False Match

by Lynne Silver

  “You always avoid arguments. Every time there is the possibility of conflict, you run.” He glared down at her, grateful for his height, which gave him the advantage in the looming competition between the two.

  “I do not.” Her arms crossed over her chest. Shit, she was in a bathing suit, he finally noticed. A boring black one-piece, but still, there was no hiding those breasts.

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “Maybe I don’t see the point in shouting at someone. Nothing gets accomplished and feelings get hurt.”

  “Christ, Samara. There are worse things in life than hurt feelings.”

  “Don’t you dare tell me about worse things in life.”

  “I’ll tell you anything I want to.”

  “Shut up.” Her voice threaded with hysteria. She was getting mad. Good, let her join the land of human emotions. “I’ll tell you about the worst things in life.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I will if you’ll shut the fuck up a minute and let me talk.” If she was cursing like a sailor, she had to be pissed.

  He folded his arms across his chest and planted his feet in the grass, shoulder distance apart.

  “Do you know why I touched Adam the way I did?”

  He opened his mouth to say he didn’t care what her excuses were, but she kept talking.

  “Because Brad held a gun to Luca’s head. They said they’d shoot him if I didn’t get them Adam’s sample.”

  He shut his mouth.

  “Do you know what it’s like to see a gun at your child’s head?” Her voice quavered. “Do you?” The moonlight glinted off the tears pouring down her cheeks. “I will see that image in my nightmares for the rest of my life. Paulson could’ve done anything to me. Anything. And I would’ve dealt with it. But when he threatened to murder my baby, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to stop it.” She turned and sprinted down the hill toward her apartment.

  Stunned, he watched her retreating back for a minute before taking off after her. He caught up in a second and practically tackled her onto the grass. His chest covered her back and his arms wrapped around her front. Her chest heaved from sobs and exertion.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry I reacted the way I did,” he said into her hair. He pulled her to a sitting position, holding her on his lap and rocking her gently. The dry summer grass scratched at his bare legs, but he ignored the discomfort.

  “Don’t try to comfort me, Chase. I’m so angry at you for believing the worst of me.” She hiccupped. “I could deal with everyone else on the campus hating and mistrusting me, because you knew me. You believed in me.”

  He’d failed her and been too quick to judge her based on sheer emotion. “I do believe in you.” He didn’t know how to make this right. He’d disappointed loads of women before, but always because he’d left them wanting more. He’d never stuck around long enough to deal with the disappointment in person. Now he had to. He had to make this right. But he didn’t know how, and a large part of him didn’t want to.

  His brain kept telling him to forgive her, but his heart and his body still seethed at knowing she’d seen Adam naked and touched him. Fury blinded him to everything but his anger.

  He wanted to own her and force her to his will. Thank Christ for the minuscule part of his brain that remembered he didn’t ever physically hurt women. But it didn’t stop him from holding her a little too tightly and his hands from cupping her breasts harder than he would have normally.

  His dick noticed she was practically naked. Only the tight silky bathing suit covered her curves. He bent her forward so she rested on her knees and he kneeled behind her. Dirt and grass dug into the skin on his knees.

  “Chase?” She turned her head to look at him.

  He didn’t answer. He shoved the elastic waistband of his athletic shorts down, taking the boxers with them. His hard-as-a-rock dick jutted out and immediately sought the warm crevice of Samara’s pussy.

  He ripped aside the crotch of her bathing suit and started pressing his cock forward into the tight, warm space. She pushed back into him, inviting him farther, drawing him in. He was mindless to everything but getting inside her and reminding her who she belonged to.

  The first thrust was a dry, tight squeeze, but then she moaned and ground back against him. His body took over from there and he held her in place from behind while his hips made like a piston, slapping against her nearly bare bottom. His movements started the flow of juices in her and soon his cock was coated in her hot, slippery wetness.

  She was tight and not as close as he was, and he couldn’t make himself care. He needed to own her. To fuck her. Dimly he noted she was moaning and thrusting her ass against his cock every bit as hard as he pushed forward.

  In an embarrassing number of thrusts, he was groaning his release and pulling out of her. A heavy silence fell over them as he brushed invisible dirt off his thighs to cover the awkward moment.

  “Chase,” she whispered in a hoarse voice, and then she fell silent.

  The saliva in his mouth dried up and he had no words or actions other than to stare at her in a daze. He’d never used a woman like that before. Sex for him had been filled with laughter and flirting, never anger and dominance on an open field in a public place. What the fuck did he do now? She stared back for a second then got up and hurried off to her apartment.

  His legs tried to move to standing to follow her, but it was as if they’d taken a hammer to the kneecaps. He was incapable of anything at the moment other than sitting bare assed in the grass, watching his woman leave him.

  *

  She held the sobs in until the door closed and locked behind Gavin. And then she collapsed on the worn couch in her foyer and released the torrent of emotions. With her face buried in a cushion to keep from waking Luca, she cried, enough to make up for the year of holding her emotions in check.

  The miserable year she’d spent with Paulson had been an exercise in restraint. She’d suffered in silence and reined in her need to escape, which would’ve led her to do something wild, putting her son in danger.

  She’d held on to her emotions tightly, refusing to give in. Even once in the relative freedom of the campus, she’d maintained her iron mask as protection. Only Chase had seen glimpses of her without the mask. But only glimpses. Until now. The mask was cracked, gone, and she had no defenses left.

  Now emotions swirled around her, threatening to drown her with their force. She didn’t know what to handle first. She’d hurt Adam and Loren, and now Chase. She’d have to deal with all of them, but for now she had to deal with herself.

  Still crying, she went to the bathroom and ran a hot shower. She needed to escape into the steamy oblivion, even for a few minutes. As she scrubbed away her tears and the wetness from both her and Chase, her mind focused. Her path became clear. She could apologize every day for the rest of her life to Adam, Loren and Chase, but it would still be out there. There was only one way she could think of to set things right.

  As soon as she was out of the shower, she threw on pajamas and climbed in bed with Luca. She didn’t know if Chase would come to find her, tonight or ever again. But she couldn’t handle another confrontation with him. So she hid behind her son like a coward.

  Sleep was elusive and she lay in the dark for a long time, letting Luca’s deep breaths wash over her and lull her to a calm place. Her mind kept returning to one thing. She and Chase had unprotected sex tonight. And she was ovulating. As the world’s leading fertility specialist, she had a lock on her own bodily functions, and she was nearly ninety-five percent certain Chase had found her on the most fertile few hours of the month.

  She wasn’t worried about STDs, she knew Chase and all the Program soldiers went through regular physicals, but she was worried about pregnancy. No, not worried exactly. Terrified, thrilled, elated, shocked. If she was pregnant with Chase’s baby, everything had changed. She couldn’t escape to Colorado. She wouldn’t keep her child from his father.

  A hysterical noise esca
ped. Look at her, practically naming her child already. A child that wasn’t even medically a reality for another few hours. She remained immobile on the mattress with her mind whirling. She already knew what Chase would say about the possibility of her being pregnant. He’d want her to let the cards fall where they may. He was a roll-the-dice kind of guy.

  He was clearly influencing her, because this was not the kind of thing she’d ever roll the dice on in the past. No matter what happened between her and Chase, she’d love their child. If there was a child.

  And if there was a child, she had to do everything in her power to bring it into a safe world. The only way to ensure her safety was to take Paulson out of the picture. Due to Chase’s interference, no one had approached her about using her as bait. Well, she could go to them. Tomorrow she’d go find Shep and offer herself up.

  *

  “Have you seen Samara?” Chase stuck his head in the lab doorway and asked Thea. She shook her head.

  “I haven’t seen her since yesterday,” the woman said, her long black hair curling over her shoulders. “But, by the way, we’re nearly done on the special project we’re working on for you.”

  “Special project?”

  Thea looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. Oh shit, that’s right. His special project, the enhancements.

  “She’s opposed to it, you know.”

  He walked deeper into the lab and looked down at Thea. “Who’s opposed to what?”

  “Doctor Jones.” Thea crossed her arms over her pristine white lab coat. “She doesn’t believe in designer babies, and that’s what you would be, a thirty-something designer baby.”

  “Did she say something to you?”

  “Not directly, but a few stray comments made me realize she doesn’t think it’s ethically okay to weed out certain traits. Disease is one thing, but what’s to stop people from weeding out other things like eye color or gender or sexual preference?”

  He stared at Samara’s assistant, a jumble of thoughts racing through his mind. He had to talk to Samara, if only he could find her. Shit, it was past lunchtime. Where the heck could she be? Even Luca seemed to be MIA today. It had been five days since Chase had fucked her without a condom. Five of the most miserable days of his life.

  He’d picked the lock to her apartment and slept on her couch that night but she’d refused to really talk to him with Luca in the room. When he’d finally cornered her alone, she’d acknowledged there might be a baby and she’d let him know the moment she knew.

  And that was it. She’d put up a wall so tall and thick between them, he had no idea how to get by it.

  “Try Shep, if you want to find Doctor Jones,” Thea said. “Ryan said something about a meeting there today.”

  A meeting? Why hadn’t he been told? It was weird. The day after he’d fought with Samara, he’d gone from being super busy to having nothing to do. It was as if Shep and his team were ignoring him. As if he’d been dropped off the roster. What the fuck?

  He nodded to Thea and hustled over to Shep’s office. Empty. Voices came from the conference room down the hall, and he stormed in to see Shep, Adam and a few others huddled around the conference table, listening intently to the receiver usually used during ops.

  “What—”

  “Shh,” Adam cut him off.

  He narrowed his eyes and started to enter the room, but Shep stood and motioned for him to join him in the hall. He followed with a sinking feeling in his gut. This involved Samara. He knew it.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Calm down,” Shep said.

  “Where the fuck is she?” He was practically bellowing.

  “She came to see me a few days ago. She wanted us to use her as bait to lure out Paulson.”

  His knees threatened to give out.

  “She volunteered, Chase. And we were having no luck on any of our other attempts. This was the best way. We’re doing everything we can to keep her safe. Gavin’s with her, as is Xander.”

  “She may be pregnant, did she tell you that?” It had been something he’d been thinking about ever since he’d taken her on the field without a condom. Aw, screw it. He gave in to his knees’ desire and sank to the floor, resting his head between them.

  “No, she did not.” Shep’s words were calm and professional, but Chase heard the sudden note of tension.

  “When did they leave?” he finally asked, raising his head to look at Shep.

  “Oh six hundred.”

  Stupid. He was so stupid. He’d believed her last night when she said she wasn’t feeling great and planned on sleeping in. He’d taken the bait and slept in his own bed. Four nights on her couch had gotten to him so he’d given in and gone back to his own bed.

  Never again. If she got back from this safely, she was never sleeping separated from him again. He surged to his feet and stalked into the conference room. No one objected when he pushed his way to the closest chair to the speaker. It was his prerogative.

  *

  Samara tried not to stare behind her where Xander and Gavin were supposed to be. They’d warned her repeatedly she could give the whole game away if there was even a hint this was a setup.

  Her shaking hands gripped the handle of her bag tighter. In order to make it real, she was toting a leather briefcase. The kind one took to a job interview. It was part of the plan.

  Under Shep and Adam’s direction, she’d posted her resume on a job site and called a few headhunters. It was entirely believable she’d be job hunting after a few weeks on campus. Paulson would assume they didn’t need her skills.

  The field of scientists in her specialty was small. It had taken three days, but eventually she’d received several calls back from a variety of companies interested in employing her. Adam was sure one of the companies would be a front for Paulson. This was the first of her quote unquote job interviews. It was also the most suspicious one.

  The response to her resume had been sent from a disposable cell phone from a large European wireless company, so Gavin had been unable to track it. They wanted her to fly out for a job interview. Adam and Gavin had stood over her, dictating her response. Did they think she was stupid? Of course she wasn’t getting on a plane with strangers. Never again.

  They’d helped her craft a response, refusing to get on a plane but agreeing to meet them at a local Italian restaurant. Adam had picked the spot, knowing it was too public for them to do anything dangerous.

  And now here she was, dressed in a business suit that Chase would call the most boring outfit on earth, while he coaxed her out of it. No, don’t go there. Too painful. She needed all her brain cells focused on the meeting and not on Chase and not on Luca who was safe on campus under Emma’s care.

  “Doctor Samara Jones,” she told the young hostess at the front. She was probably a college student from the nearby university. “I’m meeting someone.” The girl scanned the reservation book.

  “Yes, I see your name. You’re the first in your party to arrive. But your table is ready, would you like to wait there?”

  She nodded her assent and followed the girl to a table near the center of the restaurant where she could see the door. She desperately had to pee, but Adam had warned her repeatedly to stay in the public space of the restaurant. No bathroom breaks. Damn nerves. Once seated, she sipped at the glass of ice water. Then placed it back on the table and watched a ring of condensation form on the white linen cloth below the base of the glass. Water wouldn’t help the bathroom situation.

  She waited for what seemed like hours, sure the time was ticking by slowly due to nerves. But when the waiter came by for a third time asking if she was ready to order, she knew something wasn’t right.

  A miniscule hidden microphone was attached to the gold medallion around her neck. “Xander? Gavin?” she whispered into it. But she had nothing in her ear to hear their response. Given that she was untrained in things like this, Adam had feared she’d lose her thread of the conversation if she was trying to t
rack the conversation at the table and what Gavin and Xander were doing.

  So while they could hear her, she felt very alone. At least they had a signal to indicate if things had gone to hell in a hand basket, or FUBAR, as Xander had called it. If Gavin appeared, asking the hostess to use the bathroom, she was to haul ass to the bathroom even if it meant dumping the meal in her dining partner’s lap. They hadn’t covered what to do if no one even showed up to eat with her.

  Gavin appeared at the hostess stand, and while he wasn’t dressed like any of the other dining patrons, the hostess waved him toward the bathroom with a smile, obviously romanticizing his brooding, darkly handsome face. She was so caught up in seeing Gavin in the restaurant, she didn’t race from the table and meet him in the bathroom until he was nearly there.

  Then she leapt from the table, clutching the linen napkin that had been on her lap and hustled to the meeting spot. “No one met me,” she told him.

  “I know. Xander’s gone.”

  “What? Did he go back to the compound?” She was confused. Why would Xander have left?

  “No, we need to leave. Now.” Gavin placed a hand in the small of her back and guided her out the back exit of the restaurant, chosen exactly for the reason the restaurant had a back exit used by the waitstaff on breaks. Gavin had taken watch on the front entrance of the restaurant. Xander had had the back.

  She silently hurried alongside Gavin with a load of questions, but he was too busy talking harshly into the comm device attached to his ear to pay attention to her. They bypassed the midsize white rental car she’d driven to the meeting and headed to the black SUV Xander and Gavin had taken.

  “We’ll get the car later,” Gavin said. It took her a minute to realize he was talking to her, and he went back to the harsh whispers, presumably with Adam and Shep on campus.

  She hoisted herself into the car and hung on as Gavin raced the two miles back to the Program compound. “Is Xander meeting us there?” She still didn’t quite understand what was going on. So much for touting her IQ, she felt as clueless as a foreigner their first time in an American DMV.