by Michael Todd
“Look, if you want to get into bed with Sal, I have no problem with that,” Kennedy said. “Although you should probably challenge him to something of a fuck-off first. I can tell you something, there aren’t many people out there who can handle him. If you can’t, maybe he’s too much man for you.”
Monroe narrowed her eyes. “Come on, guys can’t outlast women, that’s a scientific fact. Except maybe Arnold in his youth.” She pronounced the former body builder's name in his native Austrian accent.
“Scientific fact, eh?” Her companion leaned forward with a smirk. “How many times have you had the chance to put that fact to the test?”
“Oh…” Courtney hedged as she hadn’t expected that question. Madigan had been candid with her, though, and she didn’t want to take that away from her. “Well, no specifics, but it’s been more than one and less than twenty.”
She felt her stomach drop when Kennedy leaned back again and looked skeptical.
“Well, if it’s a fuck-off,” she said to move the conversation forward quickly, “forewarned is forearmed, so thanks for that. I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve that’ll guarantee me the victory.”
Madigan opened her mouth to reply but shut it quickly when Sal arrived and moved toward their table. Even in the dim lights of the bar, they could see that his eyes were bleary and he looked tired, which meant that he hadn’t felt at all inspired by what he’d worked on. Which explained why he was there so early as opposed to not at all.
“How was the whitepaper?” she asked.
“Well, it was an incomplete that they wanted me to finish,” Sal said. “So of course, I had to edit the whole damn thing, and of course, it was riddled with errors. After all that edit work, I didn’t feel like putting too much effort into it. I finished it off without any flourishes and came here. Fuck, I need a drink.”
Madigan waved her hand to the bartender, who nodded, filled up a pint of lager, and handed it to one of the waitresses to carry to the table. Madigan winked at Courtney as she took the glass and handed it to Sal.
He drank quickly, and even Madigan raised her eyebrows as she called for another. Sal attacked that one as well, then accepted the third with a little more civility.
“That bad, huh?” Madigan asked.
“Oh yeah,” he replied. “I mean, I know that the Zoo has defied all logic and even laws of physics, but I’ll believe that there’s a fucking T-Rex when I fucking see one.”
“But there are legitimate dinosaurs walking around out there,” Courtney said.
“Like I said, laws of physics out the window,” Sal said and raised his hands. “But the big critters that we ran into are not DNA replicas of the fossils that we’ve encountered before, and I doubt that the goop has watched Jurassic Park to replicate it.”
Madigan raised her eyebrows when she saw that he had already finished his third beer. It wasn’t like him to drink and certainly not this much, and like before, it didn’t seem that what he’d consumed had even mildly affected him. She didn’t doubt that it would but pounding that much alcohol usually ended up with a man on his face to sleep it off prematurely.
“I think you need something stronger,” she said, waved the waitress over, and ordered a boilermaker.
Sal nodded his approval of the choice, which made Madigan even more suspicious.
“Yeah, I have to agree,” Courtney said after a sip of her diet Coke. “I mean, the big guys are definitely large reptiles, which makes them dinosaurs, but at the same time, they don’t follow any kind of genetic code that we know of. We do know that the goop is able to take away from and mix and match the DNA of different animals. Whether the dino stuff merely makes the reptiles that the goop has been exposed to bigger, or if maybe there were a couple of fossils that it could draw from, or if the DNA is actually from wherever the goop came from… Well, we can’t be sure.”
“Well, all this geek talk is my invitation to exit,” Kennedy said with a laugh. “We can do all the suit business tomorrow once you’ve got this out of your systems.” She gesticulated to the two of them. “Sergeant Kennedy out.” She headed toward the bar to pay her part of the tab but paused when Sal was distracted by the waitress who arrived with his drink.
“Have at him, tiger,” she whispered, leaned toward Courtney, and patted her on the shoulder.
Monroe looked almost shocked for a moment before she realized what Madigan meant and felt something cold and full of anticipation stir in the pit of her stomach as she turned to him. He had already poured the shot of whiskey into the pint glass.
“Are you sure that you should drink that much?” she asked, suddenly not sure how to even begin to seduce the man of her dreams.
Sal looked up and smiled. “Believe me when I say that I’ve earned it. The T-Rex was one of the more believable items of the whitepaper they sent me. I swear, the guy in charge of writing this shit up must have been fired from the job.”
She smirked. “I think we’ve all been there. Those people who want fame more than recognition will jump at anything to get their names on some big headlines and hope for a movie or book deal to come along because of it.”
He nodded and took a long sip from the pint glass. After a few seconds, he straightened and shook his head with a laugh. “Come to think of it, maybe you’re right. I might be going at this a bit too quickly.”
“Hey, if you need to unwind, you need to unwind.” She chuckled. “Although, if you’re in the mood to unwind in ways that don’t kill your brain cells and attack your liver, I think I might have a couple ideas.”
Sal leaned forward curiously. “Oh? What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I’ve been told that you like stamina-testing sex marathons,” she said. “A fuck-off,” she added quickly when his eyes widened.
He wasn’t sure how to respond to that and immediately wondered where she’d gotten the idea from. He turned quickly as Madigan slipped out the door without looking back. She couldn’t have…
Then again, putting Courtney up to something like this did seem like the kind of thing that she was capable of, now that he thought about it. It wasn’t something that she would become known for, but it was the kind of stunt she would pull to keep him on his toes with her. Now, he simply had to figure out whether she wanted him to decline the offer or not.
Maybe it was the alcohol, but he wasn’t in any mood to play games. If she wanted him to be monogamous, she would have told him. That was the kind of woman she was.
He turned to Monroe, and a smile teased his lips before he took another long sip from his drink. “Let me finish this and we can get started on our stamina-testing sex marathon.”
She blushed furiously and looked around to make sure nobody had heard him say that. Thankfully, enough people were drunkenly loud to mask what he’d said from anyone even close by.
It didn’t take him long to finish the drink, and they paid their bill before they stepped outside.
“Your place or mine?” Sal asked without even the slightest hint of a slur.
Courtney thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t that prolific, but she knew enough to make an informed decision.
“My place,” she said. “Definitely mine.”
She gasped for breath and could half believe that her eyes actually bulged out of her face as she dropped back down to the bed.
Breathe. Just keep breathing. That was the key.
“Are you ready to give up?” Sal asked as he tilted his head in a challenge and grinned. He was sweating, but he still looked like he could go for a while yet.
She shook her head in answer to his question, not ready to talk yet. To distract him, she grabbed his wrists and pushed his hands against her breasts. He kneaded them gently. The sensation as his rough, callused palms rubbed against her nipples didn’t help with the low, needy ache from where she could still feel him filling her.
“It’s not possible,” Courtney finally managed to gasp. “I’m a scientist, and I say that nine times is not scientifica
lly possible.”
“Well, you know that the Zoo has all kinds of ways to flip off the laws of science,” Sal retorted with a grin. He leaned forward to press a kiss to her lips. “Besides, my current record is twelve times, and I still think that I could have gone for a few more.”
She gaped at him, but her competitive streak flared. Twelve times? It had to have been with Madigan, she realized. She had been the one to set this up.
“That bitch,” she breathed.
“What?” Sal asked. He gripped her nipples between his fore and middle fingers and tugged them gently in a way that made the wet ache in her pussy harder to resist.
“Nothing,” she growled. “Fuck it, I don’t think I have it in me to go to twelve, but I think I can make double digits at least.”
“Your call,” he said with a grin and kissed her neck as his hips pumped in and out of her again.
“Fuck, yes…” she whispered, her teeth gritted as she held him close to her.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Morning had arrived, and she wasn’t insanely hungover and in need of coffee-based medication to keep her from murdering anyone who so much as looked at her wrong.
She was getting old, Madigan realized.
At least she made up for it by being at the bar for breakfast and sipped some coffee infused with Irish whiskey. The coffee there was better than anywhere else in the Staging Area, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t make it interesting. She smirked, took a sip, and picked at the grilled cheese she’d asked them to make for her breakfast. The drinks were great. The food was greasy and strictly comfort-based. It was good for when her head pounded, and she needed something to take the edge off of that and an upset stomach. Right now, though, it wasn’t that appealing.
What did appeal, she decided, was who had strolled in through the door. There were customers there even in the morning, so that wasn’t a surprise. People kept all kinds of hours around there, but right now, this was their slow time.
Which meant that when Courtney stepped into the bar, she easily became the focus of Madigan’s attention. The way that she alternated between a stagger and a shuffle revealed all too clearly that she had gotten lucky the night before—although luck was subjective in this case. She’d obviously taken Madigan’s advice, but challenging Sal to a fuck-off did have its consequences.
Monroe sat across from Madigan and glared at her. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped as a tired-looking waitress came over to their table.
“What can I get ya, honey?” the woman asked in a practiced tone.
Madigan answered for her. “We’ll need coffee. Lots of it. Just…bring a pot and a mug. Plus, as much protein as you can get on a plate for her.”
The waitress nodded, apparently unfazed by what had to be a common order around there, and headed back toward the kitchen.
“You…bitch,” Courtney accused as soon as the waitress was out of earshot.
Kennedy chuckled softly. “I don’t exaggerate, Courtney. Best you get used to that. Now that we have him, how do we make sure other women don’t? I mean, it seems like you took the workout pretty well, so I see that I made a good choice.”
“Are you kidding me?” her companion asked. “He’s a fucking machine.” Madigan smirked at the pun. “I’ll be sore for a week, and that is even though I had to alternate between my mouth and my pussy after round five.”
A pause ensued as the waitress returned with a pot of coffee, a mug, and a plate full of bacon and eggs heaped on a thick steak. It looked greasy and delicious, and Monroe immediately attacked a piece of bacon.
“And twelve times?” she asked, speaking with her mouth half full of bacon. “What do you have, titanium labia?”
Madigan laughed. “Honestly, I was ready to throw the towel in at nine, but he had this cocky smile that I wanted to fuck right off his face. I didn’t succeed, but it was an honest attempt. How many times did you go?”
“Ten,” Courtney admitted. “But that’s only because he said that he’d gone twelve times with you recently, so I had to get it up to double digits at least.”
“Alternating though?” Kennedy stole a strip of bacon from Courtney’s plate. “That’s cheating.”
“Believe me, it was necessary,” the specialist growled. “My jaw still hurts a little too. I mean, I’ve only ever been with two guys before, so my experience is thin, but there’s something that tells me that there’s nothing natural about it. He has to be unique in the fuck-me-blind ability.”
Madigan nodded and sipped her coffee thoughtfully before she responded. “I’ve been around enough to have had a decent control group. Even Arnold couldn’t compete.”
Sal stepped out of the shower. There wasn’t an extra towel for him to use, and he didn’t want to try out the razor that he’d found in the stall. He would need to head home to complete his morning ritual.
For now, though, he took advantage of the still slightly damp towel that Courtney had left behind to dry himself before he stepped out. He had made sure that he was alone in the apartment before he took a shower. Well, it wasn’t like he had anything to hide from anyone who might arrive. He’d simply assumed that Courtney didn’t expect any visitors.
He kept her towel wrapped around his waist to be safe as he returned to her bedroom where his clothes had been discarded the night before. He’d taken them off fairly early in the evening. Well, Courtney had, anyway, but the point remained. They were still clean enough to wear, at least to get back home.
There was, however, a matter he needed to consider. He was now in a physical relationship with the other two founding members of Heavy Metal. That wasn’t a simple situation. He wasn’t great with women. Hell, he hadn’t even been in a physical relationship with anyone but himself before he was shipped out there, so he knew less about it than most.
“I’m so fucked,” Sal growled, shaking his head. “Then again, they have been fairly intense relationships, so if I go out with a shot in the back in the Zoo, it’ll be with a smile on my face.”
That was assuming he would have a face left, of course.
He fucking talked to himself again, he thought with a shake of the head. Maybe this was another sign of taking that goop in raw—going crazy. That he’d hooked up with two different women, both of whom had ready access to guns, was another sign that he was borderline fucking nuts.
It had been worth it, though. He grinned and nodded before he pulled his shirt on over his head. Still, his bravado about how Madigan would feel about him with Courtney had faded along with the alcohol. He didn’t look forward to talking to her about it.
He looked down as he pulled his pants on.
“You had better be happy with those two and not get me in trouble with a third, or the next time we go out into that fucking jungle, we may not make it back out,” he growled as he buttoned himself up.
And he had talked to his dick now, huh? Insanity definitely loomed.
Anderson dragged himself out of bed and rubbed at his eyes as he looked out the window. What kind of work base didn’t have a steady supply of coffee, anyway?
Well, they did have a steady supply. The people who worked on the wall there were required to be functional and sharp enough to handle heavy equipment at all hours of the day or night, so that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that the supplies were all shipped in from that cesspool of capitalism that was the Staging Area every week. Since the whole operation was required to be one hundred percent under wraps, the supplies had to match the number of people who were supposed to work there, which excluded the black-ops team that tested new combat armor suits. Add that to the extra personnel who were brought in, and supplies were running out, fast.
And since scientists and engineers needed obscene amounts of coffee to maintain their work habits, it was no surprise that coffee was the first thing to run out.
Thankfully, the sun now rose on day five of this debacle, and that was the last one that they were paid for. If the suits
weren’t ready by now, the plug would be pulled, and hopefully, someone else would be called in to handle round two of testing these pieces of high-tech crap.
As he stepped out of the little hut that he’d called home over the past week or so, he saw that the open ground in the construction site had been put to good use.
Finally.
The new pilots weren’t of the same cut as the special forces that Anderson had worked with. They were harder and tougher—hard-core black-ops operatives. They might have had the likes of SAS, French Foreign Legion, SEAL, and Green Beret attached to their credentials, but they had been out of it for almost a decade. Since then, they’d worked with security companies and ran the operations that even the US black-ops teams were afraid to implement.
The message was clear. After the previous bungle, Pegasus didn’t want anyone associated with the military involved in what they did there.
The suits looked bulkier than before, and yet Anderson could see that the movements were smoother and easier and lacked the lag that he’d noted in the previous test runs. The weapons were new too, and not the bottom-of-the-basement stuff that the military liked to use. It was all new, high-tech, and top-of-the-line stuff.
It was a pity that it took the death of a good man to introduce all these improvements.
One of the team—the one out of the suit who oversaw the dry runs—turned when he noticed that Anderson watched their training.
“Colonel.” His profile had called him Iver Corran, former SAS and one of the more highly recommended operatives among the new arrivals. “The engineers finished their work last night, so we’ve taken the opportunity to bring the new and improved suits out for a little fresh air.”