Page 24 of Ghost

Tamsin glanced over her shoulder, caught where I was looking, and nearly dropped the travel mug she had been reaching for. I stepped behind her, put one palm on her waist, and took the mug from the shelf with my other hand. Her breath hitched when my body pressed along her back, my cock fitting against the soft curve of her ass with no room for either of us to pretend I was unaffected. I set the mug on the counter and lowered my mouth near her ear, letting her feel the scrape of my beard against the delicate skin below it. “Later.”

By the time we rode back to the warehouse, Tamsin had changed into fitted jeans and a pale-blue shirt that made her eyes look beautifully bright. She wrapped herself around me without needing to be told, her arms tight across my stomach as the bike leaned through the canyon roads. Every stop pressed her breasts more firmly against my back, and I spent the ride calculating how many hours stood between me and the moment I could get her home, put her in bed, and finish what I had stopped the night before.

The Bellamy warehouse looked different in daylight after the fire. Temporary barriers sealed the rear corridor, while industrial fans pushed the last trace of smoke through open loading doors. Black Crowns prospects held visible positions at the main entrance, loading dock, and side access, checking employees against a list and issuing temporary badges carrying individual names. The building had finally acquired the kind of accountability it should have had before somebody used shared access to set part of it on fire.

Tamsin stepped through the entrance, with me at her back, and immediately began turning the undamaged front office into a temporary audit room. She had surviving records moved to folding tables, assigned two employees to sort them by year and job number, and sent another pair to recount sealed material under direct supervision.

An older field supervisor approached with a carton of transfer forms. “Where do you want these?”

Tamsin glanced up from the list in her hand. “Sort them by property and put the current year on the table beside me.”

He nodded and carried the carton where Tamsin had directed without questioning her or looking to me for approval. Clearly, my message yesterday had been received.

She kept her attention on the paperwork until he walked away, then looked at me from beneath her lashes with gratitude mixed into a warning not to enjoy myself too much. I smiled because she had already learned that warning was usually wasted effort.

Some employees were nervous around the cuts stationed throughout the building, so I kept my tone easy while moving boxes. I asked who usually closed after large jobs, how they handled dead badge batteries, and whether supervisors ever borrowed access cards.

A warehouse lead felt relaxed enough to admit that people traded credentials more often than policy allowed. “Half the staff knows the code to the rear keypad.”

He winced when Tamsin looked up from across the room.

Fucking hell.

“Why?” she asked, setting down her pen.

“It saved time when somebody forgot a badge.” The man rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Operations knew. We were supposed to change it every month.”

“When was it last changed?” I asked.

He gave me a sheepish look. “Six months ago, maybe.”

The answer put them five changes behind. I kept smiling because the man talked more freely when he thought I found the lapse mildly ridiculous instead of dangerous, but it took a lot of fucking effort.

Tamsin’s lips flattened, quiet anger flashing in her eyes as she realized how many habits had turned a controlled-material warehouse into a building people entered through convenience and shared memory.

A younger technician admitted temporary crews sometimes saw shipment schedules taped near the dispatch desk.

“This shit just gets better and better,” I muttered at one point, low enough that only Tamsin could hear.

Another supervisor said closing responsibility shifted depending on who finished the last return, making it impossible to know who should have locked the rear door after a particular job without checking time sheets. The access pool widened to include permanent staff, temporary workers, drivers, supervisors, and anyone who had spent enough time near the office to learn the company’s shortcuts.

Tamsin moved among them with a clipboard against her chest, asking direct questions and refusing vague answers without raising her voice. Each time she passed close, her arm brushed mine or her hip grazed my thigh, and my body reacted as if the contact were deliberate foreplay.

When she bent over a low carton to retrieve a folder, the denim stretched over her ass, and my cock hardened so fast I had to reposition the box in my arms before anyone noticed where my attention had gone.

She straightened and caught me looking. Her blush rose, but she held out her hands for the box instead of retreating. I kept it and stepped close enough that the corners pressed lightly against her stomach. “Tell me where it goes.”

Tamsin’s gaze dropped to my mouth for a quick moment. “Table by the wall.”

“See?” I moved past her. “Teamwork and all that shit.”

Cipher arrived near noon with a laptop. He matched Tamsin’s saved field sheets against the final reports pulled from Bellamy’s system, adding time stamps to the paper pattern we had already found. Tamsin submitted one set of numbers, and the operations system later produced higher usage totals.

“Her originals are consistent,” Cipher agreed, turning the screen toward us. “Changes hit after submission. Shared operations login, same as the access group. Could be any one of several people.”

Tamsin leaned over his shoulder, one hand braced on the table while she studied the dates. Her hair fell forward in a wild curtain, strawberry tones catching beneath the overhead lights as she traced one line without touching the screen. “Can you tell which terminal?”

“Two of them,” Cipher replied. “Office and warehouse. Credentials won’t fucking narrow it unless I find something else.”