by Gennita Low
Her brow rose higher. “Oh, I don’t care if you fight back,” she retorted. “I’m still going to hurt you.”
“Done,” he said, privately amused. A little aggression in bed could be exciting foreplay.
She was looking at him, her eyes narrowing as she studied the bruised side of his face. Her face was flushed and he knew she was thinking of other things besides injuring him. For an instant, he wondered whether she’d somehow caught the erotic image in his head. But they weren’t sleeping or hooked together by the BE machine. She looked away.
“Just answer this and I’ll wait till later,” she said. “Are you responsible for what I’m going through right now? Was the strange sensation in the stairway in Frankfurt your doing?”
He realized that it was important to her that he wasn’t the cause of her inability to fight what her body craved. Fortunately, he didn’t have to lie.
“I have nothing to do with that,” he assured her. “I don’t know what happened there. That’s why I brought it up at the meeting. We have to find out whether it’s just you or something more. Dr. Kirkland’s theory makes sense. I do understand that withdrawing from the serum caused this chemical imbalance in your body but it’s accelerated, so you’re feeling two years’ worth of need, if you want to call it that, instead of a normal dose of healthy sexuality.”
“Ouch.” She grimaced. “Do you always sound so matter-of-fact?”
He inclined his head. “It makes the discussion less emotional for you,” he pointed out. His voice went a notch lower. “In the privacy of bedrooms and fantasies, however, we can talk as dirty as you want without you being conscious about how it’s making you feel.”
“It makes me feel nothing,” she declared.
“Liar.” He supposed he could be a gentleman and not bring it back up. He chose ruthlessness to push his point. It would keep her aware of him while he couldn’t fully focus on her. “You know you’re going to think about my hand in your pants every time I look at you there.”
Her face flushed but she still refused to meet his gaze. “I never had a chance, did I?” she asked, her voice low.
Jed paused to look at her. He would have gone after her even if she hadn’t been assigned to him. That was how much he’d wanted her. But covert life meant unexpected twists, even in one’s personal life. He’d just have to do everything backwards. Fuck her crazy first. Woo her later.
“No.”
She should be angry. She wasn’t.
She should be plotting murder. Instead she was a mass of confusion, following this man around just because…just because. He was like a new found flavor, something she couldn’t decide whether she liked or not. And that aura of danger around him reminded her of those lost childhood days when she ran alone in the streets, not knowing whether there’s menace lurking around the corner.
Those pauses he made would drive a woman crazy. Did he deliberate about every single thing he was going to say?
No, he said. Arrogant devil. The look he gave her was frank and sexual, making her stomach churn, and then it was replaced by that cool, assessing gaze again, all business.
It was fascinating how the man could shut off just like that. The lighting in the elevator had accentuated the angles and planes of his face, making those strange eyes of his glitter even more against his tan. There was nothing subtle about him, not in the way he’d touched her, not in the way he’d looked at her. In those few minutes, he’d shown desire so palpitatingly raw, it’d kept her frozen in place, every part of her connected to that need in him. And with a bite, he’d turned her on even more.
She felt her insides clench at the memory. Ordinarily, she would sit down, think everything through, and come up with a game plan. But she’d better toss that strategy out of the window when it came to Jed McNeil. He’d successfully foiled and thwarted every one of her plans. Hard as it was to admit it, he’d kept her off-balance since…had it been only yesterday since her “freelance” remote viewing? God, it felt like days.
It paid to remember that this was Number Nine with whom she was dealing, the one who finished each mission. He ultimately dealt with death. That accounted for the dangerous air that she sensed cloaking him all the time.
Her eyes narrowed. Dealing with him wasn’t going to be like the way she’d beaten the other males against whom she’d trained these past two years. Jed McNeil, she suspected, was an entirely different species altogether. He’d yet to acknowledge her blow to his face. That dried trickle of blood on his chin was still there. It was all deliberate, of course, because now it was like a mockery, daring her to do her worst.
Her shoulders straightened. Dammit, she wasn’t going to slink away to lick her wounds. Deep down, she was still that orphan running wild in the slums in Russia, a stray who wouldn’t join any of the gangs, and she had survived those times, so this was nothing. Like everything else since, this was nothing compared to those dark days.
No stomping off right now. She had to understand what was happening to her before working out her next steps. And this feeling…she had to get it under control somehow. Because right now, without being connected to him with machines or virtual reality, she was actually seeing the two of them in bed, with her on top and doing naughty things that an angry woman shouldn’t be doing. And the thoughts weren’t helping her overdriven libido at all.
She was overwhelmingly conscious of his eyes settling on her briefly again. “I’m not the one invading dreams, Elena,” he said, in that low tone of voice that forced one to pay attention. “For what it’s worth to you, it’s unsettling to me too.”
Unsettling? She choked back her laugh. What she was thinking of right now was unsettling. “You aren’t walking around with a sexual trigger in your head,” she pointed out bitterly. “You aren’t the one who’s going through this body chemistry overcompensation that makes me want to…want to…”
She wasn’t going to finish that sentence. She shrugged.
“You signed the Human Use Agreement Form. You were aware that in doing so, you put your life in a government experiment,” he said.
She glared at him. “I’m perfectly aware of what I signed. I’m also perfectly aware of what you’re doing.”
“If I’d told you, would you have gone along?”
“Of course not!” She’d seen the effect of mental triggers embedded in assassins. No way.
They turned the corner and stopped in front of a door. “I thought not.” His gaze warmed. “You want to be asked? Okay. May I seduce you, Elena?”
His voice was oh, so damn polite. His question, oh, so double-edged. An invitation and a challenge, the question was worded to throw her off-kilter. This was seduction at its best.
“Not answering?” he chided.
Study your opponent. She had to understand Jed McNeil, and to do so, she had to play his mind games.
She chose the challenge. “No, you can’t seduce me,” she declared.
Jed slid his card into the security slot. His eyes never left hers as he tapped on the keypad. “Give me time,” he said softly.
She wanted to say something sarcastic to counter such display of supreme male ego, she really did. But it was hard when her own body was betraying her. Her gaze lowered and admired the supreme male ass in the snug blue jeans and she gave a mental sigh as she followed him inside.
The first thing she registered when they entered was that the room was oval shaped. There were monitors and electronic maps on the walls that surrounded a large oddly shaped table, which was half-circular on one side, with extended arms at zero degrees and one hundred and eighty degrees that protruded outwards about six feet. There was a chair in the empty space in the middle; whoever was sitting there would be surrounded by more computers, monitors, and electronic gadgets than she’d ever seen in one room, outside a computer store.
“What room is this?”
“Debriefing,” Jed said as he coded in something on a pad in the wall. “You’ll be given access to this room once you run m
issions regularly.”
“I thought debriefing was, like, sitting in front of a bunch of balding old men answering their questions,” Helen drawled, looking around, intrigued by all the gadgets. Some of the screens on the walls were in different languages. One appeared to be showing weather updates around the world.
“That’s standard debriefing, which is still done, but COS commandos and operatives have many different tasks and operations, with many different assets involved who need to be present during the debriefing. Some of them are in different countries. Some of them are underground and don’t want to be tracked. In this room, all the relevant participants can function as a group.”
It made sense, except for one thing. “I’m assuming that a satellite is hooking all this up,” Helen observed. “So, wouldn’t the signals be easily tracked by outsiders?”
“Scrambled,” Jed explained.
“Ah.”
“Signal diffusion technology. Electronic encryption. Quantum…”
“All right, all right. I get it. Security’s taken care of.” Helen wasn’t giving up, though. She cocked her head, adding slyly, “What about remote viewing? They might send someone like me to spy in here.”
His lips quirked. Taking her by the hand, he led her to one side of the oval room where, inside a glass-protected portion of the wall, similar to a fish tank, out of the way of busy hands, some kind of weird instrument was glowing with electric-like sparks inside a dome.
Very conscious of her hand in his, Helen studied it for a few seconds. “What the heck is that?”
“It’s an improved version of the Tesla coil. It’s used to repel mind spies like remote viewers.”
Helen turned and stared at the man beside her. “You’re kidding me, right? I thought the government didn’t believe in the stuff. Is it like the energy alarm ring T. gave me to wear?”
“No, but they’re probably similar technology.” Jed studied her for a moment. “Covert bases aren’t as inflexible. You’ll discover that there are secrets within secrets inside our government branches that are extremely well guarded.”
Helen waved at the room behind her. “Like what goes on in here?” Obviously, paranoid people ran this place.
“What goes on in here can sometimes be an amalgam of different groups of people working covert missions within missions.”
Hell moved closer to the protected panel. Could that thing really stop remote viewing? During training, she’d been told of the existence of certain devices but had never seen them.
“Double agents,” she guessed.
He nodded. “COMCEN has operatives who are different personas in different groups. In this room, he or she can perform their communications effectively and give SITREPs of their assignments without confusing the various departments. It’s very streamlined and effective. And Eight Ball takes care of what information goes where.”
Then Eight Ball, the crazy computer, was even more powerful than she’d thought. She arched her brows in mockery. “You trust a computer that masquerades as a surfer dude with all that information? Does he use that same persona when he’s giving the situation reports to the higher-ups?” That she wanted to see, some big brass’s face when Eight Ball addressed him with “Dude, here’s the SITREPs for the day.”
Jed’s lips quirked in amusement. “I think he programmed himself to add ‘sir’ after his ‘dude’ just to be respectful.”
Helen chuckled. She talked to Eight Ball a lot but hadn’t really seen him in his full capacity. She looked over her shoulder again. “He must be quite the supercomputer if he’s the one with all the data that runs this place.”
Wow. She was standing in the heart of COMCEN. And Jed had said she would have personal access to it one of these days. The fact that he’d brought her in here couldn’t just be coincidental.
“Eight Ball is actually only a program within a Mother Eight Ball. There are different versions of Eight Ball running this place. A supercomputer for a supersoldier-spy,” Jed said softly.
She turned back to him. Once again, he’d managed to read her thoughts even though they weren’t in virtual reality. “Why am I here? To watch you get debriefed?”
His hold tightened slightly. “I need your trust in me,” he said simply. “Making you aware of what’s going on will build that foundation. Letting you see the many intertwining projects will give you a quicker understanding than reading situation reports and files.”
But the message in his light eyes wasn’t as simple. He was giving her that look again, the one that somehow managed to make her feel naked. His gaze swept lower and settled on her jeans.
Helen breathed in sharply. Dammit, he was right. Every time he looked at her there, she started to think about his hand. And his hand was connected to how he’d stimulated her, not just in the elevator, but during their virtual reality sessions. He knew he could affect her this way, especially now. She wanted to hitch up her jeans and run away.
“I think it’s a little too late to gain my full trust,” she said tightly, refusing to shift her stance. Her eyes challenged him as she pulled her hand out of his. “Information is nice. Knowing all the details of what’s going on is helpful. But that won’t make me any more agreeable to the trigger.”
He lifted his gaze. “But it’ll reinforce it.”
Her eyes widened. “What will?”
“The information. The details. You want to know what’s going on, you said. So I’m going to show it to you with fair warning. Knowledge will reinforce that trigger.”
She frowned. “How so?”
His debriefing couldn’t possibly do that. She didn’t like the way he smiled, like the Cheshire Cat who knew too much and not sharing.
“You can’t have it both ways, Elena. You want answers, you’ll have to stay with me. Spending more time with me means giving me the opportunity to strengthen that trigger. By staying now, you’re consciously giving me permission to reinforce it.”
“I’m not going to play your mind games,” Helen told him grimly. He’d called her Elena. “What if I choose to leave now?”
He nodded. “Of course you can leave. We can have our appointment later.”
“Then why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to trust me.”
“That’s the most ridiculous way to get it!”
His direct gaze was unsettling, as if he could see right inside her. She had never felt so self-conscious with any male before.
“Is it?” he asked softly. “There’s no reason for me lie to you now. If I can’t tell you, I’ll just say so. That way, you’ll always know where you stand with me.”
“Right,” she drawled sarcastically, wrapping her arms across her chest. “If you think I’m going to take your word about anything you tell right now, there’s a bridge I have for sale.”
“I don’t expect immediate capitulation,” he told her.
“There, you see? Capitulation is not a word that would make me trustful of you, Mr. McNeil.”
His eyes gleamed with sudden amusement. He’d known she’d jump all over that word, dammit. Instead of answering, he moved from her. She watched his back, frustrated.
It would feel damn good to throw his bait in his face and walk out of—she looked around again—and sighed. He knew damn well she wouldn’t. This was the Bat Cave, for heaven’s sakes. He knew she was dying to see everything he could show her. Questions hung in the air between them.
Yes, she was now connected to him in ways she couldn’t explain to anyone. Yes, he was manipulating her deliberately, getting behind her defenses and planning God only knew what else about her operative status. Yes, she was turned on by him; there was no denying that. And finally, yes, she was really his supersoldier-spy.
Hell couldn’t say no to him. “Where do you want me to sit?” she asked quietly.
He walked to the space behind the oddly shaped table in the middle of the room. “If you sit there,” he said, pointing to a small desk she hadn’t noticed, “you�
�ll be able to see most of the screens I’m using. I’ll turn on the monitor to your right. There’s several earphones connected to the module. Use the one blinking each time I switch.”
“Each time you switch?” she asked, nonplussed.
“Each time I switch channel,” he explained. “You’ll see what I mean when it’s happening. And Elena, no interruptions, please. You can question later.”
She resisted the urge to stick a tongue out at him. Barely. She turned to the desk he’d pointed to.
“Yes, Master,” she replied, affecting a lisp, shuffling her feet in imitation of Marty Feldman’s famous role of Igor as she limped toward the desk.
Jed didn’t see her act since his back was toward her. She watched him fiddling with the control panels from where she sat. Her turn to study him. Her turn to figure out what made him tick.
“Dude, I thought you’d never turn on the voice control so I could speak,” Eight Ball’s “voice” suddenly filled the room. “You guys are no fun.”
“Exactly,” Jed said. “Operation updates, please.”
Screens started turning on left and right. There were whirrs of activity in different parts of the room. From where she was, Hell figured out several satellite calls being made and fax machines coming alive.
“Tsk. Hunger and sexual tension make two very frustrated human beings. High probability of—”
“Eight Ball, operation updates for now.” Jed reached over and touched the screen to his right. “We want to let Hell see the business side of you, don’t we?”
Several maps lit up on the electronic wall. The screens at her desk started flashing messages and Helen checked where they were coming from. All over the world, it seemed.
“Of course, sir.” Eight Ball’s voice turned into a snotty uppity British butler accent. “We will indeed show the vast project being undertaken by COS Command in an orderly fashion. They’re already waiting for your report, sire.”
“I’m ready.”
Immediately a few other screens came on, one showing a man, and another a woman. Both looked to be in their mid-forties. Helen didn’t recognize them.
