Duke lay along Caitlyn’s side, his bicep pillowing her neck. It had taken a boring wander through the villa’s library, then a long walk through the guarded forest around them, and finally a sedative before she’d relaxed enough to drowse. His fingers twisted into her hair and he pressed a kiss against her unbruised temple, solely so he could inhale the scent off her. His entire life, he’d lived essentially without fear, trained to protect, prepared to die. Which suited him just as well. Fear pissed him off. The paralyzing characteristics of it pissed him off, and he had no use for that kind of emotion. Not in his line of work. But now, he knew what it meant, how it felt to be vulnerable. He’d become all too familiar with being afraid in a way he didn’t like. He slid his hand across her flat belly, gripping her hip gently to pull her closer against him, feeding his warmth into her. Under the effect of the sedative, she never stirred. What the hell am I going to do? He’d wracked his br

Having seen the kind of security detail that Allie and Jay employed, even for their traveling army, Caitlyn knew there was no way the protection at her lab had ever been enough to keep someone out. What she and Alex had always counted on was the fact that little was known about the kind of research they were doing. That few would understand its potential, even if they did.Yet the connection that Allie had found had ties to arms dealers. And Agent Richards had told her the group that had helped him kidnap her was some sort of terrorist organization. What she’d seen as she’d slipped past was that her enemy was a billionaire recluse.One with a penchant for a lot of illegal activities.Unseeing, she drifted by rote towards the room she was sharing with Duke. For an organization based in Europe to have learned of her work, there had to be some more personal connection—a family member of one of her patients, maybe the family member of one of the lab employees. She turned the handle to the

A thick white fog swirled through Caitlyn’s returning consciousness, writhing with the tumbling flow of wild emotions and overpowering perceptions. It glittered with silvery motes of light, a colorless sky full of dreams, sailing and bobbing like the spume of waves. With a blind eye, she watched them each in turn, letting the cascade of memories sweep over and into her. The sparkling particles caressed her like waves, some gentle with forgiveness and others that scraped across her agonized recollections with painful regret. From some long-forgotten corner of her mind, they drew the early yearnings as her childhood friendship with Alex had morphed into what should have been a lifetime of love. Only now, the pristine white stained with a dark ripple of black varnished red with guilt knowing his reaping came at her own hand. But his killer had come. He’d come for her exactly as she’d known he would. Suspended in that deathless instant when her heightened senses had detected the impact

“Son of a bitch!” Duke snarled, flinching as the medic examined him at the roadside of the foreign street in the middle of the darkened Tuscan forest. He winced, muttering another vehement curse at the pain that shot through his shoulder and into his head. The medic turned to Jay, waiting a few steps off. “Dislocated, and he’s got a concussion. But considering the damage to the vehicle, he’s pretty lucky. I can close up the cut on his head with a butterfly.” Jay’s ice blue eyes flashed in the bright blue-white light off his cellphone. “You’re out of this, Duke. Sidelined. You got it?” “Like hell he is!” Rachel snapped and started towards Jay with enraged steps. His glacial blue eyes swiveled towards her at the same time that Duke’s piercing green ones did. A lazy smirk spread slowly over Jay’s face as he eyed the spitfire blonde, clearly enjoying the prospect of this fight. Sweet Jesus, Duke thought. The shit that turns some people on… “You’re not in charge here, princess.” Jay dr

With hurried steps, Caitlyn rushed along between her captors through the labyrinthine hallways of the stone fortress. “What did he say to you?” she asked of the English-speaking thug who dragged her along. “I didn’t understand,” she lied. “He told you,” the Italian man replied, stopping abruptly with the other in front of a heavy door. “Sbrigati con la serratura.” The words were sharp, spoken over her head to the man holding her on the other side. As the door swung open, he shoved her inside the darkened room, then reached for a light switch on the wall. Caitlyn flinched against the harsh fluorescent glare as the overhead lamps lit. “He told you that you have twenty-four hours to deliver what he asked.” He gave her a menacing smile. “If you don’t, you die.” Shivering slightly with the chill, she pivoted slowly and stared at him. “What is your name?” His dark eyes flicked down the length of her body then returned to her face as he stuffed his hand into a pocket, retrieving a pack o