Taylor goes to another news site and clicks on an article about the major cleanup effort that will likely last several months. She leans forward, reading it with interest,
desperately trying to piece this all together.

“Enough.” I close the screen to her laptop.

She looks up at me blinking her beautiful eyes, her pink lips parted.

“It’ll just upset you,” I explain.

Taylor stays with me until dinnertime when I make her go downstairs to eat with her friends. The sooner she moves past this the better. I don’t want her dwelling on it. We can’t change the past, and I know she’s now working out her future here.

I can’t argue with her about staying again, not after this.

He must have known that. Is this a punishment for that botched assignment? Can he tell I like her and doesn’t want her getting in the way of my work here?

When Taylor slips off to dinner, I decide to pay a visit to McAllister, my palms itching
as the need to pummel something returns in full force. 

***

Taylor spends the entire next week reading every
single news article she can find, tracking down any connection McAllister could have to this ship, yet we’re still no farther along in understanding McAllister’s motives behind this deliberate oil spill than we were before.

It’s no longer enough for
me to hang out with Taylor during her independent study, she also comes to my room every night after dinner and we read the news articles together, even though I know it’s not healthy.

I’m thankful when after several
days; the media attention about the oil spill has died down.

“I’m going to throw this laptop out of the window if you don’t get off of it soon,” I threaten.

Taylor’s lying across my bed on her stomach, deep in thought, staring at the screen. She looks up at me and smiles. Actually smiles. It’s heaven. I can see the tension slipping from her day by day.

Taking her good mood as a cue, I join her on the bed and close the laptop, sliding it away from her.

“You’ve been too distracted lately. Too consumed by this. We’re getting out of here for a while.” Damn it. I’m telling her again. I swallow and correct myself. “Can I take you out?”

She smirks, studying me curiously. “I assume after how our last date ended – this won’t be a
date
.” She uses air quotes.

I stare at her, the confidence growing inside me. “Call it whatever you want, but yes, I see it as a date.”

She bites into her lip, studying me.

“But I promise to be a proper companion this time. No physical contact.” I hold up my hands, showing her I’m safe.

She frowns at me. She really doesn’t understand why I stopped touching her last time.

“Why do you assume that’s what I want?”
She challenges.

Now it’s my turn to star
e at her in confusion. Her blue eyes dance with mischief, perplexing as ever. “Okay. How about this?” I drop my voice a notch lower, leaning in closer to her. “No physical contact unless you ask for it first.” I smile. “Sound fair?”

Her lips quirk up in a strange half grin when she realizes she’ll have complete control over me. “I think I can handle that,” she says, breathless.

Who knew being the one in control would make her so happy. I realize this is what she wants, what she’s needed all along: me, this relationship on her terms. I’m game. Because by the end of the night, she’ll be begging me to touch her.

“Tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow.” She smiles.

I’m a goner.