CHAPTER TWELVE
Becca woke inside a dream, trying to blink the darkness into light, but there was no light, only damnable, inescapable darkness. She inhaled a surprisingly easy breath, a warm scent rippling through her senses, familiar to her dreams—the one she knew instantly to be Sterling. She relaxed into the moment, no longer fighting the darkness. She needed this familiar place, this dream that had led her through darkness far worse than that of her slumber. Becca searched for his image in her mind, sought out those teal green eyes, frustrated when it wouldn’t come to her. Greedily, she inhaled his smell again. God, she loved that masculine spicy scent.
Strong arms wrapped around her, and she smiled at the touch, the dream taking a shape in a way it never had before, solidifying. It was as if Sterling was there, touching her, holding her. Becca moaned at the feel of him next to her, long legs entwined with hers. His breath trickled along her lips, promising her seductive, hot kisses.
She ached for more, needed more. Her arms wrapped around his back, her hips curling against his, the thick bulge of his erection tucked against her stomach. Never before had her dreams felt this real…this erotic. She could feel him everywhere, feel the ripple of muscle beneath his cotton T-shirt. Her hands skimmed his back, his chest, the warmth of taut skin as she caressed hard muscle. His moan near her ear drove her wild. It was a low, masculine sound that sent a delicious shiver down her spine and tightened her nipples a moment before his fingers laced through her hair. He kissed her then, a deep hungry kiss that swept through her like a rain shower that turned to raging downpour. It was wild, unleashed. It was her dream, and it was going exactly how she wanted it to. She couldn’t get enough of him. He couldn’t get enough of her.
Somewhere in the midst of the sensual slide of his tongue, a glimmer of awareness formed outside the shadows of her dreams. She shoved it aside, not ready to wake up, allowing Sterling’s tongue to draw her back into delicious escape. It was a deep kiss, a passionate kiss, a kiss that made love to her the way she wanted to make love to him.
She arched into his hips, her fingers curling on a strong jaw, rough stubble pressing erotically against her delicate skin. The other hand rested on a bare, muscular chest, with springy hair that teased her palm. But still the light threatened, and somewhere in the distance, a horn honked, permeating the soft moans that she knew to be her own. The sound of that horn bounced around in her mind and faded into the pleasure of his tongue trailing hers. It sounded again. Loud enough this time that Becca stilled instantly.
Her hands pressed to Sterling’s chest—or her dream version of Sterling…She gulped as light flooded her vision then blinked as she stared at the location of her hands, the solid wall of muscle sprinkled with light blond hair. Her hips straddling his…and the distinct bulge of his erection pressed to the wet heat of her core.
Her gaze lifted and collided with a familiar teal green stare. Familiar eyes framed by a chiseled face and spiky blond hair. And then there was the ultra sexy dimple in the middle of a chin she had a random memory of kissing. Oh God. It really was him. She was on top of Sterling.
“I’m not dreaming, am I?” she whispered.
“Feels pretty real to me,” he confirmed.
Her throat went dry, her gaze scanning the light blue scuffed wall and equally scuffed nightstand that were definitely not what dreams were made of. She was in a cheap motel sprawled wantonly across the man, and she had no idea how it had happened. She tried to slide off of him—more like launch herself away from him—only to find herself on her back with his powerful body over the top of hers.
“Easy, sweetheart.” His whiskey-rough voice rippled down her spine, making her limbs heat despite her resistance. “I have no idea what just happened, but I saw the sudden awareness and instant panic in your eyes. We were sleeping, when—”
“Why were we in bed together?” she demanded, as a brief flash of the two of them in a warehouse brushed her mind. A warehouse. Not a bed. “Why are we in some sleazy hotel together?” The phone slid across the nightstand and crashed to the floor. She jumped, adrenaline spiking through her at not only the crash, but the realization that she had caused it. Memories of the lab assailed her. Milton had died; they’d killed him. Emotion clawed at her. The tawdry flower picture beside the bed fell off the wall. She was shaking, invisible, prickling spears poking her forehead. The faded picture of Las Vegas to her right clamored to the ground.
Sterling arched a brow. “Aside from moving things around with your mind and being a walking, talking GTECH sleeping pill, are there any other surprises I should know about?”
Another flash of memory washed over her. The soldiers in the lab passing out. Flash-forward to the warehouse and an image of Sterling standing in front of her with guns locked and loaded when a group of Zodius attacked. They’d passed out, but he hadn’t. Sterling wasn’t like the other GTECHs, but he wasn’t human either. She didn’t know what he was—besides on top of her, making her crazy.
“You didn’t pass out.” She started to struggle, shoving and wiggling left and right, while pounding his rock-hard, too bare, too delicious chest that she had to get away from. “Let me up!”
“I have no idea why I don’t pass out when you put everyone else to sleep.” He shackled her wrist in front of her, holding her with ease. “Why is it that me not passing out like the other GTECHs is freaking you out, Becca? Because if I had, you’d either be dead or back in Adam’s clutches instead of here with me.”
“Instead I ended up in a cheap motel with no memory of how I got here!” He smelled good. He felt good. He was dangerous. She knew the devious ways of Adam, his boss—his friend.
“You’re alive,” he said.
“Because you need me,” she said. “Because Adam needs me.” The inference was that he was working for Adam. He was GTECH. Adam was GTECH. That was a dangerous parallel when Adam intended to destroy humanity. And Sterling had managed to show up every time Adam was hunting her, with his charm and seduction in full glamour.
“I am not Zodius,” he clipped out shortly.
“Yet here I am,” she said bitterly, “in bed with you, almost having sex, and barely remembering how it happened. Dreaming of you too, Sterling. I’m no fool. GTECHs have special skills. I know you’re messing with my dreams. I know—” She lost her words to the heat deepening in his eyes.
“You dreamed of me?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “I…yes, but—”
His eyes melted into hers a moment before he kissed her, a warm, wonderful impossible-to-resist kiss seeping through to her very bones. Too soon, and yet not soon enough, he tore his mouth from hers.
“That’s why we woke up all over each other,” he said softly. “Because we want each other and have since the moment we met fourteen years ago. If I’m brainwashing you, you’re doing the same to me.” He rolled off of her and left her shocked, panting, and wishing for that hard body back on top of hers. And angry. The man had just accused her of brainwashing him! He’d betrayed her, made her fear for him…made her trust him.
The picture lying on the floor flew across the room with a crash. The chairs at the table tumbled to their backs. She knew she was doing it. She didn’t know how, but she was doing it, and she hoped it made him afraid, like she had been on the street, fighting withdrawal.
He didn’t react to the objects in the room. Instead, he simply stood there at the side of the bed facing her, wearing a dark expression made more foreboding by the shadow carving his jaw. The lamp on the nightstand crashed to floor with the shatter of glass. A bag once lying on the stand landed on the bed between them, several vials of ICE bouncing onto the mattress.
Becca swallowed hard at the sight, her eyes lighting on Sterling’s, colliding in a standoff. Silence folded around them, their eyes locking in a stormy, erotically charged confrontation. She didn’t dare trust him, and he knew she felt that way. Those vials of ICE would give her a few days’ freedom without consequence. He knew that too. It was in that deep, hot stare of his.
Adrenaline pumped through her, liquid bubbling energy, her mind justifying the risk. This man was far more dangerous to her than anyone inside Zodius City. Because she wanted to trust him. Because she simply wanted him to the point of aching to feel him next to her. The intensity of the attraction was too much. It defied reason and supported brainwashing.
She had to get out of here, and she intended to make as much noise and cause as much trouble as it took to do it. The police would come. The neighbors would complain. Becca lunged for the ICE.
By the time Tad finished with Iceman, his team of soldiers had used the GPS tracking device they’d covertly inserted into Becca’s arm to locate her—a precautionary measure taken when Adam deemed it necessary to keep her out of the sex camps.
Tad appeared on the rooftop a mile from the motel where Sterling had holed up in hiding, a safe distance from the Renegades guarding the perimeter. A convoy of his men waited for him. Why he’d thought that Sterling would be dumb enough to take the woman to the Renegades’ highly sought after inner-city headquarters, he didn’t know.
His hand went into his pocket, feeling the vial of ICE there, hungering for a hit. It was his secret addiction and the source of some unique abilities that he had yet to disclose to anyone. No one even knew ICE had an impact on GTECHs. They foolishly thought it, like all drugs, had no effect on a GTECH. Even Adam and Tad planned to keep it that way. He didn’t want other GTECHs, neither Zodius nor Renegade, to dose with ICE. He wanted the upper hand, to stay in Adam’s sights, to become one of the leaders of the new world. ICE hits made him stronger than the average GTECH—faster too. But it was his other abilities, the unique ones that really made dosing the ultimate fix, the ride he needed to stay on top. His ability to—
“Sir,” the officer in charge said, breaking Tad out of his thoughts. “Red,” they called him, though Tad had no idea why and really didn’t care. “The Renegades have brought in a good dozen reinforcements.”
Tad grimaced. “It won’t take them long to figure out we’ve planted a GPS in her arm,” he said. “Scout out every Renegade’s position around the perimeter and flank each with two of our men. Alert me when we’re ready, and be ready to move on command.”
They couldn’t wait to act, or they would risk Sterling removing that device and escaping their radar. If Adam wouldn’t have killed him for doing it, Tad would have taken that bitch himself and made sure she could never escape. Now there were no options, because once that tracking device was gone, it was gone.
Rebecca Burns was going to have to die before she left that motel.