“Whitney gave us an excellent education. He wanted intelligent soldiers capable of making quick decisions when we were cut off from our unit, but in doing that, he encouraged us to think for ourselves. It didn’t take long to realize our compound was a prison, not a home.”

She stepped onto the floor, acutely aware of Ken’s body heat seeping into her pores as his arm circled her waist to steady her. His scent enveloped her, clouding her mind for a moment, until all she could think about was the feel of his skin against hers. She wanted to push his shirt aside so she could examine the scars on his chest and down his belly . . .

“Stop. I’m not a saint, Mari.”

She kept her smile to herself. She liked the rough edge in his voice and the way his eyes, such a startling silver, darkened with such intense hunger whenever she thought about touching his body. “It doesn’t take much to get you going, does it?”

Ken swallowed his answer. It hadn’t taken much prior to his capture in the Congo, but he’d thought that part of his life was long gone. Mari had changed everything. His body was hard and full and one painful ache with just the slight brush of her soft skin against him. Nothing had gotten him revved up since his return from Africa, nothing and no one until Mari. Could pheromones possibly be that powerful? So powerful that he was not only sexually attracted, but emotionally drawn to her as well?

He walked her across the room without answering her. Just thinking about sex was enough to make him feel wild.

After a few minutes, Mari emerged from the bathroom pale, her body swaying. Ken didn’t wait for her to try to walk back to the bed. He swept her up, cradling her against his chest. For a moment she was stiff, holding her body away from his, resistance running through her.

“Don’t fight me. You’re as weak as a kitten right now. You can do push-ups tomorrow, but for right now, I’m putting you back in bed.”

She stared up at him with her big, dark eyes and her sinfully full lips and a look somewhere between an innocent and a temptress, and he knew he was lost. “Damn it all to hell,” he muttered, stalking across the room and placing her on the bed. “You can’t look at me like that, Mari.”

He bent down, framing her face, thumbs sliding over her soft skin once before he took possession of her mouth. He had thought—hoped—that that first kiss had been a fluke, but the moment he touched her lips, teasing and tugging with his teeth until she opened for him, he was in instant meltdown. He kissed her over and over, stealing her breath, giving her his own, drowning in need.

She was frying his brain. He couldn’t even think clearly, his head roaring, thunder in his ears, his heart pounding, and his body so hard and rigid, he rubbed his palm over the thick bulge desperate for relief. She had done that—made him come alive, feel like a man again. She’d given him back his life, and if he took what her dark gaze was offering, he might completely destroy hers.

Ken forced himself away from the edge of madness, jerking his hand away from her and stepping back to shove his fingers through his hair in agitation. His breath came in ragged gasps. He wanted her so much that for one moment he couldn’t think coherently, couldn’t think about anything but her soft skin and lush body. He took another step back. “This is crazy. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m thirsty.”

His gaze jumped to her face. “I’m doing my best to look out for you, Mari, and you’re not making it easy.”

“I’ll be good, but I really am thirsty.”

She sat up a little tentatively, and he leaned in to arrange her pillows. His arm brushed her breast, and he bit out a curse between clenched teeth. Ken poured water into a glass and shoved it at her, careful not to let their fingers touch.

She brought the glass to her lips, dragging his attention back to her mouth. He nearly groaned watching her throat work as she swallowed the water. He dragged a chair to the side of the bed and straddled it, leaning his arms on the top of the back and resting his chin on his hands. “You never wince or avert your eyes when you look at me.”

Mari pressed the glass against her temple. “Do people really do that?”

“Of course they do, look at me.”

“I have been looking at you.” Her gaze drifted over his face and dipped lower to follow the scars disappearing into his shirt. There was blatant interest in her eyes. “People are idiots.”

“God, woman, you’re not safe.” He took a breath, let it out, and forced his mind away from her sinful mouth. “Tell me about the compound. How could military personnel and, I’m guessing, lab techs be there and not realize what was going on?” She was too much of a temptation to him sitting there looking vulnerable and drowsy and eyeing him like he might be candy.

She shrugged, hiding her smile at his reaction to her. “The compound is multilayered and they rotate the soldiers coming in fairly often. From the outside, the place looks fairly innocuous. The ground layer has a few buildings, sheds, the airstrip, helicopter landing, that sort of thing, with high fences and a security system. The regular military guards stay aboveground and are housed in aboveground barracks. Most of the regular lab techs have their barracks above ground as well.”

“You live below ground?”

“We always have. Four floors down. There are two laboratories above us. The first one is for show. That’s where he takes men like Senator Freeman, and the techs on that floor sign contracts for six-month rotations. They never go below that level. We train on the fourth level and are airlifted to various outdoor sites, always under the eye of Whitney’s guards. The fourth level has all kinds of workout rooms and training modules and simulators.”

He listened for what she didn’t say, the information between the lines—the stark, cold existence of being raised by a man who thought of using a child only for experimentation. It was no wonder she was so close to the other women. They had only had one another as they grew up.

“And Sean? Where does he fit in?” Because he felt the affection in her mind when she thought of the man, and it made him a little crazy.

“In the last couple of years we trained with several men. Sean is one of them. They’re enhanced both psychically and physically. It was the first time Whitney ever allowed us to be around anyone else for prolonged periods of time. He even rotated our instructors so we wouldn’t get attached to anyone. At least, at first, that’s what I thought.”

“But now?”

She slid down beneath the sheet, unable to sit up straight any longer. “I think he was afraid someone would get attached to us and they’d tell us what was going on or try to help us leave. At the time he brought in the men for us to work with, he also brought in his own guards. They’re pretty aggressive and revved up all the time.” Her fingers plucked at the sheet, the only sign of nervousness she gave.

Ken reached out and covered her hand with his. “And Sean isn’t one of his guards?”

She frowned. “He wasn’t. He was part of our team. We worked well together and went on several assignments. He and a man named Rob Tate were the nicest, as well as being the best at what they did. Brett worked with us for a while.”

The mention of Brett made her wince inwardly. She hid it well, her face never changing expression, but he was touching her and her mind was open to his. She despised Brett.

“He’s the man responsible for those marks on your back.” Ken kept his face entirely expressionless, his tone neutral, but beneath his calm mask, adrenaline surged and ice-cold rage settled in the pit of his stomach.

“Everything changed when Whitney announced his breeding program. We were pulled from any assignments that took us outside the compound, and put in locked rooms. After that, life became unbearable.”

Her simple statement hung in the air between them. The walls rippled, and beneath them the floor shifted. Mari gasped and tugged at her hand. Ken glanced down. He was strangling her hand, crushing the fine bones as he made a tight fist. Instantly he loosened his hold and bent to examine the damage.

“I’m sorry, Mari.” He brushed little kisses over the back of her hand. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I usually keep my psychic and physical abilities under wraps.”

She rested her hand on the back of his neck, feeling the scars there, the beginnings of ridges that weren’t so precise as the smaller cuts crisscrossing his body. He rested his head in her lap, and she stroked soothing caresses along the nape of his neck and up into his jet-black hair. “Except for the hand-crushing bit, it’s nice to have someone angry on my behalf.” She flashed him a small, teasing smile.

No one had ever cared enough to be angry—not even the women until Whitney had started his breeding program. Their lives had been all they knew—some of it good, some of it bad, but they didn’t question how they lived or had been brought up. What was the use? She didn’t know how it felt to have someone concerned about her, but it gave her a warm glow inside she couldn’t describe.

“Ken, what happened to your back?”

There was a small silence. He started to shift out from under her hand, but she exerted pressure, holding him to her.

“Just tell me,” she prodded gently.

He didn’t want to tell her. The truth of it was, he couldn’t think about it, think about the wrenching agony that never seemed to end. He didn’t want to feel like those deer, swaying skinned on meat hooks at the senator’s hunting cabin. He didn’t want to hear the drone of flies, or the steady dripping of blood, or feel the hundreds of bites of insects that should have been nothing more than a nuisance in the middle of such an extreme torture, but at night, when he was alone, he remembered every vivid detail.

Her fingers tunneled in his hair and gripped as if gathering courage. “I don’t cooperate with Brett and he hates me for it. Whitney won’t let him mark my face, so he beats my back and legs with his belt and sometimes a cane. I still don’t cooperate, so he forces me when I’m too weak.” There was humiliation in her voice.

She didn’t understand why she told him—only that she had to.

Ken stiffened. He could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his chest. There was a roaring of protest in his head. It had cost her pride to tell him. He wanted to smash something and go on a killing spree, taking down Whitney and Brett and anyone else who helped perpetuate such a vile crime.

She held herself very still. She had given him something important of herself, and she was waiting for his reaction. He couldn’t tear down the walls and roar like a wounded animal. He had to give something equally important back.

“Ekabela had my skin peeled from my back. I guess they were a little tired of making all those nice clean cuts on my front and wanted to get it over with.”

She was silent a moment, her fingers massaging his neck and scalp. He hadn’t said a word about the pain or the fact that he couldn’t possibly have escaped a major infection being in the jungle. It was a wonder he was alive. And it made her even more curious about how far they’d gone with that knife.

“Come up here with me,” she finally said. “Sing to me. That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t have a single nightmare.”

Ken slid onto the bed, curling his body protectively around hers, his arms holding her close. He sang softly while she drifted off to sleep, and then he lay still, tears burning behind his eyes and his heart pounding loud and desperate in his chest.

Chapter 10

Mari slept on and off for the next two days, slowly gaining her strength back. Ken stayed with her most of the time, but she was free to move around the room, building up the muscles in her leg again. Ken did a workout with her, push-ups and sit-ups and rubbing her calf muscle for her. Each time she went to sleep, he was there, holding her close and singing softly to her. If anyone else entered the room, he would stop abruptly as if embarrassed, but when they were alone and she asked, he would sing. It made her feel as if there was a connection—an intimacy—between the two of them.