Make Your Move by Samantha Hunter

breath.
    He nearly dropped her when there was a hard knock at the door, surprising them both.
    “Oh, sorry,” he apologized, steadying her and making sure she was okay. He ran a hand through his hair and then put a finger to his lips while shaking his head.
    There was no way he could answer that door, she knew. They were naked, clothes thrown everywhere. The room was saturated with the scent of warm bodies and sex.
    They watched each other, frozen in place, naked and silent, and Jodie felt a giggle rise. Dan’s eyes widened as he put the insistent finger to her lips this time, and she bit it playfully.
    The person at the door had started to walk away, when Dan’s cell phone started ringing with loud insistence on the desk. He scrambled to answer it, causing Jodie to collapse in more hysterical, repressed laughter.
    She stopped laughing when she saw his smile fade, and he answered the speaker with a series of hushedmmm-hmms and finally said, “Let us get back to you, okay?”
    “Dan, what is it?” she asked while pulling on her clothes, rattled by the look of concern on his face, the joviality completely gone.
    “That was a newspaper reporter. He said he met with an ‘anonymous source’ who showed him evidence that we’ve been selling chemically enhanced foods at the bakery, foods that have not been FDA tested, which could be harmful to people’s health. He wants to interview us on the claim, but he’s going to run the story either way.”
    “Jason, that—”
    “Prick,” he finished the sentence for her, and she nodded. “We should meet this guy, turn it around, Jodie. The pheromone formula doesn’t need to be FDA tested—it’s much like a vitamin or an herb. But I can show him my real data, which indicates there is no harmful effect.”
    “This could still be enough to scare people away. Dammit!”
    “Maybe it would do the opposite, you know? Create a stir, bring people in to find out for themselves? You know what they say, no publicity is bad publicity,” he offered but it didn’t comfort her. Businesses were too competitive in this current economic climate for her to take those kinds of chances.
    Dan had put on his clothes, as well, and walked over to her, pulling her into a hug. “We’ll deal with this together. Okay?”
    She nodded and hugged him back though, in her gut, she had a nasty feeling that things were only going to get worse.
     
    D AN WAITED until Jodie was on her way, and put his plan into action.
    The department secretary was out for half of the day, and he happened to know, having peeked at her master schedule for the faculty, that Jason Kravitz was involved in a meeting until three.
    He also knew where one of the master office keys was kept. Making his way toward Kravitz’s office, he intended to find out whatever it was that Kravitz had on Jodie, to take any copies of the pheromone formula. It would be, of course, evidence that he was the person who had broken into the store. Dan could call the police, but he doubted that it would stand scrutiny, especially since he’d have to admit to breaking into Jason’s office to get it. That would cause more trouble than it was worth. His goal was to minimize any damage to Jodie or the bakery, and to get Jason Kravitz out of their lives so that he and Jodie could focus on each other.
    Stopping by the office, he didn’t hesitate, sliding the key into place and then locking the door behind him.
    Looking around, he blinked, taken aback for a moment. He’d never been in Kravitz’s office—they certainly weren’t friendly—and he couldn’t believe what a mess it was. Paper, books, stacks of…everything were everywhere.
    How did the man work this way? Dan neededorder, needed things in their place, had to be able to concentrate.
    This would also make it much harder to find anything, but he started in the most obvious spot, the computer on the desk. Dan took a few stabs at cracking the password, but who knew how Kravitz’s demented mind