“Did you say something?” Jed asked.
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.” That she wanted to share out loud anyway.
“Then let’s wrap it up. The old alliance within the KGB theory sounds interesting. I’m going to call up some old contacts. You all do the same. We have to find a way for us to infiltrate.”
With a few parting instructions, Jed turned and headed for the door. Helen frowned. Wait a minute. He wasn’t going to just leave again without talking to her, was he?
But he most definitely was. As the others got up, gathering their files and folders, Helen pushed her chair back and took several long strides after Jed. All she saw was the back of him, nicely molded in a pair of jeans, and the door shut.
“Do you think she’s going to hit him again?” Someone mockingly asked, followed by male laughter, as she slipped through the door.
Chapter Six
“Wait!”
Jed kept walking. He hadn’t planned on Elena getting up so soon. She was supposed to be resting. Usually, it took quiet time for the subconscious to absorb a hypnotic suggestion. Had he failed? It sometimes took a few sessions to embed successfully, but he’d thought he’d managed to lead Elena along to the right point.
He frowned. For selfish reasons he hadn’t exercised his usual patience with her. And that odd sensation that told him when she was near—what was that? His frown deepened. He’d felt it earlier while on the ship too, but she wasn’t anywhere near that location.
He ignored the open curiosity from the others in the office area at the sight of them. No doubt the swelling on his face had something to do with it. He pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. Elena packed quite a punch in her swing.
“I’m getting tired of going after you. Are you such a fucking coward,” she demanded, as she fell into step beside him, “that you won’t face me and answer my questions?”
His lips quirked. But he did want her to chase him around. He’d wanted her to keep thinking about him. “I thought we had an appointment, which you missed,” he reminded her. He had other things in mind besides talking, of course. “Now I have two more meetings today.”
“That was before…before what you did.” She grabbed his arm hard, then deliberately stepped in front of him, halting his progress toward the elevator. “I want to talk now.”
Her words told him a lot. First, that she knew and comprehended what had happened besides their sexual encounter. He wasn’t surprised that she’d caught on because she was a strong woman mentally—one of the strongest he’d met, actually—and had continually resisted him.
It wasn’t until the breakthrough with the brain entrainment machine, when she’d somehow entered his dreams, that he’d found a chink in her armor. He would use that subconscious desire to seek him out even in her sleep against her. It was new territory for a jaded operative like him. Seduction had never been this intriguing. Now, he wondered whether he’d possibly not pushed hard enough. Sexual imprinting, after all, meant sexually bonding with a target repeatedly, and he had just started.
He almost smiled again. Not hard enough? The growing constriction in his pants reminded him how hard she’d gotten, and was now making, him.
Without even trying.
Damn, but he wanted her.
He moved to the side. She countered, blocking his path again.
He considered the idea of pushing her through one of the adjoining doors in the hallway and showing her exactly what he had in mind. Talk wasn’t the top priority. His session with her had left him hard and wanting, needing the real touch of her instead of all that virtual shit floating in his head. But his job had to come first.
Even now, standing inches away from him, the faint scent of her fragrance teased him with thoughts of using his tongue to find its source. He hadn’t been so easily aroused in a long time.
He studied her angry eyes. Some things one couldn’t find out in virtual reality—her eyes changed to a muted green when she was emotional. Would they change color when he was buried inside her?
That thought made him even more aroused. This sexual need for her. Maybe he’d mistakenly imprinted himself instead. His lips finally quirked with suppressed humor.
“It’s not funny!”
Her other hand reached up to shove him. At that moment the elevator door opened. Jed neatly caught the free hand, twisted his body sideways and pulled her along with him into the empty carriage. He pressed the floor he wanted and the doors slid shut. Noting that she wasn’t putting up much of a fight, he typed the code onto the pad, deactivating the micro-eye. He supposed he could test whether his
hard
work paid off.
Her eyes widened when he moved her captured hand down to the bulge in front of his pants.
“Five minutes,” he said, then pressed forward, pushing her against the wall, holding her hand tightly as she reflexively cupped him. She gasped as he bit her neck. “Starting now. I’ll just show you your answers.”
He had to be quick, knock her off her feet before she realized what was happening. Her free hand slammed up against his chest in warning.
“What the hell are you—”
He easily unzipped her pants. He liked this latest style of low-riding hip huggers. Made access easy. Especially when the woman hadn’t bothered with panties.
He buried his face in her neck, ignoring the slight discomfort of his bruised face, and used his weight to trap her. He was counting on her still having that strange sexual sensitivity she’d somehow gotten from the use of the serum. Two years’ worth of imbalance for him to take advantage of.
“Stop it,” she whispered, the tone of her voice hushed and urgent.
“Make me,” he challenged.
But she was already wet and ready, her body limp and willing, allowing him to easily knee her legs further apart. His fingers fit tightly inside those hip huggers. He slid them downward. Then up. She let out a familiar throaty sound. There. Found the right spot.
“Wherever I want. However I please,” he whispered. She gasped, her hand no longer pushing him away. That was a good sign. “Isn’t this what you’re after?”
“No…!”
“So why aren’t you stopping me? Admit it. You want this more than you want to beat me up.”
“I want to see the real Hades. Then I’ll beat you up.”
“Maybe you got the wrong guy,” he challenged softly. He teased the wet entrance with his middle finger, probing the top of the sensitive slit, pushing in slightly against her natural feminine resistance. “What if I’m not him?”
She shuddered at his intimate caress. “I’m still going to beat you up.” Her voice was strained.
He laughed. “Greedy. I like that in a woman. You want more than just to see Hades.”
He looked at her flushed face as he continued to pleasure her. He had his answer about her eyes; they were definitely getting greener. Why couldn’t she have continued sleeping so he could wake her up the way he’d planned? Now he had to keep her focused on him for the next few hours.
“You want Hades inside you. Admit it.” He leaned on her harder so his hand could get better access. Deeper. Wet and hot. He jammed her hand cupping his cock between their thighs, so he could use his to yank the waistband of her pants lower. Like that. Nudge her free leg wider. Like that. He just loved these pants.
Decision came swiftly. He couldn’t let her on her own yet. He had a feeling she would spend all that time trying to find a way to undo what he’d done and thus, blocking it from sinking deeper into her subconscious.
“Only if you’d admit to me that you’re Hades,” she panted. “Then I might let you fuck me. But I don’t think you’re him anyway. Five minutes? Hades can do a lot better.”
Jed smiled slowly. She was bargaining with him while letting him win this fight. It was a classic NOPAIN move. He expected no less from a GEM operative. She wasn’t going to win today, though.
That smile sent her heartbeat into warp speed. She’d never seen a smile so sinfully sensuous, oozing unspoken sexual promises that made her toes curl in her shoes. His eyes, that strange light color, held a male heat, frank and assessing, and she found herself unable to look away, unable to stop him from doing whatever he wanted. And the hard bulge nudging into her hand left no doubt what he had in mind.
What was wrong with her? She couldn’t form a single coherent thought as he pulled her pants further down her hips. All that resonated were the waves of pleasure pulsing from between her legs as she let him bring her closer and closer to climax. If he wasn’t holding her against the wall, she was going to slide down onto the floor.
She needed this. Ever since last night, she’d wanted this feeling again. It was as if she couldn’t get enough of this man. His fantasies fueled her desire. And knowing that he desired her, dreamed about sex with her, turned her on. Deviant. Maybe she was warped too, because she just couldn’t find a way to stop her body from betraying her. And the more she let him take control, the less she wanted to fight it.
His erection pushed boldly against her hand that was trapped between their bodies. God, she wanted to look at him. Not some computer-generated avatar. Just him and her, with nothing between them.
There was no lingering doubt left. Jed was indeed Hades. No one but Hades would be this audacious. That night, when he’d came to her in the dark—he’d bit her the same way as he was doing now, marking her neck on the same delicious erogenous spot. He knew now, as he’d discovered then, how doing so rendered her helpless with desire. The way her stupid body was out of control now, every single sensation was doubled. She closed her eyes. She shuddered as she concentrated on a finger wickedly making tiny circles.
That
tripled the pleasure.
But she wanted him to tell her himself that he was Hades. It wouldn’t make this surrender any easier but it would ease her mind if he admitted it to her face.
She forced her eyes open. He was still looking at her with the same hungry passion. His nostrils were flared. His eyes glittered in his tanned face. The kind of sexual teasing in which they’d been engaged went both ways; the man had to be just as turned on as she was. Testing her theory, she squeezed his arousal. His retaliation was devastatingly effective. His fingers pushed inside her and started stroking with a determined rhythm. At the same time, his other hand slid up under her shirt. She cried out as he gently pulled at her tender nipple, her whole body jerking forward and upward. She curled one leg around his. She was so close…right at the razor edge of pleasure…
“One more minute,” his voice was silky smooth, his breath teasing her ears. “Didn’t you say five minutes wouldn’t be enough?”
“No…” she protested, knowing instinctively what he was going to do. She pulled at his shirt fiercely. “Damn you…I know you’re him. Just…tell me.”
“I thought I’ve been showing you,” he mocked. “Thirty seconds. I don’t think you’re going to make it. Uh, uh, uh, no words…you’re going to waste these last twenty seconds.”
He nipped wickedly at her neck again, the slide of his fingers slowing down. She gurgled some helpless nonsense as he counted in her ear, dragging each number out. “Ten…nine…so wet…seven…six…”
She was getting faint from holding her breath. He had her so close to coming, her heart rate roaring like a freight train, her whole consciousness zeroing in on the silken glide that was moving in slow motion, a chaotic mixture of pleasure and panic. She whimpered, straining to reach…no, not yet…he stopped. For one frozen second, she stood at the knife’s edge of climax. Her breath whooshed out in total shock and disappointment.
“And one. I guess I’ll just have to show you more later.”
Her humiliation was complete as she stood there in helpless anger. She couldn’t believe he’d leave her in the lurch like this. Not like this! She watched silently as he adjusted her clothes. Zipped her pants back up. Released his hold of her.
He stepped back and unhurriedly licked his fingers, the sexual hunger in his eyes reflecting her own tumultuous feelings. Then, as if he turned a switch off, the look was gone. In its place was the cool, emotionless commando look she was beginning to recognize. How did he do that? The shuttered expression stopped every word hanging fiercely on her lips. She struggled to look equally unruffled, knowing damn well that was impossible with her mussed-up hair and smeared lipstick.
He ran his card through the security slot. The doors slid open. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Coming?”
***
“So what’s the decision?”
Jonah continued studying the menu, pretending an interest in different choices of main entrees. He hadn’t eaten out in ages and he wanted to eat everything. But he wasn’t stupid. He knew they weren’t giving him a treat because they felt sorry for him.
“We aren’t needed in Velesta. They have activated a cell.”
“Is that right…how interesting.”
“I think they don’t want to chance using another weapon.”
“We’d have fucking gotten the SEED if 51 here had been quicker locating the COS candidate.”
Jonah turned the page and stared blankly at the choices of desserts available. He should have known the fatter one would put the blame of losing the decoder on him. He wanted to say something to defend himself, wanted to point out that without him, they wouldn’t have known that the SEED was in Frankfurt, that he wasn’t the one who had failed to capture that remote viewer. In fact, he’d been the only one who had done everything right and had been quietly sitting inside the vehicle watching them fuck up. It wasn’t
his
fault that they couldn’t get inside a building themselves. Hell, those other agents did.
He frowned. He didn’t want to think about those moments when he was remote viewing that building. He didn’t want to remember the loss of his precious cache.
He snapped the menu shut. All his wonderful sex-filled recordings that he’d carefully collected and stored for his viewing enjoyment. They were his comfort in this stupid medical place. Now nothing to fill that empty void. Remote viewing was no fun without that serum. Just another fucking task to help these idiots get their reward. 51 go here. 51 look for that. What about his reward?
“So you’ve decided what you want to order, 51?”
“It’s Five-One,” he corrected with slow emphasis. If they were going to use him, they needed to at least call his special handle correctly. “It’s Five-One, not Fifty-One.”
He stared back at the man studying him. He heard the fat one snorting impatiently. The first agent put up his hand to stall his partner’s sarcastic remark.
“Of course, if it’s important to you,” the agent said mildly. “I didn’t know that’s the correct way to address you.”
Which told him that these two weren’t ever involved with the original CIA programs. There was a reason why the numbers were called out individually instead of as an entity. Five-One would have told a knowledgeable agent the division and experience. There were very few with the experience level he had and that was why it irritated him to be treated like a useless experiment by these assholes.