Free TrackingDesire by Elizabeth Lapthorne

though the
exertion was mild, Liv felt her heart hammering so hard in her chest that she
thought it might break through her rib cage and fall out onto the plush carpet.
It wasn’t just Julian’s nearness—though heaven knew that sent her heart
skipping a merry little dance—but the thrill of being somewhere forbidden.
    Liv struggled to find the mental words to describe the
nearly overwhelming, intoxicating feeling of what she was experiencing. She had
concerns about being caught, and she felt the faint chill of fear run down her
spine when she heard a strange creak or a branch scraping on the window. Even
though these feelings ate at the corner of her mind, the knowledge that she and
Julian were somewhere illegal, that they were doing something good and right
and very, very naughty, was a dichotomy that made her feel heroic and
wrong at the same time. Despite her misgivings and her understanding that what
they were doing was not, in the strictest sense, right, her thrill at the acts
they were performing by far overpowered her minor moral objections.
    It was a lot to swallow in one hit, and even harder to
describe. She truly understood why Kelly had always struggled to explain this
feeling to her.
    “Should be this one,” Julian whispered, and her mind snapped
back to attention. Looking behind her, she quickly counted the doors, then
nodded her assent. According to the blueprints—and so far they had not led them
wrong—this should be the entrance to the basement.
    “Open it,” Liv agreed as she snuck cautious glances up and
down the hallway to check that they were still undiscovered.
    Julian hesitantly turned the door handle and opened the door
a crack. Together they strained their ears to listen for any signs of life on
the other side. No alarms sounded, no shouting or any other signs that they had
been noticed.
    They breathed identical sighs of relief and exchanged grins
at how comical they were, mirroring one another.
    “I’m usually the ass-covering man,” Julian reminded her,
seeming to read her mind again. “I’m not used to the heart-thumping adrenaline
rush of being the point man. What’s your excuse?”
    “You’re kidding me.” Liv laughed softly. “I’m used to being
given carte blanche. If someone is desperate enough to get something back that
they come to me to Retrieve it for them, I’m pretty much guaranteed entrance to
most places to track it down. I don’t need to go skulking about in rich
people’s mansions while they host a charity dinner and break into their office
or basement.”
    “I thought you and Kelly…” Julian let his words trail off
suggestively.
    Liv raised her eyebrow at him and snorted. “No. Never. It
started as a game when we were kids. She’d steal it, hide it, and I’d Retrieve
it. Then, when I found out what a boys’ club Retrieving is out in the real
world, we continued just to build my reputation—and besides, it was good
training,” she explained.
    Liv had never told the entire story to anyone, but she
trusted Julian, and considering where they were and what they were doing, she
figured that telling him her history was not giving him ammunition he’d use for
wicked purposes.
    “After that, it was just…habit, I suppose. And a lark.
Nothing too serious,” she admitted. “After the first few years, those jobs
petered off dramatically and Kelly cut way back because she didn’t need to do it much anymore. She only continued because it’s something she can’t
quit. An addiction of a sort, I suppose.”
    Julian nodded and they returned their attention to the task
at hand. The door opened onto a flight of stairs. Liv pulled a thin flashlight
out of her jacket pocket, pleased she had recalled the number of times Kelly
had told her about needing one in her kit on different jobs she’d been on in
the past.
    Together they entered the doorway and Liv closed the door
behind them.
    “We’re entering the basement now,” Liv said softly into her
comm unit,