"She's there," Trap insisted. "If I'm there alone, she won't be able to resist coming to me. I'd never be able to resist going to her if I wasn't afraid of scaring her off. She won't hurt me."
Wyatt sighed. There was no arguing with Trap when he made up his mind. "If you're determined to do that, why are we here?"
"I need to see her in action. All of you have asked around. You know she's been here. She's gorgeous. Alluring. Almost as sexy as Pepper. You think these boys are going to forget her? Not be able to describe her? She does something to mute that either while she's here or when she's leaving. I believe it's when she's leaving. She'd want them attracted. She's looking for a type. Someone she believes deserves being robbed. A criminal. That tells me she's got a moral code of some kind."
Wyatt flashed a grin. "They couldn't have decided to terminate her because she's a straight-up killer."
"A black widow? She's that. She carries venom for certain. She can throw webs out. And there's her voice. She can lure with her tone and that damn French accent that's sexy as hell." Trap's body shuddered at the memory of her voice seeping into his body through his pores. The feel of silk on his skin. Her long, thick hair that was so unusual. Black with red highlights right down the center. She had an hourglass figure--high, firm breasts, a small waist and flared hips. Even with her curvy figure she was small, slight even, so she could fit into places few others could get in and out of.
He was a big man. Solid. All muscle without an ounce of fat. He'd been with his fair share of women. He knew he was attractive physically and he was highly intelligent. But most of all he was rich. Not just rich. He was in Forbes magazine as one of the richest men in the world, yet he was in the military. He was a prize catch, and women pursued him. He didn't do the pursuing. He had never wanted to take a chance that his uncles would rape, torture and kill another person he loved.
His brain needed to work. He had no choice, not if he was going to remain sane. He couldn't work as long as he was obsessed with Cayenne--and he was obsessed. His body needed relief, and soon. Right now his brain was occupied with fantasies of her and her body. Of the way she felt when she was up against him. Of the way she smelled, that faintly elusive and mysterious mixture of storms and fresh rain. Sometimes he woke up with her scent in his lungs and he wondered if she'd been in his room. He was fairly certain it wasn't possible--he was staying with Wyatt and the rest of the team at Wyatt's grandmother's house and security was ultra-tight. Still, he wondered.
When he woke in the middle of the night, his heart beat too fast and his body was hard and tight and her scent was everywhere. Once he swore it was on the pillow next to him. He didn't sleep much. Sometimes he went days without sleep when he was on the trail of something he was developing for his pharmaceutical company. When he did regularly go to bed, he slept no more than four or five hours and not all at once.
Often Trap got up to read or work out elusive problems. His scribbled formulas were on just about every scrap of paper in the room and a few had been written on the wall. Sometimes he was certain those papers weren't in the same exact spot. He considered that he might be losing his mind. The last few weeks he'd been acting totally out of character, and that's what convinced him he needed to find her. To put a stop to whatever was happening.
If Whitney manufactured their attraction to each other, he should be able to find a way to undo it. Come up with an antidote. Cayenne would stay safe that way. It was the only way he could ensure no one would ever get their hands on her again. He would have to give her up before the attraction grew to the point neither would be able to resist.
Wyatt sighed. "You're going to move to that building before we have it ready, aren't you, Trap?"
Trap nodded slowly. "I can take care of myself."
"Yeah, under most circumstances, but if you're wrong about her, this woman could kill you, Trap. I couldn't harm Pepper. I doubt you could hurt Cayenne."
Trap's gaze turned glacier. "You've always been sensitive, Wyatt. You don't like anyone pointing that out because you think that makes you feminine." He spoke entirely dispassionately, no judgment or expression in his voice. "That's what makes you such a good man. You care about people. You always have. I stopped when my own flesh and blood murdered my family. I couldn't allow myself to feel. If I did, I wouldn't survive. If this woman who is supposed to be my woman decides to kill me, she's an enemy. She isn't mine."
"She's scared, Trap."
He nodded. "I know that. I know she'll fight the attraction--and me. That isn't the same as wanting to kill me."
"When a wild animal is threatened--cornered--they often strike out. She's never known freedom or kindness. She has no idea how to live in the world. She's been locked up, experimented on, which means needles and God knows what else. She's never had anyone give her compliments or romance her. She knows nothing but enemies."
"I have a brain, Wyatt," Trap said. For the first time impatience crept into his voice. "I've had a lot of time to think this through."
"I don' want you to do something you'll regret--or worse, not do somethin', which will get you killed."
The ice blue flame in Trap's eyes deepened. Nearly glowed. "She's mine," he said softly. This time there was a wealth of expression in his voice. Possession. An underlying anger. That strange shimmer slid into the room again, filling the space where air had been, completely at odds with his intention to reverse whatever Whitney had done to tie Cayenne to him.
"Doesn' seem to me that you're so willin' to sacrifice your own happiness, or hers, to keep those uncles of yours in the shadows. Maybe you ought to consider courting her publicly. Get yourself in the tabloids, let the paparazzi take a gazillion photos of the two of you. That would bring them straight here. Right into a team of GhostWalkers waitin' for them." Wyatt flashed a cocky grin, knowing Trap was the most camera-shy man he'd ever encountered. "Whitney already knows where she is. It isn't like he'd suddenly find her."
Trap looked thoughtful as he took another pull on his beer. "That's not a bad idea. She isn't so easily compromised either. They try to tangle with her, she'll kill them in a heartbeat. I've been trying to find them for years."
"Maybe they're dead."
Trap shook his head. "Not a chance. They're out there, living the good life. Once I find them, I'm going to kill them."
Again his voice lacked expression. Still, that shimmer hung in the air. Trap took another drink and glanced toward the piano. If he played, it would get him through the last couple of hours before Thibodeaux shut the place down.
The door opened, and the night breeze drifted in. Along with it came the scent of rain. Of storms. Of her. Of Cayenne. She was there. At last. He lifted his gaze and for one moment, indulged his need to drink her in.
CHAPTER 2
Cayenne was even more beautiful than Trap remembered. Truthfully, she took his breath away, although he knew Wyatt was watching him closely, so he refused to allow any expression to show on his face. Still, he couldn't just look away quickly as he should have. She moved into the room with such fluid grace it was impossible for any man not to look at her. Every man in the bar turned, and for a moment there was silence as they watched her pause just inside the door. She was all woman, soft curves and wholly feminine. A lethal weapon even without the enhancements she possessed.
Trap thought she was stamped so hard into his memory that she was in his very bones, but still, he'd forgotten the long thick mass of dark shining hair, so black under light it gleamed almost a dark blue. Straight down the middle of the back of her scalp, almost in the shape of an hourglass, the color changed to a beautiful, dark rich red. The effect should have been shocking, but instead, it was intriguing. The difference only made a man want to sift his fingers through those red strands, tunnel deep to see just how far that red went inside that black mass.
Her face was an oval, high cheekbones, a wide, generous mouth with lips that took a man's breath away and gave him way too many fantasies. Her eyes were large, a deep green
framed with long, thick black lashes. The dark lashes served to play up the brilliant green color of her eyes so that all a man could think about was staring into them when he was deep inside of her, watching her as he gave her orgasm after orgasm.
Stop. One hand went to the wall beside the door.
The word was whispered in his mind. Sultry. Sexy. A wisp of sound like butterfly wings fluttering gently against the walls of his mind. The sensation didn't stop there, it floated through his body--such a light touch--but it brought every nerve ending possible alive in his body. He was wholly aware of her. Every detail. Trap was watching closely, so he noted the slight trembling. She wasn't nearly as confident as she appeared.
He'd also been broadcasting his thoughts to her. Mind to mind. A detail that vaguely shocked him.
She wore soft vintage blue jeans, worn, as if she'd had them for years when he knew very well she hadn't. They clung lovingly to her hips and framed her ass like a caressing hand. Her camisole was a deeper blue with a light blue contrast--the ribbons binding her breasts behind the material, so that all he could think about was loosening the tie to help himself to those soft, inviting curves. He wanted to see her creamy breasts spilling free for him, with all that dark blue material tight around her rib cage and impossibly small waist framing them.
I mean it, stop right now, Trap.
She might have meant it in her mind, but her body didn't mean it. He could see the faint change in her breathing. For that moment, her green eyes clung to his, and he saw beyond the mask she wore, just as he was certain she could see the real Trap Dawkins. That wasn't a good thing. Not by a long shot. He wasn't a nice man. He was rough. Rude. Insisted on his own way in nearly everything. He had been dead inside until he laid eyes on her, and he blamed her for pouring life into him. Definitely not a good thing.
Cayenne forced her face to remain exactly the way she wanted. Soft. Confident. Interested in everything and everybody. She wasn't any of those things. She was exhausted, starved, light-headed from being so hungry and bordering on desperation. More than anything else, she was terrified. She often came to the Huracan Club. They had free peanuts, and she'd been surviving on them for the last three months. The money she stole she left as payback for the clothes and then the shoes she'd stolen. A few times over the last four months she'd bought burgers right there at the Huracan Club.
She kept air moving through her lungs as she paused just inside the door. He was there. Trap Dawkins. She had avoided coming for the last five days, but she didn't dare go without eating much longer. She was too weak and she needed the protein the peanuts provided to keep going. Once she had a little money, she could buy another one of Delmar's burgers.
Her gaze immediately went to Trap as if he were a magnet. There was no pretending he wasn't there. He dominated the room. He was just . . . big. Tall, very wide shoulders, a thick chest, all muscle. He looked intimidating, and he was. Yet, he was the only human being on the face of the earth that had showed her any kindness. He had looked at her and saw a human, not a monster.
Cayenne pushed a shaky hand against the wall, her knees threatening to give out. She'd lived her entire life in a very small cell. They'd allowed her a toilet, a bed, books and a computer. And their fear. For as long as she could remember she felt their fear. She could look into a person and see inside of them--their goodness or their cruelty. Every man who came near her during her childhood had that streak of evil in them, whether too much greed, the desire for power, or their need to hurt others. If they were afraid of her--what did that say about her?
Time seemed to stand still. It tunneled, the walls of her mind curving until there was only Trap there. The way he'd been when he'd come into her cell. She had been moved to the basement cell for termination. They would kill her and cremate her before taking her ashes out to sea. She'd been created in vitro and held in a laboratory all her life. No one would ever know she existed. Or care. Until Trap.
He was a miracle. So gorgeous. A beautiful man. One moment she'd been alone without hope and the next, there he was. He'd appeared as if he'd come right through the wall. He'd slid down to the floor just outside of her cell--the cell with triple locks that were impossible to open. He'd sat there a moment, and then he'd opened his eyes. The impact had been physical, like a wicked punch to her stomach.
His eyes were a vibrant blue. He looked terrifying. All that muscle, those wide shoulders, the strength of him, even his piercing gaze that seemed to go straight to her heart. She hadn't moved. She couldn't. Her heart pounded, and she'd waited, because when she didn't feel the cruelty in him, she'd been so stunned she couldn't think properly. He looked scary and felt dangerous, yet deep inside, she knew he wasn't a cruel man.
He felt like all kinds of other things, things that confused her. They still confused her. Trap Dawkins was the reason she hadn't fled the area the moment she was free of her prison. He'd let her loose on the world. He'd opened the impossible locks and allowed her freedom. She had no idea what to do with freedom. She had knowledge of the world, but no experience.
She had no money, no food, no shelter. She had no idea how to interact with normal people. She didn't know what normal actually was. She could kill. She'd been trained to kill, and she was good at it, but she had no idea how to fit in with people or interact with them. Even when eventually, driven by need, she carefully chose her targets to rob, choosing men who were violent and cruel, she couldn't enter a store and purchase the items she needed because she didn't know how. Just the thought of that terrified her.
The clothes she wore were stolen. She felt terrible about that. There were very few women her size in the area, at least that she'd seen. The clothes had belonged to a young teenage girl. The family didn't have much, and that made it worse. She'd gone back a few weeks later and left money, but she didn't know what the clothes were worth so she had no idea if she'd given them a fair exchange. Instead, just to be sure, she left money twice. She had two pairs of jeans and two camisoles. No sweater. No jacket. The shoes were too big and she'd stuffed paper in them to keep from hurting her feet when she walked.
Sometimes she stole food as well. She always left money when she did, but she didn't like to steal and knew she couldn't do it that often. So she went without several days a week. Now, the scent of Delmar's burgers made her feel weaker than ever.
She took a deep breath and inhaled Trap. She'd been like a moth drawn to the inevitable flame, unable to stay away from him. She'd stayed close, going back to the old building where she'd been held prisoner, making a lair for herself down in the basement. He'd bought the building and workers had torn it apart, completely renovating it. She'd been forced to stay in the vents and outside until they would leave at night. She'd hated that, but still, she couldn't leave him. And she had nowhere to go.
Something was between them, she just didn't know what. Whatever it was, there was no escaping it. The thread between them was impossible to snap. She found herself sneaking past the guards at the Fontenot home in the middle of the night just so she could be in the same room with him. She had to be with him. She knew it was the same for him, but she'd remained deliberately elusive, terrified of what he would want from her.
She had the illusion, the fantasy of him as long as there was no real interaction. The moment, a week earlier, she'd entered the Huracan Club, her chosen hunting ground, she'd scented him. He was actively searching for her. She knew that the moment she became aware of his presence at the club. He wasn't a man to frequent clubs. She was the reason he'd come. She'd stayed away until hunger drove her out of her safety zone and straight into the line of fire.
He hadn't come alone either. He'd brought several of his friends. All were combat trained. She recognized the danger in them. Two of the three Fortunes brothers, Malichai and Mordichai. Their brother Ezekiel was most likely at home protecting Wyatt's children. But Malichai and Mordichai presented enough of a threat.
She spotted Draden Freeman. He often ran mornings and evenings. He was a ques
tion mark to her. She'd studied all of them and wished she still had access to the laboratory's computer, but when Trap had the building renovated, all computers had been removed and new ones installed. She'd tried them all, but the passcodes, so far, had been impossible to break.
Wyatt Fontenot was there, looking right at home, casual even, when there was nothing casual about him. He was a good man. She could tell that the moment she was anywhere near him, and she liked that he seemed to be protective of Trap.
The fifth man accompanying Trap to the bar was one of those ghosts she rarely saw, so she made certain, even though he stayed in the shadows, that she studied him. She didn't have the best eyesight, probably a by-product of the spider DNA Whitney or Braden, whichever, gave her in a test tube. Still, she had skulked around the Fontenot home enough to know that he had arrived a month earlier and was part of their team.
They called him Gino. When he was still, he was impossible to spot, and twice she'd nearly run right into him. It was fortunate she often used trees to move in, and she'd clung to the trunk to prevent dropping right on his head. She didn't know his last name, but she could see that he was a man without an ounce of fat, cool, nearly black eyes and wide shoulders. He looked just as dangerous as the rest of the team.
She was too weak to fight them all off if they made a move on her. She could only trust that Trap would know she would fight to the death to prevent them from putting her back in a cell. She had gone back to the building's basement, although that was completely changed as well now, but that was of her own free will, not someone forcing her. She would never be forced again. Never.
Trap watched as Cayenne took a slow look around the room, noting the position of every member of his GhostWalker team. She made each and every one of them, and she made a show of it, letting them know. She turned back to Trap and raised her eyebrow before sauntering across the room to the bar. She had a great ass and it swayed invitingly as she moved with a silent, fluid grace to lean against the makeshift bar, right beside the two most belligerent men in the place. At once they split up, one moving to her other side so that she was wedged between them. She sent both a smile that jerked their heads up, and one inched a little closer to her as she reached for the peanuts.
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