It wasn’t from hurt, exactly, although her knee would regret this in the morning, but it felt close to it. Like pain, deep and untouched and really, really hard to face. Like pleasure so deep and tender that it came full circle to brush the other side.
Something snapped inside Ford. She watched him go from calculating, to a little lost, then finally a bit…feral.
The thing was, she really liked this animal part. Pounding into her, twisting her body, turning it, bending, pushing, all so he could get closer, deeper. Thrusting into her like he’d die if he didn’t.
And she felt it, too. She needed this thing. Passion, she’d call it, if it hadn’t felt more primal than that.
She was seeing him for the first time. The real Ford. She’d cracked the shell to find the man inside.
Carefully, she swiped a drop of sweat from his forehead and cradled his head for a few seconds, until it became necessary to grasp his shoulder, then his hip, and finally, when he hit that magic spot inside her, his ass.
Each of his hard thrusts scooted the cot toward the metal wall, where it banged like thunder, causing cans and boxes to crash to the floor.
It was hilarious on one level. On another, when she looked him in the eye and he hit that high, bright place just right… No hilarity. Just frightening intensity and a deadly seriousness.
She let out a sound—weak and a little frantic.
He leaned down in response and kissed her again, slowed his movements, twisting his hips, so he got the spot every time and, rather than getting screams now, he forced her into one long, low moan of pleasure. She managed to slip her hand between them, slid along their hot and cold skins to her clit, touched herself once, and…
Fireworks. Blasting, bright, over-the-top. Everything.
Every nerve, every pore, every cell focused hard on this connection they shared. Or rather the two connections that mattered right this second—the one between their legs and the one up top—gazes entwined, caught, never letting go.
Oh my God, I do love him.
The thought came and went, a quick, potent electric jolt, the current so fast she almost didn’t notice it. After he’d held still, riding out the craziest, most emotional orgasm of her life, she urged him with her hand to keep going. Prodded him to his own pleasure, so she wouldn’t feel so alone with all of these feelings.
He pushed faster, harder, the expression on his wide-boned face so close to pain she almost worried for him. But she’d seen him in pain and this was something else. She had to stroke him, from his flank up to his chest, over those big, hard planes—the chest she’d thought about way too often out on the ice. Or maybe just often enough to keep her going.
Saved by his massive pecs.
She smiled at that and he smiled back, slowing, breathing hard. Way too sweaty to be safe in Antarctica. His eyes flicked between hers, a question there.
“Don’t have to stop,” she said. “IUD, remember?”
They shared another kiss and he picked up the pace again. Determination in his features this time—a race to the finish. And though she hadn’t expected to go there with him, it started to feel like maybe she had another orgasm in her.
Her hips lifted to meet his thrust for thrust, each one shoving the cot farther along the floor while it shook her to her foundations. This time she came without her hands, with only the friction of their bodies and the intensity of those eyes pushing her over the edge.
No explosions this time. No way could she crest that high again. But the feelings were there…the rush, the tightness, the tingling. He pumped into her a few messy times and then one final, deep press, his head cradled against her shoulder before he collapsed. Not quite a dead weight but almost.
Around them lay the destruction of a room fucked to pieces, their stuff everywhere. Like a storm had come through.
Above her, Ford’s body heaved. Exhausted and probably overcome.
She wrapped around him and held on to him—this big, tender loner of a man. The man who’d saved her life more than once. Funny how somehow, suddenly, right this moment, she felt like he’d torn it all apart.
Chapter 38
It took Coop forever to fight his way through the fog of emotion, find his muscles and lift his weight off her. But he finally did, figuring they hadn’t gotten this far for him to crush her to death.
He leaned back, expecting to have to explain his outburst. The frantic fucking hard enough to move the damn bed across the room. They hadn’t discussed any of that ahead of time. Not that he could’ve warned her anyway, since he hadn’t planned it.
It all felt so big, so good, that it hurt.
When he finally let himself focus on Angel, the last thing he expected to see was a smile on her face.
She’d come. He was sure of that. Twice, even.
“What?”
“The…the…” She gasped, caught her breath, and went on. “The Ice Man…cometh.” She descended into giggles again and he smiled.
“Hm?”
“It’s a play. A movie, too, I think.” When he didn’t respond, she stopped laughing and cleared her throat. “Guess you haven’t heard of it.”
He shook his head, surprised to find a happy smile glued to his face now. “Nope,” he tried to say, but crap, nothing came out. His voice was gone. Shot to hell from sex. From her.
“Too bad. It was pretty funny. In my head at least.” She tightened around his softening cock and he shut his eyes to isolate the sensation.
“It is funny,” he whispered. His chest was all strange—big and hollow. “You’re funny.”
“Yeah?” What was it about her expression that made him think she was asking something else? Something more serious.
He lost the grin and nodded. Yes. Yes, whatever your question is. Though it hurts to feel like this, I’m right here with you.
Damn, she was beautiful. Tough, strong, and so tender he didn’t know what to do with her.
Maybe nothing. Maybe they’d die out here and he wouldn’t have to commit to anything beyond this.
That made him feel shitty again. Would he seriously rather die than get emotionally involved with a woman?
Pathetic.
“You’re still inside me and already you’re gone.” She caressed the side of his face, those big wet dark eyes boring into him like one of his drills. “Aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” He hated having to whisper. It made him seem weak, though he was just…
Weak.
“You were Ford and now you’re back to being the Ice Man. Removed from it all. Above it, maybe.”
That was how she saw him? Removed? It sent a strangely mixed response through him—guilt, because he didn’t want to make her feel bad, but a thin strain of pride that the control was still there. He hadn’t lost it by giving himself up to her. Good.
Something sad ghosted over her features and she turned away.
“What?” He half smiled, trying to catch her eye.
“I like the real Ford.”
He started to shake his head and stopped. Opened his mouth and shut it. Twice.
“Okay.” He finally gave in because she made him happy in a way he couldn’t begin to understand. And who knew how much time they had?
He leaned forward and kissed her, hardening again.
Her brows rose. “You’re kidding.”
“Not even a little,” he told her with a grin.
* * *
Day 14—Chronos Corporation Headquarters, Stromville, West Virginia
“My team found something, ma’am.”
Irritated at the interruption, Katherine Henley Harper lifted her head from perusing the day’s paper, blinking. Another school killing, which only confirmed what she knew to be true—the world needed cleansing. Not a bomb, because Mother Earth didn’t deserve that. More like antibodies attacking a d
isease. A good, clean surgical intervention.
And like any good surgeon, she’d identified the problem. Or problems. A segment of the population needed eradication. It was as simple as that.
Pull the weeds and a garden would flourish. Leave them to grow and the precious plants would be choked out. The plants needed water—which was exactly how she planned to deliver her blow. Over the past few years, Chronos had formed partnerships with water companies throughout the nation, becoming an essential part of the country’s very infrastructure. Water treatment and purification.
Population purification.
Exactly like pulling weeds. Those given the vaccine would flourish, and the others would simply…wilt away to nothing. Good would prevail. The earth would prevail.
Her eyes closed as she pictured her father’s garden, where she’d spent her most formative years. Every flower had its place, with—
“Ma’am.”
She blinked a few times before narrowing her eyes at the middle-aged woman standing in her door. Bonnie? No. Brenda. Brenda Lassiter. A good find. Not groveling like that Tenny shithead or frightening like the military men the senator sent her way. Women, she found, were generally better employees than men. Smarter, less ego, more willing to work together. Unfortunately, they often had a strong, though skewed, sense of right and wrong. Which was why she was forced to work with people like Tenny. Men whose moral compass had broken somewhere along the way.
She eyed Brenda. Though short and a little fat at the hips, the woman had a steel core. Unflinching.
“Yes?”
“We located them.”
Katherine racked her sluggish brain. “Them?” She hated how wobbly her voice had gotten with old age. Weak.
“I had my people do a grid search of the area between Burke-Ruhe and Volkov—and there’s someone out there.”
The fog she spent most of her time in cleared and everything came back—those fools losing the precious virus samples and heading back to the station, where they’d found nothing. Days—no, weeks—of searching had produced nothing.
She would have to let the entire security team go once this was over. They’d failed on all levels. Spectacularly. And then there was Clive Tenny to contend with—a holdout from her father’s era. He’d stuck with the company, but goodness, the man was irritating.
“Could they be ours?”
“I confirmed that ours returned to the Harper Research Facility. I believe the people we have located are on foot.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “On foot!”
She put a hand on the arm of the settee and pushed, keeping her face blank, though the pain was excruciating. Worse every day. Which made this delay even more of an aggravation. She had to be here to see everything come to fruition. She turned to the photo on her desk—her two smiling babies, whose lives had been snuffed out so quickly, so unfairly.
For them. She would see this through for them.
“Show me.” Despite the pain, she was proud to note her breathing was even. If it weren’t for the cane, there’d be no outward sign of her own physical frailness.
Slowly, with the help of the damned stick, she followed Brenda out the door, down the short, bright hall, past what she thought of as the Widow’s Window, overlooking the formal front garden, with its fountains and centuries-old boxwood allée, and through what appeared to be a simple paneled wooden door. Only it wasn’t, of course.
Katherine watched Brenda enter her personal code, swipe, and press her hand to the scanner before swinging open the heavy steel panel to reveal the New Wing. A misnomer if ever she’d heard one. There was nothing winglike about this great glass, metal, and concrete structure, dug deep into the mountain and rising to soar above it. If anything, the original house was the anomaly now. A wart more than a wing, regrettably, but the company’s stature had required an update.
And there were certain things Katherine wouldn’t—or couldn’t—do, since she’d lost her babies. Such as leave her home to go to the office. Therefore, the office had come to her. Naturally.
After her home’s warm woods, glowing lamps, and antique florals, the New Wing’s bright modern glass and hard stone sheen put a slight hitch in her gait. She pushed through it, of course, lest her employee think she was anything but the strong, steadfast leader she’d always been.
They made their way down the hall, Brenda slowing to match Katherine’s pace, which annoyed her to no end. They stopped at the elevator, again delivering handprints, retinal scans, and pass codes—necessary modern annoyances in this line of work—and descended to Floor -4, where this type of operation was handled.
In the bowels of her company’s building, they entered to find the logistics team hard at work. Silent, staring, concentrated, most of them with those tiny plastic listening devices stuffed into their ears, there was nothing but the clicking of keys to prove that they were, in fact, in the realm of the living. Modern zombies.
He’d worn one of those ridiculous contraptions, the murderer who’d taken the lives of her grandchildren. His bullets had torn through their perfect little bodies, along with those of other children, their teachers, some parents—including her own daughter—all while piping music directly into his ears.
Something hard and heavy and electronic, no doubt. Although she didn’t know. The police had never confirmed what he’d been listening to. And now, suddenly, she wanted to know. Desperately.
She’d turned to go, fueled by a dim idea of calling the police superintendent, when Brenda’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“Todd’s the one who found them, ma’am.”
Katherine blinked at the zombies, sitting in their expensive ergonomic chairs, bobbing their heads to the kind of music she’d never been able to stand. No artistry at all. Just the loud, constant thump of drumbeats.
At least these zombies worked for her. Though some of them, she knew from detailed reports, had somewhat distasteful pastimes outside these walls, they all excelled at their jobs.
Flustered by the way her mind had drifted, Katherine forced a smile to her stiff lips and focused on Brenda’s pleasantly mature countenance.
“Todd, could you bring up the satellite photos you showed me earlier?” Brenda asked, voice as poised and modulated as Katherine’s once was.
Without a word, the man did as he was told. There was perhaps a touch of hubris in the tilt of his head, but she laid that at the door of his youth.
Katherine turned and squinted at the screen, seeing nothing at first. What were they looking at? She wouldn’t ask. Asking would make her appear weak in the mind. As much as she hated depending on a cane for ambulation, a failing body was nothing compared to a failing brain.
“This location is about halfway between Burke-Ruhe and our facility. This morning. Zoom in, please.” Brenda stepped back to let Katherine look. “This”—she indicated with a laser pointer—“is evidently some structure. We have no record of ownership. Probably Russian. And that,” she said, more excitedly, “is exhaust.”
The screen wasn’t entirely clear, the image blurry at the edges, but still a miracle that they’d taken this photo from space. She could hardly fathom it.
“What else?”
“Close in, Todd.” Brenda smiled, walked to the big screen, leaned up, and slapped something. “This.”
Katherine squinted irritably. Could the woman not just spell it out, for heaven’s sake? These images were minuscule and—
She couldn’t contain a gasp. There, in the middle of the image, tiny but clear as day alongside an unidentifiable orange square, was a neat pile of metal tubes. “The—” Virus, she’d almost said, which wouldn’t do, since keeping the various departments in the dark about this project was imperative. Need to know was of the essence when one was planning a mass cleansing of the world’s population. All for the greater good, of course. She settled for “tubes” instead
.
“Yep. We’ve got the samples. And the location. The clear solution is to prepare a team to go in as soon as the weather warms.”
“I don’t have time for that.” She inhaled slowly to steady herself. Appearing erratic in front of the staff was hardly the best way to handle this. But good God, the frustration she’d felt when those imbeciles had flown the wrong samples to the Facility.
For the sake of appearances, she forced a smile to her parched lips and turned to Brenda. “Please send Sampson’s team.”
“No planes will fly in this—”
“They flew last week, didn’t they? And again a few days ago? And I understand we’ve made airdrops in the dead of polar winter. Surely, now that we’ve located the samples, they can…” She shook her hand vaguely. “Parachute in or something. Take them. And return to the Facility.”
Mutiny shone in Brenda’s eyes and her dark skin took on a heated cast, her cheeks going pink. When Brenda opened her mouth, Katherine wasn’t entirely sure which way she’d go, but the words “yes, ma’am” assuaged her fears.
Greater good. Those words, that idea, mattered to people like Brenda, who’d lost her mother to disease.
“Good.” Orders given, she turned to go, then stopped and swiveled painfully. “And you, young man. What’s your name again?”
He glanced at Brenda before looking back at her, which was both a good and bad sign—not so big for his britches that he’d overreach, though he clearly needed a lesson on who the boss was around here.
“Todd. Todd Jenkins, ma’am.”
“Good work, Todd.” She smiled a genuine, heartfelt smile. “You can expect a bonus for your efforts.”
And possibly, just possibly, I’ll let you keep your life when all of this is over.
Chapter 39
Day 14—Norwegian Field Research Camp, 142 Miles from Volkov Station
Angel was in trouble. Deep, deep trouble. With no way out. Literally no way out, since she was stuck here with the object of her…affections? Gosh, that didn’t really seem to encompass it. Obsession, maybe, although hunger felt more like it, given that what she felt for Ford was on a par with the stomach-gnawing pangs of starvation.
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