They cleaned up together as they always did and headed out to the lab. Pilar began to feel uneasy as soon as they left the condo and her instincts kept screaming, even once they entered the facility.
She was on high alert, looking through the crowds, checking every shadow, both up high and down low. Maverick noticed her anxiety but didn’t comment on it.
As they passed through a crowd on the main floor, Pilar suddenly realized a tall man with blonde hair was moving purposefully behind them. She noticed him because he had been in the hall that led to the main floor when they were there, taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
That’s a good way to throw me off.
As they reached the next corridor, Pilar grabbed Maverick and threw him into a nearby doorway.
“Whoa, baby,” Maverick muttered. “A little rough.”
“Shh!” she hissed, looking behind them. The blonde man approached, moving quickly. She became tenser as he came close, ready to shift and spring the second he made his move.
Then he swept past, looking down at his watch. She peeked around the corner and saw him head into a nearby lab.
“Everything okay?” Maverick asked. She nodded.
“I was a bit worried that he was following us. He wasn’t, though.”
“Paranoid?” Maverick joked. Pilar barely restrained herself from stroking his hair and kissing him right there in the foyer.
“I have a right to be. I need to keep you safe.”
When they reached the lab, Pilar vowed to keep herself on task. The sex last night had shaken her, changed her focus. Even as she prowled the edges of the office space and the experiment rooms, she found her gaze dragged back to Maverick. Every time this happened, he was already looking at her when she turned his way.
They would both giggle like high school teenagers, blush, and look away. It wasn’t awkward in the slightest, and it wasn’t something they felt they had to hide. There was just a genuine pleasure in knowing they were drawn to each other in the same way.
Pilar swung by his workspace far too often. She’d lean over with her hands on the bench, pressing her breasts together with her arms as she bent forward so he could see right down her top. Maverick would pretend not to see it, then drop everything all at once to stare at her open top with comically wide-open eyes.
Pilar knew she was being distracted and that this was dangerous. She kept walking away from Maverick, determined to look around for potential danger and not get lost in his beautiful eyes again, but those eyes were nets that had caught her very soul.
She had fallen, and she knew it.
Mid-afternoon, a woman came in from the elevator carrying a large tray filled with coffee cups. The staff in the lab, including Maverick, looked up with grateful expressions. Almost as one, they headed toward the front lounge area where the woman left the tray.
“Enjoy!” she said enthusiastically as she went back into the elevator.
“Oh, wow,” one of the ladies exclaimed. “This is a personalized order! Look, Jason, they remembered your hazelnut syrup.”
An older guy leaned in to take a cup.
“It’s true. Our runners often forget,” he said, taking a long, deep drink.
Pilar hurried to the table, watching everyone take their coffee. The scene looked happy, even peaceful, but something wasn’t right. She watched Maverick take a small sip.
“Perfect,” he muttered. “Exactly the way I like it.”
“Did we send a runner?” one of the guys asked. Everyone looked around, shaking their heads.
“It must have been psychic,” one of the doctors said, tapping her head. “I was dying for a coffee.”
Dying … coffee.
“It is weird, though,” one of the older women said, swirling her cup. “I’ve never seen that girl before. Is she new?”
“She must be,” said one of the younger guys. “I’ve never seen her either, and I’ve been working solidly the last few weeks. I would have noticed her. I’ve been on crazy long shifts.”
“What else is new,” the older lady replied. “It doesn’t take a psychic to know that we all desperately needed coffee.”