“Come with me.” Warrick strode past her, catching her hand in the process and pulling her after him.
Sienna tried not to focus on the fact that his touch sent tingles of awareness up her arm and struggled to keep pace with him.
They were heading down the same road she’d tried to escape on last night. Her lips twitched, but she wasn’t really amused.
Before Warrick had taken her phone away, she’d been trying to put her ridiculously overpriced smartphone to use and locate where the hell she was on the GPS. But the signal had been too weak, and before anything had come through Warrick had shown up. She really shouldn’t have been so naïve as to think he wouldn’t notice her trying to slip out.
Now she was missing a phone and still had very little idea where they actually were. She glanced around again at their surroundings. Somewhere in central Oregon, that much she could surmise.
Warrick veered off the road and led them into a cluster of trees before stopping beneath a pine.
“How long have you been working for Feloray Laboratories, Sienna?”
And let the questioning begin.
Biting back a sigh, she tugged her hand away and moved to lean back against the trunk of the tree. Warrick touching her, even as innocently as holding her hand, was far too distracting. And she wanted to confess. Right now, more than anything, she wanted someone she could trust. But as much as she ached to, she couldn’t tell him everything. It was too risky.
“Two years. I want to get some experience in the field before I go back to get my master’s degree.”
Warrick paced between the trees, reaching up to grab a branch.
“And what exactly do you do there?”
Sienna inhaled the refreshingly clean air, let it fill her lungs and calm her as she tried to keep her mind sharp.
“Well I went to school to be a biochemist, but right now, there are not a lot of jobs out there, so I’m a grunt. With a promise to be promoted to lab technician soon. Or there was the promise.” Her mouth tightened. “As a grunt I do what they tell me to do. A lot of data entry. A lot of cleaning up of someone else’s mess.”
“And what about the shifters?” He snapped the small, thin branch from the tree and twirled it between his fingers. “Were they just another mess for you to clean up, Sienna?”
Her lips parted and a noise of indignation slipped out. Why was he always so quick to assume the worst? There’d been a time when she could do no wrong in Warrick’s eyes. So much had changed since that time though…he’d changed.
“No. I told you that I wasn’t even aware the shifters existed until yesterday.” Though she couldn’t tell him everything, at least that much was the truth.
“Ah, Sienna. I’m just not quite sure I believe you, kid.” Warrick sighed and glanced away. “You’re hiding something.”
Of course she was, and they both knew it. But he should also be smart enough to realize she wasn’t going to bend on this.
She stared at his profile, the strong line of his jaw and the curl of his mouth expressing his displeasure. The sun shone behind him, silhouetting Warrick’s muscled, beautiful body like he was Adonis.
She’d always done that. Cast Warrick in some deity-like glow that set him above all other men. Made him seem beyond extraordinary.
Her stomach fluttered with awareness. And a heat that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on them slid through her blood.
The silence between them stretched on, seeming louder than the birds chirping happily around them.
For one insane moment, she was tempted to tell him everything. To go grab the jump drive from the bathroom, and unload the emotional burden of keeping this secret.
But again Leo’s warning gave her pause. He hadn’t thrown that in there just for the hell of it, he’d completely believed there to be some kind of threat from a supposed ally to the shifters. And for creatures that shouldn’t have even existed, the P.I.A. was probably their biggest—if not only—ally.
“You trust me, Sienna. I know you do.”
“Look, Warrick, I’ve told you everything I know,” she said softly and sank her teeth into her bottom lip to avoid saying anything else.
He turned on his heel and was next to her before she could blink. His arms slammed against the tree on either side of her.
“Dammit, this isn’t one of your little games, Sienna. There’s a lot at risk here.” His gaze slid over her face and his voice gentled. “So much you can’t even begin to understand.”
With his body pressed just inches from hers, Sienna stilled. Hot awareness slid through her as she stared at the tic in his clenched jaw. Warrick had always had that unrestrained air about him, but the black stubble peppering his jaw made him seem even more dangerous and fierce.