by Kelly Oram
I nodded. “If it will get Teddy and the other PACs back, I’m in. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Major Wilks nodded, pleased. “Thank you, Angel.” He turned to Eyes. “Gather the team. Debriefing room in twenty minutes.”
My tour was cut short and we headed straight for the gym. “How come you’re all so sure Ryan will be in the training room?” I asked as Johnny G and Tyson gushed about how awesome the place was and how much I was going to love it. “He doesn’t strike me as the work-out-all-the-time meathead type.”
“Nah, that’s Smut,” Shortstop said, causing the others to laugh. “He’ll be there, too. Ryan’s just trying to catch up, I think.”
I didn’t understand. “Is he behind?”
Shortstop shrugged. “All of us were plucked from different elite military squads. I was a Ranger.”
“I was Special Forces,” Johnny G added.
“Romeo went through basic boot camp and then came straight here. We brought him on because of all his experience with you and Teodoro. Plus, he had Tyson and Abiodun with him, and they wouldn’t come without him.”
“He’s a good kid,” Major Wilks said. “Works hard. But he’s inexperienced. He doesn’t like knowing that.”
“Abiodun and I have to have extra training, too,” Tyson said. “But we have powers, you know? Ryan was kind of a superstar football player at his college before he left. He’s never complained, but it must be hard to be the powerless, inexperienced new guy.”
“Plus, he probably needed to blow off some steam today.” Johnny G gave me a pointed look. “He’s talked about nothing but you for six months. It’s why we call him Romeo. He’s obsessed with his Juliet.” My face heated up despite how hard I tried not to blush. “The amnesia can’t be easy on him. To have you back, but not have you back—that’s got to be messing with the guy’s head.”
I sucked in a quiet breath. I’d thought that myself once or twice, but hearing Johnny G say it made it seem a million times worse. Ryan had been so wonderful up until now that it was easy to forget that this had to be as difficult for him as it was for me.
I didn’t respond, and no one else dared break the silence. Some things sucked and there was nothing you could do about it. Ryan’s and my messed-up situation was one of those things.
We all stayed quiet until we reached the training center. I didn’t know what to expect from the place. Everyone seemed oddly infatuated with it, and they’d really talked it up. As we walked down the hallway, one side of the boring corridor gave way to a wall of windows that allowed us to see inside the gym. I had to admit it was impressive.
I’d never been to a gym—none of the equipment would be of any use to me—but I had a feeling this one was state-of-the-art. There was every kind of machine a person could possibly need for working out their body, plus things like a huge lap pool, a boxing ring, and a climbing wall.
It would have been awesome if not for the overwhelming stench of human sweat that permeated the damp air. Ugh, okay, if I had to get rid of any one of my powers, the supersmell would be the first to go, and I wouldn’t miss it.
Thanks to each main room in the base being pretty much airtight with their own air filtration systems, I hadn’t noticed the stink until Major Wilks opened the door. The second I did, I staggered backward and gagged loud enough to gain the attention of my entourage and a soldier who was using a leg press nearby.
“Angel?” Major Wilks asked, coming to my side and taking me by the arm. “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”
“I’m good,” I choked out, forcing whatever was in my stomach to stay there. “Remember what I said about my heightened sense of smell? Ode de Sweaty Gym is not a flavor I’d bottle and sell as perfume, if you know what I mean.”
The major looked as if he didn’t know how to respond. He stared dumbfounded for a minute and then said, “I suppose we could kick up the air filtration in this room and maybe try some air fresheners? Or do those bother you, too?”
“Any strong odor gives me migraines if I’m exposed for too long, but I’d rather smell the nastiest potpourri in the world than a whole team of soldiers working up a sweat. The air filtration will help more than anything. If you expect me to spend any significant amount of time in here, I’d suggest you try that—though not much in here will do me any good. The pool and the rock wall, maybe, but that’s about it. Treadmills can’t keep up with me, and exercise machines never have enough weight.”
The soldier who’d been using a leg press near me gave me a skeptical look. “This machine goes up to five hundred pounds.”
Is that all they thought I was capable of? How insulting. I looked at his arms, which were as big as watermelons, and smirked. He was by far the largest ACE so far. I couldn’t tell how tall he was, but his shoulders were massive. I’m all for muscles, but you can overdo it. He was overdoing it. His pecs were nearly as big as my head. “Let me guess.” I pointed a finger at the soldier I’d not been introduced to yet. “Guns?”
Johnny G chuckled. “Close. That’s Smut.”
The guys all laughed, but I didn’t get the joke. “How is that close?”
“Because he’s built like the cover models on all those smutty romance novels,” Shortstop explained.
Okay, that was funny. “Nice.” I gave Smut another once-over, and he proudly sat there and let me look. “Have you ever actually considered posing for one of those books? I’m thinking the pirate ones would be your specialty. You’ve got the long, dark hair thing going for you. All you need is the boots and the billowing white shirt.”
“Oh! Captain Smut!” Johnny G howled while the other guys all fell apart with laughter. “Smut’s totally got a new nickname!”
“Thank you so much, Angel,” Smut said dryly.
I gave him a sweet smile that made him laugh. Shaking his head, he leaned forward and moved the pin in the stack of weights he’d been lifting to the very bottom of the pile. “You really think you can max out this machine?”
All the ACEs stopped laughing and leaned in, clearly wanting to see a show. I suppressed a sigh and pointed at the contraption he was still sitting on. “This machine?”
When he nodded, I reached down and picked the entire thing up, with him still on it. I bounced it lightly in one hand, testing its weight. “Sorry.” I smirked at all the gasps and shocked faces. “I really don’t think this would give me much of a workout.”
I set the machine back down and met the eyes of my gaping audience. “Any more questions?”
A low chuckle interrupted the show. All heads turned toward the sound, but I doubt any of the soldiers’ hearts sputtered the way mine did. When my eyes fell on Ryan, I changed my mind about the stinky gym. If this place was his usual haunt, I’d brave the stench every day in order to see him shirtless and sweaty the way he was now. Swoon.
Save a rather large scar on his right bicep that had me very curious, his body was flawless. Every muscle was perfectly defined, and a light coating of fine blond hair trailed down his abdomen. I’d never wanted to reach out and touch something so badly. It dawned on me that I probably had touched him before, and I was suddenly insanely jealous of my pre-amnesiac self.
By the time I was able to drag my lusting eyes up to his face, Ryan was watching me with a very satisfied smirk. I was completely drooling over his body, and I was so busted. Whatever. I wasn’t sorry. How could anyone attracted to men not appreciate the deliciousness standing in front of me?
“We never did figure out exactly how much you could lift,” Ryan said, “but you used to have to bench my truck when the back was filled with bricks for a good fifteen minutes before you broke a sweat.”
There was another moment of awed silence that was eventually broken by Major Wilks. “Well.” He blinked a few times as he searched for words. “I’ll have to speak to my engineers. Maybe they can design…something. For you.”
“Knock yourself out. I don’t really care. Working out isn’t really a priority for me. Though, if I�
�m going to run into more of those supersoldiers, a little self-defense training might be a good idea.”
“We can definitely help you with that.” Major Wilks shook himself from his stupor and started barking orders again. “Romeo! Smut! Hit the showers! Debriefing in ten.”
. . . . .
The debriefing room in ACE headquarters was nothing spectacular. It was a medium-size rectangular room with a large screen mounted at the front and a big rectangular conference table taking up most of the space. Those of us that were already together sat around a large, rectangular conference table waiting for the others to arrive.
I took a seat next to Ryan, and Tyson had been quick to snatch the open chair on my other side. Shortstop, Johnny G, and Smut all sat across from us grilling Ryan about my powers and what it was like to use them. Of course they all wanted to try it. I couldn’t tell if they wanted to try having superpowers, or if they were really more interested in the superkissing, which Ryan had ever-so-kindly spilled the beans about. I could have killed him. None of them had stopped staring at me since.
“Sounds like a party in here, y’all.”
I turned to the door just as Eyes entered the room with Abiodun and a very tall, broad man with sandy-blond hair, light-green eyes, and a five o’clock shadow. The man was wearing the same military fatigues as the rest of the group, but a well-worn Stetson hat rested on his head. This one was too easy. “Let me guess. You’re Texas.”
The cowboy’s eyes found mine, and his answering smile lit up his entire face. “Tex for short, Angel. Plucked straight from a cattle ranch in Amarillo.” He tipped his hat to me and winked as he and Abiodun took the empty seats next to Ryan. “Lovely to finally meet you, darlin’.”
His manners made me smile.
Shortstop leaned forward suddenly, his body bouncing with energy. “Hey guys, did you know Angel can share her powers with people?”
Both Tex and Eyes gaped at me. “All of them?” Eyes asked. “Even the lightning?”
I nodded. “Very short term, though. I can pass energy to people, which, in turn, supercharges them. The more superpowers they use, the faster they eat up the energy. With the lightning you’d have to be really pumped up and you might only get one good shot before you’re out of juice.”
“Still.” Eyes slowly shook his head back and forth. “That’s got to be very fun.”
“Not as fun as having her give them to us,” Johnny G said, winking my direction.
Smut took the honors of dropping the bomb on the newcomers. “She has to kiss you to give you her powers. Romeo calls it superkissing.”
Eyes blinked at me. “Is that true?”
I tipped my head back and glared at the ceiling. “I can,” I grumbled. “But I don’t have to anymore. I learned how to do it with just a touch.”
Smut leaned forward and a long, dark lock of hair fell free from its ponytail, framing his face and accentuating his square jaw. His rapt gaze flicked quickly back and forth between Ryan and me. “Does it feel like a normal kiss when you do it? Or is it, like, all supercharged?”
Ryan released this guttural moan that made me blush. “It’s totally supercharged,” he said. “It is the absolute hottest thing I’ve ever felt. Once you start, it’s really hard to stop because the energy sort of pulls you together all magnetic-like and makes you lose your head.”
The room fell silent, and every single ACE in the room gaped at me. I swear several of them were seconds away from drooling. Ugh. They were never going to let me live this down. Stupid Ryan and his big mouth. “It doesn’t matter what it feels like, because I am not superkissing any of your ugly mugs.”
All of their faces fell into pouts at the news, even Tyson’s. Shortstop slumped back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest as he mumbled, “Party pooper.” He scrunched up his nose and flicked his gaze to Ryan. “You’ve superkissed Romeo.”
“That was before. I don’t even remember it.” I groaned and threw my head down onto the table, burying my face in my arms to hide my traitorous blushing cheeks.
Ryan’s arrogant voice rang out above the chuckles in the room. “I’m allowed to superkiss her. I’m her fiancé. The superkisses are mine. None of you better even think of trying it. Jamie, if any one of these guys comes anywhere near you, you be sure to zap ’em good.”
His voice was playful, but my annoyance still spiked. I snapped my head up and glared at Ryan. He was watching the group of men, trademark smirk in place, leaning back in his chair with his hands laced together behind his head, puffing up his chest rather obnoxiously.
“You—you—” The fact that I couldn’t get any words out only made me even more flustered. I took a deep breath. “You are not my fiancé. You agreed you’d try to be just friends.”
Ryan’s bright, laughing eyes slid sideways to meet mine. “Did I?” His grin widened to show all of his perfect teeth. “I guess you’re not the only one here with a sketchy memory, Sunshine.”
My jaw fell to the floor while every man in that room fell apart, roaring with laughter until they had tears in their eyes. “What do you say, babe?” Ryan asked over the ruckus. “Should we give them all a demonstration of just how hot the superkissing is?”
The lights above our head didn’t just flicker out; they pulsed blindingly bright until they each went out with a series of quiet pops. I had a feeling all of the lightbulbs in the room would need to be replaced. When Major Wilks entered the room demanding answers, the ACEs were all laughing so hard none of them could speak.
A set of emergency lights clicked on, lighting the briefing room once again. Major Wilks looked around and released an exhausted sigh as he rubbed at his temples. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. “Romeo, will you please try not to provoke her?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I honestly can’t help it. I missed her too much, and she makes it so easy.”
This set the team off again. The worst part was, I couldn’t even be mad at him. When I glared at him, his response was to pick up my hand and kiss it. He looked so happy that I couldn’t pull away. I let him kiss my hand, and then I cracked a smile when he laced our fingers together as if he intended to hold onto me through the rest of the meeting. His touch sent tingles shooting through my body, and I found myself suppressing a shudder.
“Are we all finished messing around?” Major Wilks asked as he took his place at the front of the room. His voice was stern, but there was amusement in his eyes that he couldn’t quite hide from us. “We have some serious business to discuss, and I need your heads in the game.”
We sobered up at the reminder, and it quickly became all business in the debriefing room. Ryan’s hand never let go of mine. He really was just going to hold it as long as I let him. He caught me looking down at our interlocked fingers and squeezed his grip lightly as he gave me another smile, this one having lost its cocky edge. He wasn’t teasing me anymore. He was simply a guy in love, happy to be holding his girl’s hand.
No matter what he claimed, Ryan Miller was incapable of toning down his feelings for me. He couldn’t do “just friends.” What scared me so much about that was how intensely each simple, honest display of affection thrilled me.
Dr. Haggerty, Blake, and Geek came into the room then, taking the last open seats at the table. Ryan’s posture turned rigid. He let go of my hand to put an arm around me in a protective gesture that made no sense. His accelerated heartbeat and grinding teeth were a bit baffling, too. What in the world had him so tense? “You okay?” I asked.
“Fine.”
He was lying. I followed his frightening glare across the room to Blake. Admittedly, the ex-Visticorp scientist that wanted to study me made me a little uncomfortable no matter how much Teddy had talked him up, but the hostility Ryan showed him was something else entirely. It reminded me of Tyson’s reaction to him as well. “There’s a story here that I’m missing.”
Ryan didn’t answer me. His glare was fixed on Major Wilks. “What’s he doing here?”
<
br /> Major Wilks’s returning stare was stern but not angry. “We need his opinion, Ryan.”
It was the first time I’d heard the major use Ryan’s real name. This was serious. Blake cast a surreptitious glance my way, almost as if he couldn’t resist. When I met his gaze, he quickly looked away. I asked again. “What is going on here?” My voice became as hard as Ryan’s and the major’s. “What am I missing?”
Blake sighed, and Ryan began to shake with anger. “I’ll explain later.” He glared again at Blake. “Now isn’t the time for that story.”
“No,” Major Wilks agreed. “It isn’t. Right now, we have a plan to discuss. Angel, how committed are you to finding Donovan and getting your friend back?”
Committed enough that his question had me itching to unleash a lightning storm. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“I hope that’s true.” Major Wilks pinned me with a fierce gaze. “I have a plan that I believe will draw Donovan out, but you aren’t going to like it.”
Major Wilks paused, waiting for some sort of reaction from me because of his statement, but I refused to be intimidated. Teddy was captured because of me. Abiodun and Tyson’s friends were an innocent old woman and a little girl. There was no one else capable of fighting against Donovan’s superthugs. This responsibility was mine, and I had to get it done. I had to help them.
I met his stare with unwavering confidence and waited for him to elaborate. His eyes narrowed, but not in anger. He was analyzing me. I knew I’d passed some test when he gave me the tiniest nod before continuing. “We have suspected for some time that Donovan is not working alone. The break-in at Dr. Rajeet’s office proves it. His new partner has to be one of the doctors Rajeet contacted about your test results.”
I nodded. “It makes sense.”
Major Wilks cleared his throat and got to the heart of it. “I think we should have you agree to further tests with Dr. Rajeet. Tell him you need to figure out what’s going on with you, and tell him you’d like to work with his colleagues. I think if we do that, Donovan’s partner would eventually approach you with some tale of giving you your memories back. He’d try to lure you in, and he’d lead us straight to Donovan.”
