Page 65 of Heart of Danger
He was beating himself to death, killing himself with his own ferocity.
With a swipe of a finger, Lee switched on the sound system. His eyes widened slightly at the noise level. Number 8’s snarls and howls were loud in the large room, and made the other animals stir uneasily. The bonobo next to Number 8, Number 9, had been sitting listlessly with a straw in his mouth but at the howls he stood up unsteadily, turned to Number 8, the straw dropping, forgotten, to the bottom of the cage.
Lee watched, unmoving, as Number 8 battered himself to death against the blood-spattered wall, finishing himself off with one final blow to the head as he tried to ferociously butt his way through to Lee, breaking his own neck.
He dropped instantly to the ground, body nearly unrecognizable. So many bones were broken that the body looked like a hairy shapeless sack filled with marbles.
The other bonobos turned, restless, some trying to scratch their way out of the plexiglass cages but none with the ferocity of number 8. Nothing Lee had ever seen matched the ferocity of Number 8. It was unprecedented, and artificial. Induced by SL-59.
The interesting thing was that 8 had managed to control himself for the first few minutes, even though his limbic system must have been screamingattack!He hadn’t, not right away. Perhaps he’d tried to reason it out and had then been overwhelmed by the attack imperative infused in him by the drug.
But that time gap was interesting. So …there must have been some kind of trip wire that had induced the out-of-control violence. Find the trip wire, modify it, and they would be well on their way.
Lee studied the battered body for another few minutes, then swiped a finger for the recording function.
“I want an autopsy with toxicology and hormone levels. I want the exact level of SL-59 in the blood-brain barrier. I want a brain dissection, and analysis of neuronal connections. I want it all.”
Another flick and the recording function switched off.
That had been interesting, he thought as he exited the lab.
And promising. Very promising.
HAVEN
Yes.
She’d said yes, when she was hungry, when delicious smelling food was right there, all she had to do was reach out her hand, when she’d already had more intense sex than she’d ever had in her entire life, when she was a little sore, feeling unused muscles stretch every time she moved in the bed.
She said yes when she thought she’d need at least a day to recover and feel desire again.
Oh, how wrong she’d been.
She’d said yes because she couldn’t resist. There was nothing in her that could resist this man, standing half naked in front of her, intensely aroused. She could tell not only by the steel rod prodding at the front of his jeans, but in the slight red tingeing the sallow skin over his high cheekbones, the flaring nostrils, the tense cords of the tendons of his neck.
And of course she could tell by his touch. His desire flowed straight into her, hot waves of his heat piercing her skin
At just the touch of him, feeling Mac’s heartbeat against her hand, feeling how much he wanted her, needed her, desire rose again like water rising to replenish an empty well. Coming from him? Coming from her? It was impossible to tell and it made no difference because now it was inside her. Part of her.
“Come to me,” she whispered, or maybe she thought it in her head? No matter. He shucked his jeans and moved to her, over her, settling on her heavily, yet she welcomed his weight, welcomed him as another wave of burning desire swept over them.
“Make me go slow,” he whispered in her ear and she shivered as his breath washed over her. He took her lobe and gently bit. Goosebumps broke out all over.
She held on to his shoulders, something to cling to in this new world where desire rolled over her in hot waves. She was bobbing in this sea of desire and needed something stable. She clutched him, those extra wide shoulders.
If ever there was a man built for hanging on to, this was that man. Everything about him spoke of strength and stability. That he was the one making her feel unsettled, rushed away in a liquid sea of desire was ironic.
“Slow,” he insisted, even though his stiff penis was prodding her thigh, then her stomach as he settled more completely over her.
“Slow,” he moaned, and kissed her.
It was slow, his mouth, his tongue moving slowly, the rest of him still. In the end she was the one who started moving. Her legs opened, lifted, settled against his back and he was naturally there, the hard tip of his penis right at her opening.
It felt so huge and she had to remind herself that they’d done this twice before and he hadn’t hurt her. He wasn’t moving, though, wasn’t shifting to enter her and all of a sudden she feltempty. Her sex felt empty, an organ that wasn’t filled with what nature intended. Like a stomach with no food, lungs with no air.
It was as vital as that. A yawning, searingcravingfor him to enter her, take her because that’s what her vagina was for. It wasn’t pleasure so much as need. Just feeling him there, not in her but against her, made her clench so hard even her thigh muscles pulled.
And still, he didn’t move, just kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.
