Her ankles!
They’re probably marked, too.
Shit.
Reaching down, I grasp her ankle and gently ease her foot onto my lap. She swivels in her seat and faces me. “I want the other one, too.” I need to see for myself. She looks toward Taylor and Ferreux.
She’s shy?
What does she think I’m going to do?
I press the privacy screen button and it slowly rises out of the panel in front of us until we’re partitioned off from them. “I want to look at your ankles.”
She frowns and places her other foot in my lap. I skim my thumb up her instep and she squirms.
She’s ticklish. I don’t know why I haven’t registered this before.
I undo the strap on her sandal. And there it is. Another mark. Darker than those on her wrists. “Doesn’t hurt,” she says.
I’m an inconsiderate asshole.
I massage the line in the hope that it will disappear, and look back out of the window at the passing countryside. She wriggles her foot, and her sandal falls into the footwell. But I ignore it.
“Hey. What did you expect?” she asks.
She’s gazing at me as if I’ve beamed down from Mars.
I shrug. “I didn’t expect to feel like I do looking at these marks.”
“How do you feel?”
Shitty.
“Uncomfortable,” I mutter.
And I don’t really know why.
Suddenly she unbuckles her seat belt and scoots closer to me and grabs both of my hands. “It’s the hickeys I don’t like,” she hisses. “Everything else…what you did”—her voice drops lower—“with the handcuffs, I enjoyed that. Well, more than enjoyed. It was mind-blowing. You can do that to me again anytime.”
Oh.
“Mind-blowing?” Her words are a small boost to my mood and my libido.
“Yes.” She grins and curls her toes around my more-than-interested dick.
“You should really be wearing your seat belt, Mrs. Grey.”
She teases me with her toes once more.
I glance at the glass. Could we…? But my lascivious thoughts are interrupted by my phone vibrating. Shit. I remove it from my shirt pocket.
It’s work. I check my watch. It’s early in Seattle.
“Barney,” I answer, while Ana tries to withdraw her feet from the close proximity of my dick. I tighten my hold on her feet.
“Mr. Grey. There’s been a fire in the server room.”
What? “In the server room?” How the hell did that happen?
“Yes, sir.”
The servers? Fuck! “Did it activate the fire-suppression system?”
Ana removes her feet from my lap, and this time I let her.
“Yes, sir. It did.”
I hit the button to lower the privacy glass so Taylor can hear me. “Anyone injured?”
“No, sir,” Barney responds.
“Damage?”
“Very little, from what I’ve been told.”
“I see.”
“Security were quick to call.”
“When?” I glance at my watch again.
“Just now. The fire’s out, but they want to know if we should call the fire department.”
“No, not the fire department or the police. Not yet anyway.”
I need to think.
“Welch has just called me on the other line,” Barney says.
“Has he?”
“He’s probably trying to get ahold of you. I’ll text him.”
“Good.”
“I’m heading to Grey House now.”
“Okay. I want a detailed damage report. And a complete rundown of everyone who had access over the last five days, including the cleaning staff.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get ahold of Andrea and get her to call me.”
“Will do. It was a good move to change from the outdated suppression system,” Barney says as he blows out a breath.
“Yeah, sounds like the argon is just as effective, worth its weight in gold.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I realize it’s early.”
“I was awake. There’ll be no traffic now,” Barney continues. “I’ll be there in no time. And I’ll see what’s up.”
“E-mail me in two hours.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I called.”
“No, I need to know. Thank you for calling me.” I hang up and call Welch, who is heading to Grey House as we speak. During a brief exchange, we agree to increase security at the off-site data center as a precaution, and that we’ll talk in an hour. When I end my call with him, I direct Philippe to get us back on board as soon as possible.
“Monsieur.” Ferreux speeds up.
I wonder what could have gone wrong in the server room? An electrical fault? Something overheated? Arson?
Ana looks wary. “Anyone hurt?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Very little damage.” Though I haven’t had a damage report, I want to reassure her. Reaching over, I take her hand and give it a comforting squeeze. “Don’t worry about this. My team is on it.”
“Where was the fire?”
“Server room.”
“Grey House?”
“Yes.”
“Why so little damage?”
“The server room is fitted with a state-of-the-art fire-suppression system. Ana, please, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” she whispers, but I’m not convinced.
“We don’t know for sure that it was arson.” And that’s my biggest fear.
I’m in the small study aboard Fair Lady. Welch and Barney are at GEH and Andrea is making her way into the office early. Now that Welch has inspected the damage, he’s advised that we get the fire department in so an expert can establish what started the fire. He doesn’t want a stream of people in the server room contaminating any evidence. We run through a list of protocols, and as I feared, he’s not ruling out arson. He’s compiling lists of everyone who has had access to the server room in advance of the fire department’s report.