“You could easily heal from this, Lara, and even get your memory back,” Cassandra continued. “We’re gathering a scientific team to game-plan ways to stimulate the healing process under such unique circumstances.”
Lara didn’t look at Damion. She couldn’t. She felt as if her heart had lodged in her throat. She pulled off two pads from her skin and sat up, somehow finding her voice. “Thank you for trying, Cassandra.” She turned to face Damion, and she knew what she had to do. She knew that no matter what the consequences to her, she had to stop Powell from doing this to anyone else. She had to stop him from hurting the Renegades. “I need to talk to you.”
Someone knocked on the door and it opened. “I’m supposed to get some blood from Lara,” Emma said, appearing in the entryway.
“No blood,” Lara said to Damion. “No more. I need to talk to you.”
He glanced at Cassandra and Emma in a silent plea for privacy, and they quickly departed.
The instant the door shut, Lara started talking. “It’s Powell. I’m part of an all women’s team of GTECHs called ‘Serenity.’ Counting me, there are—were—seven of us, but Powell was planning to grow our numbers. He said he was aligned with the government—that he is the government. That all GTECHs are the enemy. Lucian is Powell’s personal bodyguard, and the only male GTECH I ever knew to exist in our operation. Sadly, considering I was taking orders from the man, I know little to nothing more about Powell and the operation. At least, not that I remember. We both know my memory isn’t exactly golden at present. Bottom line here is that Sabrina and Lucian know I’m with the Renegades, and Powell will worry that I’m spilling his secrets, which is why I’m saying all of this now. Every second that passes gives him more time to escape before you can get to him.”
“Where is it?”
“I’ll take you to him.”
“Not a chance in hell,” he said, and before she could object, he added, “And no. It’s not because I don’t trust you. It’s because I care about you. You heard Cassandra. You have to rest. You have to heal. When you’re well, you can kick as much ass as you want, and I’ll cheer you on. Powell isn’t worth dying over. He’s a smart man. The chances that he’s still in the same location are next to zero. I’ll send a team to scout. If they find anything, we’ll decide what to do next.”
Lara would have argued, but her head was spinning, images of Powell sitting across from her at a table in a jail cell flickering in and out of her mind’s eye. “Mexico,” she said, and then gave him exact longitude and latitude.
Thirty minutes after Lara had given Damion Powell’s last location, Michael and a team of Renegades were planning to scout Powell’s last known location under the cover of night. Easily reading Lara’s unease after her confessions, Damion was now protectively ushering her back to his place where they could be alone.
Together they stepped onto the moving sidewalk leading to the soldiers’ quarters, tension and unspoken words stretching between them, and it was all he could do not to reach for her. He could see the pain in her face, the tightness around her lips that told him she was suffering. He wanted to touch her, to use their bond to make it go away. He wanted to tell her he was in awe of her courage for doing what she’d just done, by giving them a shot at catching Powell. He could tell she was hanging on by a thread, either waiting to unload something she hadn’t told him, or possibly, trying not to. Touching her before she felt more in control would be a mistake. He knew this. Maybe that was because they were Lifebonds, or maybe it was simply because they’d been through a lifetime of hell together already. They had that rare connection that friends and lovers felt, from the instant they’d connected, that allowed the Lifebond to exist in the first place.
When they finally stood in front of his room Damion keyed in the code. The instant the green light flashed on the panel, Lara pushed open the door and darted forward. Damion hesitated in the hallway, his body heating at the memory of her doing the exact same thing just a few nights before—remembering the naked, playful Lara who’d teased and pleased him for hours on end.
In pursuit, Damion entered the living room just in time to catch a glimpse of Lara cutting through the bedroom. He found her inside the bathroom, back to the mirror, holding a small compact and lifting her hair to see behind her. Damion stilled, catching a glimpse of what she was seeing in the reflection, of the etched circle with another circle inside it. The Lifebond mark. His mark, their mark. On some instinctive level, he’d known from the moment he’d first seen her by the pool—before they’d spoken, before they’d touched—that she was special, that this was where they were headed.
She let her hair fall to her shoulders, her hand dropping to her side, the compact crashing to the floor. “You already knew, didn’t you?”
“I suspected.” He forced himself to hold his ground, to give her a little more time, a little more space—no matter how much he wanted to touch her, to taste her, to hold the woman who he knew with certainty now to be his Lifebond.
“When? Why didn’t you say something?” She held up a shaking hand to her face and dropped it. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t be Lifebonds. I can’t stay here. I need a separate room. We have to stay away from each other. Cassandra said that when she and Michael—”
“You talked to Cassandra about this?”
“No.” She cut a hand through the air. “She doesn’t know about us. But she told me about her and Michael. They didn’t have to do the blood exchange, Damion.”
“They did a blood exchange.” He took a step toward her.
“Stop!” she ordered. “Wait. Don’t touch me. Listen to me, Damion. Please. The blood bond just speeds up the completion of the bonding. Cassandra started converting without it, just by being near Michael. I’m already GTECH. Surely it will be faster for us. You can’t touch me. We can’t even be near each other—”
Something dark and possessive stirred inside him. Anger, need, a burning. Damion pulled her close, turned her so that her back was against the wall, her body hugged by his. “Is it such a horrible thing to be bound to me, Lara? To a Renegade?”
“No,” she rasped urgently. “Yes. No, damn it. It’s not about you being a Renegade. It’s about me—about me not knowing who I am, or what I’ve done, or to whom I’ve done it. We came together because we were enemies, destined to hate each other. We can’t change that anymore than we can change whatever I’ve done in my past.”
He kissed her, a passionate claiming that screamed of possession, of the first acknowledgement that she was his, and he was hers. “Do I taste like an enemy?” He kissed her again, his hand sliding over her waist, her hip. “Do I feel like an enemy?” He palmed her breast, wanting her naked, wanting to be inside her. “Do I feel like I hate you?”
“There’s a fine line between hate and lust.”
“That’s love and hate,” he corrected softly, before kissing her again. She shoved at his chest, trying to pull away, only to moan as his tongue found hers, stroking, caressing, demanding her response. He pressed his hand under her shirt, onto the warm, soft skin of her back, molding her closer, molding her breast with his palm.
“Stop,” she panted, and then moaned again, arching into his touch, before tearing her mouth from his. “Damn it, Damion.” Her fingers curled around his biceps. “What if I did something neither of us can live with? Something that will make me unwelcome here?” The desperation in her voice stilled him, and he pulled back to study her face.
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
“No,” she said quickly. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. What if I did things I can’t remember? What if I killed one of your friends? People you care about?”
He ran his hand down her hair. “You didn’t.”
She grabbed his shirt and balled it in her hands. “Please listen to me. I beg you. You can’t know what I did or didn’t do. Powell told me the Renegades killed my family. No. It was more than mere words. He put memor
ies in my head of the night they were killed. Until I met you, I hated the Renegades and lived for vengeance.”
Tenderness filled him, and he ran his hand down her hair. “Lara, sweetheart. Whatever happened—happened. It’s done and over with, and it can’t be changed. You were brainwashed, and everyone here knows that. It only worked because you’re brave, because there is an inherent part of your character that wanted to fight back for your family. It only worked because of who you are as a person. And that person happens to be amazing. I’m crazy about you.” He picked her up.
“What are you doing?” she asked, holding onto his neck.
“Doctor’s orders,” he said. “I’m taking you to bed.”
Logan entered his newly relocated lab office, tension rippling in his muscles. Opal was dead after suffering a sudden, unexplained seizure. She’d freaking died. She’d walked into his office and told him she wasn’t feeling well and then just seized herself right to death. He and Jenna had tried everything to save her. Now she was lying in a lab room, waiting for him to explain why she was no more, when he finally got the courage to call Powell in Germany. This, after they’d lost their newest recruit during relocation, also to a seizure. He’d been certain that moving her during her Bar-1 assimilation had been responsible for the attack. Now though… now that Opal had experienced a similar fate, he was screwed.
He scrubbed his jaw, walked to the small fridge in the corner, grabbed a beer, and then put it back. This was a whiskey kind of night if he’d ever had one. Powell would kill him if Bar-1 failed. And then there was little Lara Martin. What if her trigger didn’t work? What if she had a seizure and died before he was able to reprogram her and use her to destroy the Renegades?
He headed for his steel desk, sat down, pulled open the bottom left drawer, and removed the tequila inside. He was about to pour himself a shot, when a knock sounded on the door. Damn. He shoved the bottle back into the drawer. “Come in.”
Jenna appeared in the doorway, looking delicate as a flower, too delicate and too beautiful to be mixed up in this hell of a war.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Was he okay? He was thinking she was delicate, and she was asking him if he was okay. No, he was not okay. “I’m fine.” He motioned her forward and lifted the bottle from his drawer. “Or I will be. Care to join me?” He set two shot glasses on the desk, next to the bottle.
She walked into the room, and her lab coat flashed open to give him a glimpse of a slender waist and a tapered black skirt. She had a body on her—a slender, curvy, hot body.
“Shut the door,” he said. He wanted her. If he was going to die soon, he wanted a piece of this woman before he died.
She did as he asked and surprised him by walking around the desk to stand next to his chair. She leaned against the desk, and he filled the glasses, handing her one as well. He touched her glass with his. “To staying alive.” They both downed the booze, and she coughed slightly.
He laughed and filled her glass again. “They go down easier the more you have.” They both drank.
“Powell will kill us if Lara dies before we can reprogram her to destroy the Renegades.”
“That’s right,” he said, and downed another shot. “Which is why I haven’t told him Opal is dead.”
“How do you plan to make Lara believe Skywalker is alive and set off her trigger? Because however you plan to do it, I say do it now.”
“I assure you, we have a plan to do just that, but Powell is right about waiting. The Renegades need to trust her, and that takes time. If I rush this and fail to turn Lara into the Renegade executioner, I’ll be dead. If I don’t rush this, and she dies before that happens, I’ll be dead.” He moved her to sit in front of him and rolled her skirt up her legs, his gaze following the lines of her sleek thighs, to reveal thigh-highs. “If I’m going to die, I want to die a happy man.” He pulled her skirt to her waist and glanced at her. “Why, sweet little Jenna—you don’t have any panties on.” He set her on top of the desk and spread her legs. “Here I thought you were a good girl.”
“That’s because you were fucking the wrong woman,” she said. “Now I’m going to help you fuck the right one.”
He arched a brow, aroused by this new, naughty Jenna. “And you would be the right one, I assume?”
“Literally, yes.” She slid her high-heeled feet to the arm of his chair. “Fuck me, and fuck me well, because I’ve been waiting far too patiently for you, for far too long. Figuratively speaking, no. I was referring to Sabrina. If Opal just disappears, then she’s Sabrina’s problem, not yours. Sabrina will look incompetent, unable to motivate and manage her team. You will be the one person Powell can count on. The one who can make sure the Renegades are destroyed. When they are, he’ll look like a hero to the government, and we’ll get the funding we want to fix what’s wrong with Bar-1 and replicate the GTECH serum.” She leaned forward and grabbed his shirt, pulling him forcefully forward with more strength than she should possess. “And we won’t tell him it only takes half the serum he thinks is necessary to convert a human to GTECH. That’ll be our secret.”
He stiffened. “What are you saying?” He tried to lean back, but she held him easily. “Jenna, did you—?”
She nipped his ear. “You bet I did. A few more weeks and I’ll be as strong as Sabrina. I’ll replace Sabrina in every possible way.” She let him go and leaned back. “So you see… you don’t get to die just yet. I’m not done with you.” She slid one of her high-heels to his chest, pressing it against his flesh, the bite painfully arousing. “And don’t even think about saying no. Sabrina isn’t the only bitch in the house anymore. You have no idea the things I have in store for you—or her.”
Logan smiled. “Right now, sweetheart, I’ve already died… and gone to heaven.” And then he ripped her blouse open, but he was in some deep water, and he knew it.
This wasn’t the Jenna he knew, the Jenna he’d wanted. This was someone else—another Sabrina—another GTECH on a power trip. If this could happen to Jenna, it could happen to anyone.
It was proof to him that Powell was right—the GTECH serum created monsters that had to be controlled. So he was along for the hot ride that Jenna offered, the short-term high, but he was officially Team Powell.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The instant Lara was on the mattress, she scooted backward on her hands, trying to put distance between herself and Damion. Trying desperately to do what was right, to hold onto what little will she had to put space between them, while they still could. He captured her legs, stilling her retreat. “Damion, I—”
“Can’t get enough of me? Want me?”
Her brows dipped, and she shifted her weight to her elbows to look at him. “I should say no, just because that was such an arrogant statement.”
He smiled at her reply, satisfaction in his expression. He’d been baiting her into one of their familiar combative exchanges, and she’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. “You’re bad,” she said. And sweet. He was trying to get her to relax.
“I could say the same of you,” he said, maneuvering her under him as he slid on top of her, his big body framing hers. Their breath mingled, the air around them shifting, thickening with desire. The sexy male scent of him wrapped her in a warm blanket of desire. The lightness of his tone turned raspy, laden with desire. “I want you, Lara. I want you more than I have ever wanted another woman.”
“Because of the mark,” she said, speaking the fear she hadn’t even admitted to herself. “It makes us want each other. What we feel isn’t real.”
“Ah sweetheart,” he said, kissing her jaw, her neck, and then whispering near her ear. “That’s where you’re wrong. We created the mark. It didn’t create us.” His teeth grazed her neck, then her lobe. “And I wanted you the minute I set eyes on you, before the mark ever existed.”
“That was the bikini.”
“You, in the bikini,” he assured her. He cupped her backside. “Hav
e I mentioned how much I love your little heart-shaped backside, especially in that bikini?”
“You were on duty,” she said, smiling despite herself, her fingers sliding together at the back of his neck. “You shouldn’t have been looking at my backside.”
“Exactly my point,” he agreed. “I’ve never, ever been distracted on the job. But you… you stole my breath then, and you still do.”
A mixture of heat, desire, and an emotion she was afraid to name, rushed through her. “Damion,” she whispered, the hardness of his chest against her palms. He’d been there for her in so many ways, and she was falling hard. Too hard and too fast. “You are… you make me…”
“Yeah,” he said softly, seeming to read her mind. “I’m afraid of caring about you too, but it’s too late. I already do. I’m not running from it, and neither are you. Not because you’re afraid. I won’t let you. And I don’t mean that like some dominating asshole either—we both know you can bust my chops if I get out of line.” His voice softened again. “But if you try to run just because you’re afraid of some past that doesn’t matter, then I’ll fight you on it. We’re in this together now, Lara, and we’ll deal with the past, one memory and one day at a time.”
Yes. She wanted to scream, yes, but… “What if—”
“What if you stop saying ‘what if’ and just be with me? And ‘what if’ I do this?” He slanted his mouth over hers, his tongue parting her lips, pressing intimately into her mouth. She breathed him in, drank him in, until he gently nipped her bottom lip with his teeth. “And finally, ‘what if’ I give you an orgasm, and then do it again and again, until you forget all your reasons to worry.” One of his hands slid over her breast, before he caressed a path down her sides, until he pressed her shirt upward and touched his lips to her stomach. Goose bumps prickled her skin, and instantly sent heat over her entire body.
Zodius Series Box Set (Books 1-4) (The Zodius Series Book 5) Page 82
