Sloane (18 page)

“I’ll order something.” He climbed off of me and
stumbled out of bed. “Now, where the hell is my phone?” He reached
down and picked up his pants and began going through the
pockets.

I turned onto my side and took in the sight of his
nude body. He was gorgeous and smooth and rippling, with a really
adorable butt. I had an urge to get out of bed and squeeze it.

But he turned around, holding up the phone.

And then I was staring at his penis, and that made me
giggle, because something about penises always made me feel like
giggling. They’re inherently funny things, I thought, but in a
nifty way. I found them infinitely fascinating, and I was
developing a pretty special appreciation for Axel’s.

He tumbled back onto the bed with me.

I grabbed him and kissed him.

“Mmm.” He ran his hands over my waist and hips. His
voice lowered. “I missed you. That was too long without
touching.”

“I agree,” I breathed, exploring his shoulders and
chest.

He kissed me again.

And then, well…

It took a while to order breakfast.

LEIGH

“I should have come after you right away,” Griffin
was saying. He and I were sitting on one of the cot mattresses.
Silas was in the bathroom stall, working on his tunnel. “I waited
days because I thought maybe you were just angry.”

I reached out to take his hand. “No matter how angry
I am, Griffin, I wouldn’t run away from you. I thought you knew
that.”

He laced our fingers together. “It’s only that we’ve
both run away before.”

“But that was then,” I said. “We’re better now.” I
peered at him. “Aren’t we?”

He looked away. “It was a bad fight.”

That was true. We probably hadn’t fought that hard
since getting married. But I hadn’t really been driven by anger
that night before I left. “I only said those things because I was
scared.”

“I know that,” he said. “But I thought you were less
scared about this stuff now. I thought you were okay with this. Why
would you agree to try to have a baby if you didn’t want to do
it?”

I bit my lip. This was so hard to explain.

“Doll.” He touched my cheek. “We talked about this
together before we started trying. And you said you wanted to try.
I never meant to push you into something you didn’t want to do. You
said you wanted a baby too.”

“I do.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “It’s like I
said, I like the idea of a baby. And I like us having a baby to
raise together.”

“But there’s something wrong, or you wouldn’t have
blown up at me like that.”

I sighed. “I tried to explain it to you before.”

He rubbed my knee. “Can you try to explain it again,
because when we were yelling at each other, I didn’t really retain
a lot of what you said. I was too busy feeling defensive, I
guess.”

I took a deep breath. “It’s the pregnant part.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t want to get pregnant.”

He furrowed his brow. “You just said you wanted to
have a baby.”

“Right,” I said. “I like the baby part. I just don’t
like the weird-stuff-happening-to-my-body part.”

He sucked in air through his nose.

I put my finger in his face. “And don’t make any sort
of stupid quips about how I’m being shallow about my appearance,
because that is
not
what it’s about.”

He studied his hands, shaking his head. “That doesn’t
make sense, doll. You can’t want to have a baby but not want to be
pregnant. They kind of go together.”

“Well, how would you feel?” I said. “Would you want
to let something grow inside your body and rearrange your bones and
stretch everything out and turn you into some kind of alien?”

He laughed. “Leigh, pregnant women are not
aliens.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “Well, they seem that way to
me. And it scares me. It’s a big thing. I have to do all of it. You
don’t even understand.”

He leaned his head back against the wall. “I’d do it
if I could.”

I looked up at him, searching his expression. He was
serious. I believed him. He’d be totally willing to sacrifice
anything so that we could have a baby. I wiped my eyes. “Well, it’s
too bad we can’t switch.”

He chuckled. “Like that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie?
You ever see that?
Junior
?”

I made a face. “What?”

“It’s this old movie,” he said. “Arnold is
pregnant.”

“Eww,” I said.

“Actually, it was kind of a sweet movie.”

I rolled my eyes. “You would think that.”

He rubbed the top of his head. “So, that’s it, then?
You don’t want to do it because you’re scared.”

“I have every right to be scared.” I twisted my hands
together. “Griffin, it’s my body. I shouldn’t have to use it as a
baby incubator if I don’t want to.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.

“You should have told me before. You shouldn’t have
gone along with it.”

“I thought I could handle it. I thought maybe it
would be okay,” I said. “But then last month, when I was late, and
we both thought that I was pregnant, I got so scared. I couldn’t
handle it. I really wanted to, but I just couldn’t.” Damn it, I was
crying.

Griffin rubbed the top of his head again. “You know
I’d be there with you. If you were scared, I’d help you.”

“But you can’t, really,” I said. “In the end,
I
have to do it. I have to morph into something weird, and
then I have to give birth to it, and, Griffin, that part just
sounds really bad.”

He was quiet again.

I looked up at the ceiling, studying the old water
stains up there.

“I always thought we’d have kids,” Griffin finally
said. “I want kids. I want to be a father. If you don’t want that,
then…”

My gaze snapped back to him. “If I don’t want that,
then what?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Griffin,” I said. “Then
what?
”

Silas staggered out of the bathroom stall. “Anyone
want to spell me on the tunnel?”

I glared at him. “Silas, we’re not going to be able
to tunnel out of here.”

“You don’t know that,” he said. “I saw this
documentary once about this guy who tunneled his way out of
prison.”

“This isn’t prison,” I said.

Silas looked back and forth between the two of us.
“Hey, what were you guys talking about, anyway? I wasn’t paying any
attention.”

Griffin got up. “Nothing.” He held out his hand.
“Give me the spoon.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Axel was nuzzling my neck.

I shoved him off playfully. “Hey, don’t do that. I’m
trying to concentrate.” We were out near the building that
contained the secret lab. It was located down a windy road in the
middle of the woods, similar to the kind of location Op Wraith used
to have. However, Op Wraith had been located underground, hidden
and secret. This was definitely a building—above the ground and
everything.

It was squat, only one story high. It was made of
sandy-colored brick and it had a flat roof. It looked industrial
and unassuming, except for the guards. There were three entrances
that I could see. The main entrance had two guards on it. There
were two back entrances, one on either side of the building. Both
of those only had one guard each. Either of them might be a better
chance to get into the building.

However, it seemed that the back entrances required a
swipe card to get the doors open, whereas the front doors didn’t
require one.

“What are you thinking?” Axel whispered in my
ear.

“I’m trying to figure out the best way to get in,” I
said.

“Through the doors?” he asked.

I turned around and glared at him.

He ran his tongue over his teeth and looked into my
eyes with undisguised lust.

I couldn’t help it. I kissed him.

Kissing Axel was electrifying. I couldn’t think about
anything else but our bodies and the way they were connected and
how close we were. The minute our lips touched, I was overwhelmed
by the thought that this was how I was meant to be spending my
time. That nothing was more important than the two of us together.
It was heady.

He crushed me against him, and our kiss deepened. His
fingers went under my shirt, grazing my bare skin, and I felt
frenzied to have him touching me everywhere, to press our bare
bodies together, to have him back inside me, which was where he
belonged.

But we were in the woods. And I was supposed to be
concentrating. So I pushed him away, groaning.

He gazed at me with half-lidded eyes. “Can’t we just
go in there, get Leigh, and then go back to my place?”

I struggled to catch my breath. “We need a plan. If
we just rush in there, everything could go wrong.” I turned away
from him to look at the building again.

A car pulled in to the parking lot. I turned my
attention to it. “See? Let’s watch how those people get in,
okay?”

Two people got out of the car, both in white lab
coats.

And my breath caught in my throat, because I
recognized one of them.

Jolene French stood next to the car, smoothing her
hair and saying something to the other person.

Jolene French.

My heart leapt into my throat, and I let out a tiny,
strangled sound.

“What?” said Axel.

I turned to look at him, and even though fucking
French was standing over there, the sight of him only made me want
to jump him. He was distracting me. I took a deep breath. “You
remember how I told you about that psychologist from Op
Wraith?”

“The one who’s dead?” he said.

I pointed. “Well, she’s not dead. She’s right fucking
there.”

“Oh,” he said. “I guess that’s bad, huh?”

“Yes. It’s bad. It’s very…” And then I squeezed my
eyes shut. “Oh, shit. This is personal. She
hates
us. She’s
been working with Costello Labs, and she got the others captured
because she wants revenge.”

Axel ran a casual hand over my spine. “So, I guess
that’s even worse.”

My whole body shivered and contracted. I shoved him.
“Stop touching me.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Seriously,” I said. “Whenever I look at you, all I
can do is think about how much I want you, and that’s not helping
anything.”

He smiled lopsidedly. “Funny, because that’s how I
feel whenever I look at you.”

“Well, we can’t do that,” I said. “No matter how much
we’re falling for each other, I need to focus here.”

The smile fell off his face. “What did you just
say?”

“I said I need to focus.”

He shook his head. “No, before that.” He turned away.
“The other thing about how we’re…”

“Whatever this is between us, it’s really intense,” I
said. “But it’s just the worst time—”

He rounded on me, and his expression was blank. “We
should get something straight. You might be falling for me, but I’m
not doing that. I don’t… I don’t fall for people. Got it?”

I drew back. That had stung. I swallowed.
“O-okay.”

His jaw twitched. “This is just really great sex,
that’s all.”

But the way he’d been looking at me…

Of course, he wasn’t doing that now, was he?

My stomach turned over, and an ache started to grow
from deep inside me. It spread over my entire body. It was
literally a physical pain, as if I’d lost some vital part of me. I
fought tears.

Shit. This was exactly why I should never have let
myself get involved with Axel Whitman. I knew what kind of guy he
was.

“Hey,” Axel’s voice was soft. He put his hand on my
shoulder. “Look, I didn’t mean for that to come out like—”

I removed his hand and flung it at him, cutting off
his words. “I told you not to touch me, didn’t I?”

He looked down at his hands as if he wasn’t sure what
to do with them. Then he shoved them into his pockets and looked
down at the forest floor.

I turned back to the parking lot, watching French and
the other man make their way to the front door. The guards barely
blinked at them as they entered. Once inside, I couldn’t see them
anymore. Not that I could even concentrate on what they were doing.
I felt… broken.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

My body tensed. I clenched my hands into fists. “You
don’t have to pity me.”

“That isn’t what I…” His face twisted. “Look, if I
had known what it would feel like, I would never have…”

“Shut up.” I shook myself. “It’s better this way. You
were distracting me. You were ruining everything. It would probably
be better if we didn’t see each other anymore.”

He drew his eyebrows together. “No.”

“No?” I couldn’t believe that.

“I like it when you’re around. I want to be… wherever
you are.”

That hurt even worse. How could he say something like
that on the heels of telling me that all we had was sex?

“I’m only trying to be honest,” he said. “I don’t
want to lie to you.”

God, if he kept going on, I really
was
going
to cry. “Please stop talking.”

“But I never said I didn’t want to see you again.
That’s
not
what I want.”

I fought the tears and raised my chin. “Well, it’s
what
I
want.”

* * *

A great way to get into a building is to look like
you belong there. And nothing says belonging better than a uniform.
I found a costume shop in town and got myself a bland delivery
uniform. Then I picked up a few boxes to carry, and I was
ready.

I tried not to think about Axel as I went back to the
secret lab. I’d sent him back to his apartment, and I hadn’t gone
with him, even though most of my stuff was there. I was going to
have to go back for it at some point. My sniper rifle was there,
and I was going to need that back. For now, however I had my Glock,
and that was going to have to be good enough.