Page 54 of Radar

“I’d enjoy getting to know you better, too,” she said. “I only travel for random conferences and for vacations. Otherwise, I’m at the lab.”

Xander reached his arm over her, rolling to grab his phone from the side table. “What do you do in the lab?”

“I do engineering.”

“Yeah?” He opened his contacts, tapped the plus sign, and handed his phone to her. “A geek-girl, huh? What kind?”

“I’m a food systems engineer.” She paused as she entered her information, saved it, then placed his phone back on the nightstand. “I design interior farming solutions.”

Xander’s heart pounded against his sternum. A sheen of perspiration salted his skin. He modulated his voice to sound sleepy but interested as she tucked back against him. “How did you, Eddie, and Paca end up out here in Lumberjack?”

“My great uncle invited us,” she said, pulling her knee up so her leg sprawled across his hips.

And while his dick danced to attention, the only thought in Xander’s mind was,shit.Finally, he managed, “Is he here with you, your great uncle?”

“Yes, well, for the moment. He’s leaving before I do in the morning. We came because Uncle Orest has a sled team, a hobby that he’s passionate about. He comes every year to see his team start the Iditarod.”

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“The Iditarod is next week. He’s leaving?” Xander asked.

“Family crisis, unfortunately.”

“I’m sorry. I hope things resolve. And your Uncle knows Eddie and Paca?”

She pushed herself up, straightening her legs, and rolled away from him.

“Where are you going?” Xander’s arms wanted to pull her against him and protect her from … from her family.Shit.

“I’m coming back to bed with you.” She kissed his shoulder before she squirmed out from under the covers. “I need the bathroom.”

Xander took the opportunity to pull off his spent condom, knot it, and toss it into the trash, then he reached the end of the bed for his boxer briefs and tugged them on as some kind of shield between them when she came back.

Reaching for her phone, he found her driver’s license in the back sleeve. There it was,Elyssa Kalinsky Landers. He snapped a picture.

Kalinsky.

He’d slept with the enemy. He was always going to have to call it in and report his sexual activity. But this was not going to go over well.

Xander listened to Elyssa’s progress in the bathroom. As she washed her hands, he swiped his encryption app open. Sooner was better than later, he thought as he texted Hiro.

Xander:I had a sexual encounter. Forwarding a picture of her driver’s license. Dig up what you can. I’ll call in as soon as I’m able.

Without calculating the time zone or worrying if Hiro was sleeping, Xander pressed send, waited for delivery, then erased the message from his phone.

When Elyssa emerged from the bathroom, she picked up the shirt he’d been wearing earlier and tugged it over her head.

Something about seeing her dressed in his clothes made him feel–well, it was a new sensation, animal in nature. It was as if he wanted to stand in front of her and claim her as “mine.”

When he turned the sensation into mental words, he remembered a conversation with his female friends. They said they loved to hear the growl of “mine” when they wanted it in a relationship. It made them feel safe and cared for. But they found it abhorrent to them when it came with the feeling of being owned and manipulated.

Those kinds of conversations had fallen not exactly on deaf ears but certainly on unfertile soil. There was no way for Xander to understand the nuance that his women-friends explained to him because Xander had never in his life felt the word “mine” or anything even close.

Now, it was a boulder of a thought, massive and heavy.

This sensation was unimaginable to him yesterday morning.

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