Page 208 of The ARC Unit: Breach

He looked at it too.

Neither of us said anything.

Wolf opened the tall cabinet against the wall, reached onto one of the shelves and pulled out a dark training sweatshirt and a pair of black sweatpants. He set both beside the remains of my clothes with such complete seriousness that the contrast nearly made me laugh.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

His attention returned to me through the mask.

“Get dressed.”

I glanced toward the sad collection of fabric on the desk.

“Should I try these first?”

“Mercer.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. Wolf pointed toward the sweatshirt.

“Get dressed. I’ll get you water.”

He left before I could push my luck any further.

For several seconds I sat there staring at the closed door, still warm everywhere he had touched me, wearing absolutely nothing while the evidence of my terrible decision-making skills sat in shredded pieces beside my hip.

I had just had the best sex of my life with a man whose real name I did not know. I didn’t know what his full face looked like either.

That should probably have been alarming.

Instead, I was already wondering how far I could push him next time. I wanted to know what else he had been warning me about in that car. I wanted to find the line he kept drawing between us and see how far he would let me move it.

Worse, some part of me already knew tonight would not satisfy my curiosity about him. It had probably ruined whatever chance I had of leaving it alone.

I slid off the desk and stepped into the sweatpants. They were obviously his, or at least issued for someone built more like him than me, and I had to tighten the drawstring until the waistband stopped threatening to fall off my hips. The sweatshirt swallowed my hands and hung low over my thighs.

This was going to complicate everything.

I had come to ARC expecting a job. A difficult one, sure, with classified files, international trafficking routes, armed men and a boss who had looked at me on my first day like Vale had dropped a live grenade into his unit and called it personnel support.

I had never expected to get this close to any of them. It felt like I had been here forever and no time at all.

I could still remember that first breakfast, Bear feeding everyone while Jackal talked enough for three people, Raven drinking his coffee through the chaos, Hawk and Viper contributing exactly as much as they felt like contributing.

We had joked about families that morning. Brothers and sisters. The harmless kind of conversation you had when nobody at the table knew which answers could become dangerous later.

My hands slowed on the sweatshirt hem.

Family.

My mother in Connecticut. My stepdad Marko. The house I could still picture down to the placement of the furniture if I closed my eyes.

Then Nick.

I stopped moving.

Something cold worked its way beneath everything Wolf had left warm.

Nick at NYU.