Zach woke up the next morning with Cammie curled up at his side. Her long hair was splayed across his chest and their pillow. The best thing was that she smelled really good… like a mix of cinnamon, orange, and jasmine. He couldn't tell whether that was her perfume or shampoo or a mix of both.
Then he became aware of her butt, which his shirt barely covered, that was lightly touching his hip. Zach clenches his stomach, inwardly groans, and looks at the ceiling. Why the hell did he stop them last night? He'd slept with a lot of women before, particularly other women that he met while undercover. But why was Cammie different?
Zach looks at the alarm clock on the table next to the bed, which blinked 9:59a.m. in a glowing red light. He poised his hand over the alarm clock, and the second it turned to 10:00a.m., he snapped off the alarm before it could wake Cammie up. Technically, they were supposed to be at Grant's apartment at 11:00, but Cammie looked too peaceful sleeping right next to him. Zach didn't want to wake her up.
But then, from across the suite, Zach hears a toilet flush. The sound of the flushing water seemed too close; almost like somebody was using their toilet in their bathroom in their suite. Zach peeked at Cammie, who apparently didn't hear the flush, since she was still asleep. He vowed right then and there that he wouldn't let anybody hurt her as long as he was concerned.
Zach flips the covers off him and gently takes his arm out from under Cammie's head. He tip-toes in his socks through the living room to the bathroom door, which was closed. He cocked his head and, sure enough, somebody was now using the sink. The water shut off, and Zach pressed against the wall.
The bathroom door opened, and Zach lunged for the intruder. He twisted their arm and flipped them over his head. The intruder crashes on the coffee table, shattering the vase of flowers on the floor and snapping the wood in half. The person moans in pain.
Cammie snaps awake and sits straight up in bed, looking at the scene before her. Zach looks down at the person lying in the rubble and shouts, "Grant! What the hell?"
"Grant?" Cammie repeats, completely alert despite her rude awakening. She climbs out of bed and shuffles into the living room. "What are you doing here? And more importantly, how did you get in?"
Grant struggles into a sitting position and Cammie helps him stand up. "Well, we were all in my apartment this morning and we tried calling you both on your cellphones, but neither of you answered. Liz tried Cammie's comms unit, but that was apparently turned off too. So they sent me over here to get you guys," Grant explains.
"Okay, great, but how'd you get in? Couldn't you just have knocked on the front door like a normal person?" Zach asked. He was still a bit pissed off.
"It's not that hard to pick-pocket the guy at the front desk to get the master key for all the hotel rooms," Grant sneers.
"Why didn't you just wake us up right when you got in? It could have spared us all this trouble," Cammie points out, gesturing to all the glass shards and wood panels and smashed flowers on the floor.
"Well, I had to pee," Grant explains. He smirks at Zach, "And you two just looked too adorrrable sleeping together to wake up. Speaking of sleeping together… Did you two do anything worth mentioning last night?"
Zach looks at Cammie out of the corner of his eye, and sees that she was blushing and pulling on the hem of his shirt she was wearing. "Shut up, Grant," Zach growls, punching him hard on the shoulder, causing his friend to flinch. "Now why are you here?"
"Jonas wanted to know what to do with Mrs. Hemlock. He says he got all the information they needed out of her. They sent me over here because apparently I was 'annoying' them," Grant scoffs. "Whatever they mean by that. I mean, seriously. Me? Annoying?"
"Grant, listen," Zach says, putting his hand on Grant's shoulder, "You're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. But you can be a bit obnoxious sometimes."
Grant shakes Zach's hand off his shoulder and lets out a huff. "Whatever. I'll be downstairs in the lobby. If you two aren't down in fifteen minutes, I'm leaving without you," he warns, slamming the front door shut behind him.
"I'll start getting ready," Cammie says, backing out of the living room towards the bedroom. Zach reaches out for her and pulls her towards him, giving her a gentle kiss on the lips. He couldn't resist; she looked too darn sexy in just his shirt and a curly case of bed-head.
"Meet you in the lobby," Zach replies once he breaks the kiss. Cammie smiles, rolls her eyes, and walks to the closet. She runs her fingers through her half-wavy-half-curly hair that was her usual result of a full night's sleep. With only fifteen minutes to get dressed, she decides to just put it up in a messy bun.
Cammie decides to skip the whole makeup routine and just applies the basics: lipgloss, eye liner, and mascara. She picks out a V-neck navy tank top that was actually so long it was pretty much a dress. She puts that over a white cami and dangles several bronze necklaces from her neck. Cammie also puts on a chunky wooden bracelet on each wrist and a brown headband to pull back her wispy bangs. Lastly, she attaches a skinny brown leather belt around her hips and steps into metallic bronze ballet flats.
Cammie leaves the walk-in closet to find that Zach had already left the suite. It figures. Guys only had to wake up, put on some clothes, and they were good to go. She goes into the hallway and rides down the elevator with several businessmen all yelling into their cellphones at once.
In the lobby, Zach was grinning like crazy at Grant, who was smirking. "Dude, I can't thank you enough," Cammie hears Zach blurt when she's finally close enough to hear them.
"What did he do?" she asks.
"Look," Grant answers for Zach, pointing out the door to the two shiny black motorcycles sitting under the overhang of the hotel. Cammie didn't know much about motorcycles, but they looked expensive. Maybe not Harley-expensive, but they looked like they cost a lot.
"We're riding on… those?" she asks. The guys seemed to ignore her.
"Grant, I don't know how you got these all the way from Berlin, but this is awesome," Zach says with a grin.
"That mission in Berlin was a blast," Grant agrees, leading the way outside the hotel. "I just figured we should relive it in Miami." Grant climbs on his motorcycle and Zach does the same with his.
"I'll call a cab and meet you at Grant's apartment," Cammie says.
Finally Zach turned to her. "Why would you call a cab?"
"I'm in a dress," Cammie points out. "I'll either call a cab, or you're going to have to wait for me to change."
Zach shakes his head. "No time. We're already late. And you look great," he replies, patting the black leather seat behind him. "Just climb on, trust me."
Cammie hikes up her dress, accidentally showing too much leg and causing Grant to whistle. Zach glares at Grant, who shrugs, and she straddles the motorcycle behind Zach. Cammie adjusts her dress and asks, "Are there any helmets?"
"We're all 23 years old," Grant explains, "So motorcycle helmets aren't required in Florida."
"I'll drive safe," Zach promises. Grant starts the motorcycle and roars off in front of them. Zach starts the motorcycle and looks back at Cammie, who was just sitting there.
"What do I hold on to?" she asks over the roar of the engine.
"Me."
"Oh." Cammie wraps her arms around his stomach and scoots closer. Zach tugs on the throttle, and they shoot out of the hotel parking lot. Cammie squeezes her eyes shut as the motorcycle tilts at a nerve-wracking angle to turn a corner. Suddenly Cammie feels her cellphone vibrate in the front-thigh pocket of her tank-dress. She ignores it, not risking to take her arms off of Zach to answer it.
After a few minutes of riding on the motorcycle, Cammie starts to get a hang of it. Whenever Zach turned left, she would lean left. If he turned right, she'd lean right. It helped to keep the motorcycle on balance, something that she desperately wanted in order to stay calm.
Her grip loosens from around Zach the longer they ride. She tilts her head a bit to the right to peer over Zach's shoulder in the direction they were going. They were nearly to Grant's apartment; just a few blocks away. Apparently Zach sees her in his peripheral vision, because he turns his head to the right and exclaims, "So how's your first motorcycle ride going so far?"
"Good!" Cammie replies. She has to talk a bit louder than normal for him to hear her over the motorcycle's engine. "Eyes on the road, by the way. But I don't want it to end so fast. Can we go the long way?"
Zach smirks in her direction as Grant turns left at the next corner to get to his apartment. "Just a quick detour," he promises. Instead of turning left, Zach has them turn right, and Cammie lets out a giddy laugh. For some reason, the combination of the wind blowing through her hair, the warm Miami sun on her skin, and the fact that she was practically straddling Zach made her unbearably happy. Soon Zach starts leaning back against her, causing Cammie to lean back. Cammie starts panicking, since they were now whizzing down an empty street and if she fell, nobody would be around to see them crash. Her breath caught in her throat as the front tire lifted off the ground. "What are you doing?" she demands.
Zach leans forward a bit to keep them balanced on the back wheel. "I think it's pretty obvious what I'm doing!" he replies with another smirk. Though she wanted to wipe that smirk right off his face, she didn't dare let go of him for fear of slipping off the seat. Instead, Cammie tightened her grip on Zach's stomach, and her fingers brush across his rippled abs. She feels his abs tighten in response.
Finally, the front wheel touches back down on the ground. Cammie lets out a sigh of relief as she finds them turned around and in front of Grant's apartment building. Zach cuts the engine, and Cammie immediately hops off the motorcycle. Her legs were shaking and her heart was beating at least twice as fast as usual.
"What?" Zach asks innocently, draping his arm around her shoulders. "The wheelie a bit too much for you?"
"Um, yeah," Cammie answers as they head into the apartment building and into the elevator to Grant's apartment floor. "That's one experience I do not wish to relive. But the ride in general was amazing."
"Glad you liked it. We'll have to try it again soon."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Zach explains, "This mission isn't over yet. We'll have plenty of time to use the motorcycles." They walk down the hallway and knock on Grant's apartment, which opens right after Zach drops his arm from Cammie's shoulders.
"What'd you find out from Mrs. Hemlock?" Cammie asks immediately after they enter the apartment and the door shuts.
"Quite a bit, actually. Jonas and Liz are going to tell us everything they've found out after we find out what to do with Mrs. Hemlock," Grant explains as he leads them into the living room, where Bex was waiting with Liz and Jonas. Mrs. Hemlock was still tied up in the guest room.
"I say we just end it. Right now," Bex was saying, making a cutting motion on her neck with her hand, as they walk into the living room.
"We can't just kill Mrs. Hemlock!" Liz exclaims.
"But we have all the information we need from her right? So why not kill her now before she somehow escapes or gets her information leaked to Mr. and Mrs. Smith?" Bex continues, looking to her friends for back-up.
"I don't think we should kill her, but we should at least get her put in jail or somewhere else for safekeeping, wouldn't you think?" Cammie asks warily.
"I agree with Cammie," Zach agrees.
Bex shoots him a look, crosses her arms, and hisses bitterly, "You would agree with her, lover-boy."
Zach glances over at Cammie to gauge her reaction, but she looked unfazed. "Listen, let's just contact Mr. Solomon so we can get Mrs. Hemlock outta here and get on with the mission without having to worry about her constantly," Cammie continues.
"On it," Jonas reports, dialing Mr. Solomon's number into his cellphone. Everybody stays quiet as Jonas murmurs into the phone and periodically pauses to hear Mr. Solomon's response. Finally, Jonas hangs up and says, "He's sending over a few Miami police to come arrest Mrs. Hemlock , then they'll take her to a specialized prison where the FBI will pick her up later tonight so there will be no chance of any information getting to Mr. or Mrs. Smith."
"Speaking of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, here's the disk Cammie retrieved last night from the party at their mansion. I'm sure it has information about the nuclear weapon they're building," Zach blurts, withdrawing the blue CD case from his jacket pocket.
"Ah, 235U2H, the chemical symbol for a hydrogen bomb, since it contains simply hydrogen and uranium," Jonas thinks out-loud, looking at the CD case in his hands.
Liz snatches the CD from his hands and says, "We should check this out on the computer, then scan local Miami areas for high concentrations of Uranium and Hydrogen to locate the nuclear weapon. But for now… I need you all to take a seat. Jonas and I found out some pretty disturbing information from Mrs. Hemlock."
(Author's Note: I'm so sorry this chapter took forever! Honestly, I totally forgot about this story. Haha, oops. But I have four other stories going simultaneously, so I can't really commit a hundred percent to this one. Still, I hope you liked this chapter and I'll reallllly try hard to update again soon.)