The Omega Team: Hot Rod (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read Online Free Page A

painful shards of light blinded him as agony raked him. He tightened his hold on her, but only to keep himself from falling to the floor in a writhing lump of misery. He held her and shook as he recovered himself. And then he released her. Stepped back and gave her some space. Gave himself some as well.
    Hell, he deserved that.
    He forced himself to meet her eyes. “I apologize,” he said. Nearly a croak.
    To his annoyance, she smirked. “No need to apologize,” she said. “Just be aware that if you ever touch me again, next time, when I unman you, it’ll be with a knife.”
    Funny thing, he totally believed her.
    And he vowed to himself never to touch her again.
    Oh, not because of her utterly unveiled threat. But because he’d enjoyed that kiss—that fraction of a second when she’d kissed him back—way more than he should have.
    No doubt about it. She was a dangerous woman.
    If he wanted to emerge from this mission unscathed, he needed to keep his hands, and his lips, to himself.
     
    Sam did go to her room, but not because Matt had commanded it. She needed to get away from him, and fast.
    She was mortified that she’d kissed him back. Only for an instant, only because his scent and his touch and his taste had somehow reached down deep into the desolate well of her soul and stroked a long-languishing memory—but she had.
    It infuriated her how quickly she’d abandoned her vow. All her hate, her bitterness, her anger at him had just evaporated and she’d gone back in time. Become again that girl who had never been truly hurt. A girl who trusted. A girl who loved. A girl who gloried in the kiss of the boy she worshiped without any suspicion of her impending doom.
    Stupid girl.
    Oh, how on earth could she stand being so close to him? Spending so much time with him?
    How could she stay here and not kill him?
    Because once he’d let go of her and set her away, all that hate, bitterness and anger—that had so quickly deserted her—had returned. It had coalesced into a spitting acid and settled heavily in her belly.
    It would probably be wise to stay in this room and avoid him completely. She glanced desultorily around at the austere furnishings. It was hideous, but she’d seen worse.
    After her father’s death, and after the insurance company had refused to pay out—suicide, they’d claimed, the bastards—she and her mom had been homeless for a while. Hell, this ratty cabin was like a palace compared to some of the places they’d had to stay.
    It hadn’t gotten much better by the time Mom met Jimmy, her second husband, because by then, Mom had turned to the needle to ease her despair. From upstanding military wife to junkie in less than a year. And once she was with Jimmy, there was no hope for her. That slime bag had used Mom’s weakness, and the drugs, to control her. To drag her down with him into a hell of his own making.
    And Sam?
    Jimmy had used Sam too.
    She dropped on the bed and hugged her knees and forced herself to remember the happier times. A strong, handsome, smiling father who seemed like a valiant knight. A laughing mother who adored her ranger husband. A daughter who was cossetted and loved.
    It didn’t take much for a dream to go to shit, did it?
    She’d stepped from the enchanted castle right into the terrifying, dark and clawing woods that fairy tales were infamous for. Her new life had been filled with ogres and trolls and evil witches, with nary a Prince Charming to be found.
    It was wrong to fill young girls’ heads full of such fancies. True love and white knights were just as farfetched as magical spells and dragons. At some point, that poor deluded waif was going to learn the truth about the world and if she wasn’t lucky—or cynical—the truth would destroy her.
    Sam hadn’t been a hardened soul then. Hadn’t been prepared to handle such an ugly world filled with junkies and whores and desperate people who would do anything for oblivion. It had nearly consumed