“I think you’re afraid my friends will storm inside this house and stab you.”

That was the most inflamed response he’d made in days, and she took heart. She didn’t know why his reserved, stoic persona irritated her so much, but it did. “Please,” she replied, just to provoke him. “Your friends couldn’t find me if I mailed them a map and marked our location with a glowing red X.”

One of his hands suddenly slipped on the bar, dislodging him. His forearm slammed into the wood, and he grunted. She was beside him a second later, unable to stop herself, gripping his hips and jerking him upright.

The muscles underneath her palms clenched, and Jaxon’s shoulders stiffened. But he managed to regain his balance and push out a breath. “You can let go now,” he said, and there was embarrassment in his tone.

She wanted to linger. First touch in days, her body screamed, want more, more, more. He was shirtless, and she watched a bead of sweat travel from his shoulderblade to the waist of his shorts. Nine scars branched from his spine. She wondered how he’d gotten them.

He had wide shoulders, and they were the perfect frame for the perfect chest she knew he possessed. She knew he had rope after rope of muscle and that each was a feast to her greedy gaze. He was strength and total masculinity, rough-hewn and sun-kissed. The body of a god with the face of a warrior. Didn’t get any better than that.

“I said you can let go.”

She released him and backed away. Obviously he was a strong and capable man. Any hint of weakness had to mortify him. “Anyone else would still be in bed, Jaxon. You endured multiple beatings from multiple people and sustained injuries that would have killed anyone else.”

He ignored her and continued his exercise.

Would a thank-you for the compliment have been too much to ask? She resumed her position at the wall and studied him once again. Lines of strain bracketed his eyes and mouth. His skin was paler than it had been a moment ago. “How’d you get the scar on your cheek?”

“Rogue alien,” he answered dismissively.

Truth?

Lie.

Le’Ace ground her teeth. “How?”

“Rogue alien.”

“Fine. Whatever.” His energy level?

Fifty-three percent below optimum.

Fifty-three percent below, and he was still trucking forward on those bars? The man was more determined than she’d realized. She sighed.

Perform a perimeter check.

A pause. All is clear.

Good. The home sat in the center of a heavily wooded, government-owned forest. Not many people knew of its location, but those who did wouldn’t mind storming inside for a surprise peek at her progress. Bastards.

Her gaze circled the spacious room, trying to view it as Jaxon might. Faux wood floor, scuffed but polished to a glossy shine. Dark brown syn-leather couch and loveseat, both scratched in various places. Walls painted a stark white.

Not wonderful, but not terrible, either.

“What’s your home like?” she asked him.

He didn’t glance in her direction, just kept plowing ahead. Finally he reached the end. Slow and easy, he turned to beat a pain-filled path back to the start.

“Well?”

“I’m sure you already know.”

Yes. She’d seen pictures of the enormous fortress his grandparents had given him. The green manicured lawn was edged by an intricately designed wrought-iron fence, which led to a large azure fountain. At night, when that water pulsed into the air every few minutes and tumbled back into the dappled base, the home itself looked like a glittering fairy tale of dream and starlight.

White stone seemed to stretch straight into the sky, wrapping around an acre of land like a glowing crescent moon. The stuff of storybook adventures, surely. What impressed her the most, however, was the RSS.

A robotic security system used artificial intelligence to systematically learn a home owner’s behavioral patterns and adjust itself without need for reprogramming. It armed and disarmed automatically, all the while making accommodations for those added into its memory bank.

For her to get inside, Jaxon would have to introduce her into the system or she’d blow the alarms by stepping a single foot onto the property. Not that she couldn’t get around that with time and effort. Perhaps one day, if she were ever allowed a vacation, she’d do so.

“Do you enjoy living in such a large place?” she asked.

“Has its perks.” He offered no more, no less. Polite, distant.

“And what do you consider a perk?”

“This and that.”

She pushed out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t like you like this.”

One of his brows arched. “Like what?”

“So reserved. I prefer you passionate and funny. We were married once. Remember?” She added the last as a joke. A sense of humor had never been something she cared to exhibit, but she was desperate to break through the man’s invisible wall of resistance.

Finally Jaxon ceased moving. His gaze lifted to hers, and the silver fire in his eyes pierced her. “What are you doing, Tabby?”

“Trying to make conversation.” Trying to know you better. Trying to smother the longing inside me.

“Well, you can stop. Unless you want to tell me how the Delenseans can zap themselves from one location to another in seconds, what they wanted with the Schön, who your boss is, and what you plan to do with any information I give you, we have nothing to say to each other.”

Her teeth once again ground together. “Most of that is not information I can share.”

“Most of what I know, I can’t share.”

Damn him!

“Tell me what you can share, at least,” he offered.

Fine. She’d give him a little. Hopefully, in return, he’d give her a lot. “Molecular transport is possible. But you knew that, right?”

He nodded. “I just didn’t know the Delenseans knew how. They’ve always seemed so…”

“Stupid?”

He gave another nod.

“A lot of them are, and the rest, well, they use it as a defense mechanism.”

“What did Thomas want with the Schön?”

Careful, careful. “The Schön destroyed the Delenseans’ planet and now some of the Delenseans want what anyone would want: revenge.”

A moment passed in silence. She said no more. Just waited.

He flicked her a glance, his expression hard. “That’s all you can tell me?”

“Yes.”

“Then, again, we have nothing to say to each other.”

“I gave you something, now you give me something.”

“Nothing to give.”

“You owe me information!”

“No, I don’t.”

That bastard! Totally not what she’d expected from him. Should have. Classic male behavior. She’d given, he’d reneged. No wonder she avoided relationships like most women avoided fat grams.

Part of her did understand, though. After everything she’d done to him, drugging him, trying to wipe his memory, she’d deserved that. And yet, for a woman who prided herself on being cold and hard, Le’Ace was amazed by the hurt mixed in with her anger and empathy.

She looked down to escape those probing eyes, eyes now watching her. Eyes that seemed to bore straight into her soul.

What a sight she must be. Her boots were caked with mud; she hadn’t bothered to clean them. She’d been too busy installing the stupid wooden rods for Jaxon so he could better regain his strength. Her hair, her real fucking hair that he’d wanted so badly to see but had not yet commented on, was probably windblown and tangled, her jeans and plain gray T-shirt wrinkled and dust-speckled.

“Le’Ace,” he said with a sigh.

Did he know he’d hurt her? Did he care?

“Look,” she said, “I’m glad we agree about something. Conversation is just another form of torture, so I won’t try and subject you to it anymore.” Thankfully, her voice was calm, unemotional. “Don’t try to escape, okay? The doors open with my ID scan, but we both know you’re capable of disabling the wires. Do it and wheel yourself out if you insist on being a jackass, but I’ll be right behind you and I’ll be pissed. You remember what happened to Thomas when he pissed me off, right?”

With that, she pivoted on her heel and strode from the room.

Jaxon cursed under his breath the moment he lost sight of her.

Le’Ace didn’t know it, but escape wasn’t on his to-do list. One, the wheelchair seriously slowed him down, but he was even slower without it. She’d catch him in a heartbeat. Two, he was determined to find out exactly who she was, whom she worked for, and what she wanted with the Schön.

Until then, he was staying put.

At least he’d gotten a few answers. The Delenseans had wanted revenge, and he knew there were other species out there that had been destroyed by the Schön. Would the people of Earth soon have to take a number to exact their own revenge?

Le’Ace could have told you more. Shoulda been nicer to her. Idiot.

No, he thought in the next instant. She didn’t want him nice. He’d been nice to her, polite as a Sunday school teacher, but she’d complained. She wanted him to be himself, he realized. She wanted the sarcasm, insults, perverted humor, and all.

If he would have acted the way his instincts demanded, she might have slipped and accidentally revealed a secret.

He almost snorted. To be honest, there was no way he would have noticed if she’d slipped. Hell, he wouldn’t have noticed if she’d presented a slide show with charts and diagrams outlining everything he wanted to know. When he looked at her, all he heard was the pounding of his heartbeat. When he looked at her, all he saw was luscious female.

All he wanted was sex.

Today she had strawberry-blonde hair, highlighted by flecks of amber and flaxen. The multihued tresses suited her to perfection. They were long with a hint of curl, cascading like a radiant waterfall. A few times, he’d almost reached out and fisted them, desperate to know if they were real or another wig. He suspected real, and that thrilled him.

“Take off the wig,” he’d once told her. “I want to see the blonde.”

“That wasn’t my natural hair, either,” she’d replied.

“Are you a redhead?”

“No.”

He hadn’t understood at the time, had thought she was merely being evasive. Her answers now made sense. She wasn’t a redhead, blonde, or brunette. She was a mix of all three colors.

That thick mane would look amazing spread over his pillow.

She would look amazing.

A wave of desire swept through him, blistering. She’d removed the contacts. Her eyes were hazel, as he’d suspected, a breathtaking mix of green and golden brown. His wife’s freckles had been washed away, leaving smooth, pale skin. Lickable, like cream. You thought that about the freckles.

He thought that way about all of her.

Jaxon scowled. I don’t even like her, yet I’m panting for her. She was fire and she was ice. She was determination and she was uncertainty. She was distant, yet sometimes she gazed at him as if she wanted to jump straight into his skin. Those times, she radiated so much vulnerability he was staggered.

Those times, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and hold her close.

How would she have reacted if he’d tried? She didn’t seem to like being touched, had only allowed it three times. Once in the cell, once when they’d lain in bed together, and once on the bars. None of those touches had been tentative or truly sexual in nature. Yet, none had been confident, either. She’d stroked his face, his chest; held him and nothing more.

She’d even flinched the few times he’d tried for more.

His scowl eased into a frown. Why hadn’t she attempted to use sex as leverage? He liked to think otherwise, but he might have caved, might have told her everything if she’d been sliding down his swollen shaft. To have all of her energy, all of her intense focus over him, under him…sweet Jesus. She had to know she weakened his resolve.

Physically, everything about her appeared tailor-made for sex, for him, which made resisting her mentally difficult. She walked into a room and his blood heated, searing and scorching everything in its path. All he thought about anymore was stroking her, tasting her. Fucking her. Hard and hot and dirty, for hours and hours, in every way she would allow. Maybe some ways she’d need coaxing.

The blows to his head, on the heels of Le’Ace’s mind warp, must have seriously screwed with his intelligence level. Sitting here, thinking like this, wasn’t good. He needed to mend the damage he’d done to their relationship instead of lusting after her. Mending it was the only way to get answers.

Grim, he forced his legs into action. Slow, steady. The muscles were stiff and sore; his left ankle was a mass of agony and his right arm felt as if it had been wired straight into an electrical socket in hell, but he didn’t allow himself to give up. Soon, sweat poured down his chest and back in tiny rivers.

When he reached the end of the bars, he twisted and let himself fall. His ass thumped into the wheelchair and jostled his still-healing ribs, and for a moment he lost his breath. A surge of dizziness assaulted him.

Infirmity sucked major ass.

Grinding his teeth, he propped his elbows on the handles and allowed his head to drop into his upraised palms. If she wouldn’t try to seduce him, perhaps he should try to seduce her.

Women softened after sex, became emotionally entangled. At least, that’s what he told himself to rationalize taking an enemy to bed so eagerly. God, I need help.

“Le’Ace,” he called, wheeling himself around. A minute ticked by, and there was no response. “Le’Ace.”