Darken (Siege #1) (22 page)

Whatever it was between them had started with nothing more than the desire to slake his lust, yet he was in so deep he couldn’t tell where the lines in the sand were. So fucking deep he wanted to lose himself so completely within her that every excuse he’d used to keep them apart faded away.

He watched as her fingers slid under her the delicate material of her panties, and his mouth watered at the memory of her sweet taste. A soft sigh escaped her as she stroked herself.

“Are you just going to watch?” Cora asked.

“Fuck no.” He yanked his shirt off and pulled off his pants, lowering the zipper carefully over his hardened flesh.

While he undressed, she got to her knees, crawling across the bed until she was at the edge, only inches from him. He kicked away his pants and briefs, and his cock stood out, seeking the object of his desire. Cora answered its silent plea by grasping him and stroking him firmly. She made a soft humming sound and guided him toward her mouth.

The first touch of her moist tongue sent sharp pulses of ecstasy through him. She swirled her tongue around the head of his penis before drawing him into her mouth.

Her eyes gazed up at him, and she started humming again. His last coherent thought was that he’d never seen such a beautiful sight.

Chapter Twenty-Three

THE OLD CATTLEMAN’S CLUB wasn’t Cora’s idea of a date, nor was it a place she wanted to be going at night. Yet, that’s exactly what she’d done every evening for the past three weeks. She spent the days working or at home then Gavin would pick her up, and they’d drive to the abandoned building at the edge of town.

The club had once been as high-class as you can get in a place like Thompson Creek, modeled from the locals’ idea of what ranching should be like thanks to shows like
Dallas
and
Dynasty
. But just like those shows faded away, so had the Cattleman’s Club. Inside, the over-the-top luxury was still evident in the chandeliers and the plush chairs now torn and soiled with dust.

The plan Gavin and his brothers created made perfect sense. Forcing Sinclair to go where they wanted, when they wanted. At first, their strategy hadn’t seemed to work as days passed with no visions. Then, in the last week, they started again, only this time the random nature was gone. She could watch Sinclair and know precisely when it was happening.

All they’d been waiting for was the date, and now they had it. Soon, all of it would be over.

“If Sinclair isn’t going to be here tonight, why are we?” Cora spread out a checkered blanket on the floor in the middle of the room.

“Because even though we trust your visions, we can’t trust that they show us everything.” Gavin placed the picnic basket at one end of the blanket then helped her smooth out the wrinkles. “We need to establish our presence here every day regardless of if we think he’s out here.”

“I suppose.”

His argument made sense in a way, but there were still so many factors they couldn’t control that they seemed to be ignoring. Not knowing what Sinclair did outside of the visions was just one.

“Besides—” Gavin grasped her hand and tugged her close to him, “—I thought this place was romantic?”

Cora laughed and wound her hands around the back of his neck. “Maybe if this were nineteen-eighty and I had a thing for guys with feathered hair. Now, it’s filthy, and I’m pretty sure I saw a rat the other night.”

“So it’s not the greatest place for a date,” he admitted, nuzzling her neck. “But Caleb and Noah wanted to do a walkthrough of what’ll go down tomorrow. Which is why, as tempting as I am to lay you down and have my way with you, we’re going to have to wait until we get home.”

Home
. She loved how that sounded, as if what they had went beyond just sex. She’d promised him nine weeks, and a third of that was gone already. With each day, it got harder to imagine leaving. She couldn’t keep going on the way she was with him, but she knew she didn’t want to be anywhere else, either.

“Do I need to come back later?” Noah’s voice came from the other side of the partially-opened door. The two of them broke apart and turned to stare at their unwelcome guest.

“Come on in,” Gavin said, stepping back from her. “I was telling Cora we were to go over the plans for tomorrow.”

“Was that what you were doing?” Noah arched a brow “Good thing you didn’t ask me to do it.”

Cora rolled her eyes and sat down on the picnic blanket, reaching for the basket.

“Can we get this over with?” She pulled out a glass and a bottle of wine. She held the bottle out to Gavin, and he pulled his pocket knife to cut the foil covering the cork.

“Okay, so let’s run through the plan,” Noah said, leaning against a small square table. It wobbled under his weight, and he quickly stood up.

“I thought Caleb was coming too,” Gavin said as he sat on the blanket beside Cora.

Noah shook his head. “There was some kind of security breach at the SIEGE lab, and Merrick wanted him to do a system analysis. It’ll also give him a chance to poke around a bit more without raising any red flags.”

“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” Cora asked Noah. She poured herself a glass of wine then pushed the cork back in and placed the bottle in the basket. “Wouldn’t they be worried about having one of you working on their security systems?”

“That would imply they have something sinister to cover up. Which, according to Nielson, is the furthest from the truth.”

“All right, let’s do this then,” Gavin said and pulled out the chocolate chip cookies. He removed the top of the container and looked at the cookies with a scowl before sealing them back up. Despite his willingness to devour anything Cora cooked, his stomach had been rolling with a strange sensation the past hour.

“Caleb and I are going to arrive around eight,” Noah said.

He held out his hand and took the container from Gavin. He had snagged three cookies before Cora snatched it away, placing it safely in her lap. She didn’t spend an hour baking for them to be gone before she had even one.

“Caleb found a spot near the church with a good view of the entire back of the building,” Noah continued. “I’m going to be up front, across the street in the field.”

“At ten, Cora and I will walk over after work and head inside.”

“Sinclair will follow us from the pub in a white car.” Cora searched her memory for the details. “He’ll park halfway down the block at the end of the parking lot and watch.”

“We don’t know how long he’ll be there, but as soon as he rolls up, Logan will grab him,” Gavin said.

“Then Caleb and I will move in.” Noah rubbed his hands together, brushing away the cookie crumbs. “I want to check out the vantage points, make sure I can see the two of you through the window, and that there’s a clear path to where Sinclair will be.”

Noah left, and silence settled between Cora and Gavin. They’d skipped over the whole part about what they did once they caught Sinclair, and she was glad. She didn’t want to hear the details.

She took a long sip of her chardonnay, letting the smooth fruity flavor linger on her tongue. Moving her glass in a circular motion, she swirled the last of her wine until it touched the rim.

“It will work,” Gavin reassured her. “We have to do this. He won’t stop. He’ll keep coming after us until he gets what he wants.”

“I know. It’s just…”

Gavin rose to his knees in front of her, cupping her cheeks in his hands. She gazed up at him, loving how the seriousness of his expression deepened the intensity of his brown eyes.

“Sinclair has stolen so much from me. I won’t let him take you too.”

A loud clang like a pot falling on the floor came from the staff area, and both of them froze, straining to hear. Gavin surged to his feet, grasping Cora’s hand to help her up.

“Noah?” he called.

When there was no response from his brother, Gavin motioned for Cora to stay quiet and pointed to the front entrance. She moved toward the door then hesitated when she realized Gavin wasn’t with her. A glance back revealed that he was moving in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen. He peeked over his shoulder and inclined his head to the door. She nodded and carefully continued, making sure to avoid the floorboards she knew would creak under her weight.

At the sound of a gun cocking, she spun around. Sinclair stood at the entrance to the kitchen, a gun pointed directly at her. With everything she’d learned about him, she thought the nondescript man she saw in her visions would be more imposing in person. Yet, if anything, he was less. He stood slightly less than average height with a round face made distinctive only by his gold-rimmed glasses.

“Miss. Evans, leaving so soon?” The smile he gave made her skin crawl. “I’d rather you stick around for a few minutes. Come on over, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you up close.”

Instinct urged her to run, but that meant leaving Gavin behind. She took a few steps into the room then patted the side of her leg, feeling for her bag. It wasn’t there. Spotting it beside the picnic basket, she cursed under her breath.
What was the point in carrying a gun in her purse for protection if she didn’t carry her purse?

Gavin shifted so he stood partially between her and the doctor. He could see the gun wavering as Sinclair debated who to train the weapon on.

“I must say,” Sinclair said. “I’m impressed with the show the two of you have been putting on. I almost fell for it.”

“Almost? You’re here, aren’t you?” Gavin straightened his shoulders. Any sign of weakness would only empower Sinclair and make him less likely to make a mistake.

“I am, but I suspect you were perhaps expecting me tomorrow.”

His face impassive, Gavin refused to give Sinclair even a hint of the frustration and anger bubbling inside him.

How the fuck had Sinclair gotten so close without any of them noticing?
Now that Gavin was aware of his presence everything clicked into place. The night terrors he had the night before, the way the hairs on the back of his neck had stood up all day, and the queasiness that had him turn away chocolate chip cookies. All were signals that the enemy was near.

“What do you want?” Gavin asked, unwilling to let Sinclair drag out this game he was playing.

“I want what I’ve always wanted. To finish my research. It was almost done. You were supposed to be the final one. Then Nielson stepped in and altered the dosage.” The gun shook before Sinclair steadied his hand. “You can’t even begin to comprehend the amount of time and research that goes into each trial. I spent years attempting to reproduce the exact variables.”

The picture of Cora from Nielson’s folder flashed through Gavin’s mind. Subject 8. Dean was Six.

“Who’s Subject Seven?” he asked.

“He’s irrelevant.” Sinclair gestured dismissively, waving his weapon through the air. “He didn’t even make it through the third round of modifications. The only useful thing about him was that I finally realized I didn’t need to recreate the experiment when I could simply observe you. It was more challenging than being in a lab, but it was sufficient.”

Gavin kept his eyes on Sinclair, but in his peripheral vision, he searched for something he could use to distract Sinclair. There was little within his reach, and moving would expose Cora.

“And Cora?”

“Ah yes. A happy mistake, I guess you could say.”

Gavin’s jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth, struggling to retain his control.

Sinclair gave a strange grunting noise and immediately, Gavin sensed the monster within him retreating.

“My assistant didn’t follow protocol as closely as instructed. His instructions that evening had been to temporarily detain your girlfriend while I advanced my study.” He gave a mocking sad sigh. “Unfortunately, you weren’t even in the vehicle, and Miss. Tavares expired unexpectedly.”

Hearing him dismiss Lela so callously as if she were no more than a cup of spoiled milk was too much. Gavin snarled, his back muscles bunching beneath his shirt, stretching the material. Sinclair made the noise again, and while Gavin’s monster sat back, it hovered under the surface, bristling at Sinclair’s command. His stomach clenched in fear. If Sinclair could calm the beast, then what else could he make it do?

“It was fortunate, however, that Miss. Evans survived and allowed me to take the project in a completely different direction.”

“What did you do to me?” she asked, and Gavin felt her move closer.

“PH-9E was intended to further develop Gavin’s sensory capabilities. He’d already demonstrated an unnerving ability to detect my presence.” The gun jabbed in their direction. “In you, however, it caused the development of extrasensory perception I never even considered. Precognition, if you will, though it really has less to do with parapsychology and more to do with a heightened ability to evaluate and determine the probability of future events.”

Sinclair sat in one of the velvet-covered chairs, placing the weapon on top of the table, though he kept his hand resting atop it.

“It was kind of you to keep a record of your experiences,” he said. “Your notebook was quite informative. It inspired me to move on to the next phase of the Posthuman Project.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

Gavin heard the tremor in her voice and hated knowing that despite all his assertions that their plan would work and she’d be safe, she wasn’t.

Sinclair tossed his head back and laughed.

An enraged roar erupted from Gavin, and he lunged forward. The gun whipped up, and Gavin staggered to a stop as he noticed it pointed past him to Cora. The beast within him clawed at his insides, its craving for vengeance locked in a battle with Gavin’s goal of keeping Cora safe.

“Move again, and I’ll shoot her,” Sinclair said. “See, Miss. Evans is expendable. Finding a substitute subject is as easy as walking down the street. As for you, well, I just don’t have the length of time needed to invest in such an undertaking again.”

It seemed strange to feel relieved, but Gavin did. Whatever Sinclair did to Cora wasn’t on the same scale as what happened to him and his brothers. There was a possibility she’d never have to experience the dark presence of a monster taking control of her.

The sound of someone breathing from the other side of the wall in the kitchen drew Gavin’s attention. It was so faint, he knew Cora and Sinclair hadn’t picked up on it. At first, he thought it was Noah, but the pitch was too high. It was a woman, but who? Yolanda Nielson would have no reason to hide from Sinclair, yet who else could it be? And how the hell did she get in here without Noah noticing?