CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Damion stood at his door, inside the long corridor of soldiers’ quarters, his heart thundering in his ears, as he told himself that his to-hell-with-consequences attitude wasn’t smart, nor was it safe. He knew his desire for Lara was dangerous, knew he should keep his hands off her. He would, he vowed, shoving open his door. He’d behave; he’d wait until he knew she wasn’t the enemy, until he knew he wasn’t treading dangerous waters.
He stepped back to let her pass, not trusting himself to look at her, all too aware of just how on edge he was, just how ready to pull her into his arms and feel those soft curves melt into his body. She moved forward, and his gaze brushed the soft sway of her hips, thickening his blood and his cock right along with it, the stretch of his zipper uncomfortable with demand. He’d held her, touched her, and had her naked in his arms. It didn’t take much to envision doing so again.
He followed her inside and dimmed the lights. The narrow hallway was short and led to a room of white and gray tile, where the living room and the kitchen were one open space of black leather, silver, and glass—standard in all the quarters. Off to the left, the bedroom was, thankfully, through a door that both shut and locked. Lara paused, a few steps inside, turning to face him. He could feel her nearness tearing away at his willpower, threading through his blood, tempting him, calling him.
“Michael says you never break the rules, but you broke them for me,” she said.
“Michael doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.”
“So it’s true?”
“I told you I disobeyed an order by bringing you here.”
“Is it true that you never break the rules, but you did for me?”
“Yes.” And he didn’t know why she made everything different, why she made him reconsider right from wrong—only that he’d do it all over again.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t break the rules for me. Don’t trust me because I can’t risk trusting you. Damion, I don’t know who I am or what I am or what I’ve done. I don’t know if you’re my friend or my enemy. I don’t know anything except—”
He grabbed her and pulled her to him. “Except this,” he said, his mouth slanting over hers in a deep claiming kiss he’d no more planned than he could now conceive of ending. She clung to him, melted just like he’d imagined a dozen times in the past few hours, her hands wrapping around his neck, her breasts pressed to his chest. “We want each other. What happens beyond that we’ll deal with later.”
“And if we regret it?” she asked.
He brushed his lips over hers. “I’m not going to regret this. No possible way.” He kissed her, and somehow, he ended up against the door, her hand on his chest.
“We could be enemies,” she reminded him. “We could be trying to kill each other tomorrow.”
He molded her breast to his hand then pressed her shirt up, his hands touching the smooth, soft skin of her waist. He skimmed higher, to shove down her bra and caress her nipple. “You can try and kill me as many times as you want as long as you do it naked.”
She bit her lip and tugged at his shirt. “As long as you’re naked too.”
“Oh yeah,” he promised, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it aside. “I’ll be naked.”
She ran her hands over the body armor he wore. “You mean you’d trust me without this on?”
“Do you trust me without my body armor? Because once it’s off, there’s nothing to hold me back.”
“I’m counting on it,” she promised, tugging down the zipper on his shoulder, and pressing her lips to the skin there. “Which is why I can’t wait to get it off you.”
He tugged her shirt up, and she moved to let him pull it over her head. Before she’d even managed to toss it aside, he’d unhooked her bra and shoved it down her arms, baring her beautiful high breasts for his viewing. Damion filled his hands with the weight of them, pressing them together, teasing her nipples.
She moaned, her hands covering his, her teeth scraping her bottom lip. “Kiss me,” she commanded.
He tweaked her nipples, and pleasure rippled across her pale, beautiful face. “Where?”
“Everywhere,” she said, leaning in to brush her mouth against his. “And why are you still wearing that armor?” A wild kiss followed, before her lips trailed his jaw, before she licked his ear and whispered, “Take it off before I get a knife and cut it off.”
His hands slid into her hair, pulling her head back, baring her neck as he kissed a path down it and turned her to press her against the wall.
“What happened to getting naked, Damion?”
He let out a soft growl he barely recognized as his own—he was so aroused, so out of his own skin, yet never so inside himself as he was in this instant. The second she’d decided this was going to happen, the second she’d given herself, and him, permission to just be free, she had changed, and he with her. She was the woman from the shower now, demanding what she wanted, taking what she needed, and he was a man wild for that woman. There was something about her this way, about her ability to hold her own with him that turned him on in a way he had never imagined possible. She was no fragile flower, no delicate female who needed coddling. Just pure woman… sexy woman.
Stepping back from her, he made no effort to hide his lust, his desire. His gaze raked over her high, full breasts, and then lower—over her slender but curvy hips, her long legs that he intended to wrap around his shoulders, and then his hips. “Get naked,” he ordered. “Take the rest of it off.”
Her lips tilted seductively. “Already planned on it, soldier.” She reached for her pants. He reached for his. They watched every zip, tug, and disappearing garment, until they stood there naked, staring at each other.
She smiled slyly, her gaze traveling over his body with open hunger, lingering on the pulsing thickness of his erection, before running her tongue over her lips. “You’re even better than expected.”
“And you are dangerously naughty,” he said, reaching for her, only to have her dart past him and into the living room. He turned to catch the arousing image of her deliciously round and firm backside disappearing around the corner. “And you’re killing me.”
“I thought that was the idea,” she purred in the midst of a sultry laugh.
Damion stalked after her. His blood pumped with a rush of adrenaline as hot as liquid silver. It was the primal high of hunting Lara, of the chase, unexpected—damn near uncontrollable—in its demand. He scanned the living room and entered the bedroom, only to have her wrap herself around him from behind. He turned to her, his prey, this tantalizing woman, who’d challenged him from the moment he’d met her, pulling her close and kissing her.
She clung to him, kissed him back, her tongue wild and hot, her hand wrapped around his cock.
“Something you want?” he asked.
She shoved him backward onto the bed and came down on top of him, reclaiming his cock with her hand. She cast him a naughty look. “I want this,” she said and licked the head.
He moaned with the sensation only to have her straddle him, the wet heat of her settling across his hips, her backside pressed to his cock. “I want you,” she panted and leaned over him, her hand sliding over his chest, her lips following, her teeth scraping his nipple. Her silky dark hair splayed across his chest just where he wanted it.
He rolled her to her back, pressed her legs apart to settle into the wet, slick heat between them, pressing her hands over her head and shackling them with one of his. “Clearly I have to take control.”
“You can try,” she challenged.
He ran his hand over her breasts, kneading and caressing before skimming a path down her slender rib cage, around her backside. She bit her bottom lip. Damn, he loved when she did that. Her dark lashes fluttered.
“I’d say I’m succeeding pretty well.”
“Because I’m letting you,” she whispered.
“Letting me?” he asked.
“Hmmm,” she said, sucking in a soft breath, as he lowered his head and suckled her nipple, then took his time licking and teasing, while she arched her back, pressing the rose-red peaks toward him.
“Still letting me?” he asked, moving to the other breast to repeat his actions.
“Yes,” she assured, as he slid his cock in the slick heat of the intimate V of her legs, even as she squeezed her thighs together, trying to draw him into her.
“So kind of you,” he said, swirling his tongue over the stiff peak of her nipple.
“Isn’t it just?” she agreed, a look of absolute lust in her eyes as she watched him lave her nipples, one after the other. She inhaled as his teeth nipped a stiff peak, his tongue soothing the tip, then whispered, “Especially since I intend to make you pay for every second of torture you’re making me endure.”
“If I ever set you free.” He kissed her mouth, a soft, teasing kiss. “You never finished telling me what kissing me makes you feel.” His lips trailed over her jaw, her neck. “Tell me now.”
“Kissing you,” she whispered, “makes the headaches go away.”
He stilled with his mouth by her ear, lifting his head to stare at her. “What?”
She shook her head. “Touching you… stops the flashbacks. It—you—make them go away.”
He released her wrists, dragging his hand down her arm, cradling her cheek. “I’m not—”
“I know. You’re not doing it on purpose,” she said. “I know you’re not causing the headaches or taking them away.” She tried to laugh, but it sounded strained. “I guess you could say I’m using you. I hope you don’t mind?”
They stared at one another, the air around them, between them… shifting, hanging, intensifying. He knew her admission had come with a price, and that price had been trust. She’d just told him he had power over her beyond simple sex and attraction. Emotion welled in his chest at the realization, tightening his body, even as something unfamiliar expanded within him. Again, he had the sense of this woman belonging here with him, in his bed, under him, or on top him, or wherever she damn well wanted to be—but with him.
“Damion,” she whispered, at the same moment he said, “Use me all you want.”
He slanted his mouth over hers, his tongue stroking hers, caressing. He’d wanted women before, but never like this, never so completely—never with the sense of urgency that he did with Lara. Maybe it was knowing that he alone had eased her pain. Maybe that had created a bond. Or maybe it was the trust factor. Or maybe it was simply just the two of them together.
She sighed into his mouth, her fingers finding his neck, his hair. He trailed his lips over her jaw to her ear. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to be inside you?”
“Not as badly as I want you there, or you’d already be there.”
He might have smiled at the witty remark that he was fast realizing was her way, but the words, the challenge, had his cock throbbing, pulsing. “I don’t want to keep the lady waiting,” he murmured, holding his weight on one elbow, his lips close to hers, his hand reaching between them to wrap around the thick width of his erection. He slid himself down the wet heat of her, back and forth.
“Then why are you?” she said, digging into his biceps.
He watched her face as he entered her, sliding inside her slowly, despite the near desperate need to thrust deep and bury himself in the farthest depths of her. Still, another part of him wanted to watch her face, to savor the moment, the pleasure. Slowly, inch by inch, he slid deeper inside the tight core of her, the wet wonder of her body drawing him in, until he was buried to the hilt.
“Is this what you wanted?” he asked, settling his elbows on the bed beside her head.
“Yes.” She breathed out the word in a sigh and then taunted him. “But I thought you’d move or something.”
He laughed, the sound tight with barely contained desire. He pulled back and thrust into her. “Like that?”
“A decent start,” she said, her fingers curling into his backside, pulling him deeper. “But is that all you have?”
“You want more?”
“More,” she agreed, wrapping her legs around his hips. “Much more.”
It was a demand. She was panting, the feel of Damion inside her, filling her with heat and need, and she was holding nothing back. There were no inhibitions, not even a memory of past sexual experiences to guide her. There was an innate understanding of her own sexuality, of her comfort in it with this man, on the most intimate of levels. “More!” She arched against him, trying to pull him inside her, trying to take all of him when he refused to give it to her. He thrust deeply. Teasing mercilessly, he slid back slowly, until the tip of his erection was all that remained. Her hips lifted, chasing him. “You’re killing me, and you damn well know it.”
“Killing you softly,” he promised, suckling her nipple and letting his next thrust tug deliciously against it.
“Killing me is better than torturing me,” she assured him a moment before his hands slid under her backside, lifting her, as he pumped into her, harder and faster.
“How’s that?” he questioned in a passion-etched voice that bordered on primal. Oh, and she liked primal, she liked over-the-edge—it’s where she wanted to be, where she wanted him to be with her.
“Harder,” she ordered. “Faster.”
He lifted her legs to his shoulders, thrusting into her, watching her with a heavy-lidded stare. “More?”
“Yes. More.”
His face tightened, his body flexing as he held her, as he moved in a fast, hard rhythm—deliciously male, deliciously hot.
“Yes.” She wasn’t sure how many more times she repeated “yes.” The world faded into a cloud of sensation until she couldn’t breathe, until every nerve ending she owned seemed to still and then exploded in an erotic rainbow of pleasure. Her body spasmed around the thick width of his cock, and he moaned—a sexy male sound that radiated through her—an intimate caress that intensified her release. Another stroke, another thrust, and his hands tightened on her legs as he shook and shattered. The wet warm heat of his release spilled inside her, before he settled her legs down and collapsed onto his elbows, over the top of her. For long seconds they lay there, their bodies intimately entwined.
Lara’s chest tightened with a fist of emotion. Damion felt… right. He felt right—like someone she could care about, someone she already cared about. Yet he was someone who could be her enemy, someone who could be manipulating her.
She rejected the idea, the possibility, the reality of the truth—whatever it might be. She didn’t want to think about it now. She wanted him, rejected the flashes of images, the pain in her head. “Just to be clear,” she said, running her hands down his powerful back. “I’m not done yet. You better not be.”
He leaned back to stare down at her, his hazel eyes shimmering with new desire, his strong jaw and high cheekbones sexy. He looked good enough to eat, and he felt good enough to drive her wild all over again. Yes. She wanted this man. She wanted to pretend that was all that mattered, all there was.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he objected, but she could feel him thickening inside her, feel him growing aroused. “Doctor’s orders.”
“Because sleep was supposed to heal me,” she countered. “I told you. You’re a much better drug. The way I see it, the longer we keep at this, the less pain I feel, the more healing I do. I mean—you’re GTECH. Doesn’t that mean your endurance is superhuman?”
He smiled. “You’re GTECH too, which you seem to keep forgetting.”
“I’m not forgetting now,” she said. “I have plenty of endurance.” It was a challenge.
He rolled to his back, still inside her, and she sucked in a breath as a small tingling sensation started at the back of her neck, along her scalp. No. No. No. Damion was supposed to keep the pain, the images at bay. She grabbed his hands, pressed them to her breasts, and then bent down and kissed him. The sensation slipped away into passion, just as she’d willed it to.
Hours later, dressed in one of Damion’s T-shirts, with him by her side in jockey boxers, Lara sat on top of the white down comforter of his king-sized bed and finished off a bowl of cereal. “I thought being GTECH meant I never had to diet again. Instead, it means refuel often or crash and burn.”
Damion finished off a bite of cereal. “Exactly why I carry high-calorie supplements with me everywhere I go.” Damion set his bowl aside and held up the box of cereal. “Still a little left if you want it?”
She shook her head. “I’m done.” He took her bowl from her and disposed of it on the black and glass nightstand then leaned against the black wooden headboard, his long powerful legs stretched out before him, his back and shoulders rippling with the action.
Forget the cereal. She wanted to gobble him up. She sighed and dropped to her back, curling her toes in the soft blanket, her hand pressed to her overly full stomach. “It’s been forever since I’ve had a bowl of Frosted Flakes. I forgot how much I love them.”
“How long?” Damion asked. She stilled with the seemingly innocent question that wasn’t innocent at all. It was the first bit of personal information he’d asked of her outside of what was directly related to her pleasure. He wanted to know who she was, and she didn’t blame him. So did she. She wanted to answer him, but as she reached for the knowledge, she came up blank, an empty hollow in her mind, making a bigger one in her chest.
“How long have you been in the army?” she asked, changing the subject in what she’d intended as a smooth transition, which was more a train wreck of obvious avoidance.
“I went in when I was twenty,” he said, showing no indication he’d noticed the dodgeball she’d thrown him. “I left when the army didn’t differentiate between those GTECHs who tried to protect Area 51 and those who took it over. They wanted us all locked up until they could find a way to control us—thus the Renegades became the Renegades. We work with the army, but with due precautions. We as GTECHs—all of us, you included—are like commodities. We’re weapons. Can you imagine what could happen if someone completely controlled an army of GTECHs, and that person wanted to use us for the wrong reasons?”
A chill ran down her spine. “Yes, and I don’t want to.” Even now, she thought of the order to kill the Russian, which had been wrong. What if they’d had some method of forcing her to do anything they wanted? Did they? Was that why she was having the headaches? Because she’d disobeyed an order?
“How about you?” Damion asked. “Were you—are you—in the army?”
Powell was a general, but she’d never thought of Serenity as being part of the army. Maybe she should have? Maybe she should have thought of a lot of things. “I don’t know. There is just the day my parents died and after. I don’t remember my last bowl of Frosted Flakes, or Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, but I know I love it. I don’t remember ever having sex before today, or ever being in love. But I know I’ve loved and lost.” Her throat tightened, and her voice with it. “And I know I feel like I can trust you, Damion, or none of this would have happened tonight. So if you’re manipulating me, if you’re—”
“I’m not,” he said, scooting down on the bed and pulling her to him, so they were side by side, facing one another. “I’m not manipulating you. If a Renegade killed your family, if a Renegade purposely took an innocent life, then they aren’t welcome here. They’re traitors. I swear it, Lara.”
She buried her face in his chest, inhaling his scent, warm and masculine, and somehow familiar beyond their short attachment. Trusting Damion meant betraying Powell—it meant believing Powell was a liar, a manipulator—the man who she’d believed had saved her life, given her a reason to keep living.
Damion shifted to his back and snuggled her close to him, her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. “Rest and get well, and we’ll figure it all out when you wake up.”
Beneath her palm, his skin was warm, his heartbeat strong. Two days ago her life had been about justice and vengeance, two simple driving forces that had given her a reason to wake up. Now—now it was about truth. She told herself to search her mind, to find the answers, but her mind wrapped around the rhythmic thrum of his heartbeat, and she drifted off to sleep.
An uninjured GTECH didn’t need more than a few hours of sleep every few days, and as much as Damion enjoyed sleeping with Lara, he was also concerned about her safety, and the many unknowns between them. He was awake in two hours, holding Lara, and staring at the ceiling, listening to her even breathing while his mind raced. By the time another hour had passed, it was already seven o’clock, and he was showered, dressed in black fatigue pants, boots, and a black T-shirt, sitting at his kitchen table, with his laptop in high gear, resisting the urge to call Kelly before eight. She was human and needed sleep. So he occupied himself doing a search for “Skywalker” and coming up dry. It was clear. He was going to have to get Sterling to put his magic fingers to work, as well as turn up the heat and hack the government’s computers.
The instant the clock hit eight, he dialed Kelly. By eight-fifteen, Kelly was at his door with coffee in hand, her light brown hair neatly styled, wearing a navy blue pantsuit that would soon be covered with a lab coat. “How is she?”
“Fine for now.” He stepped back into the hall to let her enter. “She’s asleep.” He followed Kelly to the kitchen table, where she sat down. Before joining her, Damion quickly and quietly pulled the bedroom door shut, so they wouldn’t disturb Lara.
Kelly studied him a long moment when he didn’t immediately speak. “Talk to me, Damion. What’s wrong?”
“If she won’t let us do a CT scan, then what?”
“She really doesn’t trust us, does she?”
“I don’t think she trusts herself at this point,” he said. “How can she trust us?”
She nodded. “Well, who can blame her, really? I’d refuse the test too. Sleep is truly the best medicine for a GTECH. We might not have to do anything. The problem may solve itself. I don’t think we have to push her about the CT scan. Not yet.”
He considered that. “So when she wakes up, you think her memories might be restored?”
“I don’t know, Damion,” she said. “In theory, and in observed practice, every GTECH injury should heal with sleep. The question becomes—is this an injury? What if Adam, or even the government, found a way to put a control device in her brain that they thought her body couldn’t destroy? The GTECH body adapts and learns to fight off any danger. So, what if her body is fighting to destroy a device?”
“Could sleep allow that to happen?”
“Maybe,” she said. “If she’s still having issues when she wakes up, you have to convince her to let me do the CT scan. If there is a foreign object, it might need to be removed. I need to stress that I’m speculating—making educated guesses based on my knowledge of the GTECH body and the limited symptoms described. Not only do I not have physical evidence, I am dealing with the first female GTECH, and that’s unknown territory.” She tilted her chin down, surveying him. “What aren’t you asking me that you want to ask?”
“I’m that obvious, am I?”
“You’re fairly obvious.”
“She said that when she touches me, the headaches go away.”
“Huh,” Kelly said, spinning her coffee around and around, as if it helped her think, before her gaze cut to his. “When Adam used his son to attack Becca’s mind, Sterling was able to help protect her, even before they’d completed their Lifebond. When Michael and Cassandra refused to complete their bond, her body tried to do it for her.”
She was saying Lara was his Lifebond. He hadn’t checked for the Lifebond mark after they had sex. He’d been afraid to—in denial, even. What if they were bonded? And they really were enemies? What if she woke up and hated him all over again? What if she was manipulating him to destroy the Renegades?
Suddenly, he realized Kelly was standing up. “I’m going to send Emma with some vitamin C for Lara. Inject her immediately and then in another eight hours, if she is awake. And call me when she does.”
He nodded. “Right. Okay.”
She finished her coffee and set the paper cup on the table. “I need to say this. I wasn’t going to say it, but I have to. I saw the sparks between the two of you. Before you hop in bed with her, Damion, think about the consequences. Being a Lifebond is simply a physical bond that’s the evolution of human love. People who love each other hurt each other all the time. In fact, sometimes when things go south, it’s those who love us who lash out harder than anyone else. She thinks we killed her family. Being linked to a man she believes is tied to that loss—well, that would be hard for any of us, me included, Damion. If you have, or somehow end up, sleeping with her, you need to remember that once you complete the blood exchange, you’re bound to each other in life and death. Before that, you can be separated from her. You won’t like it. You won’t want anyone else, but you won’t die if she dies. Find out the truth before you let the bond get the best of you. Please.”
Damion had gone icy from head to toe, frozen with the words she’d spoken, with the reality behind them, the “consequences” as she’d called them. That he hadn’t thought of this before was a testament to how deeply involved he was with Lara, and how quickly it had happened. “I hear what you’re saying.”
She stared at him several seconds and then nodded. “I have to tell Caleb about my suspicions.”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s your duty. I’d expect nothing less of you.” He pushed to his feet, the gentleman in him kicking into gear automatically. He walked her to the door, his features carefully schooled when he was screaming inside.
“Call me when she wakes up,” Kelly instructed.
“I will.” And as she started down the hall, he shut the door and let his forehead fall to the wooden surface. He’d slept with Lara. If they were bonded, she’d now be wearing the Lifebond mark, his mark, on her neck. Lifebonds couldn’t camouflage their eye color from one another, but then Lara wasn’t able to keep her eye color camouflaged right now at all. She probably wouldn’t comment if she saw his eyes as GTECH black instead of their human color. She’d likely assume he wasn’t bothering to camouflage them from her. She wouldn’t know enough about Lifebonding to think twice about eye color. No. He would only know whether they’d bonded if he checked her neck. It was as easy as walking into the bedroom and finding out.
He shoved off the door and walked to the end of the hall, stopping at the bedroom door. He pushed it open to find her curled in the center of his bed, looking innocent and delicate—a contrast to the fiery lover and fierce challenger that she was in her waking hours. The idea of her being his Lifebond shook him to the core—the idea that he had not only slept with the enemy, but bonded with her, almost impossible to conceive. Worse though, was the idea of her not being his Lifebond—that the absence of his mark on her neck meant they were not connected—that shook him equally so.
Fingers curling into his palms, Damion fought the whirlwind of emotions that had no place in a soldier’s life. He turned, walked to the kitchen table, and sat down, keying his computer out of the dormant mode. If he knew she was his Lifebond, it might—no—it would dictate his actions, cloud his judgment. He had to find the truth about Lara first.
Sabrina collapsed on top of Logan, panting and sated, from what had been a damn good ride. She scraped his neck with her teeth. “I suppose as a human you will need time to restart your engine.” She sat up and sighed. “You look good tied to my bed though, so you hang out here until I’m ready for you again.”
“Damn it, Sabrina,” Logan hissed. “Untie me.”
“Not for a very long time yet,” she promised, raking her gaze over his body. “Not until I know how you plan to bring Lara back to us.”
“You know I can’t tell you,” he said. “Powell will kill me.”
“An unacceptable answer. I wouldn’t have been left in the dark if you hadn’t insisted I be left in the dark.” If Lara was allowed to live, Sabrina would risk having her lies to Powell exposed. That couldn’t happen.
“Jenna is very beautiful,” Sabrina continued, having contemplated an arsenal of ways to make Logan talk. “So sweet and delicate.” She walked to the closet and pulled out a flogger, smacking it against her hand. “I’m really going to enjoy this.” She whirled on her heels and headed for the door, while Logan roared in response. So she’d been right. Logan and the little lab assistant were into each other.
“I’ll tell you, damn it!”
She smiled and walked back to the bed, before climbing on top of him, the flogger still in her hand. “Tell me.”