Desolation Road (Torpedo Ink 4)

He was asking his club to back off a little bit and give him room to maneuver. He mostly didn’t want to risk any of them. Scarlet Foley was a puzzle and he needed more pieces before he exposed any of his brothers or sisters to any danger she might bring. He knew they wouldn’t agree, but he was determined to find out any truths about her on his own, hopefully without using his gifts.

“Anything else then?” Ice asked. He looked around the table. “We’re good then. This meeting is officially over.”THREEAleksei hadn’t come back to the library for three days. Scarlet tried not to be upset or disappointed. She had to view it as a good thing. She had no business dreaming about being with a man, any man, let alone one like Aleksei. He was dangerous. She knew it the moment she’d touched him. That had been deliberate. She couldn’t help herself. He’d walked into the library and her entire world had changed.

She had sex with men because it was necessary. She needed certain skills and she had to pay her dues. She accepted that she had few choices and she used her body to get the abilities that were absolutely crucial to carry out her plan. She had devised that scheme step by step. It had taken those first three years of her life in prison to plan.

She had consulted some very risky people and paid very high prices to do so, but in the end, those risks had paid off. Each person had given her names and places she needed to go to train, and those instructors were the best. Her preparation had taken another five years of brutally physical nine- and ten-hour days, seven days a week, but she’d survived, and she’d learned. She’d become very, very good at what she needed to be.

She was lucky she had a fast learning curve. She’d told Aleksei the strict truth. Her brain just worked that way. She’d trained herself to be fast at reading and comprehending what she read. She loved books and she needed information, so it was easy enough to get it from books. She listened to conversations and she remembered every word, almost verbatim, and that added to the wealth of information she accumulated. She learned to be careful. To be quiet and stealthy. Most men looked at her and never saw beyond what she wanted them to see. She had a body and she used it to her advantage, dressing in clothes that showed her figure but made her look as if she couldn’t possibly move if she had to. No one ever seemed to suspect that a woman could wear clothing that was tight and yet concealed a multitude of weapons.

Aleksei had seen through her disguise almost immediately. She had no idea how she knew that, but she did. She had touched him and connected. Her body had immediately responded to his as if the chemistry between them had been designed just for that purpose. She’d never reacted to anyone no matter how hard they’d tried to get her to. She’d faked orgasms. She’d gotten really good at it, but she’d never had a real one. She’d gotten close just sitting at her desk there in the library staring at him. Fantasizing. That was a first for her.

He was a beautiful man. Really. He had broad shoulders and a really good physique. She’d been around a good many men who were all muscle and knew when a man was totally ripped even when totally dressed. Aleksei was. She knew dangerous, and Aleksei was beyond anything she’d encountered in that realm, although he always looked so casual, and that was what tipped her off. She’d been around dangerous, good-looking men before and not one of them had made her fantasize. He was in a league all his own.

Aleksei was also the real deal when it came to intelligence. Just the one little touch, that first time, had confirmed that his brain worked as fast as she saw him reading. Maybe she got off on what amounted to a brainiac. She paid attention to the books he was interested in—and his interests were very diversified. He had shocked her when he said he was a lawyer. She had a pretty good bullshit meter and he wasn’t lying to her.

She was twenty-seven years old and thought any life she had ever wanted for herself wasn’t a possibility. Not a single day. Not a single night. She didn’t feel sorry for herself. She had made her choices every step of the way and she hadn’t regretted a single one.

Scarlet was a deliberate thinker. She didn’t make rash decisions. Her mind worked quickly, much like a computer, but she definitely thought things over before she made her choices. Still, it had been over a year since she’d heard anything, even a rumor that she was hunted. Maybe she had a chance to have a normal life. She might not deserve it, but Aleksei made her want one for the first time.