Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
“Thought we already went over this before.” He cleaned me with unhurried strokes while I leaned back against the pillows. “I like doing it for you.”
He went into the bathroom to toss the cloth into the sink, climbed back in bed, and pulled me across his chest. His hand stroked up and down my spine, and his body was completely relaxed beneath mine. Finally.
As I traced the edge of the tattoo on his arm, my thoughts returned to the company and everything waiting for me once the threat was completely over.
“When this is all over, I want to rebuild the safety procedures. Take the inventory system and make two-person approval stick this time. I want people to feel safe coming back to work. I’m not letting Len’s possible betrayal run me out of something I spent my whole life learning.”
He brushed a kiss against my temple. “What do you need from the club?”
“The warehouse and test range need stronger physical security.”
“Done.” He didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll keep people from getting around the systems you build.”
“I’m sure you will.” He’d already proven I could trust him with anything.
His hand settled on my hip. “You want to live here?”
I lifted my head. “I do live here.”
“Not what I asked.”
It took longer than it should have for his wording to register. “You mean us, together?”
“Here. Somewhere else.” He shrugged. “You pick the address.”
I grinned at him. “That was unexpectedly reasonable.”
“Don’t care where we are as long as I’m with you.”
He pulled the covers over us and tucked me into his side. I was wrung out in the best way. His arm locked around my waist, and I fell asleep wrapped up in him.
20
GHOST
The sun had barely cleared the eastern ridge when I walked Tamsin into Stryker’s office. I had gotten enough sleep to function after the raid and considerably less than I wanted with Tamsin naked in her bed, her thigh hooked over mine, and the scent of sex still caught in the sheets. Getting dressed instead of rolling her beneath me again had required more discipline than anything waiting on Stryker’s desk.
Recovered job lists, inventory notes, printed messages, and surveillance photographs covered most of the dark wood. Stryker stood behind the desk with Hawkeye at one side, while Cipher had taken over the smaller table near the wall with a laptop and two portable screens. Tamsin paused long enough to absorb the amount of paper, then moved into the room with her shoulders squared and the same quiet concentration she carried onto a firing line.
“We separated everything tied to Bellamy,” Stryker told her, tapping the nearest stack. “Tell us what’s important.”
Tamsin nodded and sat in the chair beside mine. I stayed close enough that my knee rested against hers while she worked, partly because I wanted her within reach and partly because every casual point of contact reminded me how thoroughly she had used that soft body to welcome me home a few hours earlier. She had ridden me until her curls stuck to her flushed cheeks and my name broke apart in her throat, and my cock reacted to the memory with enough force that I shifted carefully to hide my reaction before one of my brothers noticed and called me out for it.
Most of the first entries confirmed shortages we had already found. Tamsin matched job numbers to recovered case markings, checked dates against the audit list, and explained the occasional abbreviation.
“This one matches the modules we recovered,” she observed, sliding a page toward Cipher. “And these amounts line up with the igniters missing from three separate jobs. They spread the entries out so no single show carried enough loss to trigger a full review.”
Cipher entered the numbers without looking away from his screen. “Same contact sent the storage crew all three schedules.”
“Can you tell who opened them inside the company?” Tamsin asked, leaning toward his monitor.
“Shared account,” Cipher replied with a disgusted curl of his lip. “Bellamy security was built on optimism and bad fucking habits.”
Tamsin sighed as she returned to the list. “That’s becoming painfully clear.”
I let them work while I watched her face. Every few minutes, her brows drew together over a date or quantity, then smoothed once she found the matching record. When one entry stopped her completely, the change was small enough that only I caught it.
Her fingertip stayed planted beside the job number. She read the line once, then again, and reached for the tablet holding the company’s digital reports with a quickness that knocked one photograph sideways. I covered her wrist before she could send anything else to the floor.
“What is it?” I asked.
“This was one of the first displays I supervised by myself.” Tamsin pulled the tablet closer and entered the job number, her lips parting slightly as the report loaded. “I remember it because I checked everything three times and still barely slept the night before.”