by Haley Weir
Her words triggered his release as he thrust into her deeply and spilled the evidence of his desire. Anders shivered in her arms and rolled onto his side so that he didn’t crush her. “I’m sorry this couldn’t have happened under better circumstances.”
She quieted him with a kiss. “Never be sorry for what just happened between us. No matter what happens next, I don’t regret it.”
The night had been troubling for the both of them, but it didn’t escape her notice that he hadn’t returned her words of affection. Sapphire closed her eyes and put her back to him, loving the feel of his bare skin against hers as they fell asleep. Anders snored lightly in her ear and stroked her body until the shadows claimed her.
***
Anders awakened the following morning and disappeared into the bathroom to shower and prepare a bath for Sapphire. While the tub filled up, he gathered some Tylenol and some of the tea that she liked before returning to the bedroom. Sapphire sat up when she heard him approach the bed and winced. Anders swallowed the guilt at having ravaged her like an animal the night before and handed her the pills.
After she took the medicine and drank her tea, Anders lifted her out of the bed and carried her to the back. Slowly, he lowered her into the scented water and began to wash her hair. “I should have taken my time with you,” he grumbled.
“I didn’t want you to. If I recall correctly, I begged you to go faster.” The little sighs and whimpers she released as he washed her hair was hell on his control. “In fact, I can’t wait until we can do it again.”
“Are you not sore?”
“I am, but not as much as everyone said it would. Besides, I think it had something to do with your size and not necessarily your technique,” she replied. “It’s a good pain, sort of like a burn in your muscles after a workout.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what, sweets?” he asked with a kiss to her temple. His hands massaged her scalp and then poured water over her head to rinse out the suds.
“Can I be on top next time?”
His heart nearly stopped at the images her words summoned in his mind. “You can be on top whenever you want. God, you’re dangerous when you’re confident. I’m already hard just thinking about it.” He lifted his eyes and saw her watching him in the mirror above the sink. She bit her lip and blushed beguilingly.
When her hair was thoroughly rinsed, she turned around on her belly. Water sloshed in the tub and Anders was breathless at the sight of water cascading over her lush curves. Sapphire leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Can I help you with that?” Her hand squeezed the throbbing length of his manhood through the now-damp fabric of his sweatpants.
Anders found the strength to push her hand away and continued washing her. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you,” he argued. “I want to make you feel good.”
“What if making you feel good would make me feel good?”
If this was how she acted after one night of making love, then he was terrified to see what she would be like after a few weeks. Actually, in truth, he was thrilled to think that she still wanted him. “Maybe another time. For now, just let me take care of you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The unforgiving heat radiated down from the sun as Sapphire trekked through the forest. She wore a pair of hiking boots, brown leggings, and a floral tunic. Strapped to her thigh was a hunting blade she had gotten from her stepfather for protection. It was serrated, nine inches long, and had a wicked curve. She knew a path through the forest that very few had discovered and used it to get to the mountains quicker.
Though there were no maps available for purchase that showed outsiders how to get to Haden Springs, she found plenty of old maps with paths marked off by the native tribes who called this land home before the settlers arrived. She could practically feel the history and the suffering as she followed the winding trail through the dense landscape. Sapphire could hear the river flowing no more than a mile to the east and was propelled into memories of the past.
She heard a hawk screech above her head. Sapphire continued on her journey until she came upon a hillside overlooking the valley. Nestled in a hidden grove was Corey Reed’s campsite. Sapphire squinted her eyes and lifted her hand to block out the sun. She spotted a man walking alone and decided to make first contact before they discovered her on their land.
“Excuse me?” Sapphire called. “I’m looking for someone, perhaps you could help.” The man spun around and threw a knife right toward her head. She moved out of the way at the last second and it got stuck in the tree. He tried to rush her, but Sapphire pulled the wobbling blade from the bark and slashed toward him, forcing him to step back.
He grasped her wrist and kicked the inside of her leg. Sapphire dropped the knife out of her left hand and caught it with her right. The man jumped away from and tackled Sapphire to the ground. She shoved up on her feet, lifting her lower body off of the ground and then tumbled him over. When she straddled his stomach, she pressed his knife to his throat. “Like I said, I’m looking for someone. Where’s Patrick?”
“Who are you?”
“Sapphire White, but you might know me as Humpty Dumpty after I fell off the mountain,” she said lamely. It was a stupid joke, but it made her smile. “Now, where is Patrick?”
“Let me up and I’ll tell you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“If you found me, then you already know where Patrick is,” he snarled.
Sapphire nodded. “Maybe I do, but I want you to take me there.” She stood up and helped him to his feet. When he tried to overpower her with his size, Sapphire slashed the blade across his cheek as a reminder of just how dangerous she was. He seemed to take the hint and raised his arms in surrender. She jutted her chin toward a slight opening through the trees. “Go on, then. Show me the way.”
The camp was pitiful up close. Her lip curled in disappointment. “Sit over there,” she ordered, pointing to a chair beside a fire pit. Sapphire’s gaze scanned the campsite for the one man she recognized. He stood beside the glistening quarry and cast his icy stare toward her once he noticed her presence. “What are you doing here?”
“What? You think you’re the only one skilled enough to track a man through the wilderness?” she chuckled. “I might be clumsy, but I’m not stupid. Your man over there might need some more training if I bested him so easily.”
“You bested him?”
“I nearly bested you, if you remember correctly,” Sapphire bit. “Watch your tone or else I might take offense. Where’s your boss?”
Patrick rubbed a hand over his bald head. “He doesn’t accept visitors without an appointment. You’re here uninvited.”
“Don’t you think he might be interested in meeting the woman who could bring down Michael Adair and his furry little friends?” She walked past him and searched the camp on her own. Patrick didn’t dare attack her again now that she was mostly healed from her injuries. She suspected he wouldn’t like re-testing his skills against her. Years of defending herself from every predator imaginable while backpacking across the country readied her for this long before she met Anders.
There was a tent situated about a mile away along the water. She stood outside and whistled until the zipper lowered. A startlingly handsome face poked through the opening and Sapphire was taken aback by his youthful appearance. “You…aren’t what I expected…”
“Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?” he drawled.
“Usually, yes. You must be Corey Reed.”
“Commander Corey Reed to you, civilian.” Corey stepped out of the tent and stretched high above his head. The expansion of rippling muscle on display was hard to look away from. “You’re staring,” he said with a hint of amusement.
“Can you blame me?” Sapphire teased. “I’m not usually jealous of guys that are prettier than me, but you’re definitely the sort of man to turn heads. You’ve got black hair, flawless pale compl
exion, grey eyes, and lips Hollywood actresses get fillers to achieve. You’re good looking and you know it.”
“Your friend said something similar when I met her.”
“So you know who I am?” she asked.
“There aren’t many women in Haden Springs who could find this camp, Miss White. And besides, I’m a fan of your work.”
“I’ve heard as much. Why?”
“I don’t like the hippy fluff pieces or the poetic musings you vomit onto a page. I like the darker pieces. The ones you write from the heart because you need to get it out, all the pain and anger that swells within you.”
“Are you angry, Corey?” Sapphire questioned softly. “Because if you are…then I think you and I are on the same page.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I gave my heart and my body to someone I thought I knew, but he turned out to be just like all of the others,” she confessed. “He’s a monster.”
“Like your father?”
She shouldn’t have been surprised that he looked into her past, but it still caused her to flinch. “And yours,” Sapphire supposed. “But all monsters are the same when you turn out the lights, right? In the end, all they want is to pull you apart piece by piece no matter how loud you scream.”
Corey pulled a flask out of his belt and emptied it into his mouth. He didn’t confirm nor deny her words, but she could tell that they had hit home much harder than he expected. “Why are you here?”
“You’re down one man, right? Vanessa was killed in the house fire and let’s be honest, that guy I met on the path isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
A startled laugh burst from Corey as he stepped up to her. “I like you more than I thought I would, Miss White. I’m sending Travis, the dull knife, on a mission. I think I want you here with me when he leaves.”
“Between you and I, after I got my memory back, I don’t feel like I belong in that town anymore,” she muttered. “Anders doesn’t make that any easier. I’d like to stay.”
There was no initiation ceremony or debriefing on their mission, so she kicked her feet up and made herself at home. Corey spoke with Travis privately as Patrick came to sit beside her. “So, how’d you get caught up in all of this?” Sapphire flipped through a random magazine on the table between them.
“I was a friend of Corey’s father. We served together in the Marines. Corey always tried his best to please his old man, but nothing was ever good enough.”
“Daddy issues, eh?” she asked, feigning ignorance. “We all know how that is.”
“Most peoples’ daddy issues don’t land them in an elite training program where they strip your humanity and turn you into a weapon.”
“That…explains a lot.” Sapphire thought back to the conversation she had with Anders about the passage Corey had quoted to Jenny.
“And that means that this Corey Reed guy has a story too,” she insisted. “One that we need to learn before we write him off as the villain of our tale. If he didn’t, then he wouldn’t be reading my work and taking his time to capture one of you. I think…I think Corey wants someone to hear his story so that at least one person remembers that he’s human. We need to consider that these hunters might feel just as alone as you do.”
She might have been more correct than Anders thought. “And is he human?”
“Sometimes I’m not too sure about that either. If you’re sticking around, you might figure that out for yourself,” Patrick grumbled. “Don’t make him angry, though. He’s not…exactly stable. Been known to kill someone for just looking at him wrong.”
“If he’s been conditioned to that sort of violence, I’m not surprised.”
“Conditioned is one word for it.”
Sapphire didn’t want to pity the man who hurt Brock, but there seemed to be more to Corey than the others were willing to accept. She thought of Anders and what she knew of his situation. “Do you know what happened at Sector A? Did Anders McKinney really slaughter everyone in the facility?”
“You should have seen the tapes. The things they did to him…even though he’s one of those freaks, he looked like a man. Seeing something like that changes a man, so you can just imagine how the bear felt going through it all.”
“What triggered his rampage?”
“The quality of the tapes aren’t that good,” Patrick admitted. “It would take some heavy editing to be able to make out what they said, but they shot him up with a cocktail of something that put him on edge. It made him really jittery, like a drug addict going through withdrawals. He fought the rampage for days.”
“I might want to take a look at those tapes sometime.”
“If Corey permits it, I wouldn’t have a problem with showing you.” Patrick lit a cigarette and blew the smoke toward the sky. “Why are you so interested?”
“I spent years trying to convince myself that I was in love with him, but he hurt me. All I want to do now is watch him suffer, maybe eat some popcorn.”
Patrick tossed his head back and laughed. “You’re a cold one, Sapphire White.”
She absentmindedly touched the wire hidden beneath her shirt when Patrick looked away. Corey came over to the table a few minutes later as Travis walked away from the camp. “This place is amazing,” she observed, seeing a spark of pride in Corey’s eyes. “Did you choose it?”
“I hope to settle down here after the mission is complete.”
You tried to kill Michael Adair’s little brother, she thought. You probably won’t live to see your next birthday. Sapphire forced her gaze back to the magazine in her hands and ignored zoned in and out of the conversations happening around her. She still didn’t believe that her infiltration had been so easy. There was danger that lurked just beneath the façade of amicable companionship. Whether they conspired against her or each other remained to be seen.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After a week of running around like a madman at the clinic, Anders finally returned to the apartment. His key jingled as he unlocked the front door to the loft. Anders jumped into the shower thinking Sapphire had slept through his entrance. But when he walked into the bed space and found no sleepy face looking up at him, he began to worry. Anders pressed his hand to the bed and found it cold.
“Sapphire?!” he shouted. “Honey!”
Only the sound of his voice echoed through the house. Anders searched everywhere. The cats followed closely behind, meowing as though they missed human affection. He dug through his coat pockets to find his cell phone and dialed Michael’s number. “You son of a bitch!” Anders barked the second his friend answered the call. “I told you to delay her. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I’m more afraid of her than I am of you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Michael released a tired sigh. “Sapphire has everything she needs to ruin us, Anders. She could send the military here with the information she has, but instead of doing that, she chose to go into enemy territory and find out what they know about us.”
“You had no right…”
“Why?” Michael asked. “She told me what happened, you know. She told me that she confessed her feelings for you and you said nothing. My god, I knew you were blind, but I never thought you were that stupid.”
“I do love her!”
“Then why didn’t you say that to her?” his friend inquired. “Between you and Dorian, I’m surprised either of those women made it past the first date. He was too eager to fall in love and you were too stupid to see that you didn’t need my services. All you had to do was tell her that you love her.”
“I lied to myself for years because of you!” Anders belted. “I told myself that I could never learn to love someone who hated you so much because if you weren’t good enough, then neither was I. My whole reason for avoiding Sapphire was your ridiculous feud. I would have walked away entirely until she told me the truth.”
“Her truth.”
“Th
e truth, Michael,” he insisted. “I knew you back then. Getting you to admit you were wrong or—heaven forbid—apologize was next to impossible.”
“This is between Sapphire and I.”
“Whatever, I’m going to get her.” Anders went to hang up, but Michael’s startled voice rang through the speaker. He lifted the phone back to his ear.
“If you go up there, they’ll kill her.”
“Michael…”
“Come see me at the office. I’ll explain everything.”
The line died and Anders stared at his phone. He tucked it in his coat pocket and dressed quickly. Anders made it to the Kodiak Dating Agency building in record time, throwing the door open and smashing the button on the elevator. He tapped his foot impatiently as he waited and then stepped inside with a weary sigh.
When the doors opened, the sight of his friend looking absolutely wrecked shook Anders to his core. Michael’s dress shirt was unbuttoned and his undershirt hung loosely from his unbuckled pants. The necktie was strewn on the floor along with the stylish blazer he had been wearing the last time Anders saw him. Michael’s usually perfect hair was askew and a week’s worth of stubble darkened his jaw.
“Michael…what happened, man?”
His friend threw a penholder across the room. It bounced off the wall and pens scattered everywhere. The garbage bin overflowed with crumpled paper and vending machine food packages. “Look, I didn’t ask you to come here so you could lecture me. Last time I checked you weren’t a shrink.”
“I’m concerned.”
“Well, don’t be. Not for me anyway,” Michael retorted. “Your spunky little mate went off and gave herself a mission. She’s due for a check in at eight, I’ll have my life together by then. You can come with, but do not compromise her progress.”
“What is she doing?”
“Patrick said he had access to the security tapes from Sector A. She’s going to try and convince Corey to give her permission to view them. If he denies her, then she’s going to try and steal them,” Michael explained. “She’s been trying to earn their trust since she got there and it could all go wrong in a split second.”
