Page 34 of Driven By Impulse

Ash could picture it, Hanna and Nicco wrapped in some cataclysmic embrace, a storm of intense desire and need and truth that…

That he could admit to himself he wished he had been a part of.

And only to himself.

Once they solved Grace’s kidnapping and found the information she had been hiding on Iverson and Ralston, he and Nicco would be headed back to Colorado, leaving Bitterroot and Hanna behind.

He had done it before, and he could do it again.

And as for the stirring, aching want he felt when Nicco’s bike was parked too close to his own, when Nicco wrapped a hand around Ash’s wrist and told him to drop the cigarette, when he imagined what it would be like to be in Hanna’s position on the balcony, well, he had been living with that dark need for years. Nothing he couldn’t repress the living shit out of again, when he was less vulnerable to the haunts of memories.

Ash glanced at his watch and slowly made his way across the room. The gala was in full swing, the orchestra loud and the dance floor pulling people’s attention. Glasses clinked and the low hum of chatter gave Ash the hope that no one would notice a few guests disappearing into the hallway.

He quickly followed the directions Jinx had given them when they’d first worked out the plan to break into his office, and a moment later, he spotted Nicco and Hanna at the far end of the hall.

“Did you see Iverson before you left?” Hanna asked.

Ash nodded. “He was at the bar in the southwest corner.”

“That’s good,” Hanna murmured. “Nicco has the cloning program open and we’re hoping this works to get us inside.”

Because without Jinx, their tech specialist and mastermind, they didn’t stand a goddamned chance of breaking into the secured office.

Nic was down on one knee in front of the door, tapping away at his ghost phone, and a second later, an alert dinged.

The light on the security pad blinked red once, then green, and they all breathed a collective sigh of relief before Nicco pulled the door open and they slipped inside.

Bryce Iverson’s office was enormous, and exactly what Ash had expected for an oil and real estate mogul. The entire far wall was made up of windows that looked out to the far-off mountains, and moonlight gave the room a soft, silverly glow. The desk was made of wood and looked very heavy, and wood accents trimmed the line of bookshelves behind it. Two doors—closets or storage of some kind—lined up with the bookshelves, nearly imperceptible in the dark, and an enormous set of bull horns was mounted above a fireplace and sitting area.

“This is going to take forever,” Hanna muttered. “Iverson couldn’t have been a minimalist.”

Without another word, they split up, Nicco heading for the desk, Hanna for the closet by the windows, and Ash to the line of bookshelves. Jinx had told them what they were looking for, and it turned out that a smart key looked exactly like a regular key. Thankfully, he’d had a small device that allowed them to pick up the radio signals the key emitted, so they didn’t accidentally take home a regular key.

They worked quietly and quickly, each of them by unspoken agreement putting everything right back into place, leaving no trace of what they had been doing.

When they had first come up with the plan to sneak into Iverson’s office, Gray and Xander had checked for cameras in their surveillance. But it turned out there were some things Iverson was up to that he didn’t want records of, and so his office had been camera free and clear.

Jinx had told them he’d turn off the hall cameras leading to the office, and Ash could only hope that they hadn’t stepped into a trap. But even in impossible odds, Jinx had always steered them in the right direction, so now it was their turn.

“Any luck?” he whispered to the others. There were so many books on the shelves, and arrays of expensive gifts and trinkets, ballpoint pens, daggers mounted on stands, bookends in the shape of horseheads, and he removed each one, pressing his fingers along the edges to look for hidden seams or openings.

“No dice,” Hanna muttered. “This closet is full of filing cabinets. We need a whole team to go through this office looking for a single key.”

“Not in the top drawer,” Nicco muttered. “Keep looking.”

Ash picked up a heavy glass orb and pulled out one of the books behind.

A harsh click echoed through the room.

“I think you just unlocked the other closet,” Hanna whispered. She reached for the door, and pulled it open. “It must be in here.”

Ash and Nicco followed her into the closet. Even if it held top secret keys or whatever other dangerous things Iverson seemed to be hiding, it was very much a closet. Inside, a large filing cabinet was pressed against the back wall, and a few heavy wool coats hung from hangers, making the small space feel even more cramped.

Or maybe it was just cramped because Ash was altogether too aware of Hanna and Nic, the space tight because he was trying to get a single breath in that didn’t smell of Nicco’s leather and nicotine or Hanna’s spicy florals, like she exclusively used shampoo made with flowers that killed.

Ash wanted space, he needed space, but he couldn’t stop himself from stepping into the tight closet with them, because something about Hanna and Nicco, pressed close together, barely even realizing it, made him lose all good sense. He couldn’t stop picturing how they’d kissed, how her long, delicate fingers would look digging into his dark hair, how Nic would have thrown his head back into the sensation, exposing the long column of his neck…

“I found it!”