Almost as good as making love with Grace was waking up next to her in the morning. She was already up, sitting propped against her pillow by the headboard of the hotel bed, tapping away at my laptop. She’d pulled the blanket up over her breasts for modesty, but the sight of just her bare shoulders, knowing the rest of her was equally naked underneath, made me half hard in an instant.

When I stirred, she glanced over at me. Her cheeks flushed.

“I hope it’s okay that I got your computer out. I promise I haven’t gone into anything but the internet browser—no checking history there or anything.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I trust you.” And I did. More than I’d ever thought it was possible to trust anyone outside my family. The sensation filled me with a heady glow.

Grace smiled bright enough to warm me right down to my soul. I smiled back and ran my hand over her bare leg under the blanket. Her breath caught. But she kept tapping at the keyboard. I had to assume whatever she was doing on it was pretty important.

I scooted closer. “What are you up to, anyway?”

She held up a business card that had been lying on the bed beside her. The one she’d shown me before from Malcolm Finch. “I decided to look up Malcolm and this AP Enterprises to see if I could dig up any info on them we hadn’t already figured out.” She paused, the flush in her cheeks deepening. “I... spent a lot of time tracking down my mom and following what she was up to when I was a teenager. Nothing hacker-level, but I picked up some tricks.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said. “Now I’m even more glad I have you on my side. Have you found anything?”

“Well, there are a lot of layers. AP Enterprises seems to be a shell company. And the company that it’s a shell for is also a shell. And so on. But digging down deep enough, I found one that has some actual people associated with it. Only the last names, but maybe they’ll do us some good.”

“Can’t hurt to know. What are the names?”

“Pierce, Roth, and Langdon.”

A chill trickled through me. “Langdon?”

“Yeah.” She eased the computer back on her lap. “Do you know someone with that name?”

“Not personally.” But it sounded familiar. That was the guy my parents had talked about, wasn’t it? The one who’d started running things at Alpha Project right before they’d left.

All their stories about that place had been horrific, but whenever his name came up, their voices had always gotten even terser.

We didn’t need any more confirmation than that, did we? AP Enterprises was Alpha Project, no doubt about it. And from Grace’s findings, this Langdon or someone else in his family was still at least partly in charge.

Grace was watching me, waiting for me to explain. But I couldn’t explain without spilling everything about my family too. I hesitated. “He’s someone I know has been involved in looking for and experimenting on people like me in the past. It’s better if you don’t know more about it than that.”

Her jaw tightened. “Jeremy—”

I gave her leg another affectionate caress. “I want to tell you everything. I know you’d never hurt me or anyone I care about. But as long as these people have you on their radar, you’re safer from them the less you know.”

She didn’t look totally convinced, but she nodded. I kept tracing my fingers up and down her inner leg, enjoying the soft, smooth feel of her skin, and a spark of desire lit in her eyes. My earlier chill was washed away by a wave of heat. I gave her knee a gentle tug, and she slid down on the bed to meet me for a kiss.

The feel of her naked body against mine was a more potent drug than anything I’d ever tried. I couldn’t touch her enough. As we kissed, I traced the curve of her shoulder, the swell of her breasts, the dip of her waist. She hummed eagerly and pressed her hips toward mine. I slipped my hand between her legs and groaned at the wetness there. She gasped, arching higher.

Now I was hard as iron. I rubbed against her, fingers teasing her opening, cock against her clit. Grace whimpered and ground into me. I was dying to slide right into the slick hot center of her, but one tiny part of my brain kept me in check.

“I don’t suppose you have another condom in that purse?” I said, my voice rough.

Grace ducked her head, biting her lip. “Fuck. No.” She hesitated as if considering going without, and the fact that she wanted me that much made me twice as hard. But I couldn’t risk getting her pregnant when I might have to take off any moment now.

I kissed her neck and her shoulder. “We’ll just have to mix things up a bit then.” I trailed my mouth down her body, over her collarbone, pausing to graze my teeth over her nipples until she moaned. Then I eased past her belly button, right to the core of her. The tangy sweet smell of her filled my nose.

When my lips closed over her clit, Grace shuddered and sighed. One hand fisted in my hair, the other in the sheet. I laved my tongue over her opening and swirled it over her clit. She panted, her hips arching off the bed.

“Jeremy...”

I’d never heard a sound as wonderful as my name in that desperate, wanting voice. I kissed her harder, teasing my hand over her slit at the same time. I slid one finger and another inside. My tongue slicked over her clit again and again. She rocked against me, her breath fragmented now.

“Jeremy. Oh! I’m almost—”

Her voice cut off with a cry of pleasure. Her body shook against my mouth. I rode out her orgasm with her, and then I kissed my way back up to her mouth. She kissed me back eagerly, her eyes bright. Her hand slid down to grip my hard-on. At the squeeze of her fingers, I almost came undone right then.

“That’s good,” I murmured. “Just keep doing that. Oh, fuck.”

I’d been so close already, hearing her release. She pumped her hand up and down my cock just a few times, and my balls clenched. “Grace,” I groaned as I spent myself. Not as good as coming inside her, but still damn good.

“I am definitely going to pick up some supplies on the way to work,” Grace said, snuggling against me. She paused. “Should I go to work? I could call in sick.”

I hugged her to me and shook my head. “I think it’s best if you stick to your normal schedule as much as possible. Any major changes might raise suspicions if they’re still watching you.”

“How long do you think they’ll keep looking for you here? If you don’t go back to your apartment, I mean? You said there’s no way they should be able to trace you to this hotel, right?”

“Right. You know how you’ve gotten good at tracking people down on the internet? I’ve gotten good at making fake IDs, out of necessity.” I smiled wryly. “The one I used here, I’ve never used anywhere before. They couldn’t possibly be looking for that name. I don’t know how long they’ll be keeping an eye out, though. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll be able to leave here in a couple weeks?”

“Well, that’s better than you leaving completely.” She nuzzled my shoulder and sighed. “I guess I’ll have to get going soon. If I want to look as normal as possible, I’ll need to sneak back into my house from the back so I can leave for work from there.”

“One more minute?” I said, trying to ignore the squeezing sensation around my heart. I didn’t want to let go of her at all, but that was a ridiculous impulse.

“One more minute,” Grace said, and hugged me to her even tighter.

* * *

After Grace had showered and left, I got out my burner phone to call my parents. A lot had happened since I’d last updated Mom. If Langdon was still out there, they needed to know.

Dad picked up after the second ring. “Jeremy? It’s good to hear from you. I was getting worried after what your mother told me. She’s here too—let me put you on speaker phone.”

“Hi, honey!” Mom’s voice rang out.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m okay. Safe for now. But things have gotten pretty tense here. I had to leave my apartment in a hurry last night because they caught on to the name I’d used there. I’m in a hotel now with a different ID.”

“Still in San Jose?” Dad said, sounding puzzled. Of course he was. If it hadn’t been for Grace, I’d have been on the other side of the country—maybe on the other side of an ocean—by now.

“Yeah. The situation is a little... complicated. They’re still watching the woman I saved from that car—Grace. I don’t want to leave her alone to deal with them unless I have to. It’s my fault she got mixed up in this situation in the first place. I’m hoping the people looking for me will assume I’ve fled the city and give up looking here after a few more days. But I’ll keep my head low for a while after that.”

“Jeremy,” Dad started, but Mom broke in.

“If that’s what you think is best, you follow your gut,” she said. “You know what you’re dealing with better than we do.”

“Well, that might not be totally true.” I glanced at the card Grace had left on the night table. “Grace did some digging into the guy who talked to her and his business. At the end of a chain of shell companies, she came across some names. Including ‘Langdon.’”

The silence on the other end in the wake of that name told me everything I needed to know. Mom sucked in a breath. “So he’s still around.”

“It’s not really surprising, when you think about how dedicated he was to the ‘cause',” Dad said with a new edge in his voice.

There was a rustling as Mom must have shifted. “I don’t know, Jeremy. I don’t want you anywhere near that asshole. Do they have any reason to keep bothering Grace? I didn’t want you to have to uproot your life—but I don’t want you getting caught either.”

Shit. It said something about how much this Langdon guy had scared Mom that she was switching to extreme caution. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll have a better idea in a couple days. I know if they manage to track me down here, I’ll have to leave. But I’ve been careful. I covered my tracks.”

Dad cleared his throat. “Look, Jeremy,” he said. “I know you’re not a kid anymore. I’m not going to try to order you around. But I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I knew you were as far from Langdon and anyone associated with him as possible.”

“It’s been thirty years,” I said. “He hasn’t found any of us in all that time.”

“But he’ll have been looking,” Mom said. “Us escaping the Facility—I’d bet that still eats at him. We’ve got no idea how he’s changed in all those years, but one thing I’m sure of? He’ll only have gotten more obsessed with seeing Alpha Project through.”