by Lyssa Hart
Like how was she to know the security detail, or the cops, were going to get there that quick? If anybody else had a damned emergency they were lucky to see the cops that day! Or even the next.
Shit there was supposed to be security at her apartment, but had the cops shown up—at all? Hell no! The bastards could’ve murdered her ten times before they dragged their asses out to check on her.
“It wasn’t my idea to take a shower in the middle of a break in,” she pointed out, then added before he could blame her for that, “Or to wallow all over the bastards trying to beat answers out of me.”
Thankfully, nobody had a comeback for that. They drove in silence until they reached a dark alley to ditch the van and then everyone bailed out. They moved down the alley about halfway the block and then Brahma removed the cover for a sewer opening and Puma dropped through. He disappeared for a few moments and popped out again. “Looks clear … for a couple miles either way.”
“Heads up,” Brahma growled, dropping the safes down to him one at the time and then Cham-Two went down.
Hawk dropped Alexis down to them rather than letting her slow them down with a climb and then he went and finally Braham grabbed the manhole cover and dragged it in place behind him.
When they were all assembled, they struck off as if they knew where they were headed and emerged again about a mile away from the place where they’d gone in.
“I sure am glad I got a bath before we took to the sewers,” Alexis reflected out loud.
Puma clamped a hand over her mouth. “What part of ‘we’re being hunted’ don’t you get, lady?” he growled in her ear.
Fine! If he wanted to be an asshole about it! Like she hadn’t looked around to make sure they were alone before she’d made the comment!
Ok, so she hadn’t looked that hard, but she knew they weren’t going to climb out on top of anybody. They could sense if anyone was within a mile of them.
And, yeah, sounds carried a long ways, especially at night when everything was quiet, but she hadn’t said it much above a whisper.
Because she was mostly complaining to herself.
They went into a warehouse.
She couldn’t tell if it was the same one or a different one, but it was another abandoned one if it wasn’t the same place.
And they found a light.
Or maybe brought one.
Puma and Brahma settled to wrestling the safes open while Hawk and Cham-Two started going through the files Cham-Two had collected and Alexis, who was still weak in the knees from that kiss Hawk had laid on her, found a place to collapse.
She didn’t want to dwell on the kiss, but she hadn’t been able to think about much else since then.
If that hadn’t been raw passion, she was damned if she would know it if she ever experienced it!
She didn’t know how she felt about it—mostly just stunned.
Ok, highly aroused, too, but she didn’t want to think about that either—or the fact that she was still quaking inside with unrequited lust and her hooha kept winking like ‘where’s the meat?’
It didn’t take Cham-Two and Hawk long to go through the papers Cham-Two had captured and then they discarded them—all over the floor.
Alexis stared at them for a few minutes and finally moved closer and picked them up, angling them toward the light to see what they were.
It looked like mundane day-to-day stuff—reports on every facet of the operations—memos, that sort of thing.
Discarding them when she’d looked through them she waited for Cham-Two and Hawk to dispose of the next batch from Brahma’s safe and then looked through them.
One thing leapt out at her fairly quickly.
“Hey! I’ve heard of this place!”
Hawk snatched the paper from her and scanned it again.
“It’s nothing,” he said, dropping it again.
Alexis picked it up. “It is nothing! It’s the letterhead that’s something. This is a shell company of THE company, Bio-H Tech. I heard they do a lot of the research and development there. Maybe ….”
Hawk took it away from her again and read the letterhead then. “It’s in the same business park as Bio-H Tech.”
“It isn’t right beside it, though, so maybe it won’t be under investigation yet,” Alexis pointed out.
Hawk studied her thoughtfully and uneasiness slithered through Alexis.
Thankfully, he seemed to dismiss whatever bad thoughts were running through his mind.
“We going to send Cham-Two to scout first?” Puma asked.
Hawk shook his head. “They’re already on to us. It won’t be hard to guess where we’ll head next. I think we’re going to have to hit it fast and hard and get out or just let it go.”
Puma, Brahma, and Cham-Two all gaped at him and then exchanged a questioning look.
Alexis was really glad they didn’t look at her because she was pretty damned sure they would be thinking he was thinking about bailing out because of her.
That was her first thought and she didn’t know him as well as they did.
“You in favor of that?” Puma asked.
“Letting it go? Hell no! But I’m not going to push it if you guys are against it. This is getting hairier the deeper we go.”
“In that case, I’m in favor of option one,” Cham-Two said. “I’d hate like hell to risk getting shot full of holes this many times and come away empty handed.”
“I’m in,” Brahma said.
“Me, too,” Puma seconded him.
Alexis hesitated, but really she’d lost all interest in being left … for the moment anyway. “Me, too.”
They all turned and stared at her.
“What? I can be useful.”
“Have you ever been there?” Puma asked with interest.
She glared at him. “No, but neither have you guys and I at least saw it before.”
“That’ll help,” Brahma said with a laugh.
“I wasn’t leaving you anyway,” Hawk said dryly.
“Oh. Well, I’ll help.”
“Why would you do that?” Hawk asked curiously.
She frowned at him. “They were trying to kill me! Doesn’t that make this my fight, too?”
“She has a point,” Puma said.
“Except that isn’t going to solve her problem anymore than taking out those goons did or the cops taking out the big boss. The totem pole is a lot taller. I don’t know that there’s going to be any getting her out of it if we leave her here.”
The cops took out the big boss, she thought uneasily?
But then she realized it must have been them if anybody did. The guys wouldn’t do that just for spite.
“But … you said you were taking me,” Alexis reminded him.
“I meant in the city when we leave.”
“Oh. Well … uh … I could be useful. I don’t want to die.”
The guys exchanged a look she had no trouble deciphering.
It was a man thing. Just tell them you wanted to be useful and sex was the only damned thing they could think of!
“We’ll talk about it later,” Hawk said pointedly. “Right now we should jump on this and get the hell out while we still can.”
‘Jump’ wasn’t exactly what they did. Hawk had to send the guys out to find another mode of transport since they’d ditched the van.
Of course it had been in pretty bad shape after that excursion.
* * * *
When they reached the industrial park Hawk drove past the building slowly, allowing the others to study it and then found a place just a short distance away in a parking lot, making certain he backed the van into a spot that wasn’t lit up. They exited the van, but Hawk took Alexis and walked her to the driver’s door. “You want to help?”
“Uh … yeah,” she said a little doubtfully.
“Good. I want you to stay here and guard the van. We need to be sure nobody tampers with it while we’re gone so if you see anyone like the cops or security cruising around
and checking tags, start the van, pull out slowly and drive away as if you have all the time in the world. Then go off and park somewhere else. Got that?”
She stared at him in dismay. “But …how will y’all find the van?”
He gave her a look and finally leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “We will follow your scent.”
Alexis felt goose bumps rise along her arm and cheek as his heated breath fanned her ear. A shiver skated down her back.
Her nipples made tents in her knit shirt.
Her hooha, stupid thing, started clapping for him.
She gazed at him wide eyed when he leaned away and licked her lips. “Ok. Stay in the van. If I see cops or security, I leave like I’ve got nowhere to be.”
“Try to stay out of sight.”
He studied her for a long moment and finally caught a fistful of hair at the back of her head and pulled her to him.
She had just enough time to gasp in surprise and fill her lungs with his essence before his mouth connected with hers and he explored the sensitive inner surfaces of her mouth with his tongue with a thoroughness that left her weak kneed. It almost seemed every time he kissed her it had a more debilitating effect—as if she was tossing back another straight shot of hard liquor. He patted her cheek when he broke the kiss, rattling her brain. “Don’t make me track you down, honey. You wouldn’t like me when I’m pissed off.”
She gaped at him. “Ok. I mean, no.”
He turned and strode away.
Brahma and Puma slammed into each other trying to grab her.
Brahma won. Grabbing her hair as Hawk had, he opened his mouth and covered her mouth and nose, shoving his tongue all the way to her tonsils. She was instantly in a panic to free her nose to pull in air. Fortunately, before she began to suffer from hypoxia, he adjusted his grip and the depth of his tongue and stopped plugging her throat. As awkward and uncomfortable as it started, he still managed to thrill her before he was wrenched away by Puma, who grabbed him by one horn and tried to twist head off. “Gods damn it, Bram—let go!”
“Cham-Two!” Hawk called in a harsh whisper. “Get your ass in gear. I need you to reconnoiter the building!”
“Well gods damn it,” Cham-Two snarled. “I was next.”
“Shit!” Puma growled irritably when he’d kissed Alexis. “You slobbering bastard! All I tasted was you.”
Brahma uttered a snorting laugh. “Serves you right. I wasn’t done.”
“Well, we don’t have all fucking night.”
Alexis climbed into the van with an effort when the last of the squad left.
She discovered she was shaking. She knew they did everything as a team, shared everything. She didn’t think she could just dismiss the possibility that they all wanted, and probably expected, to share her. They’d all kissed her after Hawk had—well, Cham-Two hadn’t because Hawk had called him to do his job, but he’d clearly expected to.
She’d known that about them.
They’d been created as a squad to work together almost as one. That was one of the things that made them so lethal—the fact that each one of them served a very particular purpose in the group, had specific gifts that complimented the strengths of the others.
It was completely logical—at least to them, she thought—that they would expect to share a woman, too.
She just didn’t know how she felt about it.
She thought about it.
She did think they were attractive—not just handsome, although they were, all of them—but attractive in every way.
Especially the way they’d protected her—saved her life.
They’d been programmed to, or conditioned, to the prime directive of protecting women and children above all other considerations, but that damned sure wasn’t a flaw.
Considering that, she thought it was completely reasonable that she would feel just as attracted to them as they seemed to be attracted to her.
She strongly suspected, though, that she’d been caught in their super charged pheromones, that it hadn’t been a decision on her part at all.
Maybe not for them either.
And that not only meant they were in mating mode and had targeted her. It meant she wasn’t going to elude them even if she tried.
That was what Hawk meant when he’d said ‘don’t make me track you down’.
He could. He most definitely could.
Any or all of the four could.
And would.
She could run, but she couldn’t hide.
But … did she want to even try when they were the baddest of the bad and completely willing and able to protect her from the thugs that wanted her dead?
Oh that was a tough decision!
* * * *
It was almost eerily quiet outside of the Mendleson Cybernetics Lab where Hawk, Brahma, and Puma waited for Cham-Two to report back.
“Feels like a trap,” Puma commented. “My short hairs are prickling.”
“If you’d get your mind off your dick, maybe they’d lay down,” Brahma commented dryly.
“Will you two shut the fuck up before somebody hears us?” Hawk growled.
Puma sent him a narrow eyed glare. Like he couldn’t smell them if somebody was creeping up on them? He damned sure could if they were close enough to hear them.
He knew part of what had Hawk so damned tense, though, and she was sitting in the van contemplating escape right now if he was worth a shit at reading body language.
And he happened to think he was pretty damned good at it.
She wasn’t immune to them, though.
Maybe she was scared spitless of the monsters, but she wasn’t immune to their pheromones.
Granted, when every-fucking-body lined up one after another it was pretty fucking difficult to decide who she was hot for, but she was definitely aroused. Brahma might not be able to detect that luscious scent—he wasn’t convinced Cham-Two could—but he damned well could.
He just wasn’t sure she’d reacted the same for all of them.
And he was pretty sure that Hawk could and that was why he was suddenly way more interested in making a clean exit than getting what they came for.
And he was—regardless of what he’d said.
Maybe she was even the reason he’d been determined to come back to start with.
It seemed possible, for sure, maybe not positively absolutely the reason, but a definite maybe.
He’d seen the brooding way Hawk always watched her when they were sent to the lab to be poked and prodded.
He’d thought, at first, that Hawk just resented the constant testing and or the fact that the lab techs were as bad as the scientists about acting like they were … inanimate objects they were working on.
He was convinced that was part of it anyway.
But there’d been more to it. He was sure of that, too.
Not that any of that mattered anymore.
He was pretty sure they were all locked on her.
Chapter Seven
“You want the good news or the bad new or the really bad news first?”
Hawk gave Cham-Two a look. “Let’s start with the really bad shit and work our way up to Pollyanna.”
Cham-Two shrugged. “They’re busy destroying all of their records and they look like they’ve been busy for a while. Looks like a bomb went off inside the place.”
Hawk cussed under his breath for about five minutes. “Bad?”
“I counted at least three dozen security guards in and around the building—mostly inside. I didn’t take any out because I was worried it would tip the others off that we were here.”
“Good move. So what’s the good news?”
“Looks like the head honcho or at least somebody with clout in the company is on site.”
That lifted Hawk’s mood instantly. “Alright! That actually is good news. He in his office?”
Cham-Two looked uncomfortable. “No, he’s standing over them cracking the whip.”
“Well hell,” Brahma
growled. “That should have been filed under more bad news.”
“Not necessarily,” Hawk countered. “We all know we don’t have time to beat the truth out of any of them and they aren’t likely to cough it up without a fight. I’m thinking we should find the office and look ourselves.”
The guys exchanged a long look and finally shrugged. “Worth a try,” Cham-Two commented neutrally.
“If you don’t think you can crack their password …,” Hawk said.
Cham-Two wrestled with it. “It could take a bit—unless he’s one of those dumbasses that writes it down. They’re emptying the offices, though, so it’s doubtful we can slip in and then slip out again.”
“But it’s possible and if we go in shooting we might not get anything and we’d definitely be stirring up a hornet’s nest.”
They all had to agree with that, anyway, and they began to move in stealthily.
As the only one out of four that couldn’t fly or climb worth a shit, Brahma was left on watch. He considered watching from the van, but since it was not only very unlikely he could see trouble coming from the van, and very likely he’d be too preoccupied to watch anyway, he decided that might not go over well if it transpired that he was actually needed.
He found a spot, therefore, that offered some cover and settled to watching the guards pacing around the perimeter and trying to keep his mind off of Alexis.
He couldn’t actually remember much about the kiss beyond what he’d felt—which had mostly come down to feeling like he was going to explode if he didn’t find someplace, on her, to tuck his dick in—but he had a bad feeling he hadn’t acquitted himself very well.
He had enjoyed it—more than anything he’d ever experienced.
Although, if he was honest, he hadn’t actually experienced anything before that he’d enjoyed at all, now that he thought about it.
Satisfaction, yes, definitely that. Some thrill from the adrenaline rush he generally got when faced off with someone in battle.
He even enjoyed filling his belly when he was hungry, but it wasn’t comparable in any way to what he’d felt kissing Alexis.
And that bothered him, because to save his ass he couldn’t recall if he’d done anything to make her feel that.
In point of fact, he dimly recalled a little struggle, at least at first, but then he’d been an idiot and covered her nose and her mouth so she couldn’t breathe—because he hadn’t taken into account what a little thing she was, so that was understandable. She had to breathe. And he didn’t think she’d tried to fight him off after that.
