Conspiracy Game

by Christine Feehan

  Jack felt her trembling. Felt her pain. It got to him as few things could. He had the mad desire to snatch her up into his arms and carry her back to the house. "Let's go up to the house where it's a little warmer."

  "Not yet." She couldn't move. As long as she stayed where she was, separating herself from her family wasn't a reality. She couldn't breathe, panic setting in, her throat closing down, stopping her air until she was choking, fighting just to stay alive. She was alone.

  "Breathe." Jack's hand came up, fingers curling around the nape of her neck, massaging gently.

  "I can't." She took a step after her brother.

  "Sure you can; you're just having a little panic attack. Let out your air and draw it back into your lungs." Deliberately he turned her around to face him, to keep her from staring at the spot where her brother had disappeared. Placing her hand on his chest, he took a deep breath, willing her to follow his lead, capturing her gaze with his own. "That's it. You're fine. They won't take our baby from us, Briony. I may not be the best man in the world, or the easiest to live with, but I take care of my own."

  Briony stared up at him, looking more vulnerable and forlorn than she could possibly know. Jack wrapped his arms around her and held her, offering the only comfort he knew how to give. He wasn't a man of words; he never had been. Everything he said to her seemed to come out wrong.

  She leaned her forehead against his chest. "I'm afraid. I don't think I've ever been this afraid before--not even in the Congo."

  "Of me or of Whitney?" His fingers tunneled into her hair because he couldn't help himself. Her scent was impossibly feminine, a mixture of flowers and rain and the outdoors. She was made for candlelit dinners and satin sheets, not for the end of the world out in the middle of the Montana wilderness.

  "I don't know," Briony said honestly.

  "I'll get you through this," he said. "I give you my word." She wouldn't know that he'd never quit once he gave his word, or that he'd die to protect his unborn child and its mother. He didn't want to examine his reaction to Briony too closely. It didn't feel right thinking she was part of an experiment and they were both no more than puppets on a stage, but he couldn't stop his tremendous physical attraction to her, or even the way he responded emotionally.

  The trembling in her body slowed and she lifted her head, determination on her face. "I hesitated to come here, not only because of what happened between us, but because I knew I'd be putting you in danger. I can only apologize for that, but I knew that as the baby grew, I wouldn't be able to defend myself. If you don't want to do this, now's the time to say so. I can still catch my brother and you'll be out of it, free and clear."

  A faint smile touched his mouth, but didn't reach his eyes. "I warned you I wasn't going to give you up twice. You're here. We'll work things out."

  "I'm here so you can protect us. So I can learn survival skills, no other reason. You made it very clear to me that you weren't a man who wanted a woman or a kid around--that I was a liability. Now that we both know the attraction was forced on us for breeding purposes..."

  "What?"

  "Didn't I tell you that part? Whitney apparently wants a supersoldier, our baby. He's been trying to manipulate us to be in the same place at the same time. I was supposed to go to Colombia when you were there, but didn't, so he paid the music festival a great deal of money to arrange for us to be there. Once we met, whatever he did to make us attracted physically was supposed to do the rest."

  "Son of a bitch."

  "Luther said they wanted the baby and they wanted me for their continuing breeding program. He was willing to be the donor, so you may very well be expendable."

  "I thought you were on birth control pills."

  "So did I. Whitney supplied all of my medical care, and it was Dr. Sparks who gave me the birth control pills. They were mailed to me like clockwork. The file said they were placebos. I'm sorry, but I didn't know, and now we're in this situation, we both just are going to have to deal with it. Now that I know it's just sex, we both can guard against any entanglements."

  For one brief moment, amusement flared in his eyes. "We can?"

  "Yes." Briony drew away from him, suddenly aware of being naked beneath his shirt--and he was aware of it too. She could see the knowledge in his eyes. She shivered. "I don't have any clothes."

  "I have some things you can wear, and tomorrow I'll go into town and get you a few things to tide you over until you can make me a list."

  "Make you a list?" she echoed. "I'm capable of shopping for myself. I have money."

  "I don't want you seen in town unless we have to go for the baby. And are you talking credit cards, or cash?"

  "I brought plenty of cash. It's in my purse." She spun around, taking two steps toward the forest, before he caught her arm to stop her. "Call Jeb back. I gave it to him."

  "We don't need your money."

  "There isn't a bug in my purse," she protested. "I checked it. I'm not stupid, just pregnant." On the other hand, she felt stupid for getting pregnant. Jack had been virtually a stranger, and birth control or not, she should have been more careful. She didn't dare allow her body to overrule her brain again. She was part of an experiment. Nothing between Jack Norton and Briony Jenkins was real--or would ever be. "I need that money."

  "No, you don't." There was finality in his voice.

  "Look, I'm not going to be stranded here with no clothes, no money, and no vehicle. I'm not a prisoner. I have to have a way to get out if it doesn't work."

  Jack sighed, his expression bleak. "I'm not a man who argues. That's the second time I've told you and I'm not going to keep reminding you."

  One minute she stood looking at him, the next she turned to run, opening her mouth to call out to her brother. Jack caught her in his arms, one hand covering her mouth hard, his arm biting deep into her body just beneath her breasts. That fast, the heat flared, enveloping them both, the need so strong, so primitive it was all she could do to stay on her feet; her body, of its own accord, melted into his. She tried to bite his hand, self-preservation stronger than her fear of retaliation.

  "Stop it," he hissed, his mouth so close to her ear she felt his lips moving against her earlobe. "You're going to get someone killed."

  She stopped struggling, and he removed his hand from her mouth, but didn't let her go, pressing his body closer into hers. He was rock hard, his body without any give to it, no soft spots, and his erection seemed merciless, a thick, long bulge pressed tightly into her flesh.

  "It's not real. It's just chemistry," Briony said desperately. Her own body ached, dampened, breasts too full and nipples too hard. Lust curled through her relentlessly, thick and needful, making her body throb and her womb clench. "It isn't real."

  "It's so fucking real, baby, I want to pick you up, wrap your legs around my waist, and bury myself deep inside you right here. Right now." His voice roughened. "I can taste you in my mouth. I'm breathing you in with every breath I take. Don't tell me it isn't like that for you. It's real and we both know it."

  She struggled again, this time more against her own body, than him. There was no controlling the fierce physical attraction arcing between them. It was electric, all consuming, crackling in the air around them, the intensity so strong, he actually shifted her in his arms, turning her around, his mouth coming down hard on hers. She was lost, the waves of need so powerful she thought she might die if she didn't have him.

  His tongue swept into her mouth, and there was nothing teasing or gentle about his kiss. It was purely dominant, commanding, taking her over until Briony was swept into a world of sensuality as his hands roamed possessively over her body and then cupped her breasts beneath the shirt, finding soft bare skin.

  Jack abruptly jerked his head away from her, swearing eloquently. "Stop it. Stop crying. Damn it, Briony, I haven't hurt you. Why the hell are you crying?" His hands framed her face, and he stared down into her wet eyes and spiky eyelashes before bending to taste her tears.

  Even
that small gesture was impossibly intimate, sexual, his mouth tracing the path of her tears. She felt the light touch of his lips on her face all the way through her body.

  "Stop," he pleaded again, more gently. "Come on, baby, you're just tired. Maybe I was a little rough, but I couldn't have hurt you."

  Briony hadn't been aware that she was sobbing. She was only aware of her body, so unfulfilled, so needy. The craving for Jack was like a terrible claw scraping her raw, tearing at her insides, yet all the while her brain screamed a warning, screamed she didn't really matter to him--or he to her. A madman had performed an experiment and they were the results. Two people in heat like animals. She was disgusted with herself.

  She couldn't blame Jack Norton, even if she wanted him to assume the responsibility--which she didn't. He couldn't help his reaction to her any more than she could hers to him. "Don't you see what he's done to us? He's taken away everything. We won't ever have a chance at a family. At love and marriage and all the things that matter in life. Once we're away from one another, do you think this is going to stop? This terrible craving? It's an addiction. He's managed to make us into addicts for one another. You can't tell me you haven't thought about it night and day ever since you left. He's taken our lives away from us and made us into mindless animals."

  Jack pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against him, wrapping his arms around her head as she sobbed against his chest. The sound wrenched at his heart and wreaked havoc with his normally nonexistent emotions. Hell. The woman was going to make him into a wuss. He put his head down on hers, holding her tighter. "Stop it, baby. You're going to make yourself sick. None of that matters right now. We're here and we can make our life whatever we want it to be. He isn't going to get our child." He put his mouth against her ear to whisper. "You hear me? He isn't ever going to take our child from us and experiment on it."

  She lifted her head to look at him. "I'm sorry. It must be all the hormones. I'm not usually such a crybaby."

  His fingers tangled in her thick hair. She looked so forlorn, her eyes too big for her face, still swimming with tears. For years he'd thought all gentleness had been driven out of him for all time, but it was there, hidden deep inside, rising as fast as his every protective instinct. Whatever Whitney had done to them might have been all about sex and coming together in heat, but for Jack, the relationship with Briony was developing into something altogether different. His feelings for her were every bit as strong and real as the need for sex. Briony had managed to slip past his guard and find that small spark of humanity, of tenderness he never knew existed.

  Jack didn't think too closely about how his emotions had become entangled with the violent chemistry sizzling between them, but he knew it was dangerous for a man like him to get attached to anyone. He wasn't normal and he'd never be normal, no matter how much he wished it different. He'd given up wanting it to be different, until he'd walked away from Briony.

  "You're just tired," he murmured.

  "I'd like to tell you I'm sorry about the pregnancy. I should have been careful. It never occurred to me I could be intimate with anyone, let alone lose my ability to think about something so important as protection. I had no idea the birth control pills weren't the real thing."

  Jack felt relief sweeping through his body. Her being intimate, even thinking about being intimate, with another man might have gotten that man killed. He took a breath and let it out slowly to keep his thoughts from going in that direction. He ran his finger down her face just because he had to touch her. "The idea of you being intimate with another man is something I'm not willing to entertain."

  Briony hesitated, frowning. "I can't be around many people without it really affecting me physically. I can't seem to develop the barriers other people have to filter out sounds and emotions, and I've really tried." She tilted her head back further, staring up at him, blinking back the last of her tears, determined to regain control. "When I'm with you, it's much easier. My mind can rest. I'm trying to understand what Whitney did to me, and I'm hoping you can explain it better than the file did. I didn't understand half of it."

  "It definitely helps that I'm an anchor and can filter everything for you." So was his brother. The thought that Ken could filter for her just as well came unbidden, and he was ashamed of the rush of adrenaline surging through his body that fast. Whatever Whitney had done to push them together was potent--and dangerous. "I draw the emotions and sounds away from you to me."

  "But how? I've tried all kinds of exercises because I had to perform with my family in public, but it was so painful. I end up with terrible headaches. If I can figure out how you do it, maybe I can teach myself to get above the pain before the baby comes." Her brief description didn't begin to describe the agony she was in after every performance, and it was frightening to think that if she had a baby, she wouldn't be immune to the child's distress.

  Jack brushed back stray strands of hair from her face. "You're looking tired now. And you have a headache, don't you?"

  She shrugged. "Crying like a baby didn't help. I was confined in a small space with Jeb for hours. He was really afraid for me and it was coming off of him in waves."

  She'd spent hours on an airplane as well, Jack realized. And she was incredibly honest with him. He hadn't expected her to be so forthcoming. She didn't trust him--or herself. The shadows in her eyes told him that. Every time he touched her, she stiffened just the slightest bit, although she was trying to hide how uncomfortable she was.

  "Let's get you back to the house," he urged.

  Briony pressed both hands against her stomach protectively. The baby was the only person she had left, her only ally, only family. Already she could find comfort in the presence of the child.

  Jack's hand tightened around her wrist. "I like that you're telepathic." He loved the intimacy of communicating with her. It was familiar to him. Jack and Ken had been using telepathy as long as he could remember and it meant family to him.

  She twisted her hand, a subtle attempt at getting him to release her. He didn't appear to notice. "I'm a lot of things," she said. "Right now, tired is the number one thing I am. I need to rest." She needed desperately to be alone.

  He turned back toward the house, tugging at her wrist to get her to follow him. "Stay on this path."

  "You have your property booby-trapped?"

  He shrugged. "I don't like visitors."

  "That's ridiculous. Some camper could accidentally stumble onto your land not realizing it isn't part of the national forest."

  "Because they wouldn't notice the two hundred signs Ken put up everywhere?"

  There was a hint of humor in his voice, but his features remained expressionless.

  She flashed a small smile up at him. "A lost child?"

  "If a parent loses their child all the way up here, the kid's better off without them."

  "Better off dead?" She stood absolutely still, studying his face, her heart beating too fast. If he really believed that...

  Amusement might have crept into his eyes briefly, but it was gone so quickly she wasn't certain she'd seen it. "Nothing lethal. Just some fun ones to sound the alarm and slow down any neighbor wanting to borrow tools."

  Relief swept over her. "I'm sure that happens often. Don't tease me like that."

  Other than Ken, he hadn't ever teased anyone that he could remember, but it felt good. Just having her there felt good.

  "Jebediah told me Ken is your identical twin. Is he much like you?"

  "No." Jack's voice turned gruff. It was almost as if she could read his mind even with his barriers up. "He's much nicer. You'll like him." His gut twisted again. He spoke the truth. Ken was tough, but he'd always been the social twin, the one who was thoughtful and kind. People naturally gravitated toward Ken, and he was much more sensitive than Jack. Jack respected and admired few people; Ken was at the top of his list. He just hadn't considered that Briony might put Ken at the top of her list.

  He actually hesitated, stopping abr
uptly on the trail leading up to the house. He couldn't feel jealous of his own brother. He couldn't conceive of such a thing. Briony was messing up his thinking if he was that far gone.

  What is it? Ken reached out to him the way he'd done since they were in diapers. When one was in trouble, the other knew it immediately.

  I don't know. I've got some things to work out.

  You upset over the baby? Are you absolutely certain it's yours?

  Jack looked at Briony's face. She looked far too young. Too innocent. She hadn't been with another man any more than he'd been with another woman--and now it wasn't ever going to happen for her, because he couldn't allow it, even if it was the right thing to let her and the child go. It's my baby. There was utter satisfaction in his voice. It resonated in his mind so strong his twin couldn't fail to feel it. "Can you feel what I'm feeling?" he asked Briony aloud.

  "If I try."

  "Don't try." He detested the clipped way he had of talking, so abrupt as to be rude. Funny, he'd never considered that before. Most of the time, he left the niceties to Ken. People avoided Jack just as he avoided them. "And, Briony, if this chemistry thing is the same between you and Ken, stay the hell away from him."

  "It won't be."

  "How do you know that?"

  "It was in the file. They used him as bait to get you in the Congo. The order was to capture him at all costs."

  "That was in the file?" His voice was tight. "Did it say something about skinning him alive? Cutting him into tiny pieces?"

  She glanced up at him. There was no expression on his hard features, but she shivered all the same. "Is that what they did to him?"

  She sounded sympathetic. Compassionate. "Like I said, don't get interested in him. He's not in the market for a woman."

  "Like you? There's no need to warn me. You don't have to worry that I'm going to get silly and romantic," Briony assured him as she pulled away from all contact, straightening her shoulders. "You made it perfectly clear we had nothing but sex. No emotional attachments. I'm a big girl. I can handle things myself. It's my choice to keep the baby, and I really do feel bad that I've had to ask you for protection for us. I'm not stupid enough to fall for your brother and compound the mistake."