"Okay." Her bling? It was his. Her body? All he had to do was take it.
"No tests," he said softly. "Promise me, Ria, you won't let anyone take those samples Ely's going to demand."
It took her a moment to process the request, to pull her mind from the visions of his lips devouring her body.
"I had no intention of it," she finally bit out. "But why ask me? What would it matter?"
"I don't know." He shook his head, his gaze turning hard. "I don't know what's going on with her, and I don't want you involved. Promise me. No tests."
"Fine. I promise." She pulled away from him before turning back and glaring at him. "Is that what the kiss was all about? To convince me?"
His gaze moved over her slowly, his expression shifting, his eyes darkening.
"No, Ria. That kiss was because I was dying for the taste of you. And if I don't get the hell out of here, I'm going to take far more than a taste."
But he wasn't moving as quickly as she was sure he meant to. His hand reach out again, his fingers tugging at the belt of her robe. The silken belt slithered free, the edge of her robe parting enough to reveal the snug bodice of the gown.
Ria watched, uncertain, breathing roughly, feeling her ni**les peak hard and tight against the material covering them.
And he saw it. His eyes darkened to that unique color of hammered gold, and his fingers lifted, the backs of them brushing against the mounds that rose above the princess neckline of the deep purple gown.
"If I taste you here, I won't leave," he murmured, lifting his eyes to her. "I'll keep tasting. And I'll take you."
There was a problem with that?
She was trembling, each movement of her br**sts pressing her flesh more firmly against his fingers.
"Good night, Ria." His hand fell away and he backed off from her.
She stood there, like a twit. Aching, her body burning furiously for more of his touch, and she just stood there as he left, terrified to reach out to him. Hurting as she watched him leave and cursing herself for it.
He could stay, but she knew that once she allowed him in her bed, she would be lost to him forever.
She watched as he left. She didn't protest; she couldn't. It would have been so easy to ask him to stay, and so hard to lose him when this job ended. Once again, she was playing with fire, but she feared that this time she was definitely going to get burned.
CHAPTER 8
Sunday was a waste of time. Dane couldn't be found through the normal channels they used when she needed to contact him, and Ria was so seriously close to calling the Leo and informing him of his son's mad plan that she had actually found herself dialing the number before she flipped her phone closed and glared at it.
She paced the cabin. She cursed men in general and Breeds in particular and spent a restless night tossing and turning in a bed that she knew was too big for her. Even as she watched that damned window.
She knew he was out there. She could feel him watching her, and the knowledge of it was tormenting. How easy would it be to invite him in to her? To let him take her? And once she did, how easy it would be to lose him once he learned the truth of how she had tricked him as well as everyone else at Sanctuary.
It was a double-edged sword, this job Dane had sent on her on. Secrecy was imperative, simply because of the nature of what she was finding in the electronic memos and orders that had been sent out.
The technology being used was so new and undetectable that only the most sophisticated programs could find it. Programs she possessed.
Monday morning, she was more out of sorts than normal and didn't even attempt to head to Sanctuary until the second pot of coffee had been consumed.
As she walked into the file room, she found that the camera had been replaced. Her lips thinned as she shrugged her sweater from her shoulders, moved a chair beneath it and climbed onto it.
"No peeking," she said clearly, certain the eyes that watched could read her lips before she draped the sweater over the camera's all-seeing eye and got to work.
She was finding the pattern she had been looking for in the multitude of files, memos and faxes that went through Sanctuary, the Bureau of Breed Affairs and to the various offices and businesses Sanctuary dealt with. The code was subtle, and she still wasn't 100 percent certain of what she was finding, but the knowledge was like an itch at the back of her neck. It was there. She just had to identify it. She'd begun picking up on it weeks before, but breaking that code wasn't going to be easy. It was an unknown system of numbers, letters and odd glyphs that made no sense, and finding the contact points for where the code had been laid in was difficult as well.
Shaking her head, she moved to the file table, picked up several files she had laid aside for further review and moved back to her desk.
She powered up the desk computer, grimacing at that thought that she couldn't use her own laptop here. And she couldn't install the program to detect the transmissions on this one.