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  “Adam. William.” Keel held up his hands, palms outward. “Please.” He gestured to the couch again. “Sit. I have some things to tell you I’ve tried to hide for your protection, but I can see the time has arrived to share.” He’d have to think fast on his feet. But his glib tongue had served him well before and would do its job now.

  The three men eyed him but sat. He tried not to wince at Loren perched on the delicate armrest of the sofa, one leg balanced on the coffee table. Ignore it,he told himself. The ill-bred girl doesn’t know what a Le Corbusier is.

  “William, I never wanted to tell you this, but after Rowan’s birth, Diane came to me. She was terribly upset at your reaction and begged me to help. I was the one who sent you on that mission close to the birth. According to protocol, you should’ve had at least a month off of missions, but I put you on rotation.”

  “I’d wondered at that,” William mused.

  “Yes, well…Diane was desperate. She didn’t think the Program or you would ever accept a seriously disabled son and thought her best option was to escape. I helped her gather enough money and find a place to live. I promised to keep her location a secret.”

  “Hey, I’m not seriously disabled.”

  Adam stayed Rowan’s protest with an arm gesture. “Why would you do such a thing? Your loyalty should’ve been to my dad and the Program. By sending her away, you potentially lost me, a future generation,” he said, a harsh tone coloring his words.

  “True, but I kept tabs on you. I knew you’d be welcomed back here, and you were.”

  Keel saw Adam, Rowan and William carry on a silent conversation with their eyes. They could keep asking questions, but without Diane’s presence, they could tag nothing on him directly. His version of past events was the only one they’d be hearing today.

  “What about the money?” Rowan asked.

  “Money?” Keel repeated, then took a sip of the cold drink.

  “We were always one step from living on the streets,” Adam said. “Dad says he deposited money in a bank account for me and you were the custodian. If that’s true, why were we poor?”

  He lowered the glass to the coaster and took the time to calm his nerves. “I don’t know. I promise you I forced Diane to take the money. Even though she wanted a clean break from the Program, I told her to take it for your sake.” At least that’s how he’d justified his decision to drain the bank account monthly. He knew Diane wouldn’t have accepted the money from William. It would’ve just sat in a bank account if he hadn’t reinvested it.

  “Then where the hell did it go?” Rowan asked.

  He shrugged. “I promise you I gave it to her monthly. What she did with it, I don’t know. Maybe there are savings accounts you don’t know about. Or maybe she hid it under her mattress. After all, she died when you were both teenagers. Neither of you had the wherewithal to investigate her finances.” He prayed his rational tone would soothe the Blackers’ ire. The look on Adam’s face said he’d buy it for now, but he’d be investigating. It would do him no good. Paulson’s money would come through and he’d be long gone, out of reach of the Program.

  “Did you pass on my letter?” William asked, a note of desperation creeping into his tone. “I always felt if she only would read my letter, she’d come home to me.”

  Of course he hadn’t handed the letter over to Diane. The two sentimental fools would’ve gone running back to each other if he hadn’t burned William’s letter and sat on Diane’s request to meet her husband at a local diner.

  He injected a note of apology and empathy into his lie. “I’m sorry. The note didn’t sway her. I never gave her location to you, because she made me promise, and I couldn’t betray her trust.”

  When William looked down on the floor to hide tears, Loren stood. “I think we’ve bothered you enough for one afternoon. If we think of anything else, we’ll call.” She tugged on Adam’s hand and the two other men followed the couple to the door. All three Blacker men looked a little wounded and sad thinking of the past. At the doorway, William stopped and said to Keel in a choked voice, “Thank you, Jonathan for looking after my family.”

  Keel shut the door behind them with a snick and stared out the window until their figures disappeared over the hill. He continued staring, lost in his memories of the past. Diane had come to him, desperate. She didn’t care about the baby’s flaw, but she worried what the Program might make her do to the baby. He’d calmed her but told her the baby would never fit in, never be part of the team. In truth, he wanted her to take the baby off campus. Allowing one imperfection to join the ranks would have lowered the standards for the entire unit.

  He’d worked too long to build the Program into an elite fighting machine. After Julia had left, his whole life was wrapped in the formation of young boys into assassins, the military elite. A one-armed soldier would’ve been an abomination and insult to the rest of the excellent boys.

  He’d found Diane a home and helped her put a down payment on it. He’d burned William’s notes and kept silent when Diane pleaded to meet with William to settle things between them. It had been easy to lie and tell her William wanted nothing to do with a runaway wife and a deformed son.

  William’s monthly checks to his family had made his own life more comfortable, and any guilt he harbored about his petty theft was assuaged when Adam joined the Program at age fifteen and had seemed to hold no ill effects of poverty.

  What had happened today? Why had Adam brought Rowan to the compound after all these years? Ms. Stanton must have something to do with it. Like mother, like daughter, always believing the best in people and a fighter for truth, justice and all that garbage. If Julia had really been the angel she made herself out to be, she would have stayed with him and not run off with Robert Stanton.

  A sigh escaped him. The sooner he delivered a live soldier to Paulson, the sooner he could leave Beltsville a half million dollars richer. And life would be all the better.

  *

  “I’m sorry.” Loren slipped her hand into Adam’s as they strolled away from Keel’s house. Rowan and William walked ahead to catch up on twenty-seven years of history.

  “About what?” Adam turned to her, bitterness and grief written in the bracketed lines on his face. “I’m the one who should be sorry. God, how can you stand there holding my hand now that you know what kind of person I am?”

  “Because people make mistakes and you were man enough today to correct yours. It couldn’t have been easy,” Loren said.

  “I’m a liar. And not a little lie, but a big, fucking lie. I told my father his son was dead, for Christ’s sake.” Adam shook his head and turned his face away from hers.

  Oh no, Loren wasn’t letting him go all I-am-an-island on her. She stepped around him until her nose was a scant five inches from his chin. “Yeah, it was a shitty thing to do. How old were you again?”

  “Fifteen,” Adam mumbled. “But…”

  “And why did you lie?” Loren asked.

  “I thought I was protecting my mom.”

  “Right,” she said, satisfied.

  “But that’s the easy out. That’s why I told the lie in the beginning, but I kept it going for my own personal gain. I never told Rowan about Dad or my job, because he’d want to be included. And how could he be?”

  At that Loren frowned. “Why couldn’t he live on campus and be part of the Program?” She quailed a bit at his heavy-handed stare but held her ground. “Are you talking about his missing arm? Well, that’s understandable, you were protecting him.”

  “I wasn’t protecting him,” he said, and then in a quiet voice, so soft Loren wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly, “I was ashamed of him.”

  He yanked away from the hold she had on his arm and stalked away a few feet.

  Understanding and sympathy put tears in Loren’s eyes. Poor Adam and poor Rowan, but most of all, poor William. He’d lost his wife and his son over misunderstandings and bad communication.

  She let Adam sulk for a minute more
then stepped behind him and gently rubbed his lower back with her right palm. She wrapped her left arm around his waist and gave him a tight hug, feeding support and empathy into his body from her heart.

  For a minute he stood, still as a statue, but then his arms wrapped around her and he pulled her in tighter. Despite the sexual heat they usually invoked when they touched, this hug was acceptance, healing, and held an element of a deeper, more elusive emotion. Loren pressed her cheek into Adam’s chest and held on tight. When she turned to smile up at him, she found him already looking down at her, a serious expression on his face.

  Slowly, by inches, they leaned into each other and their lips met in a benediction, a kiss so warm and tender it brought tears to her eyes. The past was an inferno, quick to blaze. This kiss burned steady and lasting as an eternal flame.

  “Loren.” A whisper and a smile that warmed her soul.

  Her natural response was to rise on tiptoes to nibble at his lips, turning the gentle, loving kiss into much more. She’d never felt such a connection to another person. Sexual attraction aside, Adam’s intelligence and protective nature meshed with her. As if they were two halves of a zipper finally matching up.

  Scorching flames licked at the inside of Loren’s belly and pooled lower, turning her lower body into a hotbed of desire as the kiss deepened. Adam’s tall frame pressed up tightly against hers and every bit of her ached for him. The earlier kiss in the car only whetted her appetite for more. Determination fueled by passion had them clasping hands and strolling back to his apartment. Their arms and hips brushed with every step they took, ramping up her excitement and anticipation. After being apart for days, they would finally make love out of desire and friendship and not because she was high from some stupid bottle of water.

  “Are we really going to do this?” she asked, glancing back at him as he smiled down at her.

  “I will gut anyone who tries to stop us,” Adam replied with determination etched on his face.

  The minute Adam shut the door behind them, the inferno raged out of control. They tore off pieces of clothing in between open-mouthed kisses, tongues dueling. He wasted no time unzipping his pants and lowering them to his knees. Loren reached for him to continue the kiss, but he surprised her by turning her around and pushing her gently down onto the bed. Her hardened nipples rubbed against the rough army-issue sheets and she whimpered at the contact.

  “Touch yourself,” Adam said.

  What? Touch herself? She was close to orgasm, she’d finish all by herself if he didn’t get on her soon.

  “Get that sexy ass in the air and put a finger in.”

  Oh God, she nearly came hearing those words out of his lips. If any other man tried to order her around like that, she’d be out of there. But this was Adam. Adam who made her pant, even as he drove her crazy with his silences. Something deep in her DNA clicked at the command in his voice and she melted, helpless not to respond.

  Her fingers were on autopilot, or seemingly under the command of a remote control held by Adam. She raised her hips and belly off the bed and rubbed circles around her clit until she was moaning and begging for him.

  “I’m too close. I need you ready for me. If I touch you, it’s over.” His gaze burned an imprint on her psyche. “You need to get your body ready for me.”

  “I’m ready, I swear. Please.” She begged like she’d begged for nothing before in her life. Despite this surrender, who knew where this was going? They’d made no promises to each other, and this could be her last chance to hold him in her arms, cradle him deep in her body. “Please.”

  Her words broke some restraint in Adam, because before she could catch her next breath or even remove her finger from her clitoris, he was on her. He spread her butt cheeks apart and slid himself into her warm, welcoming sheath. Loren bit her lip as he filled her entirely. She took deep breaths in time with Adam’s shallow strokes. A sense of completeness, like nothing she’d ever experienced, filled her. It was much more than the simple act of her body merging with Adam’s.

  “Are you okay? Do you need a second?”

  His concern warmed her, but she could hear the desperation in his tone and feel every muscle in his body pulled taut.

  “No, stay. I’m good. Excellent, in fact.” Her sentence ended on a purr as he pulled back and thrust forward again. His movement sent her clitoris pushing against the fingers still wedged between her body and the mattress. She moved her fingers in time with his strokes, loving the strong grip he had on her hips. Pleasure rocked her and centered on her core. She came with a cry and a whimper and Adam followed her shortly. He collapsed on top of her, their sticky bodies glued chest to back.

  When he rolled off her and onto his back, Loren rolled onto her side and settled in the crook of his arm, head on his shoulder. “Mmm,” she murmured. It was over too soon, like a volcano erupting or a pot boiling. They’d been simmering for days, and the heat had finally been turned up all the way.

  “I’m sorry.” Adam stared at the ceiling.

  Fear gripped Loren’s heart and she rose onto her elbow. Was he experiencing regrets? “Sorry? Are you going to tell me you didn’t mean to give me a mind-blowing orgasm and now you’re going to run from me? Again.”

  Adam yanked her back down for a searing kiss.

  “I’m sorry that I was damn quick. I kind of…lost control.”

  “Well, don’t apologize. I hope you lose control like that more,” she reassured him. “I haven’t come like that, well, ever.” She rubbed her fingertips along Adam’s chest, admiring his well-formed body and taking deep breaths to steady her. If Adam was anything like most men, he’d soon be snoring, and she’d be free to admire his abdominals and penis, which lay still semi-hard along his thigh.

  But he was a whole different animal than any other man she’d been with. She yelped as he suddenly pressed her back into the pillows and crawled down her body, a destination clear in his mind.

  “Best orgasm ever, huh? I’m not sure I believe you,” he said, a glint sparking in his eyes. “I think I missed a few spots, and they definitely need my attention.” He stood and shucked his pants all the way off, dumping them in a heap on the floor. As if she was a magnet for his body, he was back on her before she could feel cold.

  Yep, they had definitely missed a few steps along the way. “Lucky for you, I’m very detail-oriented,” she said with a laugh. Her hands hiked Adam’s t-shirt up over his head and ran up his abs and chest. His skin warmed her palms as his firm muscles twitched and flexed at her touch. She grinned as he smiled at her eagerness, but amusement turned to pure, unadulterated desire as he lowered his head and latched on to her nipple through her bra. Her t-shirt had been one of the first things to go upon entering the room.

  The seriousness on his face and the concentration he gave to his oral activities jumpstarted her heart. She let her head fall back as he licked his way down her belly and bit her hipbone gently. Bliss washed over her as he buried his head between her legs and let his tongue do some serious licking. Little tremors hinted that her body was close to orgasm again, and she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and tugged him back up her body so she could kiss him. Soft moans escaped the back of her throat when he took advantage of her position to rub the damp folds of her vagina. When he inserted one finger inside her and circled it around, she closed her eyes and buried her face in the crook of his neck.

  Mmm. His skin glistened and smelled of his arousal and other more mysterious spices. She’d heard of pheromones and damn if he wasn’t the best-smelling male in the world. She rubbed her nose against the rough stubble of his cheeks and neck, almost purring like a cat.

  He laid her out on the bed and wasted no time in getting their bodies glued skin to skin again. Loren opened her thighs and cradled his hips to welcome him. No lover had ever made her feel more of a woman. Her strength and intelligence rarely led to an easy, deep connection with other men. They were always trying to assert dominance or go too far the opposite way and
cater to her every whim. Adam didn’t have to try to do anything. He simply was, and what he was, was perfect for her.

  “Hurry.” Loren took him in hand and guided him to her damp entrance. Adam groaned when he breached her briefly. She was hotter than fire and sweeter than a jar of honey. Tasted like it too. Her unique taste lingered on his tongue. Conflict warred in him over how to pleasure her. He was so caught up in his decision making, he nearly missed her next words.

  “Wait. I think we need to use a condom. With everything that’s been going on, I’ve missed a dose or two of my pill.” Loren looked up at him, uncertainty on her face.

  He smiled at her but felt a reaction he never ever imagined he’d have. Disappointment. His DNA screamed for him to plant his seed deep inside her, and her request to use a condom was a slap in its face. And yet, panic raced through him. They’d just had sex without a condom. Fuck. The same old fears about having severely disabled children reared their ugly head. Nope. No babies, not ever.

  Why then, was he tempted to ignore every flashing warning light going off in his head, flip her over again and bury himself in her for the next few months until her belly was round from his sperm? Because it was Loren, his match and the woman who fit him like no other. After all the emotional events of the day, she was becoming much more to him than a gorgeous body. She was becoming a friend, one who deserved his consideration. One in four were terrible odds to put someone he cared about through.

  He took a deep breath and reached for the nightstand drawer next to his bed. It was empty other than a book and his media player. Dammit. He sat up and looked in the recesses of the drawer. No condoms.

  “Hang on.” He stood and his feet ate up the floor in his haste to get to the bathroom and find condoms in the medicine chest. Please, Lord let there be some. “Hallelujah,” he muttered when he spied the black Trojan box wedged between the Neosporin and Band-Aids. He grabbed the whole box and rushed back into the bedroom to see Loren on her back, fondling her breasts. Her long honey curls fanned out in disarray on the pillow behind her. He’d never been jealous of another’s hands before, but he wanted to be the one rubbing and caressing those sweet breasts.