Chapter Four
Felicity hadn't brought dance wear but she had brought yoga pants and t-shirts to work out in, and she teamed it with a short, full skirt, that would fan out as she moved.
There were five couples taking the class and most were wearing exercise clothes, so she was glad that she didn't look out of place.
Oliver usually worked out in just sweat pants but unfortunately, he had added a t-shirt to the ensemble this time.
Two other couples eyed them up as they entered, looking a little hostile and clearly taking the competition seriously. The other three couples smiled and seemed welcoming thought.
Felicity got her towel and water out of her bag, then began stretching her muscles, limbering up.
She hadn't intended to appear seductive, in fact, after their chat following the therapy session, she was just about ready to forget her plan to seduce him but as she stretched, legs apart and bent double, she caught him staring at her ass, and smiled. She continued spreading her legs wider and wider as she stretched, warming the muscles that weren't usually used, until she was doing the splits, stretching her upper body alternately along each leg.
"I didn't realise you were that flexible," Oliver said, his voice sounding thick.
She didn't comment and when she made to stand, he offered her his hand and pulled her up.
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Oliver." She smiled, pleased that she was having an effect on him, any effect.
The instructors, a couple in their early 30's, entered then and the man came to see them while the woman set up the music.
"You are new," he smiled, speaking with a very slight Spanish accent.
"We are," Oliver confirmed, "I'm Oliver, this is Felicity."
"I am Miguel, my wife over there is Sandra."
"Nice to meet you," Felicity offered him her hand and he brought it to his lips and kissed the back of it.
"The others in the class are a little more experienced than you so if you don't mind, I will teach you this lesson and maybe next; hopefully we will get you caught up and you can join the rest of the group soon."
"Okay," Oliver agreed, although he didn't like that Miguel seemed to speak only to Felicity, and he still held her hand.
"We will start with the basic eight," he said, taking Felicity in his arms. "Oliver, you try and follow my steps."
Miguel told them where to step and after two run throughs, he added in a salida, where they paused on step five, Felicity took four steps around him, then did two front ochos at the end, before completing the final three of the original eight steps.
After practising that three times, he finally stepped away from Felicity.
"Now, you try together," Miguel said.
Oliver took her in his arms, holding her closer than he might have if Miguel hadn't been flirting with her. Although Oliver didn't need them, Miguel called out the steps.
It felt good to be holding Felicity so closely and she matched him perfectly. He suddenly wondered if she'd be the same in the bedroom, but that thought was disconcerting and rather bad for his concentration, so he tried his best to push it aside and focus in the dance.
"You can lead," Felicity sounded surprised. "I didn't know you could dance?"
"All well-bred young men can." He smiled, repeating the same set for a second time, then a third.
"A tango?"
"Well, I've never done the Argentine tango before but I have done the ballroom tango. What about you, this is more than just being… flexible."
She liked the way he emphasised the word flexible. Miguel called pointers out sometimes as they continued to repeat the set, 'arm up' 'point the toe', seemingly realising that these people weren't paying much attention to him, but determined to still be a part of their dancing.
"Ballet," she answered, quite content to repeat the steps as many times as he wanted. "A little jazz and tap too but mostly ballet; my mom thought I spent way too much time playing video games."
He smiled.
"All right, I think you have that mastered." Miguel didn't seem thrilled to have been side-lined but when they stopped, he didn't try to dance with Felicity again, but took them both through the new steps.
He added a cross walk with transitions, a sentada, a hook, then the sweep and the carousel.
Felicity liked the carousel best, where she stood on one foot and Oliver walked around her, turning her as he went, and the hook, where she stepped between and around his feet, her right leg between his, bending up around his right thigh. She wished that this was a proper dance studio with a wall of mirrors, where she could see if the move looked as sexy as it felt.
Then Miguel added a triple sweep, overturned ochos, a volcada and carousel combination, with a 360 degree turn at the end of the routine. Finally he taught them about adornos or expressions, times where the man stopped, allowing his partner time to express herself with her own steps.
At times, she felt trapped by Oliver's gaze as they danced, unable to look away, and the air between them appeared to sizzle with sexual tension, which was good for an authentic tango but bad for the lowly IT girl, who was already far too attracted to her billionaire boss cum superhero.
He appeared genuinely affected by her presence, but that could be acting, she knew he was a good actor.
"There, you are caught up," Miguel said, and the spell was again broken for a time. "We have two more sequences to add to the group routine tomorrow, but the main group hasn't learned that yet. Then we will teach you a variety of moves and you can choose which two to add to your routine, one after the carousel and one after the last volcada. On Friday night, you will compete against the other couples."
"How good is our competition?" Felicity asked. She had been concentrating on her steps and hadn't observed the rest of the class.
Oliver had and there were two good dancers in the group, one who was excellent but with practice, he thought that he and Felicity could kick their asses (literally and figuratively).
"You will more than hold your own," Miguel said. "But if you are worried, I can leave you a CD of music and you can use one of the smaller class rooms to practice. At least one of the other couples does that."
Oliver realised that he hadn't yet explored the door that he had seen leading off the ballroom so while they talked, he shot Felicity a look, meaning 'keep him busy' then made his way over to the door. It blended almost seamlessly with the wall, the top half covered in the same patterned wallpaper and white paint below the dado rail. Only the seam of the door and a small handle by the dado rail gave it away.
The group lesson had ended as well and everyone was standing around in groups, toweling off, drinking water and chatting. As nonchalantly as he could, Oliver strode across the hall and opened the door. He half expected it to be locked but instead, he was presented with a janitorial closet.
"Hey, you okay?" Miguel called.
Oliver turned around. "Looking for a bathroom."
"Through that archway." Miguel pointed to an archway at the other end of the hall, with a toilet sign above.
"Thanks." Oliver had no choice but to visit the rest room then and when he returned, Felicity was chatting to Sandra, while Miguel was flirting with another pretty lady on the other side of the room. Her husband didn't seem any keener on the flirting than Oliver had been.
"Oliver, this is Sandra," Felicity introduced them when he approached.
"Oliver?" Sandra seemed amused.
"I mean Phoenix. Sorry, I can't get used to the nicknames."
Sandra smiled. "Between you and me, that's the only thing I don't like about teaching here. I can put up with the hike to get here each afternoon, the remote location, the lack of cell phones but the nicknames thing? That's just weird."
Felicity grinned. "So you can't bring cell phones either?"
"Nope, we have to hand them in when we arrive too. I guess they're worried we'll let someone phone the office or something."
"Well I confess, that would be tempting," Oliver teased.
"You know, you two are very good," Sandra praised. "It wouldn't surprise me if you win this week's competition."
"You say that like you want us to win," he observed.
"Well, just between you and me, Philip over there, the man glaring at Miguel, needs taking down a peg or two."
"Is that why you're letting Miguel flirt with that woman?" Felicity asked.
"It's just an act Miguel puts on, the Spanish lothario. He says that with dancing the argentine tango, it's expected, so I let him flirt because I know he's just playing up to the image."
Felicity admired the trust they shared.
"Well, I'll see you both tomorrow." Sandra turned and left.
"What did you find?" Felicity asked as they collected their bags and headed out.
"A closet."
"That's too bad." Especially since it was the only lead they had.
"Not really. How wide would you say this room was?"
"I don't know twenty feet?"
"Twenty five." They left the ball room and entered the hallway, and from there, Oliver led her outside. "Now, how far do you think it is between this corner and the next corner?"
"Thirty feet, maybe"
"More like thirty two and even allowing for the thickness of the walls, that's five missing feet. Plus, there's a hidden door leading from the closet."
She turned and looked again. "Huh. So wait, you're saying it's smaller on the inside?" she grinned.
"Yeah. Why is that amusing?"
"It's smaller on the inside!"
He looked blank.
"Doctor Who? He's always telling people that his TARDIS is bigger on the inside?" She sighed. "Don't worry, geek joke."
"Wait, do you mean that cheap sci-fi show, the one with Tom Baker and the robotic dog?"
"Oh my god, you watch it?"
"I've seen it, but that program's ancient."
"Oh, no, they brought it back, we have a bunch of new Doctors now. Maybe you were on the Island when it came back, I can't remember offhand what year they brought it back."
Oliver smiled.
"Anyway, how do you even notice that kind of stuff?" she asked. "I would never have noticed that the room was wider outside than inside."
"Truthfully?"
"Yeah."
"Well I have trained myself to look for details but what really gave it away? I saw a keypad at the side of the closet, carefully hidden under one of the shelves."
"Okay, how did you notice that?"
"Because the overhead light was off, and there was a very faint glow from the LEDs."
"You'd be good at spot the difference," she said. "I should get you a puzzle book."
"Dig keeps one in the glove box," he smiled. "The puzzle I want to solve right now, is how do I hack an electronic keypad?"
Felicity smiled. "I think I might be able to help."
"I was hoping you'd say that."
After airing some of their grievances at the counselling session, not to mention a very enjoyable dance class, the tension between them was almost gone. Although it worried her, Felicity had liked the sexual tension between them when they danced and although she was playing with fire, she was determined to try and be sexy around him.
Plus, the counsellor had told them to be affectionate, so if she was going to be believable, she had to feel free to touch, hug and kiss Oliver, which they hardly ever did normally, even platonically.
If it had an effect, all the better but if he made a move like earlier… well she still hadn't decided how to react. Even though she wasn't mad at him any more, that 'practice' kiss earlier had put her off responding, after all, she wasn't stupid and she didn't want to be hurt again. Equally, it was kind of mean to lead him on, then rebuff him if he made a move, so she was torn.
But she wasn't an idiot; she knew that Oliver cared a lot about her, and that she could command his attention not just as his team mate and friend, but also as a woman. Any more than that, she doubted, but she knew he cared a great deal for her. He had even killed for her, after all. And like most guys, a hot body was enough to get the blood pumping away from the big brain. That was lust though, not love.
Did she want Oliver to lust after her? Well yes, she did. Any woman with a pulse would want Oliver and she may be a geeky IT girl at heart, but she was still a woman. Was it sensible however? Well no, it really really wasn't because if things went south, she stood to lose an awful lot.
She supposed they could be friends with benefits, then she'd get to be his friend and have sex with him. Yeah, that could work, couldn't it?
Then she thought about the next time he went running off to Laurel, or worse still, fell into her bed again.
Yeah, she could not be his friend and have sex with him, at least, not without getting crazy jealous when he saw other people, and the no-strings was kind of the whole point of a friend with benefits relationship. She just wasn't that type of woman, she guessed.
So maybe this wasn't about her, maybe this was about him.
She could handle such an arrangement with someone like Dig. She liked Diggle, even cared about him, a lot, but she didn't like him in that way. If she slept with Diggle, it would be to scratch an itch, nothing more. She wouldn't feel insanely jealous when he dated someone else, wouldn't be tempted to hack his webcam to see what he was up to… wouldn't be secretly hoping for more.
"Felicity?"
She realised that she had paused in applying her makeup, her lipstick brush poised halfway to her lips.
"You okay?"
"Sorry, yeah, just lost in thought." She smiled at his reflection in the vanity mirror. "You can head up if you want, I just have to slip a dress on."
"I'll wait," he assured her. "Take your time."
He was already dressed. The brochure suggested making dinner an event and dressing for it, so he was in a charcoal suit with a dark blue shirt. He had left his tie off though, which she was glad of, as she didn't like his office look very much. Her favourite look on him was green leather, but that wouldn't work very well here.
She finished applying her lipstick, then pulled a dark blue dress from the closet. After checking to make sure he wasn't around, she slipped her robe off and quickly pulled the dress on, only no matter how she contorted, she couldn't pull the zip at the back all the way up. She tried, hoping and jumping, forcing her elbow down with her other hand but nothing worked. In defeat, she slipped her shoes on and headed out of the bedroom.
His eyes lit up when he saw her and he smiled.
"You look lovely."
"Thanks," she smiled shyly. "Could you do the zip for me? I can't seem to get it up. The zip, I mean not-"
"Felicity, it's fine." He sounded amused; thankfully, he usually found her verbal faux pas endearing.
He walked over and she turned around, glad that he couldn't see her face since she suddenly felt very flushed. Her breath caught in her throat as he brushed her hair over her shoulder, so it didn't get caught in the zip. Then nothing happened and time seemed to stand still.
What was he doing back there? What was he thinking? Why didn't he just pull her zip up? Was he as affected as she was? If so, why didn't he do something? Anything!
Finally she felt him take a hold of her shoulders and place a feather light kiss on her shoulder.
"Felicity…" he whispered.
Indecision kept her from replying and after another few seconds, he removed his hands and pulled her zip up.
"There."
She turned to face him and suddenly felt nervous under his penetrating gaze. She wondered if this was how rabbits felt, when they were trapped in the headlights.
"Oliver…" she breather.
"We should go," he said, looking away and breaking the spell.
"Right, yes, dinner. Good idea."
"Of all the times I've thought of spending the night with you, breaking and entering didn't enter into the equation. Not that I often think of spending the night with you, or ever really, it's just a turn of phrase but if I did think about spending the night with you, we would not be breaking and entering."
"Felicity," Oliver hissed and she ceased babbling. "And besides, it's entering but not breaking."
Oliver had overridden the alarm on the main house and they were now in the ballroom. The janitor's closet was locked this time, so Oliver was on his knees picking the lock, trying not to think how well Felicity suited the black, skin tight get up that she was wearing.
With a final twist, the lock clicked open and Oliver gestures for Felicity to enter and after a final check behind him, he followed her inside.
Felicity was already on her knees, looking at the keypad below the shelf, and he tried not to notice that her head was at just the right height for… things that were totally unrelated to this mission.
He knelt down beside her and took the small torch that she was aiming at the keypad, freeing up a second hand for her to hack into the system. She removed the face of the keypad, then plugged a cable from her phone into port she found there.
"This is used for diagnostics and to change the code," she explained and began typing into her touch screen.
"You can really do that with a cell phone?"
She smiled as she worked. "You can if you upgrade it like I did. I gave myself 50 gigs memory and a few custom apps, designed by yours truly, plus a high speed internet connection, so I can download some more gismos from our server, if I need to."
"You know, sometimes you frighten me."
Her smile widened. Programming code began to scroll across her screen and five seconds later, the red light turned green and the magnets on the door lock disengaged.
Oliver held it open while Felicity peered inside.
"It's okay, you don't need a code to get out." She unplugged her cable, reaffixed the cover and stashed her cell phone and cable in the belt pouch that she had brought. "Let's go."
"You should go back," he advised. "I'll take it from here."
"And if you encounter another door like this?"
He hesitated a moment. "All right, but you do what I say, when I say it, got it?"
Felicity nodded.
There was a light switch in the hallway but Oliver opted not to use it and the Felicity's small torch provided enough illumination to see that it came to a dead end after ten feet.
"So what now?" she asked.
Oliver was directing the small torch beam at the corners of the wall.
"It's a false wall," he said. "Including the closet and this hallway, we're only half the length of the ballroom."
"So what, we come back with a pickaxe and knock through?"
"Let's try for something more subtle first." He sounded amused and pressed his ear to the wall as he began to tap lightly on it. After repeating this three times, he pressed hard about one third of the way down on the left hand side and with a spring action, the wall popped open in hinges. Oliver pushed it open and shone the torch through.
"Stairs going down," he whispered. "Our torch is the only light, so be careful."
Since he held the torch, he took her hand and led her through, helping her down the steel steps.
At the bottom they were at another door with an electronic keypad. Oliver pressed his ear to it again.
"I don't hear anything," he told her. "But this door is much thicker than the others, so it could be soundproof."
Felicity worked her magic again, while he held the torch for her, then when the magnetic locks disengaged, he opened the door a crack.
Overhead fluorescents illuminated the space and he could see no movement so gesturing for Felicity to stay behind him, he took a throwing knife from his belt and put the small torch away.
"It's a lab," Felicity said once her eyes had adjusted to the light.
She was right, there were tables lined with pieces of equipment and computers, and a wall of cages housing animals.
"Oh god, they're doing animal testing," she said with distaste, turning away from them and heading to the first computer she saw.
Oliver could see that some of the animals appeared to be dead, rather than just sleeping.
"This is password protected and has a bi-lon encryption."
"Can you break it?" Oliver asked, coming to stand beside her, further shielding the animals from her vision.
"Sure given twenty hours and a terabyte of processing power."
"We need to know what's going on here," Oliver reminded her.
"I know!" she hissed, wary of being overheard in case they weren't alone. "Wait, I've got it." She brought her phone out. "If I connect this to one of the towers, the next time someone logs in from this machine, I can see the password and as long as the user is online, I'll have remote access to the system."
"And when he logs off?"
"We'll have the password, so no need to break the encryption."
"Good thinking. Do it."
While she bent down under the desk to open the tower, Oliver looked around. The room was about 50 by 50 foot and there were another three doors leading off this room, each with a keypad entry lock.
As much as he wanted to find out what was behind those doors though, he had a bad feeling about staying any longer. He had learned to trust his instincts, even if he didn't always understand them.
"Hurry," he told Felicity.
"I'm going as fast as I can."
He got to his knees as well, so that he wasn't immediately visible if someone came in and not thirty seconds later, he heard two sets of footsteps approaching the door they had entered through. There wasn't time to hide anywhere else, so he crawled under the desk with Felicity.
"Someone's coming," he whispered.
She replaced the cover on the computer tower but didn't have time to replace the screws, and they scrambled further under the work bench, just as the magnetic locks disengaged.
"Looks clear." A male voice said, one Oliver didn't recognise.
"Someone turned the main alarm off, we need to check everywhere."
The two men went in opposite directions, looking along the lines of desks. He and Felicity has their back to a wide machine at the end of the bench and they both prayed that it was enough cover.
Felicity let out a very low moan and Oliver grabbed her hand and looked into her eyes, willing her to trust that he would protect her.
She pressed her lips together and tried her best to remain calm.
With excruciating slowness, the men moved away, then they heard the chirps of a keypad lock being disengaged and a door opening, then another one. Oliver forced himself to remain where he was for thirty seconds, then risked peeking out.
All three of the doors leading from the room were open, but the men who had come in were nowhere in sight.
"Come on," he whispered, keeping a hold of her hand as he pulled her out from under the table.
The men searching had left every door open in their wake so getting out was quick and easy, but Oliver was still cautious, in case there were more people searching the building.
The steps and corridor back to the janitors closer were empty but there was a woman in the ballroom, carrying a high powered torch.
Oliver positioned Felicity behind him and adjusted the weight of the knife he held, getting a second one out. Now he just had to pray that the guard in the ballroom left before those searching below ground came back up, and they were trapped between the two.
Luck was with them and the guard went in to check the toilets.
Oliver pulled Felicity after him and headed to the large double doors on the other side of the room. The lock was simple and since the alarm was still off, Oliver opened it and they headed outside. The door couldn't be re-locked but he pushed it to and as he did, an alarm began to wail.
"Come on!" he hadn't released her hand so just pulled her after him as he headed for the trees, and the cover they would provide.
Oliver pulled her behind a wide trunk, just as flashlight beams began to cut through the air. He counted at least six people, although they all seemed to be looking in different directions.
"Keep low," he growled at Felicity and couching, they ran deeper into the woods. They paused a few times when flashlight beams headed in their direction, ducking behind the closet cover, usually a tree, or lying flat on the ground. They were both wearing black and would be difficult to spot against the earth.
It took longer than he would have liked to get back to their cabin and more flashlight beams joined the search but they had to go slowly, seeking an intruder, while he and Felicity were free to run when the flashlights weren't coming close.
They made it back to the cabin by circling around but that meant getting close to the searchers again. He gave Felicity a leg up into their bedroom window, then followed her moments later. As he closed the window, a flashlight bean crossed it and he jumped back. The light would reflect off the window so it was unlikely he had been seen, but he yanked his shirt off and climbed into bed. Felicity did the same, also removing her bra but holding her shirt over her breasts. They climbed under the covers, boots and pants still on, pushing their shirts under the covers, and Oliver pulled her against him, pressing her head onto his shoulder.
"Sleep," he whispered and she closed her eyes. Oliver kept his open a touch, so he was able to make out shapes, such as the two that appeared at the window, looking in.
Only when they moved away did Oliver let out the breath that he'd been holding.
"Have they gone?" Felicity murmured.
"Stay put," he ordered, just in case anyone else came looking. His arm was around her and he softly traced patterns on her back, soothing her as best he could
As the adrenalin faded and he began to relax, he realised that Felicity's breasts were pressed into his chest and side, and that thought aroused him. He prayed she didn't notice.
Fifteen minutes later, her regular and even breathing let him know that she was asleep and an hours after than Oliver finally drifter to sleep. Another two people had looked in the window and it was possible that more would come while they slept, so he chose to remain in the same position and didn't wake Felicity.