“I’m sure I’ll do fine without you.” He didn’t like the forced unconcern that suddenly surrounded her.
“I’m sure you will.” At least he was certain she would try to make sure she needed him for nothing. “You need to rest for a few days, Charity. Get your strength back. I’ll stay away as much as I can, but you know as well as I do that it’s only to delay the inevitable.”
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
“I need a bath.” She didn’t answer his comment. “Could you get someone to help me with that?”
His body tightened. He could see her, stretched out in the big tub in the bathroom, dressed in nothing but steam and heated water. His cock jerked in reflex.
Hell. Of course she needed a bath, he thought in weary disgust. The question was, could he maintain control long enough to help her with that?
“I’ll help you.” He tried to shrug as though he could do it with no problem, but already his body was heating further at the thought of it.
She watched him broodingly. He could see the battle going on in her head. She wanted the bath, desperately. She didn’t want him helping her with it though.
Finally she sighed in resignation. “Fine. As long as I can get clean. The most I should need is help getting out of the tub. I can handle the rest of it on my own.”
She should have been a Feline, he thought. Damned independent, stubborn female.
“Where am I anyway?” She suddenly grimaced as she stared around the kitchen. “Are we still in South America?”
“Colorado.” He rose to his feet and cleared the table quickly. “The government allocated us several hundred acres here as a home base. The compound is heavily fortified with several dozen army personnel as well as Air Force support from the base across the mountain.”
“The compound.” She nodded then. “I’d heard of it. When I get better, I’d like to see it.” She didn’t look at him, and for all her appearance of unconcern he could tell it mattered to her to see what they had accomplished. Aiden didn’t care much for the fact that it pleased him.
“When you can walk comfortably, I’ll take you on a tour,” he promised her softly as he moved to her drooping body. “Come on. Let’s get you back to bed. You need to nap a bit more before you’re ready to do anything.”
She sighed bleakly as he lifted her into his arms once more. “I don’t sleep well, Aiden.” She tried not to lean against his body. He could feel her tensing, holding herself away from him as she fought to maintain her control. He would allow it, for now, he thought.
“I have something that will help you sleep, baby.” He laid her back on the bed before moving back to the kitchen.
When he returned, he carried a glass of water and a sedative Armani had approved for Hope and Faith last year.
“It’s just a sedative,” he told her when she stared at the small pill in his hand. “Our doctor had to create one especially for Hope and Faith. Sometimes, they don’t sleep well either.”
There was a single week of the month that the two women were more like rabid animals in their temperaments than grown women.
“Did she check…”
“She checked everything, Charity. Trust me, the damned woman doesn’t miss a thing. Now take your medicine like a good girl so you can rest. You will need your strength soon.” He gave her a wolfish smile. All teeth and male amusement.
Her eyes narrowed on him but she took the pill, swallowing it with a long drink of water before lying back against the pillows.
“Now sleep.” He tucked the blankets around her. “I’ll check on you later and help you get a bath.”
Her eyes were closing even as he spoke. Aiden resisted the need to brush the hair back from her face, to caress the delicate line of her jaw. His fist clenched as he turned on his heel and stalked from the cabin before his need overcame his good sense. She was going to make him crazy, he thought. Then he grunted mockingly. Or perhaps she already had.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, Charity was able to move more comfortably from the bed and to hobble through the house. Dressed in one of Aiden’s T-shirts and another pair of drawstring sweat pants with the ankles rolled up quite a bit, she made her way through the small cabin in search of food.
She hadn’t expected to awake alone. She had been prepared for yet another confrontation with Aiden, but the respite was more than appreciated. She was still weak, still tired. The months of experiments within the Labs had damned near killed her and she was smart enough to know that. It still could.
But at least she had slept for a change. She didn’t know what was in the little pill Aiden had forced down her throat twice more the day before. But whatever it was it had thrown her into a sleep deep enough to allow her mind to ignore the pulsing arousal that tormented her. Unfortunately, it returned with a vengeance when she woke up.
Her body was sensitized, achy, the flesh tingling wherever she touched. Her cunt was moist, throbbing in longing. The sexual need that burned in her body seemed worse now, as though his touch had somehow stoked the fires already burning within her.
An hour later, the light meal finished, the dishes stacked in the sink, she looked around and admitted the silence of the cabin was starting to get to her. As much as she had prayed for peace over the past years, such silence was so foreign it was almost frightening to her.
From outside the cabin she could hear the sudden sounds of vehicles and voices raised as orders were shouted. It wasn’t imperative, nor seemed alarming. Moving to the couch, she peaked outside the large window behind it to see what was going on.
The view was breathtaking. She ignored the movement going on in what appeared to be a central area of command in favor of the beauty of the mountains surrounding them. She needed to see more, ached to smell the breeze off the mountains. Standing up, she moved carefully to the front door.
The wounds on her feet hadn’t been severe, thankfully, and she hoped within a few days they would be healed enough to allow her to more thoroughly investigate the Breed compound she had heard so much about in the past years.
The scientists she had worked with had been outraged, furious, when the United States had declared the Breeds were fully human. The explosion of outrage over the experiments and the uses the Council had envisioned for the Breeds had swept the world.
When the United States had apportioned the land in Colorado out to the Breeds and aided them in building the large protective compound, the fury within the Council had overflowed to the Labs. Recapturing or killing the Breeds was out of the question now. The focus of the world was frowning so heavily on those suspected and known of being within the Council, that any movement toward recouping their loses had been put on hold. Except for the Coyote Breeds. The Council had finally found the perfect soldier there. They followed orders precisely, their mercilessness nearly equal to their creators.
She stepped out on the porch, breathing in the clean, crisp air of the early fall morning and stared around with a sense of surprise.
A tall stone wall enclosed the acres-large compound. From where Aiden’s cabin sat, slightly higher atop a rise, Charity could see the crystalline lake outside the enclosure, as well as the rolling hills that led to thickly forested mountains around them.
Inside the compound, friendly chaos seemed to reign. The cabins were set some distance apart, providing privacy and a sense of freedom, she thought. There were quite a few trees growing within the compound, a large blue pond, and several long, low buildings and storehouses. It was beginning to resemble a small town.
The central portion of the area was, at the moment, filled with dozens of men and women unloading boxes of equipment from several trucks that had pulled into the compound.