Page 38 of Savage Beauty

“I could not agree with you more.”

“You’re not going to answer me?”

“How about we table that discussion?”

“Until when?”

“Until I’ve finished my coffee.”

He’s been drinking forever.

“You know, I have to ask. How do guys usually handle it when you ask them direct questions about sex?”

I rarely have non-work-related conversations with men. But when I first talked about sex with William, my old boss, we ended up having sex in the lab. “I guess we usually have sex. Unless they’re married. I would never do anything with a married man. Or someone who had a girlfriend. Unless they’re in an open relationship. Current estimates are that approximately one in five Americans have been in an open relationship at some point in their lives and approximately one percent of marriages are open relationships. Canadian research puts that figure at four percent. But almost ninety-two percent of open relationship marriages end in divorce, if you trust survey data. Even if the margin of error is ten percent, or even twenty percent, that estimated divorce rate would give one pause before pursuing an open relationship, right?”

He’s silent. Rambling is a habit I should curb. My siblings never cared, but other people do.

“Sloane Watson. I think you may be my favorite person in the world.”

CHAPTER13

Max

It’s Day Two of parking lot surveillance. Day Two of me sitting in a banged-up car sporting a nonsensical semi. She’s not my type. I like them curvy and blonde. Admittedly, it’s not her fault she’s skin and bones. It’s not like she starved herself on purpose. Although she should eat more. I’ll have to get involved soon.

But the question is…why am I finding myself attracted to her? Why am I hyperaware of her physical presence? Why do I find her left-field statements to be so damn entertaining? I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

The biggest question is she’s offered, but I’ve done nothing to engage. Normal Max would’ve taken her back to the villa and fucked her brains out. Hell, Normal Max would’ve moved that seat back away from the wheel, pulled out my dick, and said, “Have at it, baby.”

She’s not innocent. Clearly.

Yet she’s different.

Her perspective on life is refreshing. She doesn’t have a selfish bone in her body. There’s no grand plan with her. Hell, she’s not even focused on marriage and kids. It’s just what you see is what you get, and maybe because of that, I feel I can really trust her. It’s been a long damn time since I felt I could trust a woman. And maybe I want her to be able to trust me, too.

Maybe that’s why I can’t just bang it out with her. Because I like her too damn much. And I want to earn her trust.

Here I sit, my thoughts running wild as I stare at a parking lot in front of a non-descript one-story office building, listening to the subtle sound of her breathing and the tapping of her foot. Observing the pale skin of her exposed thighs and the sun’s glint on the fine light hairs leading up to the short runner’s skirt she’s wearing today.

It’s not like I want a relationship. And even if I did—which I don’t—it’s not something that’s on the table. After we get this situation figured out, who knows where she’ll end up? Her dreams aren’t the dreams you stop because to do so would be monumentally selfish. It’s best for humankind if she succeeds.

And what the hell? Why is my train of thought circling the future? That’s not me.

I gave Knox hell for adopting a freaking dog after we left the Navy. What is up with my head? Next thing you know, I’ll be following in my mom’s footsteps with three cats shitting in a litterbox.

Yesterday, we played the back-and-forth question game for hours. Thankfully, sex never came up again. Unfortunately, her boss didn’t show up either. Which, I will grant her, is thought-provoking.

Now she’s really nervous something’s happened to her boss too. And I’m coming around to her way of thinking. The tech guys have searched, and she hasn’t left the island. Or at least if she did, she didn’t go through customs.

Of course, Sloane being Sloane, has no idea where her boss lives, so we can’t swing by and check out her residence. The tech guys are working on getting us a home address. The first place they checked was the employee files for Origins Labs since they hacked into that server a few weeks ago. There’s no address other than her address in Switzerland. I could tell that Erik thought it was odd. I have faith in our guys, though. We’ll have some intel soon.

Jack isn’t thrilled with us doing old school surveillance. He’s ordered some high-tech camera options to be installed near all entrances and exits to the Origins Labs. Once we get Sloane inside the labs so she can get on their server, which our guys still haven’t been able to breach, she and I can head on our way. Arrow will monitor the cameras remotely. All we really want is an idea of who is coming and going from the building.

“So, tell me something,” she says.

This morning, we got here at 7:45. Still, we’ve been sitting here for almost an hour, and we’ve seen three employees enter.

“I really don’t remember much from my elementary school days,” I quip, being a smartass. The coffee has yet to sink in, I’m sexually frustrated, and I didn’t get my morning workout in two days running. My muscles and joints ache because I need my workouts to ease the old age pains and I’m off fucking schedule.

---