by Lyssa Hart
She gaped at him, trying not to think of the coin men were prone to demand, but she felt her face heating with the thought anyway. “I … uh ….” She didn’t even know why that had occurred to her. In the first place, they weren’t men—not entirely anyway. In the second, they’d been developed, in a lab, specifically as killing machines—not social. And, as far as she was aware, they hadn’t had any training or experience in social interaction, with any civilian, let alone females. There was no reason for that to occur to him and there shouldn’t have been any reason for it to occur to her.
Except …. She’d never noticed, before, that they were amazingly handsome. She didn’t know why she hadn’t—except she’d been so terrified of them she hadn’t dared to actually look at them. She thought there had been a sort of shock that had narrowed her vision to collecting her samples and rushing away as fast as she could.
But they weren’t just machines. They were cyborgs, biological entities.
Of course only a portion of the biology came from humans. Of the half that was biological, only half of that was human. The rest was … Well, hawk DNA in his case, to give him flight capabilities and acute sight and hearing.
She struggled for a moment to recall what they’d called one another—because they hadn’t actually been named. They’d been designated by the DNA contributors.
Brahma was part … bull Brahma.
Puma was part big cat.
Cham-Two…. That stumped her for a few moments until she realized they’d shortened his name from Chameleon to Cham—But he wasn’t the only Cham so Cham-Two.
“They were trying to kill me!” she said finally. “I wouldn’t help them.”
He tilted his head questioningly. “That was cops?”
He knew they weren’t, she thought angrily. “The company sent them, but half the cops are on their payroll and the government is behind them, too. You were … uh ….”
“Developed for the military?” he said dryly. “Weapons.”
She swallowed with an effort. “Exactly! I just want to run and hide somewhere until they stop looking for me. I’m not interested in getting anybody in trouble.”
He nodded. “Right. And it wouldn’t occur to you to buy your way out of the mess you got yourself into by turning us over, right?”
She gaped at him, outraged. “I did not get myself into this, damn it! I just … I just took a job. A regular job as a lab assistant! Do you know how damn hard it is to get a job? Nobody digs for dirt on the employers—they’re all dirty—but they’re the only ones that have jobs. And I like to eat and I like having a roof over my head!”
“So why not breed for the government? Get in on the repopulation program? That’s a job you’re qualified for—unless …. I have to admit I’m not that good at judging the age of humans—especially females since I was never allowed near any. You look like you might be breeding age, though.”
Oh that was really insulting—all of it! Was it her fault they hadn’t let females near them? They didn’t want to take a chance on distracting them from learning to be efficient killers.
And she damned sure didn’t look like she was beyond breeding age!
And she had a brain, not just ovaries. She didn’t want to be stuck in a breeding pen with a bull selected by the government and her ‘product’ monitored by them and her skills as a parent dictated by them.
It wasn’t worth it to live in squalor and get the food they begrudgingly doled out.
“Men! If you’d seen what that’s like you wouldn’t question why every woman doesn’t jump right on it. I like to know who’s between my legs, and inside of me, thank you very much! I don’t want big daddy picking him out for me!”
She was so pissed off she didn’t realize what she’d said until she finally noticed the effect her frank denunciation had had on Hawk.
It was as clear as a bell that she hadn’t … at least entirely … misread that earlier question. She might not be miss sexpot, but she’d been chased around enough tables to know what a man looked like when he had fucking in mind!
It was unfortunate that he’d zoned back in to focus before that dawned on her, though, because she’d missed an opportunity to try to buy her way out of the mess she was in by bartering sex for favor.
It was just as well. She wouldn’t have been very good at it, she didn’t think. She’d never actually tried it and she wasn’t sure how much you were supposed to dangle and when to give up the prize to make it work. She had a bad feeling that coaxing him into screwing would only result in her having friction burns on her back and cum dripping down her legs—assuming he produced seminal fluids—not release.
She thought it was supposed to be promised and not delivered, but she didn’t know how the hell to do that.
It sounded like a seriously dangerous game.
Men could get really violent about that kind of disappointment and she shuddered to think what any of the elite killers might think to do.
She should’ve just kept her mouth shut, she thought uneasily, wondering if she’d put images in his head that she would’ve rather not.
If she wasn’t a total simpleton she would have known not to say anything like that.
They were extremely intelligent on top of everything else they had going for them, animal instincts and specialized abilities, human brains, and all that jacked up by cutting edge technology—which included nano technology to protect the unit and repair it as needed.
In effect—superior to humans in every way.
* * * *
She was right on the money as far as the images she was worried about. Hawk had been in a state before she had put those images in his head about being between her legs and inside of her. Afterwards, he couldn’t bring his mind to anything else for some time.
He was adept, fortunately, at hiding his thoughts and any doubts he might harbor, and he maintained, instinctively, a façade of normal behavior in spite of the turmoil going on inside his head.
But it was chaotic and that reduced his effectiveness to a dangerous degree.
It was fortunate for both of them that it was his men that returned before any of their enemies managed to track them down.
It was fortunate for the men, though not surprising, that they’d been successful in their endeavors.
Hawk told Brahma to bring the woman—distancing himself with deliberation because he couldn’t trust himself to touch her—not just then when he needed to keep his wits about him.
It was enough that he had to breathe her scent with every breath he took and that that was like a narcotic—and a hallucinogen rolled together.
It didn’t help that the scent of the men who’d attacked her was rolled into that, as well, because he was having difficulty separating the lust and the blood lust at war within him.
Bathing hadn’t been possible under the circumstances, but it would have been better for him if he could’ve separated the scents—he could have kept his wits together better and his temper more under control.
As it was, he gave himself away the moment the men returned and, by the time they reached their destination, he’d encountered more uneasy looks than he liked.
He was surprised they weren’t having the difficulty he was.
But, in point of fact, he was wrong as was so often the case when a person was caught up in emotional turmoil. They became too self-absorbed to notice that others might be suffering also.
They were having the same difficulty.
Brahma, Puma, and Cham-Two had experienced the same situation as Hawk had, and it affected them. Their prime directive, after all, was to protect the weak and vulnerable—women and children—and it bothered them a great deal to smell the scent of the attackers on the woman.
The difference between them was that they hadn’t, yet, gotten the mating call to her scent.
And Hawk had, all unwittingly, not only gotten it, but answered it.
Hawk discovered at least part of that when they’d arrived at their destinatio
n and gotten out of the van Brahma and Puma had appropriated for their use.
“We’re going to have to do something about the scent of those bastards she’s carrying around or I’m going to lose my mind,” Puma growled when he, Hawk, and Brahma got out, leaving Cham-Two to secure their rescue.
Hawk had been uneasy about the decision to tie her up, but he didn’t trust her to stay put without a watchdog and he couldn’t spare anyone from the operation—not when they had no idea how many guards they were likely to come up against.
It damned sure wasn’t safe to take her along until they’d secured the place.
He rubbed the tension in his neck. “I thought it was just me,” he growled.
“Why the fuck would you think that? Like we don’t all have noses?”
Hawk shook his head. “Just too fogged to think straight,” he muttered, wondering if they’d also been befuddled by her scent.
He damned sure wasn’t going to ask. He needed them on point and cool headed.
When Cham-Two emerged, he sent him to reconnoiter since he could use his chameleon abilities to accomplish that without being detected.
While they cooled their heels waiting, he had time to hatch a plan that was just next door to insane.
It was a house and it had a bath.
He was going to make sure she got rid of that scent before they left, by god, if he had to stand over her ….
Not a good place to allow his mind to go at the moment.
Cham-Two distracted him from the heated thoughts that gripped him when he came back to report a small army of guards—outside. None that he’d seen inside the mansion.
“Good. We can take them down with stealth and catch the bastard off guard—hopefully.”
Puma and Cham-Two were the most stealthy.
Brahma was … well, Brahma—good when force was necessary, but not very subtle. And his wings hampered him with stealth—if he used them.
They left Brahma waiting in the wings to take the door down when they’d eliminated the guards. It took them a good fifteen minutes to track them all down and dispose of them, which got on Hawk’s nerves big time. But it was a sprawling estate and the guards in constant motion. There was no hope for it and he didn’t dare leave a single one to sound the alarm.
He sent Puma to grab the woman when they completed that part of the mission and tell Braham to take the door down.
It made way the fuck more noise than he liked.
But just as the estate was sprawling, it was nestled into a valley of wealthy pricks that had sprawling estates—and distant neighbors heard and saw less.
Leaving Brahma to clear up the mess he’d made and barricade the opening, he and Cham-Two went to look for the prick.
The prick was at dinner when they entered—being served by a butler and accompanied by a female that looked … well used.
Turned out, she was his wife. She just had the look of a prostitute.
She set up a screech that hurt Hawk’s ears. All he could think about was silencing her as quickly as possible, which he accomplished by clamping a hand over her mouth.
Actually, he covered her mouth and nose—she wasn’t very big—but he didn’t realize that until she passed out.
Which was actually a good thing for all concerned. They bound and gagged her and left her with the rest of the staff—also bound and gagged, in a closet full of food that was as big as a room.
They brought Alexis in via the French doors overlooking the patio and made her identify ‘big boss’.
She glared at Hawk resentfully. “Now he’s seen me!”
He gave her a sour look. “Do you think he didn’t already have a good idea of what you looked like before he sent his goons to take you out?”
“I did not!” the lying bastard bellowed.
“You lying son of a bitch …,” Alexis began before Hawk silenced her with his hand.
“Search the place and see what you can find. She’s right. He’s just going to lie unless we manage to beat the truth out of him, and I’m not sure he’d know the truth if it bit him in ass. And I don’t want to spare the time to find out.”
Picking Alexis up, he left the room with her and began a search of the upper floor that produced what he was looking for almost immediately.
The first bedroom he checked had one.
“Strip and bathe,” he growled.
Alexis gaped at him like he’d lost his mind. “While you watch?”
He gave her a look. “I think I can control myself. What I can’t handle is the stench.”
That was like a slap and Alexis almost reeled from it. “Stench?”
His lips tightened. “Of the men that manhandled you.”
“Oh. I thought ….” Well, if she smelled like them, and she damned well couldn’t tell, she definitely didn’t want to.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to get rid of the smell bad enough to get naked in front of Hawk, though.
On the other hand, he didn’t look like he was in a very good mood and she also didn’t want to test his temper. And besides that, she didn’t really think he would be overcome with lust if she got naked.
Presenting him with her back, she turned the shower on, stripped quickly with her back to him, and made quick work of a thorough scrubbing—only to discover that the rich apparently didn’t have regulated water usage like everyone else. It didn’t automatically shut off—and the water was hot, not just lukewarm. She couldn’t resist the urge to stay when it didn’t go off.
Hawk snatched the curtain open after a moment and snatched her out, naked and dripping.
She gaped him.
Hawk snapped. He’d had that look from her one time too many.
He caught her by the back of her neck and dragged her against his length, capturing her surprise slackened lips beneath his with all the fire he had pent up inside of him, demanding she acknowledge him as a man, not a monster. It was her quaking within his embrace that finally penetrated the heated fog of his mind sufficiently to cool him, to allow for a return to sanity.
When he lifted his head he discovered his entire squad had squeezed into the bathroom and were gaping at him and Alexis with slackened, lust filled gazes.
For several moments, a silent war was waged, but Hawk realized that all of them were near the breaking point. If he took her—as he wanted to—they would expect that the pecking order would, as always, be respected. If she was his, she was theirs.
As it was meant to be.
And then they would all die because he had led them to their deaths.
He set Alexis away from him.
“What have you found?”
They blinked as if coming out of a trance—which it had been—a lust filled trance—dragging their gazes from Alexis with an effort.
“An office filled with papers,” Cham-Two reported.
“A safe.”
“A safe.”
Hawk frowned, glancing from Brahma to Puma. “Two safes?”
“Yes.”
It only took a second to decide. “Grab the safes—or the contents.” He turned to Cham-Two. “Scan the pages in the files and take anything that seems relevant.”
When they’d left, reluctantly, he ushered Alexis out of the bathroom and told her to find clothes.
She found the woman’s clothes. It wasn’t exactly a great fit, but she found stretchy clothing that was made to accommodate a wider range of shape and size than clothing with no stretch. When she put the pants and top on they fit her like a second skin.
But then, he’d seen her naked. He was never going to be able to look at her again without seeing naked, he was very much afraid.
Or remembering how much sweeter she’d tasted even than her scent—which was enough to drive him insane.
He hustled her from the bedroom back down the stairs.
They’d only covered about half of them when he discovered the fucking cops were trying to break down the door they’d already broken once.
The barricade they
’d built wasn’t going to hold long.
Chapter Six
Grabbing Alexis under one arm, Hawk leapt the last half of the stairs and bolted toward the back of the house. Puma was still working on getting the safe open. “Just pull it out and take it,” Hawk growled. “We have to go … now!”
Shrugging, Brahma, who was across the room, picked up the safe he’d ‘accidently’ ripped from the wall when he tried to pull the door off. When he saw Puma hadn’t gotten his safe loose, he tossed the one he had to him and removed the second.
A spray of bullets tore through the walls of the house, pinged off the safes, and took out the ‘big boss’—still tied to his chair—as they headed for the doors.
Hawk, Alexis, and Cham-Two had already dashed out of the French doors, checked the perimeter, went over the wall, and sprinted toward the golf trail that led to the van they’d ‘captured’ earlier. Puma was a little behind them and Brahma brought up the rear with a hail of bullets chasing him down the path.
Fortunately, that allowed Hawk and Cham-Two just enough time to stuff Alexis in and leap into the two front seats. Puma dove into the side door opening as they gunned the engine and Brahma chased them for about a quarter mile before Hawk finally slammed on the breaks to give him a chance to catch them.
He tossed the safe in.
It hit the opposite wall and went through and he had to run around to the other side to grab it.
That time he clambered in with it and Hawk took off again.
“We’re going to have to ditch the damned van,” Hawk growled irritably. “I’m pretty sure they got a good look at it while we were trying to get in.”
“Sorry boss,” Brahma apologized, still slightly breathless from the sprint.
He was way better at short runs than the long, drawn out ones.
Hawk dismissed it. “I’m guessing we tripped a silent alarm when we took out the door.” He slid an indecipherable look at Alexis in the rearview mirror. “We should have been in an out in fifteen or under.”
But they hadn’t because Alexis had decided to linger in the shower, she realized.
