Pepper swallowed hard. She had to tell him the truth. He had to know what he was up against. She often was desperate for sex, but not like this, not in direct reaction to a man. She knew what she felt for Wyatt Fontenot was dangerous to her. Wyatt wasn’t a man to be controlled. He took control. It was in the way he walked. The set of his shoulders. The stamp of his mouth.
Heat flared in his eyes when he looked at her, and something else. Something she’d never seen before but recognized as possession. He wanted her. That wasn’t anything new, but the way he wanted her was.
“Dr. Thomas Braden, the head of this company, has several scientists working for him in France. That’s where the children were created, born and worked on. I was an orphan and brought up in the school there. Braden is the one who decrees when an experiment has to be terminated.”
She felt a wave of weakness wash over her, and without thinking she leaned into him, her back to his front. His breath hissed out. She felt the heavy, thick erection pressed against her, but she couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it – and maybe it did. There was no sanity, no thinking, only feeling. Her body betrayed her, burning between her legs, her breasts tingling, achy and swollen. It didn’t help that her blood ran hot when she needed to slow everything down so the venom didn’t have a chance to make things worse.
“Breathe,” he ordered softly into her ear.
He knew. She was mortified that he knew. She tried to straighten, to stand on her own two feet, but his fingers turned to steel and he held her close.
“Don’. You know better. Just breathe slow and it will settle a little. Enough that we both can manage.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“It’s not your fault, sugar,” he said, his breath on her neck.
She closed her eyes, and allowed herself to lean against his chest. His rock hard erection. The man that was stamping his fingerprints into her bones. She slowed her breathing, fighting to stay upright when pain was hammering to get in. The pain wasn’t just physical either.
“I – he – I angered Braden,” she admitted reluctantly. “I wouldn’t cooperate with things he wanted me to do. He threatened to terminate the babies if I didn’t do what he wanted, and I lost my temper. It wasn’t good. Two months later, he sent us all here. He has four trackers – he calls them his elite – although I think someone else provides them, otherwise he would have sent them after me right away. But they’ll come. He also has his own special little army that he created.”
She had just attained freedom. Only just. She’d lived her life under the control of others. Orders. Discipline. She barely knew there was another world out there. The taste of freedom was in her mouth. In her heart. She responded to the wildness of the bayou, the primitive, primal swamp. She had been so close and yet now…
She looked over her shoulder at Wyatt Fontenot, at the strength in his face, the intensity of his eyes and a mouth a woman might give up a lot for. She was lost. Not because he was sexy and hot. He was a family man and he protected and cared for those he loved. In all of her life she had never thought she might find such a thing. She had secretly longed to find it, especially when she was up all night with the three little ones, wishing she had a partner to help lighten the load for one moment.
Wyatt Fontenot would be a man like that. He could be ruthless and merciless and yet kind and compassionate. He would be a man who would put those he loved first, and he would always stand in front of them. Temptation was a wicked, sinful thing, and yet she knew she wouldn’t do what her body and her mind wanted her to do. So easy. It would be so easy. But it wouldn’t be real.
“Stop thinkin’ so much, honey. It’s all goin’ to be okay. You’ll see.”
Wyatt picked her up, cradling her body gently. The pain broke through her mind and bled into his several times, but he was more prepared, now that he knew what was happening to them.
She was killing him with her thoughts. She didn’t realize she was so ill she couldn’t compartmentalize, and they already had formed a connection. She was spilling over into him and he wanted to shield her from every ugly thing she’d ever experienced.
“Have you heard of a man called Whitney? Dr. Peter Whitney?”
She bit her lip, calling his attention to it. Worse, the tip of her tongue slipped out to ease the bite mark, drawing his attention to that.
Pepper nodded her head slowly. “Yes. He came in and consulted with Braden a couple of times. He watched through the glass as one of the babies, Thym, bit me. He reminded me of a real reptile; his eyes were dead. Braden, who is very arrogant, was somewhat respectful toward him. Although I could see he didn’t like Whitney.”
“Are you certain it was Braden, not Whitney, who issued the termination order on the babies and you?”