“Jaxon,” Celise didn’t even attempt to hide the whimper in her voice this time. “I know this isn’t you. Just like this isn’t Victor. He took the formula, too, don’t you understand that? You both are being influenced by it. You know how hard it is to control the rage it makes you feels, you know it.”
Jaxon heaved a heavy sigh and his eyes softened a bit, but he did not let up his grip on Victor’s throat. The man’s thrashing began to slow, and Celise was vaguely aware of Sri’s presence next to them, jabbing the needle into the arm of the barely-conscious man.
“He’s been given the serum,” Sri said. “You can let him go, it will subdue him immediately.”
Celise rubbed Jaxon’s arm when he didn’t let up. “He’ll be calm now. Let him live.” She didn’t take her hand or eyes off of Jaxon until his fingers lightened up on his opponent’s throat. She watched as he slowly, guardedly, got up and backed away. She placed her fingers against Victor’s throat to check for a pulse, and sighed with relief when she found one.
Sri looked up at her with wide eyes. “Alive?”
“Yes. He’s just unconscious.”
“How long until he awakens, do you think?”
“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Will be interesting to see how the serum affects him.”
“I anticipate he will be a lot like Bebo when he awakes,” Celise said. She glanced up in time to see a blur of Jaxon hurry out of the room. “Now how long will it last before he’d need another dosage, we’d have to wait and see.”
Sri nodded his head towards the cage in the other side of the room which contained the chimpanzees Bebo and Mimi, who hadn’t even made a single wail or wiggle in reaction to the action they’d just witnessed. “It’s been over an hour, and Mimi hasn’t changed at all, even though she’s still in heat.”
“Yes, but there’s no testing for the human factor on anything else these men may have encountered or experienced. I have no idea how comparable the results will be.” She glanced again at the door, wondering where Jaxon had stormed off to, and what was going through his mind.
“We shall soon find out,” Sri said. “Why don’t you go and check on Wentworth then, make sure he is okay? I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Morhamer.”
She didn’t need to be told twice.
* * * *
She found him in the shower of one of the private bathrooms in a random room at the end of the hall. The sound of the pipes were especially loud in that quiet, empty building and led her right to him.
First removing her shoes, quietly she entered the room, stepping over his clothes which had been tossed haphazardly across the floor. Celise could hear him cursing and growling, punching the wall and kicking at the tub. She tiptoed into the bathroom and peered in, and saw his nude outline behind the opaque shower curtain. She stopped and listened. Not daring to expose herself, she held her breath and watched his sexy, masculine silhouette as she eavesdropped on him attempting to cool himself off.
“I know you’re there, Celise.”
“But I tiptoed!”
“I still heard you. Don’t forget, you breathe, too. What do you want?”
She swallowed and walked towards the tub. “To see how you’re doing.”
He laughed sardonically. “Not too fucking fantastic.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“What’s there to talk about? You saw what happened. I almost killed a man with my bare hands.”
“So you lost it for a moment there. You didn’t kill him.”
“I wanted to. He pissed me off so bad—God, I wanted to kill him!”
Celise stood next to the tub and talked directly at him through the curtain. “But you didn’t. You should take comfort in that fact.”
“How can I take comfort when I saw and fought first hand the monster I myself have become?”
“You’re no monster, Jaxon.”
“I feel like one. I don’t even feel human. I feel cold, criminal.”
She pulled back the curtain slightly and stuck her hand under the nozzle and chuckled softly. “That’s just because you’re showering in cold water. It’s got to be illegal in at least two states to shower at this temperature. Let’s warm it up.” She reached for the knob and managed to turned it up a little before he pushed her hand away.
“Stop trying to pacify me.”
“I’m not, I’m just telling you that –”
“Yes, you are.” He swung at the wall again, and Celise could see that his knuckles were raw and bloody.
“Jaxon, you need to calm down.”
“Please, get out, Celise,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I can’t just walk away knowing you’re in here hurting yourself. You have to pull yourself together.”
“But I can’t. I just fucking can’t. Argh,” He howled and grabbed his head as if he were in pain.
“Get out. Now!”
“No. Let me help you.” She pulled off her clothes and placed them neatly on the counter.
“You can’t. Not right now.”
Ignoring him, she pulled back the curtain, stepped inside and faced him. He was drenched and heaving and wet and intimidating. And enticing. She reached out a hand towards him, and he lunged towards her. But she didn’t budge and held her ground firm. He stopped millimeters from her, his body close to hers, towering over her, the expression on his face menacing. “Didn’t I say get out?”
“You did. And I said no.”
“You don’t understand. I’m hanging on by one wimpy, loose thread, here.”
“Let me help you let go.”
He eyed her. “You’re going to give me the serum?”
She shook her head, frowning. “No, I’m not going to numb your emotions. Then you really wouldn’t be you.”
“You’re not getting me. I can’t live like this, Celise. I don’t want to be like this all the time.”
“Then don’t be.”
“I can’t help it,” He growled at her, and looked like he wanted to attack. “I can still feel the animal inside of me now!”
“Then let’s do something to make you feel more human, to draw out the man that I know is inside of you who’s steaming mad and rightfully so.” She touched his fingers and he shuddered, grunted. “Let him connect with me.” But he did not make a hostile move. He froze still and seemed to hold his breath. She placed her hand in his and squeezed it, offering him to hold hers in return.
“You don’t know what you’re messing with, woman,” he said. But the change in Jaxon was immediate. His eyes gleamed and narrowed, and his face reflected an expression twisted with yearning, frustration and surrender. He yanked her to him and slammed his mouth against hers, restraining her arresting kiss. Then he was dropping to his knees and lifting one of her legs over his shoulder.
“Jaxon, what are you doing?”
“Connecting with you.” He gripped the cheeks of her bottom in his hands and pulled her forward, bringing her sex to his lips. He didn’t even give her a moment to fully register what was about to happen before he was eating her, stunning her with sensation.
The lukewarm water splashing against her skin was a fascinating contrast against the boiling heat of his mouth and tongue. His strong hands covered her breasts, handling them roughly as he lapped and licked her, and she loved every second of it. She gripped at his head to hold on for dear life, humping gently against his face as she blissfully sighed his name.
She could feel his thick lips cover her lower ones entirely, sucking and sipping, swallowing her into a blissful paralysis. Just as she was near the brink of an orgasm he gripped her tighter, locking her onto his mouth as he drank wave after wave of her climax. She was still contracting when he suddenly stopped and stood upright and she shivered both from the aftershock of her convulsions and with the sudden chill of his departure.
“I gotta be in you now, sorry.” Jaxon flipped her around and pushed her over, forcing her to put her hands up to brace herself against the tiled
wall. He spread her legs, exposing her, and immediately she felt his titanium erection right up against her folds.
He wasn’t exactly gentle. He rammed against her, found her too tight, revved his hips back and thrust against her again with more force. Her lubrication, his saliva and the shower’s water all aided in his slipping inside her the second time, but his erection was so thick and long that it was not an instant fit.
Celise could feel him prodding into her, both of them grunting and hissing as he pulled out and pushed back in further and harder each time, until he’d broken past her barriers and was able to plunge all the way inside.
Once he was fully within her he paused momentarily, and she felt his entire body vibrate with the euphoric rumble with seemed to emit from his very core. When he began to move, it was deliciously rapacious—he filled her completely, stretching her, and touching her deep in places seemingly untouched before. His thrusts were fast but hard and thorough, and each time he banged against her ass she nearly crashed into the wall. He fucked her until every nerve in her body was ablaze, and the energy from her fingers and toes were being sucked into the vortex at the center of her body and then blasted outwards to every last one of her appendages.
Jaxon continued pounding into her, ramming into her as her muscles clenched violently around him. She screamed out at one point, and he growled in response, keeping her at the edge she’d been precariously dangling over since he stopped licking her and flipped her over. Celise’s second climax seemed to go on infinitely as he ravaged her, never letting up, never letting her orgasm subside.
When his body finally grew taut, he lifted her up by her torso and pulled down, impaling her upon his cock. Holding her steady, he slammed into her while also pulling her against him, nailing her thoroughly. She cried out as a fresh, new wave of rapture wracked her, and she wilted with surrender as he finished inside of her, vocally expressing his satisfaction.
For a time he continued to twitch inside of her, still semi hard. She could hear him breathing heavily behind her, his chest heaving against her back as he clung to her, the water pattering upon the floor of the tub. Her feet were still hovering above the floor, and she stayed in his grip patiently. She could almost feel the tension lifting from him, along with the rage and frustration. Jaxon held her in that very position until he grew soft, which took long, steamy, dripping wet minutes. At last he loosened his mega-grip on her to a secure hold with one arm, and gently he pressed his lips against her hair.
“Are you okay?” His voice was that of the calm, gentle Jaxon she could now readily admit to herself she’d fallen in love with.
Celise nodded.
“I didn’t hurt you?”
Her ass, hips and pelvis were sore, and her vagina felt tenderized after making love with Jaxon. But it wasn’t anything that she hadn’t anticipated, and certainly not anything she hadn’t thoroughly enjoyed.
She shook her head.
He wrapped both of his arms around her. “Why did you do that?”
“Do you feel better?”
“Hell yeah,” he grunted his acceptance, and the tremor of his deep voice against her head sent more shivers through her body.
“Then that’s why. I told you I wanted to help you,” she said with a smile, not disclosing the fact she’d wanted him inside of her within a couple of weeks of first meeting him.
“I could have really hurt you.”
“And I probably would have liked it.”
“You know what I mean, Celise,” he snickered. “The next time I tell you to run, you run.”
“Or, I could just get naked with you again and calm you down.”
“You don’t seriously think you can just tame me with sex every time? I’m not normal.”
“What kind of man isn’t tamed by the love of a good woman? Do tell—the scientific community would really like to know.”
“You’re a crazy woman, you know that?”
“Look who’s talking. You volunteered to be a lab rat, remember?”
He laughed and turned off the water, and pulled back the curtain. She began shivering violently, but stopped when he picked her up and lifted her out of the tub. By the time he handed her a towel she was already completely warmed from the inside out.
Chapter Ten
Jaxon stood near the information desk in the lobby of the hospital, watching people move about as he waited. He heard Celise coming long before he saw or smelled her. No other woman’s heels would have clacked upon the marble floor the way Celise’s did. Their rhythm reflected the sophisticated sultriness in the sway of her hips, their weight heavy underneath the curving, feminine muscle of leg, thigh and ample bottom. As she approached, he inhaled her scent deep into his lungs, trying to fill not only his nostrils but his soul. When he finally turned around she was only a few feet away from him, smirking.
“What are you doing here? I left you a voicemail that I couldn’t do lunch.”
“I know. I just stopped by to at least get a whiff of you.”
She laughed. “Well, I’m sorry babe, but it’s really busy up there today. I only have a few minutes.”
“That’s all I need.” He reached for her hips and pulled her close to him.
She smiled and looked past him out of the glass door of the lobby. “Where’s your squad car?”
“I’m doing rounds with Ronnie since I got stood up for lunch.” He feigned pain when she pinched him. “He’s circling the block while he’s waiting for me to get done here. Since we were over this way anyway I figured I’d stop and pay a visit to my favorite medical practitioner.”
“Ah. I was just curious.”
“Why?”
“I like seeing your squad car. It’s sexy.”
“There’s nothing sexy about a squad car.”
“It’s sexy because you’re so happy to have it. And because it’s yours. And because you’re sexy. You’re the sexiest cop I’ve ever seen.”
Honestly, he was proud and happy to be out on the beat again. Sure he was in a brand new jurisdiction and had to leave all of his chums from his old unit, and the city he’d call home, but it was a small price to pay to do what he loved—keeping the streets safe. He was the biggest cop in the jurisdiction and had to get a custom-fit uniform. A couple of colored contacts plus some super slick shades, a new unit who wouldn't question his drastic change in appearance, and he was set.
It wasn’t as if needed to work. Hell, between himself and Celise they were quite wealthy. Cyclone Industries’ founder, Garret Carrington, had agreed to triple Jaxon’s compensation after learning about the “complications,” which it turned out were actually part of the formula’s intended design. After doing some prying around, Celise discovered that Dr. Sri Ashni had deliberately made alterations to the formula behind Dr. Victor Morhamer’s back-as directed by Carrington himself—in order to create a super soldier who was also part berserker.
The trouble was, Sri mistakenly thought they’d be able to control when the subject would go into a rage, and thus he was eager to assist with the development of a suppressant in order to rectify the problem.
When Celise confronted Carrington with her findings, he reminded her she’d signed a non-disclosure agreement when she took the job, but he gave her a hefty sum, assurance that Dr. Victor Morhamer would be alright, in time, as they made further progress in the project, and his word that Cyclone Industries had no intention of distributing the formula while it was faulty. For whatever his word was worth.
But Jaxon convinced Celise to put all of that behind them, at least for now. He didn’t know for certain how Victor was doing, but Jaxon was growing better at controlling his emotions and altered body every day.
It was amazing what a man could learn to overcome in order to be with the woman he loved.
Nearly everyone openly reacted to him as they passed through the lobby, with the women either shirking away or smiling flirtatiously at him, and the men sizing him up. Jaxon was getting rather used to the attention at this p
oint. He stood out and he knew it, so he mostly pretended not to notice, but as usual, Celise gripped his arm possessively. His heart flipped in his chest and he leaned forward to kiss her on the lips.
“Did you actually only come here to gawk and fondle me, or do you want something?”
“To gawk and fondle you. I am just a man, after all.”
“I think you really came here to have me gawk at you. You’re going to make me some lovely kids someday.”
Jaxon furrowed his brows. “Would my twisted DNA be passed on to my children?”
“Highly unlikely. Most of the negative effects were phenotypic, and others, like your enhanced senses and regenerative abilities, aren’t necessarily a bad thing. So I’m not worried.”
“I am,” he grunted. “There's enough trouble on the streets, I don't need any in my home.”
“You’re not a trouble, hon. You’re the same honorable man you always were. Just a lot stronger and little more passionate.”
He knew she was talking and he should have been listening more closely, but the way her mouth moved was incredibly seductive. He licked his lips as he watched hers. “I can’t wait to make you Doctor Wentworth.”
She wrinkled her nosed. “Mrs. Celise Wentworth? That just doesn’t sound very good at all. No way. I’ll gladly marry you, but I’m not changing my name.”
“Like hell you’re not. You’re going to take my name, woman.”
“Well, we’ll see. But I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.”
“What if I don’t give you a choice?”
“I’ll always have a choice. Remember Jaxon, you don’t scare me.”
He laughed. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me.”
“I already do. I think I need to show you just how much I love you, real soon.” His hand sneaked around her waist and squeezed her ass.
“Control yourself. You’re going to have to wait until my shift is over in a few hours.”
Way Out of Control Page 10
