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I rotate in his arms and stare up at him. “There’s nothing. I already looked.”
“Because you’re worried.”
“Because you’re so worried. Can I be the scientist I am for just a minute, despite us being naked in the shower?”
He strokes my wet hair and says, “You doing your job doesn’t bother me. I suspect it’s why you’re not afraid of me.”
“Everyone in the scientific community isn’t so unafraid, but my mother was. And really, my father is, too, though neither of us can say we think that’s a good thing. But my point I wanted to make, though I won’t attest to this being a firsthand experience, there is concern among the researchers involved in Project Zodius about what that mark on the neck means. As of now, there are no X2 positive connections to that mark. You might actually be the group to fear the least.”
His hands settle on my upper arms. “You’re wrong, Addie.” And then he releases me and is stepping out of the shower.
I suck in a breath, in shock at his abrupt departure and quickly turn off the water, grabbing my towel from above, on the shower edge. Once I’ve wrapped it around me and opened the shower door, he’s gone. I’m just baffled and confused. I quickly twirl my hair beneath a second towel, wrap the robe around me, and walk into the bedroom.
He’s already in the fresh pants he brought with him when he came back with the food, and he’s tugging on a T-shirt, the ripple of muscles highlighted by the sharp edge to his tense shoulders. “What just happened?” I ask.
He rotates to face me, stares at me a moment with blue eyes, because apparently, I need to be sheltered again, and then sits down to start pulling on his boots. “You have to go to work,” he says. “I need to follow up on my mission and make sure Caleb wrapped up a few loose ends.”
There is this pinching sensation in my chest at the idea that this is over. I feel silly, too, asking him to go to Vegas with me today, and I turn away from him, entering the bathroom again, and sitting on the edge of the tub, expecting to hear the door open and shut any second. What was I thinking anyway? I’ve been dealing with losing my mom alone for almost two years. I don’t know why I would ask a man who’s basically a stranger to help me get through it.
The air shifts—it’s odd how I feel him so easily—but I know he’s approaching even before he sits down next to me. “Pretending that I am not what I am is not good for you or me.”
I rotate to face him, and even beneath the dark shadow of his jaw, I can see the flex of muscle. “And what are you?” I ask.
“Dangerous,” he says without hesitation. “The stories of me being that and more are not made up, Addie. Vicious killer, if I have to be, yes. Cold, yes. Able to do things other GTECHs cannot? Yes. What they leave out of all these stories is that all X2 are dangerous. Julian is the worst of us, and you need to stay away from him.”
“What does that mean? The worst of you?”
“Just consider him nuclear, about to blow at any time.”
“I see,” I say. “And his twin brother, Caleb?”
“One the best men I know and have ever known. If you need help and I’m not there, you go to him. But the very fact that I’d trust him to protect you is why it’s going to be bad for me and him when I kill Julian, and someday soon, I will.” He states this with an absolute to his voice that is somehow still matter of fact before he shifts the topic in a whiplash effect and asks, “Do you know why I like being with you, Addie?”
“Why?” I ask, holding my breath for the answer.
“Because you prove I have the capacity to feel things I thought I wasn’t capable of anymore.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I reply, hoping he’ll say more.
But that’s not what he gives me. “I don’t want you to know, either.” He hands me a piece of paper with a phone number on it. “That’s my number. Call me when you finish up today and I’ll pick you up. I’ll get us a room. Unless you get smart today, and decide I’m a bad choice. That would be a very good decision, because part of being X2 apparently translates to I’m selfish as fuck. I know I’m bad for you, but I can’t stay away.” He pushes off the tub without so much as touching me, and exits the bathroom.
A few seconds later, I hear the door open and shut.
