Predatory Game (GhostWalkers 6)

"At least two other teams that I know of for certain and then Whitney's guards. The men on the teams aren't your enemy, Jess. They're in the same situation you are. They're military and they run covert missions."

He nodded. "Keep going. What did you see when you went into his office?"

"He had a couple of files lying on his desk. One was a file on bionics."

Jess shifted, his eyes sharp and piercing. "What was the other file?"

"The senator and his wife. My targets. He had a picture of them circled with a red marker and the file was very thick."

The only sound was the flow of the jets and the clock ticking on the wall. Jess's gaze met hers. "Could you read the files?"

She nodded her head. "I did. I thought I'd wait for him to come back, so I positioned myself beneath his desk and spent the time reading. He didn't come back. Apparently he had locked the office and left the facility on other business."

"Saber." Jess studied her face, his eyes like that of a hawk, so intent they burned right through her--except that they were cold and distant. "Dr. Whitney's files are encrypted in numerical code."

Saber let her breath out slowly, a chill skittering down her spine, although she was sitting in hot water. "You don't believe me." She crossed her arms over her breasts, suddenly aware of her naked body. She had tossed the shirt aside, it was somewhere, but...She looked around a little helplessly.

"He changes the code all the time, but it's always numerical. Always."

Her chin lifted, and her teeth came together with a small snap, but she forced herself to breathe away her anger. How many times had she believed he was her enemy? Not after making love, but still. "It wasn't code, it was typed neatly in plain English and I lay under that desk for four hours reading both files."

"One of the reasons we have such a difficult time knowing what he's doing is because we have to decode everything on his computer. Lily knows him best, her brain even works in numerical patterns, but it's still time-consuming."

Okay, now her temper was kicking in. She smacked the surface of the water before she could stop herself, sending a plume right at his face.

The water stopped in midair, hung there, and dropped back into the Jacuzzi. There was a small silence while she just stared at him.

"Holy crap, Jesse." There was genuine awe in her voice. "Why couldn't I get to do something like that? That's just awesome."

"It isn't nearly as useful as you'd think. It takes too much concentration. If anything else had been going on I wouldn't have been able to do it."

"Besides being an anchor, you're a shielder too, aren't you?"

He raised an eyebrow. "We're getting a little off the subject, don't you think?"

She shrugged as casually as she could. "What's the point? I'm obviously not going to convince you, so anything I say is suspect, isn't it? Because, you know, it makes so much sense that Whitney sent an assassin to spy on you. That's not a waste of a serious weapon, is it?"

Jess could see the raw hurt in her eyes and no matter how hard he tried not to let it get to him, his heart was in serious jeopardy. He swore under his breath as he suddenly comprehended the implication of her question. "Saber, you're a shielder. That's why in all the months you lived here, I never felt a rise in energy." He hit his forehead with his hand. "How can you shield, but not anchor?"

She cleared her throat. "He said his masterpiece was flawed."

His fists closed and he kept his hands out of sight. It made more sense to him now, the way she could kill and not suffer immediate and severe repercussions. A shielder was rare. They could keep an entire team from detection. They could shield areas from weapons attacks for a short period of time. Whitney wouldn't want her dead. But if he thought she was flawed..."He'd want another one, to work with," Jess murmured aloud.

Saber's fingers curled around the edge of the Jacuzzi, as if she might bolt, but she remained where she was, looking smaller than usual, but her eyes were defiant and her chin looked stubborn and set.

Jess shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair again. "He sent you to me because he wants another one. He arranged for an opening at the radio station and waited for you to take the bait."

Saber shrugged. "You're not telling me anything we haven't already suspected."

"He has a breeding program, Saber. He wants babies. I'm a shielder and an anchor, and although you aren't an anchor, you are a shielder too. He knows we'll be physically attracted because when he was busy adding to our genetic code and bumping up our psychic abilities, he made certain of it. He's busy playing God again."

Beneath the bubbling water, Saber pressed a hand to her stomach as if feeling for a child. "I'm not certain what you're trying to say."

"I'm saying you're right, he wouldn't want to get you back, not without you being pregnant."

"He wants me to have a baby?"

"My baby. He wants you to have my baby. He has to be convinced that our traits are going to show up in the child, possibly stronger than in us."

She pressed her hand harder. "We didn't use protection, Jesse. I didn't even think about it. How totally irresponsible is that?"

She sounded so close to panic, Jess reached for her and pulled her back to him. "I thought about it, I just didn't care. If you have my baby, I'm fine with it."

Saber shook her head. "This is crazy. Do you see what he's done? He's taking away all our choices. I don't want to get pregnant and worry every second that he's going to take my child away from me."

"He's always going to be hovering around the edges of our lives, Saber. Whitney isn't going to go away because we want him to, no matter whether we're together or whether we choose to have children."

Jess wrapped his arms around her. She was trembling and he needed to comfort her even as he was telling her the truth as he saw it. "He's there, and he'll always be there until he's dead. And even after that there could be others working with him we don't even know about."

She let out a strangled gasp, and he nuzzled the top of her head.

"And that brings me back to the files in his office. Why would he plant something in his office for you to find when he knew he was sending you to me? Because if it wasn't coded, Saber, it was there for you to find and read. Whitney doesn't ever make amateur mistakes. He wanted you to read those files."

"On bionics? I could type it all out for you, every single detail in both files, but I have no idea why he would want to give me medical information."

"Unless he knew I was going to be having the operation and needed to get information to me."

"What are you saying, Jesse? That you think he was trying to help? And that would mean he knew months ago that you were going to have the operation. How would he know something like that?"

She sounded frightened and his heart lurched. She was beneath the water, her breas

ts floating invitingly, her eyes almost violet in her alarm. His hands slipped to her upper arms. "Come here, baby."

He wanted to hold her, comfort her, take the fear from her eyes and replace it with desire. He kissed the side of her neck, bit gently at her shoulder, slid his hand down her arm to try to bring her around in front of him.

Saber's blue eyes darkened. Heated. She moistened her lower lip. "Jess. We have to think about what we're doing here. We're caught in the middle of some giant spiderweb. I'm really afraid."

"Come here." He tugged on her arms to bring her closer.

This time she came to him, a little reluctant, but she moved to stand in front of him. Water pushed between them, the bubbles ferocious, fizzing against his skin, adding to the slow buildup of heat spreading through his body. Keeping her gaze captive, he pushed her legs apart and drew her over him, so she was straddling his lap. She braced herself, using her hands on his shoulders as he cupped her bottom to bring her over his body.

"I know you're afraid of Whitney, angel face, but in the end, only we matter. He's always going to be our bogeyman, but we can't let him stop us from leading our lives. That's our choice. We don't let him rule us or make us afraid to live life."

Her lips trembled and he leaned in to kiss her, capturing her bottom lip between his teeth and playfully nipping and tugging. All the while his hands cupped her bottom, massaging and kneading while the bubbles burst against her bare skin. She rocked her hips, back and forth, a deliberate or compulsive motion that rubbed over the broad head of his cock. Each time she slid over the sensitive head, his body jerked and hardened more.

Jess leaned forward and nibbled on her neck and then teased her earlobe. "I want you to sit on me, Saber, and wrap your legs around my waist." His voice was husky, almost hoarse. The need for her swept over him fast and furious, a vicious fist of lust that only seemed to build as he watched the bubbles fizz and break around her body. He kissed his way down her neck and the slope of her breast. Her body shuddered as he licked the side of her breast and traced the curve with his tongue.