He’d done far more than dust off his give-a-shit.#p#分页标题#e#
He’d polished it to a flawless shine the way he’d polished his combat boots and weapons so long ago.
Dumbass.
Nicole pivoted suddenly and made a beeline to his desk. She grabbed a pen and a pad of paper and started sketching a series of lines.
“What are you doing?” She didn’t reply, just kept scratching furiously on the pad, her messy mop of hair hiding her face.
Without thinking, he reached out and brushed a silky strand back behind her ear. The tips of his finger skimmed her cheekbone, her soft skin. She turned, and God, when her eyes met his, it was as if there was nothing between them. Nothing holding him back from tugging her hard against him and doing what he’d wanted to do to her in the cave.
His heart thundered behind his ribs, pounding
painfully hard and fast. His intense response to her shocked him. She was the enemy. This was so wrong.
The argument was weak, and he knew it. Nicole might not be a friend, or even a neutral party, but she wasn’t the enemy.
He drifted closer. Tension bloomed in the span of space between them, heavy and hot, like a summer storm brewing on the horizon. She swallowed, and instinctively, his gaze flicked to her throat.
Nicole flinched, and in less time than it took to squeeze off a rifle round, the tension snapped. So awkwardly that Riker felt sorry for her, Nicole inched away and returned to her sketches with a shaky hand. More desires bubbled up inside him, feelings he hadn’t felt since Terese was alive.
His parents had always believed he’d grow up to be a doctor or some kind of teacher, so his enlistment in the Army had been a stunner for them. Delta had literally beaten most of the compassion out of him, and then decades of fighting humans as a vampire had sucked out the rest.
Until Terese.
With her, a harsh word or a raised voice would make her withdraw at best. At worst, she’d turn into a sobbing, trembling ball on the floor. The qualities his parents had admired in him had slowly surfaced again, only to be crushed and buried even deeper than before when Terese died.
Now, it seemed, they were creeping back into his life like a team of poachers. How long would it be before his rogue emotions took him down for good?
Nicole’s scribbles started to form a pattern. A building with landscaping around the property, fences, gates . . . He tapped the paper. “That’s one of your labs.”
She nodded. “A few years ago, my uncle showed me the basic plans for all of the offices, processing plants, and research facilities so he could explain how the security worked. Daedalus designed all the labs to be nearly identical so employees, equipment, and security could be easily interchangeable.” She labeled a room with the word MEDICAL, another with STAFF, and another with UNKNOWN. “Chuck told me Neriya was being held at what he called the B-lab. There’s no reason to think that its design is different from any other Daedalus lab. I’m sure I can get in through the main entrance if word hasn’t gotten out about my dismissal from the company.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about saving Neriya.” She looked at him like he was a complete idiot. “Isn’t that the point of all of this? If I can get inside, I might be able to bluff my way out with her.”
Whoa. Was she really contemplating breaking into her own lab, or was this a trick to escape? “Let’s slow down for a minute and think.”
“Think?” She shook her head. “I’ve thought about it. We need to do this now, before my firing and kidnapping become common knowledge.”
His gut told him her offer was genuine, but there were other considerations. “We can’t do anything for a couple of days. The full moon is tomorrow. Starting today, no one is allowed to leave unless it’s to patrol for enemies.”
As if she didn’t hear a word, Nicole went back to sketching with an almost obsessive intensity, her non— stop chatter heightening the insanity. “I’ll go at night, when most of the staff is gone. The lower-level security people will be even less likely to know about my situation.” The paper filled up with lines and barely
legible words. “Neriya will probably be in the room over here—”
He grabbed her hand to still the craziness. “Will you stop?”
“What? No.” She peeled his hand away and hunched over her sketch again. “We can do this. We can get in—”
“Dammit, Nicole, stop.” He palmed her shoulders and dragged her around to face him. “We need to look at this from all angles.”
“We don’t have time. I don’t have time. This is my fault. I have to fix it before more vampires die.”