Mercury Striking (The Scorpius Syndrome #1)(26)

Her expression said definitely. “You may get more of a fight next time, you know.”

“And you’ll get more of a beating,” he finished easily, flattening his hand over one buttock. Heat filled his palm, and when she growled, he squeezed harder.

“You know, I don’t think making battery perfectly okay is the way to start a new society,” she mumbled.

Perhaps not. He continued his exploration to her smooth thighs, smiling at her hitch of breath. “I’m not trying for a new society—we’re still in survival mode, baby.” Hell. The last thing he’d ever be was a societal leader. His time as ruler, as commander, was temporary and born of necessity. “If it makes you feel better, you’re the only woman I’ve battered.”

“Except for the woman you choked out,” Lynne snapped.

“True.” But the two situations were different. Or maybe the two women were different. He frowned, not liking where his thoughts led. Lynne Harmony was different.

Not wanting to delve deeper into his motivations, he quickly switched topics, to one that had been eating at him. “Lynne?”

“What?”

“Who do you want me to kill?”

That quickly, she shut down. An impressive veil dropped over her expressive eyes, and her face went cold. “I’m not ready to share.”

Interesting. “All right. Then how about you tell me why there’s such a hurry to get to Myriad?”

She mumbled something he couldn’t quite catch.

“You said there were people who wanted to destroy any hope for a cure,” Jax continued, his heart beating harder.

“There are.”

“Do they know about Myriad?” he asked, his instincts flaring.

“I think so,” she whispered, pressing her lips together. “But as far as I know, nobody has the location. It has to be in the documents you took.”

He shook his head. “With our luck, probably not.”

She licked her lips and dropped her gaze to his mouth. Tension hummed around them.

Good to know they were on the same page, no matter how briefly. Grabbing another condom from his discarded jeans, he quickly sheathed himself.

She watched him, eyes alert, lips curved, no protest.

He rolled her over and flattened himself against her front, pinning her in place. Her lithe body, a bit too thin from traveling, nevertheless softened beneath him. Lust roared into his cock. “Why aren’t you ready to share any of the facts you have, and especially the person you’d like killed?”

She snuggled her butt into the bed, cascading wetness across his balls. “I’m still weighing my options and haven’t decided on the right course of action.”

Now that sounded like the scientist he figured her to be. “Interesting. You think you actually have options?”

She met his gaze levelly, easily, so many secrets in her deep eyes, his instincts sprang alert.

His head lifted. “Lynne.”

He’d spanked her, he’d seen her cry, and he’d fucked her into oblivion. Yet the woman eyed him with no hesitation, no caution. Admiration and warning ticked through him. He took a deep breath. “Have I given you any indication I’m somebody you want to take on?”

She stretched her back, elongating smooth muscles. “Have I given you any indication I’m afraid of you?” A quick blink of devastatingly intelligent eyes caught him up short. “I know you’re in charge here in your little fiefdom, but I’ve survived more than your very worst, Jax Mercury.”

Brilliance sizzled from her. In his time of war, in the fighting, he’d seen might win every battle. Yet looking in her eyes, in the absolute confidence she exuded, he suddenly remembered a time, not so long ago, when intelligence ruled. For now, he couldn’t help but be intrigued—and challenged.

So he slowly, smoothly, slid inside her. Conquering in the most primitive way. Yet as he reached home, as her internal walls gripped him with enough heat to make him grit his teeth, he wondered who’d been captured.

He’d dated tough women, really tough. On the streets and then in the service. And he’d dated a couple of really intelligent women. But the combination of so much brain and courage, he hadn’t seen before.

Her hand flattened over the tattoo on his chest and down his left arm. “I see 20 in here, but there are so many lines crossing over the mark. Why didn’t you just get rid of it?”

He glanced down at the dark lines. “Twenty is my past and has marked me, so I kept it but showed how I’d changed. The 44 is from my unit . . . something just we knew, and it changed me more than I would’ve thought possible.” At least before Scorpius. “We can’t erase where we’ve been.”

“Ah. And the Vanguard tattoo?” She traced the lines across his other arm with her fingers. “The sword behind the shield has a scorpion for a handle.” She tapped the heart in the center of the shield that held the word VANGUARD. “A scorpion?”

“I figured it fit, considering Scorpius has altered us all.”

Her thighs gripped him, and she slid her feet around him to press her heels into his back. “I’m smart and I’m tough, Jax.”

He paused, deep inside her, to focus on the hint of vulnerability in her voice as her words mirrored his thoughts. “I’m aware of that.”