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He stares at me, his eyes shifting from blue to black and he says, “I like that you’re not afraid, which is why I’m going to leave before you are.” With that, he pushes off my chair and walks to the door.
Without hesitation, I run after him, but by the time I’m at the door, he’s gone, but I swear I can still smell the masculine perfection of him in the wind.
Chapter Seven
I spend the entire night reading about GTECH, with Creed heavily on my mind, and the scent of him lingers in the air, almost a part of me, as if it’s on my skin. It’s silly, really. He barely touched me. I counted six hamburger wrappers and I dig through the file trying to figure out how many calories he has to eat to simply survive but come up dry. There have to be files on a database I’ve not been given access to, and I text my father with that request.
Surely, there are not only paper files for Project Zodius. What do I have to do to get that clearance?
It’s midnight, he replies. You know that, right?
I didn’t think soldiers, especially generals, ever slept. I need clearance.
You’ll have it first thing in the morning. Now go to sleep, daughter, before I fire you.
Ha. I think about that. You can’t fire me. You spent too many years trying to get me here. Now you have to live with me and my demands.
Go to bed, he replies.
I will because it’s late and I’m up early, but I wonder why I wasn’t given that access in the first place? I was literally told the files are only paper.
Security protocol you passed today, he replies.
It seems too easy, and I wonder if it’s really more than I already have, which is just basic information on the soldiers in the program.
But as I lay down in bed, I know it will be more, and I know damn well that security protocol was him. He decides who sees everything and he hadn’t given me clearance.
I also want to know why Creed is different from the others, and what he knows about him, but I can’t risk singling Creed out with my father. I have to hope the new security clearance tells me what I want to know.
***
I wake the next morning early, brew coffee, and down half a pot as I’m getting ready. I’m not exactly used to this early of a morning. In Houston, I got to work at eight am, not six, and there’s a time zone change in the mix to top it off.
I’m about to walk out the door when I realize my car still has a flat tire. Groom Lake isn’t exactly the place to call an Uber either. I text Katie: I have a flat tire. Can you pick me up?
Sure thing. Give me ten.
I fill another coffee cup and decide to head out to the front porch to wait on my ride. I open the door and to my surprise, there’s an envelope at my feet. I set my cup on the table just inside the door and bend down to pick it up.
I quickly open the envelope, and my hand is trembling for no real reason. Inside is a small piece of paper, that reads: I leave this morning on a mission, but I replaced your tire for you. I didn’t have your key or I would have brought it to you.
Creed
I’m blown away by his actions and I’m eager to tell him as much, but he’s gone for what could be months. That’s when I realize I never got Creed’s phone number and he never got mine. I can’t thank him. And I have no idea when I will see him or talk to him again.
Chapter Eight
Katie pulls us into the parking lot right next to my car, which means I have to explain my tire that’s no longer flat. We exit her vehicle, and it’s already suffocatingly hot outside. I’m fanning myself when she starts her walk around my car. “Someone fixed it.” To my surprise, she’s not surprised at all. “There are perks to being around men trained to follow orders and be gentlemen.” She laughs. “Especially since they aren’t usually gentlemen in bed.”
My eyes go wide. “You did not just say that.”
“I did,” she assures me, motioning me toward the elevator. “We have to have something else to get ourselves hot other than the weather, though I keep my hands off the GTECHs. We’re studying them, so that feels wrong, and they are just so unknown.”
Guilt slices through me over Creed, but there is no doubt in my mind that if that man showed up at my door this very night, I’d welcome him inside. I’m at worst infatuated with him and at best, intrigued. I don’t consider myself a person with a lot of weaknesses as far as what I would call addictions, but I could easily see him proving me wrong. Is that because of the serum, because of some pheromone he now possesses? And even if it is, is it because he and I would have connected no matter what? These are questions that form actual lab hypotheses in my mind I must explore.
