Reid

The floor was hard and cold against my bare ass, but I didn’t want to move. I had just had the most powerful orgasm of my life, and my mate was sated and draped over me, still holding me deep inside. The muscles and tendons between my neck and shoulder throbbed, but it was a good ache. She had marked me well; no one would ever mistake her claiming brand as a simple love bite, and I couldn’t be prouder to wear it.

Eventually, she stirred, and even that slight motion had my cock firing to life again. She laughed softly, which carried down the length of her body to become a delicious rippling, squeezing motion around my shaft. Since she had done most of the work the last time, I would give her a rest and drive this time.

I pulled out only long enough to pick her up and take her over to the bunk. Then I covered her body immediately with mine and slid back inside, plying her with slow, thorough strokes. Before long, I felt her rising again, and I took us both to a second, though no less glorious, climax.

“You know,” she said, stroking me with soothing caresses along my shoulders and arms, “I thought sex with you was pretty great before, but this ...”

I laughed softly, knowing exactly what she was talking about. Claiming one another took things to a whole new level when it came to physical, mental, and spiritual connections. Neither one of us had ever, or would ever, feel as close to anyone else. Even though I had heard as much many times over the years, it was still somewhat of a shock to experience it firsthand. The intensity was humbling.

“That’s because we’re mated now. Mate sex trumps everything else.”

Her eyes widened. “You mean, it’s always going to be like this?”

“Yep. Pretty much.”

“How are we ever going to work together? I’ll want to jump you all the time.”

* * *

Alyx

I clamped my mouth shut when I saw something like triumph flash in his eyes. I had walked right into that one.

I had learned plenty about shifter males in the past few weeks, and one of the things I had learned was that they were very protective. The guys had warned me numerous times that my joining the team wasn’t going to sit well with Reid, so I had been mentally preparing myself for this moment.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to learn how to control ourselves,” I added quickly, starting to pull away, but his arms were like iron bands, holding me tight.

“Not gonna happen,” he said huskily, nipping at my earlobe.

“It is going to happen,” I insisted, though I was already rubbing my breasts against his hard chest. It felt amazing. The rigidity of those pecs, the smattering of hair that drove me wild. “So, we’ll just have to find a way. We both need to be focused when we’re on a mission.”

Those gorgeous eyes glowed with the feral power of the wolf just beneath the surface. “You’re not going on any missions.”

He sounded so sure of himself. That kind of confidence was damn sexy, except when he was trying to use it against me. He would soon learn what I had forgotten myself until recently—that I was a strong, capable woman with an amazing gift.

“Yes, I am. Cap says I’ll be an invaluable asset.”

He grunted. “Doesn’t matter what Cap says. I’m your mate, and I say no.”

This time, I let some energy build up in my palms and used them to successfully push myself away. “You might be my mate, but that doesn’t mean you’re the boss of me.”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Wrong answer.” I got up and looked at my shredded clothing on the floor. There was no way I was getting those scraps to cover my bits again. Instead, I marched over to the locker I knew was Reid’s and pulled out a shirt and a pair of drawstring shorts. I might be unhappy with his alpha bullshit, but he was my man and I didn’t want anyone else’s scent on me.

“What it means is that we take care of each other. Besides”—I grinned, knowing he hadn’t been briefed yet—“we’ve already been given our first assignment.”

That strong jaw clenched, and if I hadn’t been trying to make a point, I would have gone right over there and licked it.

“We’ll see about that.”

He rolled out of bed with masculine grace, treating me to the sight of his gloriously naked form. I ogled. He smirked—cocky, sexy bastard—then tucked my new favorite playground back into his clothes.

I let him lead the way to Cap’s office, not because I was suddenly submissive, but because it was a win-win. Doing so let him feel like he was in control, and I got to check out his fine ass along the way.

I would like to say that what followed was a calm, rational discussion among mature adults, but I couldn’t say that. There had been a lot of seething, snarling, growling, and male posturing that had occurred before Reid finally, and grudgingly, admitted that Cap’s plan made sense.

After all, I was the only one who had done a few rotations in a CBRF facility. I knew how things worked from the inside, and getting inside was our best shot at finding out any more secrets, like underground facilities funded by Roger Chamberlain. The man was too smart to put all of his lucrative eggs in a single basket.

The rest of the team was torn. As predatory shifter males, they understood where Reid was coming from. As intelligent, trained soldiers who wanted to shut Roger’s operations down for good, they supported the plan.

Roger himself was “indisposed,” i.e. still comatose and in a high-security holding area, according to Cap. There was no guarantee he was going to wake up anytime soon, which meant different methods of obtaining information would be required.

With Roger out of the way and safely under lock and key, it was fairly easy for Dex to do his thing.

When I arrived at the CBRF building, I had “official” documents showing I had a meeting with Chamberlain and some of his lead lab scientists. The meeting also appeared on all their calendars, scheduled by “Roger Chamberlain’s personal assistant” at “his” request.

The only one who wasn’t there was the head guy himself. Dex had solved that problem, too. He “phoned in” to the meeting using Roger’s private line, providing some vague excuse for not being there in person. Since Roger had made frequent trips all over the world on business, no one gave his absence a second thought.

What surprised me most about the whole situation was how much Dex actually sounded like Roger over the speakerphone. I added impressionist to hacker and cleaner on my fast-growing list of Dexter’s mad skills.

On the surface, CBRF was a legitimate facility, and most of the people in its employ were solid, good-hearted souls who had no clue about the darker side of things going on around them. One of the team’s bigger challenges was determining who did. We had no idea who among those present were privy to some of Roger’s more nefarious undertakings, but we had all agreed there had to be at least a few. It would make sense.

By sprinkling his loyal co-conspirators throughout his legitimate facilities, they could feed important information back to the underground ones. Part of today’s exercise was to lay down a few breadcrumbs and see who picked them up.

I recognized some of the men seated around the table from my previous internship rotations; others were new. Most were either apathetic to my presence or annoyed they had been called away from whatever they had been doing to hear what I had to say. No one said no to the boss, though, so here we were.

We started off by “Roger” making a brief introduction and providing a succinct background that included my prior time at CBRF and my subsequent experience in oncology. He provided enough legitimate information to make it provable—I caught some guys discreetly tapping their tablets beneath the conference table—and added some veiled suggestions about what I had recently discovered to have them practically salivating.

I had to hand it to Dex, he really made me sound good. If I ever found myself having to draft a resume, he was my go-to guy.

By the end of the meeting, when “Roger” begged off and suggested we take the discussion down to the lab, they were looking at me a little differently. I didn’t need Psych’s skills to know what they were thinking. Skepticism warred with hope in their eyes, plain as day.

An older man approached me with bright eyes and a genuine smile. Burt Robertson had been in charge of the lab when I had worked here before, and I had always liked him. With short white hair sticking out at all angles and the wire-rimmed glasses he always wore, he fit the distracted scientist stereotype perfectly.

“Alyx, so good to see you again. Is it true?”

Leave it to Burt to offer a slight nod to social niceties and get right to the heart of things. Genetic and biochemical engineering were his passions in life, and with Dex dangling the suggestion of a possible cure for cancer like a carrot to a hungry bunny, Burt’s body was practically vibrating with excitement. I silently hoped that Burt was not one of those involved in the ugly stuff.

I nodded, quashing the slight pang of guilt that ran through me.

“But how?”

I was aware of several sets of ears tuned into our conversation as we made our way down the corridor. I had to be very careful here, using partial truths and subtlety to answer.

“I stumbled upon it, actually,” I told him. “As Mr. Chamberlain said, I’ve been working hands-on with pediatric cancer patients for the past couple years. Instead of focusing on those who responded well to traditional treatments, I concentrated on those who didn’t. What made them different? I used their DNA to perform some discreet genetic mapping and found a pattern.”

“Who authorized these tests?” asked Gunther Dietz, scowling.

“I did,” I said without a hint of remorse.

I said no more just then, waiting for these brilliant scientific minds to put the pieces together. No doubt they all knew about what had happened years earlier and had been trying unsuccessfully to duplicate the results. Now I showed up with “Roger Chamberlain’s” blessing, a whole lot of innuendo, and a vial of “proof.”

We went to one of the labs, where I put the next phase of our plan into action. I handed the tiny glass bottle over to Burt and told him to treat some of the more virulent strains with a drop or two. He did, under the watchful eyes of the others, and numerous closed-circuit security cameras.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Now, we wait.”

“How long?” a thin, wiry man with black eyes asked.

“Overnight,” I said.

He scoffed. “You expect us to believe this farce?”

I gave him a tight smile that didn’t meet my eyes. “I don’t expect you to believe anything. But apparently, Mr. Chamberlain does.”

That shut him up.

Patches of red crawled up his neck, vivid against his white lab coat.