Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Working quickly now, relying in part on muscle memory, she added the button camera to the end of the robotic laparoscopic arm, and slid it through the seven-millimeter hole. The feed from the camera appeared on her phone screen, which she propped up against the wall, looking at it, rather than her hands.
The temperature controlled server farm was illuminated by the lights on the racks of servers, red and blue pinpoints like a thousand regimented colored stars in the vast inky darkness of space. She worked the control and slowly rotated the head of the laparoscope, the camera feed shifting little by little.
The back of her neck was sweaty and it felt like ten minutes had passed before she located the cluster servers.
Luckily they weren’t far from where she’d made the hole in the ceiling.
When she withdrew the laparoscope to thread the fire-wire cable into the room below, a tiny stream of cool air caressed her face.
She remembered Alexander’s hand on her cheek and her stomach rolled.
She plugged the other end of the cable into the hardware protocol analyzer, with more force than was necessary.
Dangerously impatient, she slid the laparoscope back into the hole. It barely fit, thanks to the thickness of the cable sharing the space.
Watching the camera feed, she used the robotic clamp to grab the end of the dangling cable.
It took her several tries to get the plug of the cable lined up with a free port, but once she had it, she pressed the small button that controlled the robotic section of the laparoscope. The tip of the scope jerked forward, providing enough force to plug the fire wire cable into the stack.
Alena sagged in relief, hating the feeling of cold sweat on her back.
Aware that time was not on her side, Alena turned to the HPA.
It wasn’t a consumer device, so it didn’t have helpful things like a display to tell her it was working. The black hat who’d built it for her had grudgingly added a small light that would blink if the unit was picking up data packets.
The light was solid red.
Sweet suffering Jesus, why wasn’t this damned thing—
The light started to blink.
Alena nearly whooped with joy, but managed to restrain herself.
Taking a small satellite uplink transmitter from her pocket—it had been in the first tampon—she plugged it into a port on the opposite side of the HPA.
As data flowed through the cable into the HPA, it was then transmitted via satellite signal to her computer, which would in turn back up the data to an external hard drive, and encrypted cloud storage.
Gathering up everything she didn’t need, she left the HPA on the floor, its light merrily blinking, the laparoscope embedded in the floor, and headed for her room.
She would have preferred to stay with the device, but with her timetable thrown off, she needed to make sure to rehide her tools in her luggage. She wouldn’t have time to do it all later.
She started up the steps, moving quickly and quietly.
She didn’t see the shadowy figure standing at the far end of the hall when she opened the door to her room and slipped inside.
Chapter 13
He couldn’t sleep.
He wanted Alena again, and not just for sex. He wanted to hear her call him “sugar’” while she teased him. Wanted to ask her about the scar he’d noticed on her knee, if that was why she didn’t wear high heels.
She was right here, just one floor below him, and yet he was tossing and turning in bed, pining for her as if she were on the other side of the world.
Disgusted with himself, Alexander got out of bed and padded into the bathroom. Thinking about Alena, even if it wasn’t thinking of her as a submissive, had his cock half erect and tenting the front of his boxers.
Alexander splashed cold water on his face and the back of his neck.
He stared at himself in the mirror. She’d left an hour ago, and if he hadn’t fallen asleep by now he wasn’t going to.
Before he thought of all the reasons not to do this, he went to the closet and grabbed her pashmina.
He couldn’t let her leave without it. She might need it. He should return it to her.
He grimaced. Returning a scarf was no reason to wake someone up in the middle of the night. An utterly stupid excuse to go down there and wake her up.
Still holding the scarf, he got back in bed and spent the next hour willing himself to sleep.
It didn’t work.
He hated this feeling that he’d lost her, that she was now somehow beyond his reach. First of all she was only one flight of stairs away. Second, if he wanted to see her without manufacturing some stupid excuse, he could set an alarm and be there to see her off.