Ride: A Bad Boy Romance (46 page)

Z
ach looked
at himself in the full-length mirror of the dorm bathroom, doing his best to ignore the obvious smell of vomit wafting in from one of the showers. That was the very worst part of living in a dorm with college students: the bathrooms.

He wished he’d had the time to get the suit dry cleaned since he’d worn it to the job fair earlier that week, but there hadn’t been a free moment.

I guess that’s why people have two suits
, he thought.

Well. Someday
.
Maybe if I get this summer job, I’ll buy another one
.

He smoothed his lapels in the mirror, shrugged, and left the dorm.

* * *

A
t MutiGen
, there were only a handful of other cars in the parking lot, but Zach shrugged it off. It was Saturday, after all, so that wasn’t too surprising.

He
was
surprised when he saw Katrina standing by the front doors. Surprised enough that he nearly ran into a light post, only braking at the very last second.

She works here,
he thought.
It’s not that weird.

She didn’t say anything about it, though. That’s kinda weird.

When he parked, he took a quick second to breathe before he got out.

Don’t think about the way her ass looks in that skirt
, he thought to himself.
Or how much you want to unbutton her shirt while you kiss her on the lips, her hands on your chest...

It wasn’t helping. He got out of the car, grabbed his briefcase, and waved to Katrina.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said, once they were within earshot.

“I didn’t either,” she said.

She didn’t smile, and there was something a little
strange
in her voice, but Zach wrote it off.

She’s at work on a Saturday
, he thought.
I wouldn’t be thrilled either
.

“Good to see you again,” he said, trying to sound as professional as he could. He couldn’t see anyone in the lobby, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t see out, and he wasn’t about to endanger her reputation at her job by being inappropriate.

No matter how inappropriate I really want to be
, he thought.

“You too,” she said, and held out her right hand.

Zach smiled and shook it. There was a tiny explosion in his heart.

Finally, she smiled back.

“Sorry you got dragged into work on the weekend,” he said. “I hope it wasn’t just for me.”

“Come on back,” Katrina said, letting them into the building. “They’ve been really eager to interview you, though I’m not quite sure what was
so
urgent that they had to do it today.”

“Hopefully they’re just excited to hire me,” he said.

Katrina paused at an interior door, then looked up at him, her deep blue eyes a little worried.

“What is it?” Zach asked.

“Don’t get your hopes up too high is all,” she finally said, looking down at the floor. “They’re interviewing lots of people, and I’d hate to see you disappointed.”

Zach straightened, then glanced around the empty lobby.

There are probably cameras somewhere
, he thought.

He didn’t really care.

“I’ll be fine,” he told Katrina, and put one finger under her chin, lifting her face to his. “I only came over to the table at the job fair in the first place because I thought you were cute, so I already got what I came for.”

“I’m at work,” she whispered.

“No one’s here,” he said, the heat rushing through him now. There was something wild and uncontrollable building inside him, and he had to fight it back. “Just one kiss? For good luck?”

“One,” Katrina said.

He pressed his lips to hers quickly, and even that small gesture sent sparks through his whole body before he pulled back.

Zach knew he was going to be distracted as
hell
during the interview, but he didn’t care. She’d just told him he barely had a shot, and besides, he felt like all his priorities flew out the window when he was with Katrina.

Ever since he’d gone back to college, he’d toed the line. Somehow, he’d been part of a huge illegal operation and had never gotten caught — so Zach figured he’d used up
all
his luck, and he’d better shape up. So he had. He’d buckled down, worked hard, and followed all the rules.

It
worked
.

But now, just seeing Katrina made him willing to throw all that away. Last night, he hadn’t cared about getting arrested, just because he’d been with
her
. If they spent all weekend together and he didn’t do his homework, fuck it. Seeing her was better.

She held her badge to the door and then pulled it open. Zach held it for her, following her down the hall, past dark office after dark office.

“Here we are,” she said at last. The odd, tight tone was back in her voice, and for a second, Zach looked at her, wondering if something was really
wrong
.

She looked back at him, her blue eyes wide with a hint of panic.

Something swelled inside Zach, something fierce and angry and
primal
and he wanted to attack whatever she was afraid of, smash it into little bits.

It was only an instant, and then Katrina looked away. Zach stepped into the office, and a thin, older man behind the desk stood up.

“Glad you could make it,” the man said. “Sorry about the short notice. I’m Pete, the lead engineer.”

“No problem,” Zach said.

They shook hands. The other man’s hands were cool and slightly damp, and Zach had the urge to wipe his hand on his pants afterward. His resume was already on the man’s desk, and as the man sat, he nodded at Katrina.

“Thanks,” he said.

Zach turned around to look at her one more time. Just as she left, she had that same
look
in her eye, and Zach swallowed hard.

You’re imagining things
, he told himself.
You’re being really crazy right now.

“Water?” Pete asked. He rolled to a very small fridge in the corner of his office, not getting out of his chair as he opened it and pulled out a bottle.

“Thanks,” said Zach. Pete poured two glasses, then rolled back to his desk.

There was something
weird
about the way Pete was acting, but Zach couldn’t put his finger on it. It was as if the other man had a sort of manic energy beneath a professional veneer, like under a calm surface he was a wild, anxious mess.

He’s just an engineer
, Zach told himself.
They’re not exactly cool, you know
.

“Well, your academic record is certainly impressive,” Pete said, looking down at Zach’s resume. “Graduating a semester early, I see.”

A
fter an hour
of talking about his academic career and research interests, Zach thought the interview had to be nearly over. He felt totally talked out, and he was pretty sure that they’d covered every single angle of his schooling several times. Plus, the afternoon sun was coming into the windows of Pete’s office, and Zach was starting to have a hard time keeping his eyes open.

Finally, there was a lull in the conversation, and he was sure the interview was over.

Pete leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Tell me about your childhood,” he said.

Zach frowned.

“There isn’t much to tell,” he said.

“MutiGen is interested in nurturing the
whole
employee,” Pete said, leaning forward, his elbows on the desk. “And we can’t promote the sort of personal growth that we like to see if we don’t know the whole employee ourselves.”

Zach swallowed.

Weird
, he thought.

“I grew up in a really small town in southern Utah,” he started. “I’ve got two older brothers. It was sort of idyllic, at least for a while.”

Slowly, he told Pete the whole story. Every time he hesitated, Pete would ask for more details: where was his family
from
? How long had they lived there? How exactly had his parents died?

Zach was beginning to feel a little lightheaded as he told Pete about his whole life: how everyone in Obsidian hated his family for a hundred-year-old slight; the stupid rumor that they could turn into eagles; the way that a mining conglomerate had nearly taken everything from them.

He left out the part where his oldest brother, Seth, had fallen from a cliff and turned into an eagle. Zach had never told that part to
anyone
. They’d think he was crazy.

Hell, he probably
was
crazy. No matter how many times he saw Seth shift, he could never quite bring himself to believe that it was real.

Maybe that’s why I can’t shift
, he thought, his brain feeling a little foggy.
I don’t believe, or something
.

“Where’s Seth now?” Pete asked.

Why are you so interested in my brother?
Zach thought. He shook his head slightly, still feeling a little lightheaded.

“He’s still in Obsidian,” Zach said politely. “He got married last year.”

“They have any kids?”

This guy is really nosy
, Zach thought.

He wanted a job, though, so he answered.

“Not yet.”

“They trying?”

Zach stared, open-mouthed. Pete looked completely serious.

There was a long, long silence.

“I have no idea,” Zach finally said. “I’ve never asked.”

Pete just shrugged.

“I think that’s everything,” he said, wrapping the interview up suddenly. “Here, I’ll take your glass—” Before Zach could offer to do it himself, Pete stood and snatched the glass, lifting it with his fingertips and setting it carefully on top of the mini-fridge.

“Thanks,” Zach muttered, standing.

He felt even more light-headed, and tried to take deep breaths.

What the hell is going on?
he wondered.

Was it the water?

Is there black mold in the ceiling and I’m allergic?

Pete came around the desk and clapped Zach hard on the shoulder. Zach was a good six inches taller than the other man, and he could see the thinning hair on the top of his head.

“I think MutiGen could really use someone like you,” Pete said, practically running to open his office door. “In fact, I’ve asked Katrina to give you a tour of the labs while you’re here. Might as well get acquainted!”

“Wow,” Zach managed to say. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but he still felt foggy.

Focus
, he thought.

“I’d be thrilled to have a summer position here,” he said. “The work you’re doing is really something.”

Pete’s hand was on his upper arm, and the older man was half-leading, half-grabbing him as he walked down the hall before darting into an office.

“Show him around the labs,” he said. “And don’t forget cold storage.”

“What?” said Katrina’s voice. Zach craned his neck to see around the other man.

Pete didn’t answer her, and then he pulled Zach into her office as well.

“Hello,” Zach said, trying to remain both upright and pleasant.

Katrina just nodded once.

“She’s one of our best,” Pete said.

Zach squinted at him. Had he started sweating...?

“Go ahead, I’m sure he’s got obligations tonight,” Pete said, and practically shoved the two of them out of Katrina’s office, then went back to his own and shut the door.

Zach and Katrina looked at each other. His head was getting cloudier by the minute, and when he looked into her eyes, he felt like he was falling into a perfect deep blue pool.

“He’s being really weird today,” Katrina said. She looked down.

“Yeah, he’s a character all right,” Zach said, trying to sound neutral.

He
wanted
to suggest that they skip out on seeing the labs, go back into her office, and spend half an hour getting to know each other, but that was just idiotic.

Yeah, he’d rather make out with her than get a summer internship here, but
she
already had this job. If she got caught with him, she’d pay the price, not him.

“He’s usually pretty normal,” she said, shrugging. Then she smiled up at him, and nothing else mattered. “Want to go see the labs?”

“
T
his is the robotics lab
,” Katrina said, pushing open another door. “Where they design, program, and test the stuff that makes our prosthetic limbs work.”

Zach whistled, then walked toward a big table, scattered with electronics pieces. Mounted on the wall were two big monitors, both powered down.

“This place looks like a TV show,” he said. “The labs at the University are garbage by comparison.”

“Are they that bad?” Katrina asked.

“I didn’t think so,” Zach said. “But now I’ve seen the Promised Land.”

Katrina had to smile, just a little. Watching Zach so excited about all the cool stuff they did at MutiGen did make her feel better, even if it was only a little. He was like a kid in a candy shop — a kid who’d had his first piece of candy a week before, and couldn’t
believe
that there was so much candy in the world.

She kept replaying Pete’s assurance in her mind. They weren’t going to do anything to Zach, just steal his hair or something. It was probably her job to show him around for a while as Pete made sure whatever he’d gotten would work, and then she could let him go free.

I hate this
, I thought.
I hate having to lie to Zach to keep my job. To keep ANY job.

Zach was across the room, marveling at half a robotic hand, propped up, its circuitry on display. He didn’t touch anything, but leaned so close that Katrina wondered if he might be breathing too hard on it.

Does Pete really know that many people?
She thought.
I shouldn’t have believed him. Maybe I’m an idiot for just rolling over and playing dead, but...

MutiGen
did
work with the Department of Defense pretty often. There was a good chance he
hadn’t
been lying.

“Am I taking too long?” Zach asked.

“You’re good,” Katrina said, standing still, her arms crossed over her chest. She couldn’t help but enjoy what a good time Zach was having.

After a few minutes, he came back to stand by her. He looked around, then put a hand on her shoulder.

“You sure everything’s okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Katrina said. She hoped she was convincing.

Then she had an idea.

“You know, there’s no cameras in this lab,” she said. “They didn’t want anyone to be able to steal our secrets.”

Zach raised his eyebrows and grinned.

“None?” he asked.

“Nope,” Katrina said.

She put her hands on his waist, and he brushed her hair back from her shoulders.

“You give this part of the tour to everyone?” he teased. He put his fingers underneath her chin, tilting her face up.

Katrina let her eyes slide closed.

Even if this situation is shitty, it’ll be over soon, and we can date like normal people.

Besides, I like this part.

“Only the VIPs,” she teased right back.

“It’s nice to be important,” Zach said.

He bent and pressed his lips to hers, softly at first, but in moments the kiss deepened and Katrina felt a warm river of liquid heat rush through her. She parted her lips and pushed her fingers through Zach’s hair, tightening her hand around it and pulling his head down further.

Then his tongue was there, tracing along her lower lip and she met it with her own tongue, wrapping them together, her other hand on his shoulder.

At last, Zach pulled back, gasping for air.

“We probably shouldn’t—“

Katrina shut him up by kissing him again, even more fiercely this time, not caring that it was stupid to make out with Zach in the robotics lab at
work
. All she wanted was to feel his lips on hers, his hands around her waist, his strong arms around her...

Zach broke the kiss but this time he planted his lips at the corner of her mouth, then trailed kisses along her chin and down her neck, each touch sending sparks down her spine. A noise came out of Katrina that she was certain she’d never made before. She pressed her hand into the small of his back. She wanted him close to her, as close as he could possibly get.

He paused when his lips reached her collar.

“We should stop,” he murmured. The vibration of his voice sent a new thrill through Katrina.

“Probably,” Katrina said.

She didn’t move to let him go, just ran her hand lightly up his back. He made a noise in his throat not unlike a growl, and Katrina bit her lip.

He just growled at me
.

The thought sent a rush of heat through her, pooling in her core.

“Do you want to stop?” she whispered.

Instead of answering, Zach pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, then bit her gently, just barely grazing the delicate skin with his teeth. Katrina swallowed and slipped a hand underneath the jacket of his suit. Underneath his shirt, he was almost impossibly warm, and she could feel him breathing hard, his heart beating furiously.

“No,” he said.

He lifted his head, then took her by her upper arms and moved her back a few steps, until Katrina’s back was against a wall.

She could feel her brain going fuzzy with lust, especially as Zach kissed her again, even harder this time. The kiss was hungry and needy, and now whatever he’d awoken in Katrina was alive and
insatiable
.

I need this now
, she thought.
Right now, and I don’t give a fuck what happens.

Biting her lip, she fumbled with the top button on his shirt. It finally came loose, and she reached for his tie, pulling at it to loosen it.

Zach’s fingers were tracing down her throat, and then they were drifting over her breasts, then cupping her ass and pulling her even closer to him. A tiny moan escaped her lips, and Zach grinned down at her.

He growled again.

Katrina thought she might lose her mind, and yanked on his tie, finally pulling it loose.

Then someone laughed.

Katrina
froze
, staring up at Zach.

The laugh sounded again. It was in the hallway outside the lab, and now she could hear another voice joining it, saying something.

“
Shit,
” she hissed

Zach dropped one more kiss on her lips and backed away, quickly re-buttoning his shirt and pulling his tie tight. Katrina straightened her clothes, pulling at her skirt.

I’m sure I’m bright red,
she thought.
They’re just going to look at me and know what we were up to
.

The voices paused, right outside the door.

“Sorry for getting carried away,” Zach whispered.

Katrina smiled, feeling something warm wrap around her heart. Then she pointed at a mechanical hand on a desk, just as the door opened.

“This is a hand that isn’t a real person’s hand, it’s a robot hand,” she said. It was the first sentence that came to mind, and as she finished it, Pete entered, flanked by two men she’d never seen before.

“Just finishing up the tour?” he asked, barely even looking at Katrina.

For once, she was glad to go unnoticed at work.

“I think we’re done,” she said. “Can I walk you out?” she asked Zach, eager to get the two of them out of there.

“We can take it from here,” Pete said. His voice sounded vague and like it came from far away.

Katrina swallowed. She felt like there was a rubber band tightening around her lungs — she could
feel
that something was wrong, she just couldn’t put her finger on what it
was
.

“Your facilities are very impressive,” Zach said, trying to stay a part of the conversation.

Pete just nodded.

“We’ll show you the stuff in cold storage, then take you out the back way. Got a great view of the mountains.”

One of the men Katrina didn’t know opened the door to the lab and they all walked back into a too-bright hallway, Pete coming last. He nodded once at Katrina, dismissively.

“Thanks for coming in today,” he said. “You can go home now. We’ve got it from here.”

The band around her lungs tightened. The two men with Pete still hadn’t said a thing, and didn’t seem like they were about to get talkative.

“It was nice seeing you again,” Zach said. He stepped forward and shook her hand again, giving hers a firm squeeze that made her feel a little better.

“Likewise,” Katrina said, looking him square in the eye.

And I’ll see you again tomorrow night. And Monday morning, if I get my way...

“See you Monday,” she said to Pete, and turned to walk back toward her office.

As soon as she was out of earshot, she could just barely hear Pete begin to talk quietly, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Katrina gritted her teeth and pushed open the always-locked door that led from the offices to the labs.

She made it back to her office, then slumped into her chair, leaning her elbows on the desk.

It’s fine
, she told herself.
They’re not going to hurt him, they’re going to steal his hair. He’s never even going to know, and you get to keep doing the work that you love.

Now the band was so tight that she could barely breathe, and she looked at the wood grain of her desk.

She didn’t believe a thing she’d just told herself.

Why tell her to leave if everything they were doing was above-board? Who were those two other men, the silent ones she’d never seen before?

Why take Zach to cold storage — in the
basement
? It was where they kept their computer servers and tissue samples for the skin-replacement they were working on, in separate rooms, of course. But Zach’s background was structural with a little of mechanical knowledge tossed in.

He didn’t know the first thing about tissue samples, and Pete
knew
that.

Katrina took a deep breath, then reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a pair of old sneakers that she kept in there just in case something happened — earthquake, snowstorm — and she needed to walk a serious distance.

You’re being ridiculous
, she told herself.
You’re just going to go tell Zach what they’re really doing, and he’s going to leave, and you’re going to get fired. It’s not like you’re going to do any running.

She laced them tightly anyway, then marched back to the door that separated the offices and the labs, holding her badge to the pad that unlocked the door.

The light flashed red.

Katrina blinked, then frowned. She held her badge up again, but after a moment, the light blinked a forbidding crimson.

I got in here twenty minutes ago
,
she thought.
Something is really, really not right
.

Katrina stared at the closed, forbidding door for a moment.

Then she turned and marched for the offices again. First she went to her own, grabbed her keys and wallet, and shoved them inside her bra. She didn’t know why, but she was afraid she’d need them.

Next she went down the row of offices and tried every doorknob. The executives were
supposed
to keep their doors locked, but they were also
supposed
to keep their passwords secret and she knew that half of them had them written on post-its stuck to their monitors.

It wasn’t long before she got lucky and Chuck Engleman’s door opened for her. She made quick work of his desk drawers, finding exactly what she needed: an extra badge. The execs could never be bothered to keep track of theirs.

As a last-second thought, she also took a lighter and jammed it in her bra, next to her car keys. It wasn’t comfortable, but it would have to do.

Pulse racing, she went back to the door. Chuck’s spare badge opened it, and Katrina crept in, but the hallway was empty. She took a deep breath and walked to the last door on the right, hoping that Chuck had stairwell access as well.

He did. She stepped in and carefully peered down the two flights of stairs.

No movements.

Katrina walked on, holding the cold metal handrail for dear life. At the bottom was another door. It had no window, and she pushed it out just enough to check that this hallway was also deserted.

She had only been downstairs, in the cold storage section, once or twice before. It was dark, gloomy, and — unsurprisingly — cold, two stories underground, the hallway made of bare concrete with fluorescent tubes lighting the way above.

Katrina stood very, very still. She listened. There was the constant hum of the server room, somewhere in this hallway. She listened harder.

Over the hum, she thought she could barely make out voices. The concrete hallway ended in a T-intersection, and sounds echoed around so much that it was hard to tell where they came from.

The voices raised.
Now
they sounded like muffled shouting.

Katrina’s feet moved on their own, walking down the hall to the intersection at the end, then to the left, following the voices. She was certain that if she was caught she might be worse than fired, but she could only think of Zach. He could easily take on any of those three men in a fight, but she doubted they’d fight fair.

There was a door in the wall. By some small miracle, it had a window in it, and Katrina stood on her toes and looked in.

It was Zach. He was wearing some sort of hospital gown and he was strapped to a table. Pete and the other two men stood around him, Pete making wild hand gestures. Sweat ran down his face, but on the table, Zach seemed mildly concerned at best, blinking and staring at the ceiling.

I was right
, Katrina thought. Her blood ran cold.
They drugged him.

She turned away from the door and tried frantically to
think
. Somehow, she needed to get the three men out of there, and then she needed to rescue Zach.

A plan formed in her mind.

It’s not a very good plan
, she thought.
But it’s something
.

Back down the concrete hall, she pulled open the door to the server room, its hum filling the air. As she walked she pulled her wallet out of her bra and opened the money pouch.

It was mostly full of receipts. For the first time ever, she was glad that she’d kept them.

Katrina took the receipts, crumpled them tightly together, and jammed them into a tiny crack between two big, humming servers, among as many cords as possible.