by Abby Blake
“ETA five minutes,” Pete said telepathically as soon as they got close enough.
She glanced at the cameras, checked again that the agents had finished their work, and then headed to the door that connected the garages to the house. Whether she was happy about it or not, this was Davin and Darrick’s home for the foreseeable future, so she may as well get used to it.
* * * *
Davin kept touching the shaved spot on his head. It felt like the longer strands at the back of his head covered most of bald spot, but without a couple of mirrors he couldn’t be certain. Apparently Jason’s healing skills didn’t include growing back missing hair, but it was the fact that Davin was walking the day after an aneurysm had burst in his brain that had him touching the spot over and over. His mouth and jaw felt more normal after a decent sleep. He hadn’t actually tried talking out loud since waking, but he felt reasonably assured that he would be able to if he needed. Of course he probably would have felt a whole lot better if his rest hadn’t been interrupted by incredibly hot dreams of Sandra.
He had no explanation for the attraction he felt toward the pretty blonde.
Yes, she was the physical type he and Darrick preferred, but it was more than a reaction to her appearance. It was almost like a compulsion. Like he had to have her. Had to be with her. Had to hold her close. Even the memories he’d rifled through accidently didn’t explain his overwhelming need for this woman.
He couldn’t even claim confusion due to his injury. Jason had not only repaired the aneurysm but also all of the damage done by the injection the professor had given him. Davin had no illusions—without The Agency’s help he would be dead now.
Darrick gave him a small grimace of a smile. He might not fully trust The Agency, but it was obvious he was grateful to their brother Jason. It felt kind of surreal to learn they not only had a half brother but three more half sisters as well as Jenna. They’d always suspected Alana was Jenna’s genetic twin, but hadn’t been able to get close enough to her to confirm it.
The vehicle they traveled in drove up a long driveway and straight into a garage that opened as they approached. The door slid back into place with a loud mechanical whir, and Davin got the impression it was much heavier than the average garage door.
But it was the woman standing there waiting for them that caught his attention. She looked so different to the one they’d met yesterday. Her beautiful blonde tresses were pulled back into a tight braid. Her relaxed expression seemed forced, and she wore what could only be described as a power suit—navy blue trousers, a white, high-collared shirt, and a tailored jacket over the top. She looked more like a secret service agent protecting the president than the soft, sensual woman they’d met yesterday.
But no matter how she was dressed his body responded to her nearness with embarrassing swiftness. He glanced over at his brother and noticed a similar reaction.
“Okay,” Ethan said. “We’ve got the all clear. The house is secured and ready for you.”
Davin went to follow the big man out of the vehicle. He wasn’t even sure how Ethan got those impossibly wide shoulders through the small doorway, but as he shuffled across the seat to get out, Darrick’s soft telepathic voice stopped his movement.
“Does this all seem just a little too good to be true?”
He nodded in agreement.
Unfortunately, it did.
* * * *
“So what happens now?” Darrick asked her as he and Davin wandered into the kitchen.
They’d settled into their rooms quickly. Considering that they essentially had the clothes they stood up in, unpacking hadn’t been an issue.
“I don’t suppose you know how to cook,” Sandra asked with a hopeful lilt to her voice. He shook his head. “Great,” she mumbled sarcastically as she went back to staring into the refrigerator. “Looks like we get to order in, except…”
“Except what?” Davin asked, sounding suspicious. It was good to hear him use his voice, and Darrick was very relieved to hear no lisp or slur in his brother’s words.
“I usually live on pizza,” Sandra said, tapping her hip as if that explained her incredibly appealing curves.
“Pizza’s fine,” Davin said tiredly as he took a seat at the kitchen counter. “Extra anchovies on mine, thanks.”
“You guys eat pizza?” She looked stunned, and Darrick felt his mouth quirk in amusement. “Sorry. I just assumed that, well, you know, if Jenna had never tasted pizza, you guys probably hadn’t either.”
“Yeah, well Jenna had promising talent. We didn’t.”
“So you, what, had a fairly normal life?” Sandra seemed surprised. She’d probably assumed their upbringing was like Jenna’s and Alana’s in the professor’s organization. Neither woman’s life could be described as normal by any stretch of the imagination.
“I suppose,” Darrick said with a shrug. “By the time we turned eight or nine the professor realized we didn’t have the extraordinary capabilities he’d been hoping for, so he stopped homeschooling and sent us both to a regular school.”
“Have you always called your father ‘the professor?’”
“Not always,” Davin said, looking uncomfortable. “We called him Dad for a while, but the older we got the less interest he took in us. I suppose it started as an act of rebellion, but whether he never noticed or preferred it that way, we didn’t know.”
“The good thing about being ignored,” Davin said in a defensive-sounding voice, “was that it gave us the chance to realize what he was up to and to try and change things if we could.” He seemed really annoyed, and Darrick realized he could sense the stress behind that statement. He wasn’t sure if his brother was deliberately letting his emotions through or whether the professor’s formula was wearing off, but it seemed that even Sandra sensed his brother’s mood.
“Do you have a menu?”
“On the fridge.”
Darrick grabbed the menu, perused the selection, and turned to pick up the phone. “What do you want on your pizza?” he asked Sandra. He already knew what Davin would order.
“Just a medium meat combo with extra cheese. I’ll go grab my credit card.”
“No need,” he said, feeling annoyed by her assumption that she’d have to pay. “I’ve got it covered.”
“How?” she asked with her hands on her hips. “You have no wallet, no ID, no cash.”
It was probably a stupid thing to argue over, but he didn’t like the idea of being “kept” by anyone—even if The Agency was footing the bill.
He tapped his temple with his finger. “I know my credit card number.”
“Darrick,” she said in a tone that suggested she was about to deliver devastating news. “All of the professor’s personal and business assets and bank accounts were frozen when he was arrested.”
“And that affects me how?” He knew what she was trying to tell him, but the assumption that he was such a loser that he’d relied on daddy’s money all these years really pissed him off.
“It…I mean…” But Davin came to her rescue and explained their financial situation.
“Sandra, we both have accounts independent of our father and his company. In fact we’ve spent a lot of years saving money for just this situation.”
“Oh.” He could sense her deep embarrassment but was still too pissed off to let her off the hook. Of course that frustration was compounded when he realized he didn’t know the address here. And then another uncomfortable thought hit him. Their bank accounts and credit cards were under their mother’s maiden name, but that didn’t mean somebody wouldn’t be watching them in an effort to track them down.
Fucking hell. Why did life had to be so damned complicated?
Again Davin sensed his mood and stepped in to help. “Maybe it would be best to use your credit card, Sandra. Just until we can get to a bank and withdraw some cash.”
She looked relieved, and he could only assume that she’d also been considering the security risk of not only using thei
r credit cards but of also handing over an actual address for where they were staying. She nodded and left the room quickly.
“Are you okay?” Davin asked telepathically in typical Davin fashion. Even without being able to sense each other’s emotions these days, his brother knew him well enough to know when he wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Peachy,” he answered sarcastically. “All that planning and we still can’t support ourselves outside of the compound.”
“It’s not quite as dire as it seems. It’s only pizza.”
“Yeah, well explain to me how we’re going to buy clothes if we can’t use our bank accounts.”
Davin laughed out loud. “If you weren’t acting like such a suspicious asshole, you might have considered the Internet. We’ll just have everything delivered to The Agency and get someone to drop it here.”
Sandra came back into the room, and Darrick handed her the phone before he could act any more like the asshole his brother had just accused him of being. Maybe he was an asshole, but he hadn’t been expecting to share a house with the woman who’d haunted his dreams all night last night.
* * * *
Sandra writhed against the sheets as her dream lover pressed his hard cock deep into her body. She moaned at the delicious feeling, her orgasm spinning closer as he pounded into her willing flesh. But then he moved away, and she cried out at the loss, her hands lifting to try to pull him back, but then her other dream lover was there, taking over where his brother left off, pounding into her harder and harder and harder as she shook in his embrace.
She screamed as her orgasm began, the strange, unexpected noise waking her from the erotic dream she’d been having. Her hands shook. She gasped for breath. Her eyes darted around the room seeking an enemy that didn’t exist.
“Sandra?” The telepathic voice in her head had her leaping off the bed. A rational part of her realized it was Davin checking to make sure she was okay, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment. And she sure as hell didn’t want to try and explain what had woken her or what she’d been dreaming about.
“Answer him, Sandra, or I’ll be through that door faster than you can say ‘don’t.’” Great, just what she needed. One of her dream lovers walking through the damn door.
“I’m fine. It was just a nightmare. I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” She tried to put a stop to the platitudes, yet couldn’t seem to think of anything else to say. “I’m fine, really.”
“If you say so,” Darrick said with a deep telepathic chuckle. “But if you change your mind, I’m ready and more than willing to make those dreams a reality for you, babe.”
“Fuck off.” Okay, not the nicest of things to say to a man who’d just offered to make her dreams come true, but about the only one that didn’t involve the words “yes” or “please.”
Sandra rolled over, punched the pillow, and tried to go back to sleep.
* * * *
Darrick lay in bed staring at the ceiling. His cock was so hard he was actually feeling a little light-headed. He wasn’t certain that the three of them had been having the same dream, but they’d certainly all been dreaming about the same thing.
“You still awake, Davin?”
“Yup,” he said with a strained telepathic laugh. “I doubt I’ll be going back to sleep any time soon.”
“I’m getting up.”
“Me, too. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Darrick tried to move quietly, but it was a bit hard to miss the emotions emanating from the woman in the room beside him. He had no doubt she’d been dreaming about him and his brother fucking her. If it had been just a random sex dream, she wouldn’t have been so pissed with them.
He smirked as he walked into the kitchen. It was good to know they could bring her to near orgasm with just her imagination. Thoughts of how they could access those memories filtered through his mind. Davin’s new ability was extraordinary and had all sorts of interesting uses.
But then cold, hard reality intruded. Was he really considering taking the woman’s memories just so they could get laid? Hell, maybe he was his father’s son after all. Wouldn’t daddy, the psychotic megalomaniac, be proud?
“If it’s any consolation, I thought the same thing,” Davin said as he took a seat at the kitchen bench. “But the difference between him and us is we have the ability to deny the impulse.”
“True,” Darrick said, feeling a little better.
“How long do you think they’ll keep us here?”
Darrick shrugged. He was fairly certain nobody knew the answer to that.
They sat there is silence for a while, but the ring of Sandra’s cell phone had them both fully awake. It was nearly three in the morning. Whoever it was probably wasn’t calling to say hi.
A loud crashing noise in the bedroom had them both running to investigate. It didn’t matter that Sandra was a trained agent assigned to protect them. They weren’t going to sit on their hands and let the woman face danger alone.
But when they got there, it was only to find an overturned bedside table and dozens of books all over the floor. Sandra sat on the bed rubbing her knee. She wore pajamas that covered her from neck to ankle, but somehow that just seemed sexier than a blatantly suggestive teddy or babydoll nightie might have. The silky looking material shimmered in the partial light, giving glimpses of the beautiful curves underneath as she moved to stand up.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, flexing her knee surreptitiously like she expected them not to notice. “I just forgot I’m not in my own room and walked into the furniture. That’s all.”
“Which one’s your room?” Darrick asked, unable to hide his curiosity.
Sandra looked like she was going to point to the room he’d been sleeping in but at the last moment scowled and changed the subject.
“That was my boss. They raided another of the professor’s ‘training’ facilities and found three more young children. They were hoping you might be able to identify who their parents are.”
“We can try,” Darrick said. “I’ve got a box of flash drives hidden in a locker at the train station. I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. Maybe there’s something on them that will help.”
Sandra laughed quietly. “When Dana was on the run she used train station lockers to hide her escape money. Seems the instinct runs in the family.”
“What’s she like?” Davin asked curiously.
“Dana? Strong, determined, bad tempered,” Sandra said with a shrug. “But when it comes to people she loves you couldn’t ask for a more protective or accepting person.” Sandra laughed softly. “I think since being shot her temper has mellowed a bit, but if you say anything to her, I will deny every word.”
“When was she shot?”
“About seven or eight months ago. You didn’t know?”
“Why would we?” Davin asked, sounding as confused as Darrick felt.
“Because your father ordered her execution so that he could steal Dana’s daughter. If Jason hadn’t stolen Lexie back, we may never have found her. Thankfully he discovered his healing talent around the same time, or Dana probably wouldn’t have survived.”
“Shit,” Darrick said, running his hand through his hair in agitation. “We knew our father was an asshole, but we didn’t realize he was ordering executions and abductions. We were told that the test subjects were held by court order. That many of them were too dangerous to live in society.”
Davin looked really pale as he sat heavily on the end of Sandra’s bed. “I saw some of it in your memories.” Sandra sat beside him and placed a comforting hand on his knee. “But I didn’t really want to believe any of it. It was awful enough to realize how much of an uncaring monster he was when Jenna was shot.”
“I know,” Sandra said quietly. “Sometimes, even with the extrasensory skills we possess, it’s difficult to know a person fully—especially when we don’t really want to see.
” It sounded like she was talking from experience, but that didn’t make Darrick feel any better. For most of their lives they’d thought their father was misguided and paranoid, not a man capable of cold-blooded murder. His callous reaction to Jenna being shot had been an eye-opening experience.
“I didn’t have a chance to go through the information I downloaded, but there might be something of use. I got most of it using dear old dad’s password,” Darrick said, quickly making the decision to help the children any way he could. He’d planned on using the information on the flash drives as leverage to make certain he and Davin were not held accountable for their father’s actions, but just the possibility of being able to help parents reunite with their children changed his perspective. If they had to pay the price for their father’s sins, then they would. “I can give you detailed instructions on where the flash drives are and how to get them, but it might be easier to bring them to me. I encrypted them with a randomized rotating algorithm that will auto-delete at the slightest error.”
Sandra gave him an assessing look, but nodded and grabbed her phone.
Ten minutes later an agent was headed to a train station three states away with strict instructions to deliver the flash drives directly to Sandra.
Chapter Five
Davin closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. They’d been pouring through the information on the flash drives for three days now, and they were no closer to finding out where the children had come from.
But some of the information he’d come across had been downright terrifying. Clearly, despite being empathic, the professor had no empathy for his victims. Davin couldn’t even think of them as test subjects any more. The professor’s detailed notes had made it very clear that every single one of them was a victim. To his father they’d been a means to an end, nothing more.