Page 44 of Her Captivated Hero

The general crossed his arms. “That’s not possible,” he bit out.

She thrust her hands on her hips. “It has to be. The potential benefits are extraordinary. This is a critical breakthrough.”

“You gave me the information I needed. It’s time you went back to your lab in San Diego.”

The next thing Riya knew, she was on a plane with all of her notes confiscated. Since she’d been working on a Pentagon computer and not allowed access to her personal computer, they’d figured she wouldn’t be able to retain the information. Were they nuts? She had a photographic memory for God’s sake. Couldn’t the idiots read her file?

Riya prayed that at least part of her brain could focus on work, and not on Gray. She bent over her notebook and began sketching out the sequencing she’d witnessed from the pathogen. There had to be a way to reverse engineer it.

* * *

“Dammit!”

Her pencil careened across the page, scratching over her writing. Then a huge grin broke over her face as the second bong of Gray’s distinctive text tone sounded. Riya untangled herself from the couch and made a mad dash upstairs to her phone.

Einstein yowled in protest and ran after her.

YOU UP?

Riya clutched her phone, and fumbled to answer Gray’s text.

YES.

CAN I COME OVER?

Her hands were so slippery that she had to retype the word, YES.

BE THERE IN LESS THAN THIRTY.

Riya looked at the time on the phone. It was three-thirty in the morning. Miranda had said that Griff had often come back in the middle of the night. Did this mean that Gray wasn’t even going home, he was coming straight to her?

She stumbled on the sheet that was hanging off the bed as she rushed to the bathroom. Einstein almost got caught under her feet.

“Any damage I do is going to be your fault,” she warned. Pinning her braid on top of her head, she jumped in the shower and screeched under the cold water. She powered through until it warmed up. Nothing was going to stop her from getting ready.

When she got out of the shower she took a long time smoothing on her jasmine and raspberry lotion that she knew Gray liked. She frowned when she saw all the scratch marks. Now she didn’t feel itchy at all.

You’re a mess.

Just went to prove that a genius was as prone to psychosomatic responses as the next person.

She pulled out the lace lavender bra and panty set that she had purchased when she’d taken her sister out shopping. She’d been petting the satin and lace at least once a day since she’d brought them home, imagining Gray’s reaction when he would see her in the lingerie. She shivered as she finally pulled it on.

She looked in her bedroom mirror and frowned when she noticed her hair. Riya yanked at the scrunchie holding her braid together, and dug her fingers through the long strands of her unwinding hair, trying to make it look nice.

Her doorbell rang.

For God’s sake, it had barely been twenty minutes. To hell with her hair. Who cared what she was wearing. She whirled away from her mirror and stubbed her toe on her dresser as she raced to her bedroom door.

“Fuck!”

Oops, she was only wearing underwear. She grabbed her discarded sleepshirt and started tugging it over her head as she headed toward her stairs.

Stop.

Get a grip.

At the rate she was going she’d end up with a broken leg at the bottom of the stairs.