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“I don’t bargain.”
“Sure you do. You let me keep the shorts on.”
He issued a slow sigh. “That was the better option.”
Driving these roads brought back a lot of memories of weekend camping trips. He was pretty sure Lark’s brother had joined him and his friends on a couple of those mountain getaways.
She distracted him from the road by crossing her legs in that sexy fashion. “What’s holding you back, Clay? Why won’t you share the reason for leaving the cabin? Not that I’m sad, exactly. I mean, itwasour first love nest, but it wasn’t well stocked.”
“Hold up. Love nest?” He swung his head to look at her.
When she nodded, the light caught on a pair of gold hoop earrings she’d stuck in her cute little earlobes.
God, nowhewas insane. By the time this was all over, he wouldn’t be leading Sentry—he’d be staring out a window in a nice, snug straitjacket.
A laugh bubbled in his gut, but he refrained from releasing it. “All right, I’ll tell you. It has to do with the church bomber I met with the other night.”
It seemed like a month ago, but mere days had passed.
“How did you meet up with a guy like that in the first place?” she asked.
“It’s my job to dig these assholes out of their caves and stop them before they hurt people.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I don’t like the thought of you doing that.”
“Well, I don’t like the thought of you driving to strange houses and picking up bombs.”
They stared at each other for a long beat.
Finally, Clay redirected his attention to the road. “I met him in an online forum. One of the posts he made sparked a memory for me.”
“Okay, what was it?” Her usual bubbly tone transformed to one he hadn’t heard yet from her—it was quiet and serious.
“It was some code. I managed to break it, which was how I found the guy. And stopped him. But anybody who can crack the code can gain access to him.”
“Like the guy who wanted the bomb delivered.”
Clay nodded. “It might be totally unrelated, or it might be connected. But it seems like I’m alone in this game, so it’s up to me to do the digging.”
“So what’s the plan?”
He glanced over her smooth, sexy legs. Now that he knew how sensitive her inner thighs were when he touched them, he wanted to reach across the console and trail his fingertips upward.
But she meant the other plan. The one that included duty, not dragging his tongue through her slick, juicy, delicious folds.
He straightened in his seat and focused on that plan. “I haven’t actually formed a plan yet. I need to get to civilization and access a private hotspot so I can fly under the radar.”
“Ooh, I can help with that.”
He shot her a look. “What do you know about the dark web?”
“Honestly? Nothing. But I’ve read some articles and I even wrote a few on the topic in college.”
They drove another few minutes in silence. At last, he said, “What do you actually want out of life, Lark?”
When she cocked her head in contemplation, she wore a very serious expression that twisted up all he knew about her thus far. She may be funny and unpredictable—that screamo song from this morning was proof enough of that—but she had another hidden layer he was just now peeling back to expose.
Something about that made him believe she was showing him an incredibly private side of herself, more vulnerable than even when she spoke of—or didn’t speak of—that awful group home experience.
