My heartrate normalizes, and as it does, the frenetic energy buzzing between us calms, replaced by a sense of tranquility. Our kisses slow.

Scratch. Scratch.

The sound comes from the direction of the closed door.

“Trace. Buddy. I’ll be right there,” she calls to her dog as if he’s fluent in English.

Her head falls back against my shoulder. I loop a long strand of hair around a finger. A desire to pull a blanket over us and snuggle overwhelms me, so much so, I push off the bed. Soft kisses and post-coital cuddling aren’t things I do.

There’s an abducted girl we need to find. Now that we have that out of the way, we can focus.

CHAPTER 16

121 Hours Missing

Alex

In front of the mirror, I critique my body. My hip bones jut out too harshly, but I do like my smooth belly and the elongated shape of my belly button. The sheer fabric lifts my small breasts, breasts that have always felt inadequate. My nipples are raw from the sucking and tongue-lashing Ryan administered. He didn’t seem to have any issues with their size.

The dim light conceals the stretch marks that cross my inner thighs. Those stretch marks appeared at age eleven after a continuous growth spurt of close to ten inches. My mum died two years before, and Dad hadn’t been great about stocking clothes before my spurt. But that year, all my pants were high waters and skirts inappropriately short, until he gave up and bought several sizes too large. Belts kept the gathered fabric up on my narrow hips.

Dad would never in a million years approve of what I just did. He’s no saint, but as a matter of principal, he doesn’t date colleagues. But shagging’s not quite the same thing as dating. Definitely not the same thing as a relationship. It’s a physical act. A release. It’s not a big deal. We have chemistry, and we acted on it. There’s no reason for anyone to ever know what happened between us. I can only hope this doesn’t sabotage future career opportunities with Arrow.

Heavy footsteps outside the door let me know he’s done with the bathroom and he went to the kitchen. He leaped up and gathered his clothes and headed down the hall to the half bath. A considerate move, leaving me with my bedroom bathroom, but it also left me feeling dirty.

Conceptually, I fully support a woman’s right to enjoy sex when the opportunity arises. But perhaps I’m not built for casual sex. Likely, that is the case. At university, sure, casual sex happened. Only most of the time mine happened with friends who grew to be more. Sometime in the future, when I have time, I’ll do a more thorough self-examination to better understand what exactly about this situation is leaving me so unsettled.

With one last glance at my toothpick legs, I throw on my clothes and pull up my rumpled sex hair into a band. Having sex with a man I work with isn’t an intelligent course of action. But Ryan is a professional. And he already agreed that anything that happened between us will be kept under wraps. If we’re discrete, theoretically, there will be no downside to an occasional romp. And it was indeed great. A memory of his reflection thrusting into me from behind while working my clit has me squeezing my thighs together.