Still, I do wish he’d bought me a few dinners before I showed him my sacrum like this.
What are you saying? He can’t get you dinners. Boss squared, remember?
“In light of this, your plan should work,” Ava says to the Impaler.
I glare at her. “What plan?”
“The app.” He waves the phone. “I can guide the—”
My glare moves to him. “You’re not doing anything. If anyone’s using that app, it’s me.”
Face unreadable, he hands me the phone. Our fingers brush again, and I feel a jolt of sensation that goes straight down to my core, reminding me of the orgasms I experienced just a short while ago.
Ava clears her throat. “Let’s take you to your room.”
I grumble as they lead me there, but nobody listens to me. When we arrive, Ava tells me to go in first so I can put on a robe.
I lock eyes with the Impaler. “You’re staying out here—and that’s final.”
He inclines his head. “As you wish.”
With an eye roll, I go inside and change.
Ava comes in a few seconds later and gestures for me to lie down on the bed.
When I’m horizontal, she hands me a bedpan. “Good call asking him to wait outside,” she says, grinning hugely.
Muttering unintelligible curses, I put the bedpan under my rear end.
With a wink, Ava nods at the nearby defibrillator. “You think you’re going to make it?”
Ignoring her, I click the out button on the app and hold my breath.
The squirrel comes to life once more and slowly, almost anticlimactically, begins to back out of its hiding spot.
It doesn’t hurt at all, and if it weren’t for the indignity of it all, I might even find the associated sensations a little interesting.
There’s a moment of discomfort as the squirrel clears my opening, followed by a loud clang as the darn thing lands in the bedpan.
Giggling, Ava puts on a pair of latex gloves, snatches the bedpan, and dumps its contents into a biohazard bag.
“Seriously?” I ask.
She ceremoniously extends the bag to me. “When we remove bullets, we let people keep those too.”
I jump off the bed and take a few steps.
“Feeling spry?” she asks.
I grab the bag, toss it into a garbage disposal labeled “Biohazard,” and begin to change in sullen silence.
Ava refuses to leave it alone. “Do you want me to at least email you the X-ray? Or send it to him perhaps?”
I round on her. “Do that, and I’ll smother you in your sleep.”
Her eyes gleam with mischief. “So you like him a lot.”
“Hush!” I hiss, cutting my eyes toward the door. “What if he’s eavesdropping?”
She dramatically fans herself. “What a scandal.”
I finish dressing and come toward her. Leaning in, I whisper, “Did he say anything about me when I was getting that X-ray?”
“Depends what you mean. He basically outlined the app solution and asked if that’s safer than what a doctor would’ve done. No declarations of undying love, though.”
“Well, good,” I say, hiding my disappointment. “Let’s go.”
I stride out of the room, Ava on my heels.
The Impaler’s deep blue eyes zero in on my face. “Did it work?”
The redness that had managed to leave my cheeks during the squirrel removal procedure returns with a vengeance. “All good. The hardware is toast, though. I hope the Belka people can provide another.”
“Don’t worry about any of that.” He adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses—a theoretically unsexy gesture that his fingers somehow turn erotic. “How do you feel?”
“Like getting Exit Only tattooed on my left butt cheek,” I blurt, then redden painfully.
His expression is unreadable, his demeanor as aloof as ever. Ava, however, looks positively gleeful. “Make that a tramp stamp.”
I glare at her.
“Actually, that might not work as intended,” the Impaler says, his tone utterly serious. “Some may take it as a challenge.”
Oh. My. God. Does he realize what he just said?
Ava makes a choking sound as I hustle to the elevator, determined to hide my flaming face.
We ride down in silence, and as I stare at the Impaler’s implacable face, a new worry invades my mind.
What happens now that the squirrel is out of me, and the emergency is over?
Am I about to lose my job?
Chapter Eight
I try to parse that indecipherable expression of his.
Is he angry about what happened? Is that why he told me not to worry about any of it? Are my days of testing toys—or anything—over?
It’s possible. I doubt any other employee has interrupted his day like this, and made him drive them to the hospital.
Then again, my snafu did help locate a possible bug in his code, so that’s something. Unless he’s like Britney—touchy about the flaws in his app.
Oh, well. Even if he does want to fire me, I bet he wouldn’t do that right after I’ve been rushed to a hospital—it wouldn’t look so good if I decided to sue.
Which I wouldn’t, but he doesn’t know that.
The elevator doors slide open.
“See you,” Ava says to me when we exit. Turning to the Impaler, she adds, “Thanks for taking care of her. Nice to have met you.”
He inclines his head, and she sprints away.
We check out of the hospital and leave the building.
Ivan is waiting inside the car.
The Impaler opens a door for me in a gentlemanly fashion, and I climb in, making sure to plop on the seat opposite to where his laptop is. I don’t think it’s wise for me to sit next to him after all of this.
I might expire from blushing.
Before he decides to buckle me in again, I do that myself—same reason.
He takes a seat next to his laptop, as I hoped he would, but for some reason, I feel a pang of disappointment.
Ivan floors the gas pedal.
The Impaler raises the partition between us and his minion, and glances at his laptop before pinning me with an intent stare.
Crap. I’m probably interrupting him from something important.
“So…” I shift in my seat uncomfortably. “What now?”
He cocks his head. “We’re taking you home, of course.”
Since it’s been whole minutes since I last blushed, I do so now. “I meant, testing-wise.” Or put another way, do I still have a job?
“You need to rest.”
He’s really good at making statements that sound like military orders. At least I don’t salute or yes-sir him this time.
“How about after I rest?” I dare to ask.
“You’re not going to worry about that right now.”
That again. Should I just ask him straight out if I still have a job? Or will that just put the idea in his head?
“You went to Brooklyn College, right?” he asks out of nowhere.
“I did.” Wait. How does he know? Did he notice it in my file when he looked for my address?
“Great computer science program,” he says. “Soothing campus.”
I blink at him. “How do you know? Are you a fellow alum?”