“Damn, this is convoluted.” The frustration in Damon’s voice was as palpable as the look on his face.
“Do you remember the man’s name?” Dade asked.
Olivia chewed on her bottom lip, thinking.
“You just saw him yesterday,” Damon joked.
She narrowed her gaze at him. “I’m better with faces than names. It started with a T. Thomas maybe or Teddy…”
“Theodore?” Dade asked.
“Yes.” Her eyes went wide. “That’s it. He used the same name at the Colorado bunker?” Before Dade could answer, she snapped her fingers. “Monk. His last name was Monk. I remember thinking that was humorous. He was not a monk.”
“Yeah, that’s the same name he used here. Spencer is already searching for him, but I’d be surprised if he used his real name.” Dade sounded defeated. “Spencer is also playing with the numbers to see if they mean anything.”
“Call us when you know more,” Damon said, and then he ended the call.
“Who’s Spencer?”
“Hacker.”
She closed her eyes. “Of course,” she whispered sarcastically. “Of course you have a computer hacker on your team.” This was all more than she could fathom rationally.
“Why don’t you try to rest again? You’ll feel stronger every time you wake up.”
She blew out a long breath and settled deeper into the mattress. If nothing else, she needed to escape. Maybe the world would make more sense the next time she woke up.
If she ever woke up again.
It was also possible all of this was a weird long nightmare and she was still in the bunker in New Mexico, caring for a kind, dying doctor who only had months to live.
Just before she fell asleep, she opened her eyes again. “You didn’t tell me what the word was.”
Damon was standing next to her, his brows furrowed. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision and said, “Samara.”
She smiled. “Huh, Samara. Why Samara?”
“I don’t know, but it means key. I guess it’s a kind of fruit.”
“Oh, I thought it was a city in Russia,” she murmured as she let sleep drag her under.
Chapter 3
One week later…
Damon sat at his desk, leaning back in his chair, staring across the room at the woman sleeping soundly on the bed.
Olivia Genova. Livvy, as he called her. On her second day awake, he’d spoken her name again tentatively and gotten the same exact result as the first time. She’d gone into a catatonic state, mumbling the word Samara over and over before falling into a deep sleep for several hours.
Damon doubted he would ever again in his life be able to speak the name Olivia out loud. In fact, he was seriously concerned about her future in a world where her name would put her into a hypnotic state. Could it be undone?
Likewise, the weird word Samara had caused Dade and five other members of the team to slide into a hypnotic state, but in every one of those cases, they muttered a series of numbers that meant nothing to anyone.
According to Dade, Spencer was working on the mystery but hadn’t come up with anything yet. The troublesome part was that Olivia was somehow connected to the entire DEEP team, even though she’d never met any of them, nor did she know they existed.
With the exception of Ryan and Emily, who were still holed up at the New Mexico bunker, the rest of the team was all together at the farmhouse in Montana now. They used the converted barn as a giant work space and slept in the enormous farmhouse.
Damon had been sent to the New Mexico bunker three months ago after an explosion at the Colorado facility. He hadn’t made his way to Montana yet, and now, he had an important responsibility—protecting Olivia.
Someone wanted her. Of that he had no doubt. She had the key, whatever that meant. Blue Cell had made their interest in her perfectly clear when they kidnapped Bianca and tortured her for information about the inhabitants of the New Mexico bunker.
Luckily, Bianca survived, but Damon wasn’t taking any chances that something like that might happen to Olivia, especially since Blue Cell had seemed particularly interested in gleaning more information about Olivia.
Damon was certain Olivia was innocent in the entire operation, but nevertheless, she was inadvertently dragged into the mess and in at least as much danger as anyone else, if not more.
He took a deep breath and paced the room while he watched her sleep. She was strong. Most people would never know she’d been preserved ten years if they saw her, but she still slept about twelve hours a day.
Right now, she was having her usual afternoon nap, and she looked so peaceful at rest.
Damon wandered over to the window, pulled down one of the blinds, and stared outside. They were in the outskirts of Denver in a busy residential area. The view wasn’t great, but at least it gave him some sense of connection to the world.
Olivia.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her. She had slammed into him like a freight train from the moment she first woke up. After her initial shock over discovering she’d been preserved against her will, she’d gradually grown to trust him. They’d spent hours sitting on the couch while he used the computer to help her catch up with the world and better understand what the DEEP team was facing. She was sharp. It didn’t take her long to get a handle on every member of the team, and not just the DEEP team but everyone hunkered together in Montana.
Although Damon had tried to ignore the draw he felt toward her, it was difficult.
She was cute. Fun. Bubbly. Happy. Young.
Her green eyes bore into him every time she met his gaze. Her long brown hair swayed when she moved, the thick curls temping him to run his fingers through them…or wrap his hand around them and tug her head back to force her to really see him.
By third day awake, she’d been moving around the room more. She often set a hand on his arm or bumped his thigh with hers when they worked. He’d gradually grown used to the fact that she didn’t have a huge personal space. Yesterday, she’d hip-checked him in the kitchen and tugged the grocery list out of his hand, taking over that task.
She likely didn’t have the faintest idea what she did to him when she got so close, but he’d had to excuse himself to the bathroom for the coldest shower of his life.
He needed to stop ogling the woman. She was off limits. He swiped a hand down his face, knowing he should have balked at this arrangement that left him alone indefinitely with her. In a studio apartment that was their temporary safe house.
He’d worried for a month that she might be someone he didn’t even like or that she might hate him and hold him responsible for what she’d lost. He hadn’t been prepared for the woman who barreled into his life and made him feel more alive than he had in years.
Maybe it was nothing more than a result of lack of any other human contact, but Damon was beginning to think his feelings for Olivia went beyond that. And it scared him because she was so young.
No. That was a lie. It scared him because his tastes ran in a direction that would shock the shit out of her.
So, he kept his growing attachment to himself and forced himself to think of anything but her every time she got close. And it was impossible not to be close. The damn one-room apartment was suffocating at times.
He avoided touching her any more than necessary, but it was a difficult task. They’d discussed the sleeping arrangements on her second day awake when she’d caught him subconsciously rubbing his back. The couch as not comfortable. She’d insisted it would be perfectly fine for him to share the bed. And he’d done so ever since, hugging his side precariously close to the edge each night.
He squeezed his eyes shut to stop the visions and then stared again at the street below where people and cars continued to move around, taking care of their daily lives while his was at a complete standstill.
After years of constantly working night and day, he’d been at a loss for the last few days. He could only do so much for the team from several hun
dred miles away. He wasn’t well-versed in disease prevention, nor was he a computer hacker.
For over two years, he’d worked alongside Ryan to get all the preserved people reanimated, and then the moment they’d succeeded, Damon had found himself in a constant battle against an unknown enemy who seemed to want the entire DEEP team dead, or at least hushed.
Blue Cell’s precise motives were still a mystery. Were they some religious entity who didn’t believe man should be curing disease? Or was it more than that?
The strange strings of numbers Dade and five others had uttered had everyone on edge, more so than they’d already been.
Damon turned around, leaned against the window, and let his gaze land on Olivia again. She was curled on her side under a light blanket, her hands tucked under her cheek.
If only she weren’t so damn…innocent. And young.
He needed to tamp down his attraction. He was not the sort of man she would be interested in. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Their arrangement was both a blessing and a curse. One room. No way to avoid her even for a moment except when he was in the shower. The woman was hell on his nerves. She had no idea what she did to him. And he wasn’t the sort of man who often fell for any one specific woman. It had been years since the last woman he’d spent any measurable amount of time with.
He hadn’t had enough time in the last few years even for any sort of dalliance, not since he’d joined the Project DEEP team with Ryan and begun the work of reanimating the preserved.
Now he’d been trapped in a confined space for far too many days with the first person in a long time who made him need to adjust his jeans on a regular basis.
A woman who was off limits.
A woman who was far too innocent for someone like him.
A woman who would never be into the kind of kink he preferred.
He was a well-educated medical professional who dedicated his life to saving and re-saving lives, but when he’d had the time over the years, he preferred a certain kind of sex in the bedroom that made a lot of people blink twice.
Why me? How did I get trapped with a hot, innocent woman who surely knows nothing about the fetish lifestyle? he asked himself as his phone buzzed on the coffee table. He shook his errant thoughts away as he grabbed the phone and connected the call without looking at the screen.
“’Sup?” he asked in a hushed voice, not wanting to wake Olivia. He expected the caller to be Dade.
“Hey. It’s Spencer.”
Damon stood straighter and then turned toward the window again. It was as far away as he could get in an effort not to wake Olivia. “Spencer?” He knew who the guy was, even though they hadn’t met. The genius kid who’d been working for Blue Cell as a hacker before fleeing for his life and switching sides to work for DEEP.
“Yeah. Dade was busy. He wanted me to call and let you know I’m heading your way tomorrow.”
“Why?” Damon stared out the window, seeing nothing. He rubbed the back of his neck as he listened to the kid’s voice.
“Dade’s worried about Olivia. He thinks… Well, he thinks she might know more than she’s said.” The kid kept his voice low. He sounded uncertain about the plan. “Not that she’s lying or anything. Just that, uh…she might be able to come up with more information. You know. If I asked her some questions.”
The kid sounded nervous. Was he antisocial? It was possible. After all, he was a genius computer hacker. Dade had indicated he wasn’t nearly as young as he acted or looked, though. Twenty-two maybe, with hair that hung over his face, worn jeans, worn concert T-shirts, and sneakers as basically his full-time uniform.
Dade had gone to the trouble of describing the kid because it was comical how fucking smart he was under an exterior that would cause most people to think he was practically homeless. However, Dade had painted a kid who was cocky as hell and sure of himself. This kid on the phone sounded far more reserved. His voice was soft and hesitant.
Damon turned around to glance at Olivia. She was still fast asleep, but she sighed and rolled into a tighter ball, tucking her hands deeper under her cheek. Yeah, it was probably a good idea for Spencer to join them. Not because Damon needed some kid to ask Olivia questions. What a joke. But he sure could use a buffer to help him keep his hands off her.
“When will you get here?” he asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon.” Those were the first words Spencer said with any level of confidence. Maybe the cockiness Dade had described only existed when it came to breaking into government databases, not when having conversations over the phone.
Damon turned back toward the window and closed his eyes as he set his forehead against the blinds. Something in the kid’s voice and the way he spoke made Damon picture him staring at the ground, shuffling his feet, and flushing at the prospect of interacting with a human.
Damon nearly groaned at the visual. Perhaps adding Spencer to the studio apartment was exactly the wrong thing to do. He’d never met the kid and already he found himself asking about a dozen questions in his mind. Questions he should not be curious about.
He was so fucked.
Being around Olivia twenty-four-seven had made Damon’s libido go haywire. Now, instead of picturing Spencer being the perfect buffer to shake Damon out of his Olivia infatuation, Damon was picturing the exact opposite—erotic scenes with three people trapped in a small space instead of two.
Shit.
Either Spencer would prove to be a godsend, or his arrival would increase Damon’s stress level to an entirely new height. “Fine,” he clipped. “See you tomorrow.” He ended the call without waiting for a response.
His reasons for doing so scared the hell out of him.
Establishing dominance.
Putting up walls.
Making Spencer squirm with concern.
The list went on and on.
Yeah, just, fuck.
Chapter 4
“So, tell me about this Spencer guy,” Olivia said later that evening while she sat in the corner of the couch, playing with a long lock of her hair.
Damon sat in the armchair, his feet on the coffee table, his laptop on his lap. He was reading over the notes Dade had sent him, which were bone-chilling.
He forced himself to meet Olivia’s gaze and hold it like a decent human being would. What he really wanted to do was slide that lock of hair through her fingers and toy with it himself. He wanted to tip her head back with his own fingers threaded in that hair and watch her eyes glaze over while he lowered his lips to hers.
He shook his increasingly disturbing thoughts from his head and tried to remember her question. Right. Spencer. “I’ve never met him personally, of course, but my understanding is that he’s some sort of computer genius. When I spoke to him on the phone, he sounded a bit awkward.”
“Maybe he was scared for our lives?” She leaned forward.
Damon shook his head. “No. I mean like he’s the sort of person who has trouble making a phone call.”
“Oh. I see. Shy. Timid.” She glanced around. “How are we going to add another person to this apartment?”
“It’s gonna be tight. I hope he doesn’t drive either of us crazy. I have no idea how long we’re going to stay at this location.”
“And why do we need him?”
“It wasn’t my decision. Apparently someone in Montana thinks he can help. The kid is the one who finds all the information. He passes it to Dade and the rest of the team, and then they make decisions. He’s the one who’s trying to decode the numbers sequences.”
“How old is Spencer?”
“I think he’s about twenty-two.”
She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You keep calling him kid as if he were twelve. He’s my age. I’m twenty-three.”
Damon cocked his head at her. That fact was disturbing. “I don’t know, but he doesn’t sound as old as you.”
She shook her head. “If he’s on his way here, someone mus
t really think you and I are in danger.”
Damon nodded slowly. “Perhaps.”
“Do you have a weapon?”
“Yes.”
Now she flinched. There was no way he would keep secrets from her. Not about their safety, at least. About his desire to flatten her to the bed, yes. About guns, no.
“Have you ever shot a weapon?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I’ll show you, then. You need to be safe around a gun, and you never know when you might need to use it. It won’t do you any good if you’re not confident.”
She nodded. “’Kay.” She took a long breath and then continued. “Is there anything I can help you with? You spend half of every day staring at those numbers. Maybe if I look at them too?”
“Can’t hurt.” He rose from the chair and carried the laptop to the couch, lowering a few inches from her.
She scooted to sit right next to him and leaned over his arm to see the screen. Her scent reached him and forced him to grit his teeth to get control. Whatever devil had caused him to order her such feminine soap and shampoo for their shower was evil. That long thick hair dragged along his arm, and her breath hit his hand on the keyboard.
The woman had no idea she was playing with fire every time she leaned into him this closely. “Six sets of eight numbers,” she murmured. “Has Blair tested the word on everyone? She’s sure no one else responds to Samara?”
“Yes. At least no one from the team. She even reached out to Ryan and Emily in New Mexico. Since they’re alone, it was tricky.”
“I bet. Who tried it first?”
“Well, it wasn’t hard to pick. After Blair tested everyone in Montana, she had five sets of numbers, and all of them came from the original DEEP team, people who had been preserved.” He pointed at the names next to the rows of numbers. “Trish, Dade, Zeke, Kate, and Grayson. All of them had met with the hypnotist. Emily had too. So, it seemed logical that out of Ryan and Emily, Emily would be the one to respond. And we were right.”
“I bet it scared the hell out of Ryan,” Olivia stated.
Reviving Olivia (Project DEEP Book 7) Page 4
