Chase Me by Tamara Hogan

stretch.
    Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Lorin brace her hands against the picnic table and lean into a quadriceps lunge. Her muscles flexed and rippled as she deepened the stretch, deeper, deeper, until her crotch nearly rested on the heel of her running shoe.
    She didn’t so much move as… flow from one movement to the other. What would she look like writhing underneath him, lost in the throes of passion? What would it feel like to have those legs twined around him as she shook apart in his arms? Absolutely spectacular .
    Gabe cursed as his body responded. The sweatpants wouldn’t camouflage his condition very long. For a split second, he felt like a pimple-faced pup again, but he shoved the guilt away. An erection was an autonomic physiological response, nothing he could control. They were both adults here. A woman as beautiful as Lorin Schlessinger had certainly seen more than her share of inconvenient erections.
    She pointed to the deck. “Footprints.”
    She hadn’t noticed his condition; she hadn’t even been looking at him. Gabe didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted. He crouched down beside her. Sure enough, there were muddy footprints on the deck in front of the window.
    “Looky-loos.” At his raised eyebrow, Lorin flapped her hand toward the nearby town. “Trespassers. We get a couple every year, usually kids on a dare, or someone who’s drunk, on foot, stumbling home from Tubby’s.” She narrowed her eyes. “Though usually not this early in the season.”
    Gabe examined the muddy footprints. The trespasser had a slightly smaller foot than he or Lorin did, and wore shoes with virtually no tread. The prints tracked from the cabin door to the window, and then trailed off the deck into the birch and pine trees. “There’s no mud today. Whoever it was must have been here yesterday. Anything missing from the cabin?”
    “Not that I’ve noticed, but I wasn’t looking, either. I lock the door when I leave camp.”
    As she went into the cabin to check her possessions, Gabe examined the cabin’s lock and doorknob. No pry-marks. The metal was smooth and unscratched.
    Lorin came to the doorway, standing so close that even through the top notes of sunscreen and bug dope, he could smell her warm skin. “Doesn’t look jimmied,” he said, stepping back.
    “How about you? Missing anything?”
    “Shit,” Gabe muttered. Trotting back to the flimsy tent, he mentally ticked off his valuables. The prototype Bat Phone never left his body, even when he jogged. His laptop was stored in a locked file cabinet in the workshop, and he’d used it not two hours ago. Sweeping the zippered door open, he quickly scanned the few possessions he’d brought. Over in the corner, his duffel bag slouched, agape. He jammed his hand into it and fished around, past his own sunscreen, bug dope, and a small first aid kit, until he felt the hard clamshell case of his backup glasses, and the magnifying glass he sometimes needed for reading. His prescription eyedrops were still there. A sigh of relief escaped.
    “Wow,” Lorin said from behind him. “What a mess.”
    She was right. Like a teenager dithering about his first date, he hadn’t been able to figure out what to wear to go running—and bathing—with Lorin, and his clothing was strewn all over his bedroll and the floor. “It doesn’t look like anything’s missing,” he said after a cursory search of the rest of his tent. “Most of the scientific equipment I brought is still locked in the trunk of my car.”
    Lorin sighed. “We haven’t had to be too concerned about physical security around here before.”
    “We are now,” he stated. “The data on our laptops alone is worth a bloody fortune to anyone who wants inside information about Sebastiani Labs. Imagine what could happen if someone hacked yours, with Council communications on it. The locks I’ve seen up here so far are pretty damn flimsy.”
    “I’ll call Lukas, see what he