Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
“How much time?” I press.
“Twenty-four hours.”
“Make it twelve,” I state, no give to my voice.
Chin shifts uncomfortably. “There’s still a question—”
“Then go find the answer,” I snip, uninterested in where this is going. “Now.”
Chin nods sharply and heads for the door.
Good. He needs to get to work. I’ve provided him with every resource known to man. The facility we’re standing inside might be small, but it’s nothing shy of state-of-the-art. As a bonus, it’s safely hidden beneath Jocelyn’s home, with military-grade technology in every facet of its creation.
Up to a point, I’d kept things all business with Jocelyn, but when you make a woman moan, you control her, and along the way, I’ve found we share a mutual pleasure. Hatred for one person is quite intoxicating.
Creed Taylor is the source of our hate.
The soldier who disgraced me—by sleeping with my daughter and damn near killing me. Creed turned his back on his country as he had on his mother.
My gaze rakes over her curvy but slender figure, tracing the line of her hips and the swell of her breasts, then back to her lovely face. “I do believe it’s time we open that bottle of champagne we’ve been saving to toast our success.”
“I thought you didn’t consider us a success until Red Dart was implemented.”
“Then we’ll toast the years of brilliant collaboration it took to get us to this point.” I hold out my hand to her. “What do you say?”
She hesitates an instant, but her resistance slides away, her features softening with the promise of submission. Her fingers settle against my palm. Our eyes meet, simmering with our familiar shared attraction and a carnal need to fuck.
Now.
Here.
I lead her past her desk to a leather couch and chair in the corner of the room. This is her personal workspace, and unlike the adjoining rooms down the hall, I’d taken care to add comfort here.
I urge her to sit on the couch. Tentatively, she perches on the edge, watching me with a heavy-lidded stare, her black slacks hugging slender thighs. I walk to the hutch against the wall and pull out the bottle of champagne I’d chilled a bit ago, filling two glasses. Joining her, I sit down beside her and offer her a glass.
“To us,” I murmur softly, and what my words do not say, I ensure my eyes do.
Her lips part and her cheeks flush a pretty pink. She touches her glass to mine. “To us.”
We sip the bubbly liquid, savoring it, but not for too long. I take her glass and set both on the table. “Tell me, Jocelyn,” I say, my hand resting on her leg. “Does saving the world turn you on as much as it does me?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Brock
I float into consciousness with the sound of voices in my head. Heavy shadows blocking out the excruciatingly bright light beyond is the last thing I remember. When was that? Minutes ago? Hours? I blink several times, trying to focus, feeling the heaviness pressing against my face. A mask—I have on some sort of mask to cover my eyes.
I open my mouth to speak, to call out, but my throat swells with the effort. I drag air into my lungs, the success of the effort calming me. I’m not dead. A familiar voice pierces the fog. No, moans. Female moans.
“General,” she whispers. “Oh my, General.” More soft moans and pants. A guttural male growl.
Reality slices through my mind, possessiveness coursing through my veins. I have no idea why—no understanding of the reason it has to be—but Jocelyn is mine. I try to sit up. Try to scream out—Jocelyn!—but there’s no sound.
Jocelyn’s voice carries through the darkness. “General, wait. General, stop.” I draw in a breath and force myself to calm, clinging to the shattered pieces of her voice. “General, wait!” she repeats. “Brock’s awake. General, please stop! He’s awake.”
The general grunts. “I don’t give a damn right about now, Jocelyn.”
“We should check on him.”
“How about I make you come, and then you check on him? How about that?”
“He can hear us,” she whispers.
“Then he can get off when we do,” the general suggests, and it infuriates me. I jerk at my armbands again, fighting through the pain thrusting its way up my arms.
The general silences her with what sounds like kissing. The sighs and moans that follow are fucking torture, far more than the needles in my veins. Wildly, I begin to fight, pulling against the restraints, fighting to break free and stop him from touching her. But then, then, something happens—something I don’t understand. A sharp pain pierces my brow, and it’s like a prison confines my body, holding me. I can’t fight any more.
I’m forced to lie there and listen to Jocelyn cry out in pleasure, forced to listen to the slap of skin against skin. It drags on for long, torturous minutes until finally, silence falls, and I imagine, with graphic explicitness, them lying there naked, wrapped around each other. In this moment, I know I will kill the general, hunt him down, and make him pay for everything he has done. I wrap my mind around that vow until a loud siren rips through the air, and then it too goes silent.