Page 37 of Jacob

Once they arrived at their destination, he was even more puzzled. A hilltop in the middle of nowhere and a shabby concrete bunker. But then he understood. Inside the bunker was a space-age facility. A research lab with absolutely anything a researcher could possibly need.

So they were in some kind of rogue facility.

As soon as he arrived, a tall, thin, very fit man showed up. He was dressed in some kind of uniform, but Elias didn’t know anything about military matters. He couldn’t tell which country the uniform represented, nor could he tell the rank of the person.

The only thing he knew was that the man spoke perfect English with some kind of faint Eastern European accent. And beyond his rank, he was powerful. He obviously had enormous clout if he could kidnap an American citizen and fly him halfway across the world. But besides that, the man carried himself with authority, the real deal. Elias had met a lot of politicians who thought they were powerful, but this was something else.

The man’s light-gray eyes were eerie, almost transparent. And icy.

“What’s your name?” Elias had asked with a shaky voice.

The man had given an icy smile that was scary as hell. “You may call me Colonel,” he’d said.

God. Colonel. So he had an army or at least a military apparatus behind him.

And then, Elias been basically locked up here in an underground lab which included a BSL-4 lab and given precise instructions.

That was when it was clear to him what this was about, and what the money and paid vacations had bought them. What Dr. Kasich and the Colonel were buying.

Horror. That’s what they were buying.

And the end of the world.

* * *

Was she crazy?

Sharing a bed with Jacob Black, who’d been Jake Simpson when he’d broken her heart, was dumb. Sharing a bed with who Jacob Black was now, was stupidity on a vast scale. The man he was now was temptation incarnate. Powerful and powerfully attractive.

And she was attracted, and how. So she should be staying far away.

Except she’d spoken the sober truth. He needed to rest. The more she knew about the situation they were flying into, the worse it became. Jacob was going to need to be rested. And he’d been clear that he simply couldn’t let her sleep on the perfectly comfortable airplane seat. The thought horrified him. He couldn’t hide it.

So Alex, who was pragmatic by nature, opted for the only solution—sharing the bed. She’d taken him by surprise and had to make it very clear that she wasn’t inviting him to have sex with her. Just to share the surface area of the bed so he could get a decent night’s rest.

But his face…

The bedroom was comfortable, she wasn’t surprised to see. Like everything about Black Inc., it was top of the line without being over the top. High quality but no frills.

“You can change in the bathroom,” Jacob said. “I’ll change out here.”

Oh, God. They’d both be naked. At the same time. With only a door separating them. A wave of heat shot through her at the idea. It was totally inappropriate and unstoppable. All her life she’d thought herself essentially indifferent to sex and here her hormones had woken up in a frenzy at the wrongest possible time. With danger on the horizon and with regard to a dangerous man, who’d already broken her heart once.

Why couldn’t she have felt this for Mark Childers, that really nice Senator’s aide she’d met when testifying before Congress last fall? He’d been smitten, had asked her out several times, and when she finally accepted, had taken her to dinner at the most expensive restaurant in DC. And she’d been bored out of her mind.

Or how about Sam Jagers, the Deputy Director for Policy at the CDC? She’d gone out with him a couple of times and had contemplated going to bed with him, which would have had the added advantage of being a good career move. He was tall, handsome, suave. Well dressed, well spoken, well connected.

Such a pity he gave her the creeps when they kissed.

That was when, since she was a scientist, she examined the hypothesis that she was asexual. Decided she needed more data, but was keeping an open mind.

Well, she wasn’t asexual. Right now, she was on the verge of exploding from sexual desire. Her legs were shaky. Her breasts felt super sensitive, the nipples erect from contact with her freakingbra. The lower half of her body was on fire and she was actually wet.

She’d studied human anatomy and physiology thoroughly in college and had studied sexual reactions and when she read about women getting wet, she’d rolled her eyes. She remembered the words exactly.

As a woman becomes aroused, blood flow to the genitals increases, which triggers the release of fluid from the cervix and the Bartholin’s glands, which provides lubrication during sexual activity. Often, the more aroused you’re feeling, the more vaginal lubrication your body will produce.

It had been exactly like reading about the pancreas. Some obscure organ that did its thing on its own. Nothing really to do with her.

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