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  He released her hands, opened the door, and banded one arm around her bare waist to walk her inside. Shutting the door, he flipped her around.

  The glittering hunger in his eyes lit her on fire. She gripped his shirt and tugged it over his head, having to stand on her toes to make it work. Holding his gaze, she reached for his belt, her fingers fumbling as she slipped it free of his jeans.

  Rain pelted against the windows in a full tantrum. The lights flickered, and she didn’t care. Not at all. Unsnapping his jeans, she helped him to shed them. The guy had gone commando again. “Now who’s nude?”

  His arm snaked out and twirled her up and over, removing her panties before settling her back on her feet. “You are.”

  Her knees wobbled. God, he was fast. And strong. Incredibly strong. “So are you.” She ran her fingers along the bottom of his shaft. The man was built.

  His eyes darkened to masculine warning. “You have the softest touch.” Threading both hands through her hair, he tilted back her head, his mouth taking hers. She parted her mouth to ease the pressure.

  Matt thrust in and took firm possession with demanding strokes of his tongue. His scent surrounded her, filled her. The hands in her hair tightened, holding strong, keeping control. Her nipples scraped against his chest and sent raw tendrils of need to her cleft. God, she needed to be filled. She groaned, her hands gripping his waist, trying to get closer. So much closer.

  He backed her through the apartment to the bedroom, his mouth working hers the entire time. Her feet slid on the smooth carpet, but she allowed him to steer her, sure he wouldn’t let her fall.

  They reached the bed and her knees buckled. He pushed her up the bed, moving along her, settling his bulk against her. His cock throbbed and pulsed right where she needed him, so she slid her legs apart.

  His grin provided warning. “You’re not ready.”

  “I’m so ready I may orgasm without you.” She brushed his hair back, losing herself in all the silk.

  He slid to the side, tweaking her nipple before caressing down to slip one finger inside her. “I think I was clear earlier.”

  Was he using words? Speaking something? Trying to communicate? “Um,” she agreed, twisting against his hand. Another finger joined the first, and he rotated them, causing her to see stars.

  “You’re so wet for me,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “And I was clear.”

  About what? She frowned, trying to focus while he tortured her with that orgasm was swirling nearer. “Clear?” she gasped.

  “Yes.” He leaned in, his mouth wandering along her throat. “Your knees. Begging.” Strong teeth nipped her collarbone.

  She arched into his hand, sighing deep. “No.”

  The tap to her clit had the room sparking into silence.

  He slipped one arm beneath her and rolled them both onto their stomachs. Smooth and controlled, his knees pressed down on the backs of her calves, sliding her legs toward her chest.

  One sharp yank back, and she found herself on her hands and knees. “Oh, I don’t think so—”

  He thrust two fingers into her from behind and scraped her clit with a fingernail. Sparks exploded behind her eyes.

  “Oh God—” she moaned, her head dropping forward.

  “Close, but not quite there.” He released her. The hair on his thighs tickled her legs as he covered her, his cock pressing at her entrance.

  Her nails digging into the bedspread, she shoved back against him. “Now—”

  “Not quite…” He reached under her and palmed her breast, tweaking the nipple with enough pressure she whimpered. For more. “How about now?” His breath at her ear was heated sin.

  Her entire body undulated with the need to come. “Now is good,” she ground out.

  He plunged hard and deep into her.

  She cried out, her back arching, her sex vibrating.

  His fingers found her clit, playing, tugging, torturing. She attempted to pound back against him, to find the friction to send her over, only to be thwarted by his sure hold as he continued to play. It was too much. Her abdomen rippled with hunger.

  He pulsed inside her, so large, so deep. Another sharp tug to her clit.

  “Oh God, Matt, now.” Her eyelids fluttered shut as she balanced on the precipice.

  “You’re on your knees, just like I promised. Remember the rest?” His teeth sank into her ear. “Say please, baby. Say it now.”

  Her eyelids shot open to see a blurred world. He’d put her where he’d told her she’d be, and she didn’t care. He was in control, and he held her tight. She couldn’t move. One little word, and she could fall. She needed to fall. “Please.”

  At her word, a deep growl of surrender came from his chest.

  Power infused her. He might think he was in control, but he needed her as much as she needed him. “Now, Matt,” she whispered.

  A heated breath at her ear was the only warning before he clamped both hands on her hips and started to pound. Hard and deep, he thrust into her, sending electrical sparks along the way. The headboard beat against the wall, and he pulled her back into his groin with each thrust.

  So much pleasure rippled inside her she lost her breath. He angled deeper, and she exploded, screaming his name.

  Flashes of fire zipped behind her eyes. Devastating sparks ripped through her in waves too intense to be pleasure. The sensations bombarded her, taking her over, taking everything. Somehow, he swelled even bigger inside her, prolonging her ecstasy, wringing every ounce of spirit from her.

  Stilling, he tightened his hold as he came, her name a mere whisper on his lips.

  She came down with a sob, going limp. He withdrew and flipped her around, his mouth finding hers.

  Sweet, hot, and teeming with emotion, he kissed her until all she could do was wrap both arms around his damp shoulders and hold tight. Finally, resting against her, he let her breathe.

  Her heart beat so rapidly her lungs compressed.

  He dropped his forehead to hers, his eyes closed. “Laney.”

  Chapter 22

  Laney held Matt tight as he slept, her chest aching. She wasn’t sure she could forgive herself for working for the commander. There was no way Matt could forgive her.

  Sure, the medical advancements had been impressive with the experiments and drug regimens. But she’d realized the dangers, and she’d pressed on. There was no undoing that fact. Life never really was black-and-white, now, was it?

  She’d learned the hard way, as an adult, how evil ruled the commander. But being raised by the monster? How the hell had the Dean boys survived?

  Laney struggled to keep her eyes open. After making love with Matt, she was raw and vulnerable… and the nightmare waited to claim her. So she allowed her mind to wander back to the best days of her life, when she’d started college.

  She’d arrived early to her assigned dorm room with her neatly packed bag to find pure chaos. Music blasting, haphazard posters on the wall, and crazy mismatched rugs on the floor. A wild, unruly mass of red hair had popped up from behind a desk before sparkling blue eyes came into focus.

  The girl hustled over the desk, hand out. “I’m Nancy, and I’m you’re roommate, and I’m rebelling.”

  They’d been instant friends. The best of friends. They’d both majored in premed. While Laney had earned top grades, Nancy had struggled. Laney had helped her along the way as much as she could.

  When Laney attended medical school, Nancy had decided to attend nursing school. They’d found an adorable apartment off both campuses to share. Life had been fantastic. When Laney had been offered the job with the military group, she’d agreed only if she could bring her own surgical nurse.

  So Nancy had headed east with Laney. When Laney made a mistake, it was colossal. She’d killed her best friend.

  At the sobering thought, Laney allowed Matt’s heat to lull her into sleep. Usually if she acknowledged the truth before falling asleep, the nightmare left her alone.

  Not tonight.r />
  The nightmare hit close to dawn.

  Over five years in the past, Laney glanced over at Nancy in the triage hospital waiting area. This was their first month in the new location, and she missed the routine of Colorado. “I’m not sure we should’ve agreed to come to Tennessee.”

  In adulthood, Nancy had tamed her crazy hair into a manageable bundle. She smoothed down blue scrubs. “Is that a gut feeling?”

  “Yes.”

  “The same gut feeling you’ve been having about the recent drug regimens?”

  “Yes.” Laney drew in a deep breath. She was young, but she was smart. “Some of the side effects have concerned me.”

  “Me, too,” Nancy said softly.

  “Sorry about Adam,” Laney said. The young soldier had reacted very poorly to a regimen and had been taken to another base somewhere.

  Nancy shrugged. “We’d only been dating a month. It probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.” She glanced at the blackened windows. “Maybe we should take some time off and go visit my granny. She’d love to see us.”

  The elderly woman had pretty much welcomed Laney into their family with apple-scented arms. She was the only family either woman had. Laney nodded. “Let’s put in for vacation time tonight. We should rethink our plans here.”

  A nurse poked her head out of the surgical hallway. “Please scrub up—surgery in ten.”

  Laney led the way into the prep room, where they both scrubbed up. “Don’t you think it’s weird they won’t tell us what the surgery is today?”

  Nancy pursed her lips. “Yeah. Really weird.”

  Laney steeled her shoulders and headed into the operation room. She’d gotten her best friend into this mess, and she’d get her out. Dr. Rodriquez was waiting for them, wearing a cast on his right hand. She gasped. “What happened?”

  His black eyes had seemed beadier than usual as he’d frowned over a bushy beard. “Risks of the trade.” Then he’d stepped back as a patient had been rolled into the freezing room.

  The patient was about six and a half feet tall, and weighed perhaps about two fifty. Short blond hair had been buzz-cut close to his head. He was out cold and stripped to the waist.

  Laney frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Dr. Rodriquez wheeled a cart toward the patient’s shoulders. Surgical implements and a rectangular silver disc were on the cart. “I need you to implant the disc as near to the C4 vertebra as possible.”

  Chills had slammed through her skin. “Wh-why?”

  The door opened again. “That’s irrelevant,” said a hulking man with dead brown eyes. “Do your job.”

  This was wrong. On so many levels, Laney knew the chip would only hurt the patient. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the commander. You could say I’m in charge here,” he said.

  Dr. Rodriquez laughed. “So true.”

  Laney backed away from the surgical implements. “What medical need does this serve?”

  The commander narrowed his gaze. “It fills my need, which is all you should care about.”

  Fear trickled down her back. “What does the chip do?”

  “It explodes and severs the spine if the soldier disobeys an order. All it takes is a code from my computer… or a lack of update every five years.” No emotion filtered on the commander’s words.

  Laney squinted for a better look at the device. It was way too small to inflict the damage he claimed, yet she knew he was telling the truth. Whomever had designed it was a true genius. She swallowed. “So if somebody escapes you, they die?”

  “Of course.” Pure evil glimmered in his eyes. “You do understand that there’s a nobler purpose here, right? We need these safeguards.”

  This wasn’t a safeguard, it was slavery. She was too smart to fall for his line, and she’d followed blindly for too long, counting on patriotism. Counting on honesty. “No.” She shook her head. While she had been a part of military experiments that appeared noble but could still be harmful, there was no nobility in the kill chip. “I won’t do this.”

  The commander nodded. Quick as a whip, he grabbed Nancy and sliced the scalpel across her jugular. Blood sprayed in a graceful arc.

  Laney screamed and rushed toward her friend.

  Nancy slid to the floor, her eyes wide in death.

  The commander kicked her out of the way and yanked Laney up with one strong hand. “Do the surgery, or I’ll kill everyone you care about.”

  She shoved him, fury heating her breath. “You just did.”

  A small moan awoke Matt around dawn. The scent of woman and sex filtered around him, instantly hardening his cock. Laney snuggled into his side, her heart beating loud enough for him to time each pump.

  Thunder rolled outside, and she jerked awake with a small scream.

  He ran a hand down her arm. “Bad dream. You’re okay.”

  She sucked in air, her entire back moving with the effort.

  He turned her to hold close. “Tell me about your dream.”

  “No.” She sniffled into his neck.

  He couldn’t help the smile. “Just tell me.”

  She drew in a shaky breath and told him the nightmare that kept her from resting peacefully.

  He kept his face bland and ran a hand down her arm several times. The fact that the commander had killed the nurse without a second thought didn’t surprise him one bit.

  Finally, Laney wound down with a hiccup. “You were raised by that monster?”

  He exhaled. “Yes. They put us into groups by family—my brothers and I all had the same sperm donor.” He had always wondered what woman had carried him for nine months and then let him go so easily. Probably a surrogate. They’d never found any identities of the egg donors. “I think some serious genetic splicing went on. My brother Shane always thought we had some animal genes added.” Matt smiled, hoping it was a joke.

  He could lie to himself that he was sharing with Laney so she’d share with him as an investigative approach. But he’d be full of shit. He wanted to somehow explain who he was to her. However, he had to ask the question whirling through his brain. “The man on the table, the one you refused to harm. Was it me?”

  “No.” She ran her palm along the side of his face.

  It was all he could do not to turn into her warmth. “How do you know?”

  She shrugged. “He wasn’t as big as you, and he had blond hair.”

  It shouldn’t matter, but Matt was glad it wasn’t him or his brothers. “When you refused to help, what did the commander do?” Rage all but wanted to eat Matt’s skin off his body, yet he kept his voice low and soothing.

  She bit her lip. “I ran out of the room, and next thing I knew, I was locked in a cell. The commander told me I would rot in there until I agreed to perform surgeries again, although he found somebody else to do those implants, as you know.” She gagged and covered her mouth, sucking in several deep breaths. “I knew I couldn’t ever return to surgery. Every time I see blood, I think of Nancy. And faint. I can’t ever be a doctor again. I just can’t.”

  “It’s okay,” Matt said softly. “You’re safe.” But she wasn’t, not really. She wouldn’t be any safer than he was until the commander was dead. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She nodded, dark circles slashing under her pretty eyes. “I was there for a month… and then the world blew up.”

  “That was us.” He forced a grin. “We blew the place up—computers and everything. That’s when we fled.”

  Her cell phone buzzed from the nightstand, and he handed it over to her.

  “Hello?” she asked quietly.

  Even though she kept the device to her ear, Matt’s enhanced hearing allowed him to hear the entire conversation. Apparently the FBI profiler was in town and wanted to speak with Laney. In fact, according to the sheriff, he was on the way.

  She hung up and tossed off the blankets. “We need to get dressed.”

  A knock sounded at the apartment door. Matt exhaled. “The guy is in a hurry.” He sli
pped from the bed and yanked on his jeans. “Get dressed and take your time. I’ll handle him.” He padded barefoot through the apartment to open the door and stopped cold. “What the hell?”

  Nate’s hand shot out to shake. “Mr. Dean? I’m Leo McGovern from the FBI. Can we talk?”

  Matt took the offered hand and squeezed. Hard. “Now isn’t a good time… Leo.”

  Nate’s gaze dropped to his bare chest as his grip tightened in reaction. “I can see that.” Even through the brown colored contacts, his eyes glinted with equal parts concern and irritation. “However, I’m here now.”

  Matt leaned in. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he whispered.

  “I’m the profiler.” Nate’s lips quirked in his signature smart-assed grin as he yanked his hand free. “Apparently, you need a shrink, moron.” The banter was light; Nate’s demeanor anything but. The guy was pissed.

  “I’m undercover here,” Matt drawled. Sure, he’d slept with Laney, and he even liked her. But this was a job. Even as he tried to convince himself, he knew there was no fooling the human lie detector standing in front of him.

  “Bullshit.” Nate shoved him back into the room. “Shane and I agree you’re in over your head, and this ends. Now.”

  Temper exploded in Matt’s chest. “I’m in charge, and you two will follow every order I give. Right now, you’re splitting town.”

  “That’s proof you’re not thinking,” Nathan said. “I’m on the inside already. Any particular reason you don’t want me here?”

  “Matt?” Laney hesitated in the living room. “What’s going on?”

  “Ah,” Nate said softly, a muscle twitch in his forearm broadcasting inevitable movement to the left.

  So Matt edged to the side to keep Nate trapped.

  His brother’s eyes narrowed behind the dark contacts. “Does she know your special skill?” he asked softly… too softly for Laney to hear.

  “No.” Matt glanced over his shoulder. “This is Leo McGovern from the FBI, and he’s leaving now.”

  “No, I’m not.” Nate feinted left and then moved right so he could view Laney. “I need to interview you, Miss Jacobs.”