I didn’t feel like getting up at all, but I was pressing on his arm, and I couldn’t imagine that was overly comfortable. Yawning, I sat up. My phone vibrated and it took me a moment to locate where the sound was coming from. I shifted to the edge of the bed and peeked down. My pants were still on the floor, so I reached into one of the pockets and pulled out the damn vibrating thing.

“It’s Meg,” I said after I checked the text. “She says Petra managed to test Quick Pop on someone, and she thinks it’s not a good idea to sell it, at least not until it’s been improved.” I got to my feet, and the blanket fell off my body. I realized that I’d lost the towel somewhere in the bed too. When I glanced over my shoulder, James was watching me with a hungry gaze.

“You don’t have to go,” he said.

“I do.” I placed the phone on my nightstand and bent down to grab my pants so they wouldn’t be on the floor. A sharp intake of breath from behind me made me straighten my back and turn toward James. “I have work to do. It’s late already.”

“Just a few minutes,” he said. “I can make it worthwhile for you.”

“I know, but if I stayed, we’d lose a lot more than a few minutes.” I headed for the closet to find myself some new clothes. James stretched out his arms, his strong abs flexing. Yeah, I was already regretting my decision to leave this room. He watched me as I put on my clothes, and it took all of my willpower to look away from his dark, intoxicating gaze and walk out of there.

It turned out there wasn’t much for me to do, so I went to the training room to blow off some steam. Just as I was going to grab myself something to eat—which I’d completely forgotten to do since my mind kept going back to last night with James—I realized the door to the room that James usually used to contact his family was closed. He was probably in there talking to them right now. I hurried to the tech room, because I wanted to hear what he’d tell them.

“Hey, I didn’t expect to see you again so...” Meg didn’t have a chance to finish, because I took a seat in the empty chair next to her. There was a small window on her screen with James and his family.

“I want to see that,” I said.

“Um, okay.” She clicked on the window and it covered the screen. James’ face was on the top part of the window, and his family right underneath. It looked like I was late because they were just about to say goodbye.