by Lynne Silver
Finally, his cell phone rang. Once glance at the caller ID had his stomach jumping and sweat pooling under his armpits.
“Where the hell have you been?” he hissed into the phone. “Why is Chase hurt? I thought you would grab a hair sample or something.”
“Keel.” The voice on the other end laughed. “Relax. You need to be more careful about calling me. Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good, now…”
“What happened to Chase?” Keel burst out again, unable to contain his fears. “I thought you said he’d be unharmed and have no memory of it.”
“Chase’s beating was an unfortunate incident. He did not take well to my request to leave the airport. If he had only come quietly, my men wouldn’t have had to beat him.”
“Did you at least get what you need?”
“Sadly, no. We’ll need another specimen.”
Code word for a living, breathing human. “I won’t. I can’t. I already risked a lot to give you Chase’s information.”
“Keel.” Paulson tsked into the phone. “I’m afraid I’ve lost your bank account number. I’m sure it’ll turn up once I have what I need. When Shep sends someone else to investigate Chase’s beating, let me know who it is. All I need is a name and flight info.”
Rage embroiled him at being used foully, but what was he to do? He wanted the money. “Fine. I’ll contact you when I learn who’s going. But I want a million. Especially if my men are getting beaten.”
“Done.”
He hung up, unwilling to stay on a second longer than necessary. Who knew what technology trackers Gavin had in place. With a lump in his throat, he stood to slip on his shoes and head up the hill to Shep’s office. He needed to be in the thick of planning if he were going to earn his money.
*
“Let’s run,” Loren decided, a frisson of excitement crackled in her. She’d watched Adam work out for the past few days, but this was the first time she’d been invited to participate. He probably doubted she could keep up. He was in for a surprise. She’d run high school and college track, and could keep up. Probably. Maybe.
They walked back to Adam’s apartment in companionable silence, Loren lost in thoughts of her brother and mystery attackers. They arrived at his room and she reached out to him, her anchor in the storm of mixed emotion. She felt adrift after learning her father had abandoned his first family but had remained a part of the Program, a cause her father had lived and died for. One she was now working for.
Knowing now what she did, could she go back to blithely researching local events or even national stories? The knowledge that two almost entirely different types of humans lived in the world among the masses, and she was one of them, made this her fight, her mission too.
“What are you thinking about?” Adam asked, yanking his shirt up over his head to change into an UnderArmour athletic shirt for running.
All thoughts of national security policy and scientific advances fled as Loren’s mouth went dry at the sight of his tan, glorious torso staring at her.
“You,” she whispered, pushing her troubling thoughts to the very back of her mind.
A palpable silence fell in the room. Adam froze at her words.
Nothing had happened between them since their interlude in her apartment, but she had felt his stare whenever they were together. She’d had trouble keeping her hands and eyes to herself whenever he was in the vicinity, especially when she caught glimpses when he was training or working out.
The tension had been building for days, and she was done looking. She needed touching. Now.
She wasn’t sure who moved first, but she found herself pressed against his bare chest, his arms tightly wrapped around her. She stepped back a moment, breaking free of his grasp to pull her t-shirt off. As soon as she stood in her bra, he yanked her to him again and she luxuriated in the hard muscles of his chest brushing her hardened nipples.
She reached up and pulled his face down to her lips, her hands firmly against his nape. But he surprised her and avoided her lips, pressing tiny kisses instead along her temple and lower down to her neck. His hands unclasped her bra and gently rubbed her back where the strap had been. Loren moaned softly as his hands moved from her back around to her front to fondle her curves.
“Mmm.” She pressed kisses to his jaw and bit his stubbled chin gently. “More.”
“Wanted this for days…could barely keep my hands to myself.”
She lowered her arms to reach around him and pull his tight body into hers. His erection pressing against her was heaven, and her body responded, turning molten, preparing her for the ultimate slide of skin on skin.
Loren boldly lowered her hand to cradle his erection through his pants.
His groan reverberated through her, raising her arousal to a fever. His alluring scent filled her nostrils, making her want to press her face to his torso and breathe him in.
She rose up on tiptoes to press her lips against his and slide her tongue into his mouth. Their earlier kisses had nothing on this one.
Loren moved her hands around his front to unbutton the worn khakis he favored. She slid one hand down the front, finding the hot flesh she wanted badly. Her other hand went back to his shoulder to find balance as she stroked him.
The slit between her legs dampened and the pulsing pressure yearned to be released. Loren wanted him. Now. In his bed, on the floor, up against the wall. Any way she could get him.
Suddenly, without warning, he pulled away. Her hand was cold without his warm length. “What’s wrong? Why are you pulling away?”
“Loren, we shouldn’t do this.”
“Why are you fighting this so hard?”
“I have to,” he said. “I want you even though I know we shouldn’t. I have my reasons not to be with you.”
She was gratified to hear the hitch in his breath. At least she hadn’t been the only one affected. Still, hurt and shame washed through her at his sudden retreat. She wrapped her arms around her chest, hiding her swollen nipples. “I can’t do this, Adam. My body wants you and even my heart is starting to, but you keep pulling away. Why won’t you trust me? Can’t you tell me?”
“The problem is…” He raked a hand through his hair, sending curls spiraling haphazardly. “Dammit. Let’s go for that run.”
Loren sat on the rough navy comforter and ignored her near-naked state. “No. I want to know what the problem is. You kissed me back and a minute later you’re rejecting me. Again.”
Adam opened his mouth to speak, but she was done. Through. Fed up. The frustration her body felt at being denied its pleasure fueled her words.
“You know what? No. Forget it. I’m going to Commander Shepard to request to leave. I refuse to waste a second more lusting after someone who doesn’t want me.” She reached onto the floor, grabbed her t-shirt and yanked it over her head, nearly tearing her ear off with the force.
When she jumped up, fully prepared to storm out, Adam froze her in her tracks with his next comment and a firm hand on her shoulder.
“You know I want you. I just can’t be with you.”
Loren pivoted by inches toward him, though it felt that the room spun, not her. “Screw you.” As soon as the harsh words exited her mouth, fury roiled through her. How dare he jerk her around like a yo-yo? Life was too short to get yanked around by a guy no matter how hot or smart or…hot he was. Damn it, he had her so flustered she’d run out of adjectives.
“I can’t be with you,” Adam said again.
“You keep saying it like there’s some mystery. Shep thinks you should be with me. Even your own father thinks so. Why don’t you?” she asked, not really expecting much of an answer and too hurt to care what he said. She stared at him, breathing hard, daring him to answer.
He met her stare with an unhappy expression. “I’m damaged goods.”
Frustration and confusion assaulted her. “Adam, what the hell are you talking about?”
Before he could answer, his cell p
hone blared, jerking both of them out of the conversation.
“Don’t get that,” she ordered when he glanced at the caller ID.
“I have to. It’s my brother.” He turned away from her and spoke in low tones into his small handset.
Loren collapsed onto her back onto the bed, hands over her eyes. It was a circus, an asylum. Truly. The worst part was she was starting to feel like its most necessary resident. He had a brother? Why had he never mentioned him before? She couldn’t wait for him to hang up and clear her confusion.
Adam snapped his phone shut within a minute and tossed it onto the comforter next to her. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
She remained on the bed, one eye opened and focused on Adam. “No, we’re not. If you think I’m going anywhere with you, you’re insane.”
“And you’re crazy if you think I’m leaving you after that conversation. I know you’d be gone when I got back.”
“Damn straight I’d be gone! See? Listen to me shouting. I never shout. I am always calm and rational. But you’ve got me twisted up in knots. This needs to end.”
A shadow passed over Adam’s face. A memory? Anger? She didn’t know. She didn’t expect him to suddenly start reminiscing.
“My friend’s parents used to argue like this. I vaguely remember it. They’d shout then kiss and leave the room.”
She raised an eyebrow at his out-of-left-field statement, and waited for him to say something, anything relevant. When silence was forthcoming, she pressed for more. “Can you tell me why you think you’re defective and more about this mysterious brother who was on the phone?”
Adam stood looking down at her and held out a hand to pull her to standing.
She considered remaining on the bed but his steady gaze called out to something deep inside her. He needed her close. She could feel it. She grabbed his proffered hand, stood facing him and waited in silence for his story.
“Um, I’m not sure where to start, since both your questions are kind of related.”
“Start at the beginning. Leave nothing out.”
He tilted his head toward her, until his curls fell over his forehead, and gave her a meaningful look that clearly said shut up and let me talk. “I’ll talk, but I’d really rather do it from the car on the way to my brother’s.”
Loren sighed. Clearly he wasn’t saying anything until he got what he wanted. Fine. She could bend. Sometimes. She turned to find her flip-flops.
Chapter Eight
Adam’s hands shook on the steering wheel while his stomach rolled with each turn of the car, but he pressed forward. Loren deserved the truth and it was going to come out eventually. He’d rather her hear it from him.
“Your mom was genetically matched to your dad?” Loren asked.
Adam nodded.
“Then, why did you grow up off campus?”
Adam threw her a sidelong glance, surprised she remembered that little offhanded detail he’d told her days ago.
“I do listen to you. On occasion,” she said with a smile.
Adam sucked in all the joy he could at her smile. It may be the last they shared once he told her the rest. “My mom escaped from the campus when I was three.”
“Escaped? That’s an odd way of putting it. Why did she run?”
Adam stared straight ahead at the traffic as he answered with a child’s memories and coloring of the past. “They had a disagreement. Something they couldn’t resolve. I remember her putting me in the back of the car and telling me to wave bye-bye.” He risked another glance to see how she accepted that news. She waited for him to continue.
“She took us to downtown DC to the best place she could afford and the last place Dad would look. I stuck out like a sore thumb, because I was faster, stronger, brighter and well…whiter than everyone else. After a few years I forgot about my dad and my life in Beltsville. My mom never talked about him. And he never came to see us.”
The hard edge to his tone revealed he’d never quite forgiven his father that error. Memories of Thanksgivings sharing a dinner pack of KFC and Christmases with gift-wrapped library books instead of bicycles still gnawed at him. He didn’t care for himself, but he’d hated seeing his mother hide her shame at not being able to afford better things.
“Did he know where you were?” Loren asked, arrow to the bull’s-eye, as usual.
“Well no, I don’t think my mom ever contacted him again,” Adam admitted. “We hid in plain sight less than ten miles from him. But still, consider the resources at his disposal. I find it hard to believe he never even looked.”
“Are you sure? Have you ever asked him?”
He threw her a look that said in no uncertain terms he was done with that line of questioning. He held little hope that Loren would stop asking, researcher that she was. Hell, she’d made it a career to dig for the truth. He continued talking. And found himself in new territory, telling her things he’d thought to keep secret his whole life. And like steam rising from a boiling pot, once it was out, could never be contained and put back.
“When I was fourteen, I started having dreams about my past. I saw myself running around the Beltsville campus as a toddler. In my dream, I’d be picked up and hugged by the same man every night.”
“Your dad,” she said in a whisper barely loud enough to float over the traffic roar.
“Yeah. My dad. Finally when I was fifteen, I got curious enough to ask my mom about him. At first she refused to talk about him, but finally she caved and gave me…well she gave me the tragic whole story and his address.” He didn’t mention the box of letters Mom had given him. The letters that had cemented his views of love and matching within the confines of the Program.
“You went to find your dad,” Loren said.
“Not immediately. I knew it would upset my mom, and for some reason she’d made me promise to never mention my brother, Rowan, to my dad if I ever went looking for him.”
“Why?”
“Hang on, I’m getting there. The thing you have to understand is that I was different then. I wasn’t the model soldier you see now. I was one step away from juvie jail. My brother and I were kind of the de facto heads of our little gang. Street fighting, skipping school. Small stuff like that, you know.”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded, but he could tell his teen years were a world away from her little idyllic life in the ’burbs.
“I had no intention of looking for my dad. I liked my life. I was close to graduation, and had big plans of opening a PI firm with Rowan.”
She smiled at his confession. “What happened?”
“Life.” Adam shrugged. “One night we took a fight too far. Some jerk-off from a few streets over picked a fight with Rowan. I’ve always been a bit…protective of him. When the other guy pulled a knife, I jumped into the fight, and things went south from there.” He pressed his foot firmly on the gas pedal as if driving faster could make the story come out faster. “I beat that kid to within an inch of his life.”
He remembered the shouts and thwacks of fists and his own fists punching over and over into the other boy’s ribs. Punching even after the other boy’s arms had slackened, offering no resistance. He fell silent waiting for Loren’s condemnation. God knows he’d heaped enough of it onto himself.
When silence came from her side of the car, he chanced a glance over. She still sat waiting for him to finish. So he did.
“I didn’t even wait for the police. I hopped on the Metro and then walked the rest of the way to the Beltsville address my mom had given me. I kept stopping at 7-11s and gas stations to ask for directions. I was terrified my face would be on the TV monitors with the cops looking for me. But I made it to the compound where Shep and my dad put me in a dorm room, no questions asked.”
“And you’ve been there ever since,” Loren said.
Adam shrugged. “More or less.” She’d tied it off with a nice red ribbon, missing his induction into his cohort and his frequent, secret off-campus jaunts to visit his brother and mom that continued
until she’d died when he was eighteen.
If only his introduction to the Program had been like Loren’s idyllic imaginings. He’d been such a little know-it-all punk those first few weeks of campus living. Sure, the abilities that had allowed him to coast through his former life would suffice here. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Every other kid in the gymnasium was equally fast, equally strong and driven with a hunger to lead. Without Shep, Keel and his father’s extra training, he would have failed. They’d spent hours in the gym sparring and coaching him while the rest of his cohort slept.
Quiet fell in the car as they drove farther downtown. Single-family homes with yards made way for row homes, liquor stores and check-cashing places. Graffiti decorated store windows and steam from a Metro grate billowed up out of the ground, adding misery to an already steamy summer day.
“Are we getting close?” Loren asked.
Adam nodded.
“You still haven’t told me why you think you’re damaged goods,” she said.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
She frowned but said nothing.
Adam gritted his teeth and turned off New Hampshire Avenue to a smaller side street. He started to scout the neighborhood for a parking spot. He spotted one at the next corner and sped off to grab it. He slid the car gear into park, but remained seated, air-conditioning running, enjoying the false feeling that he and Loren were a real couple going for a drive. His body still hadn’t calmed from their earlier kiss and it was getting harder to quell his desire.
This was what he’d been fighting. That right next to him was a woman destined to be his genetic and romantic soul mate. He had instantly wanted her beyond rational boundaries and should fight to have her, to be with her. The Program had learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was a science to falling in love. Something for which eHarmony or Match.com would toss their chairman of the board into lava if they could get their hands on the formula.
