Pepper leaned back, pushing her bottom tight against him. It was a subtle move, but the contact with his heavy erection sent flames dancing through him. You’re a little insane, aren’t you? Does your grand-mere know she raised an oversexed crazy man?
I’m Cajun, honey, we know what the good thin’s in life are. Food. Fightin’ and lovin’. He nudged her with his thigh. Not necessarily in that order.
Pepper coughed and covered her mouth as she looked back at him over her shoulder, but it was impossible to cover the flash of laughter in her eyes or the answering spark of desire. Wyatt found the laughter was every bit as important to him as the desire was. She wasn’t a woman who ever had much to laugh about.
“Pepper?” Ezekiel prompted. “If Wyatt can quit trying to charm your panties off, we might actually come up with a plan.”
“I have no idea why you’re accusin’ me of misconduct,” Wyatt said. “And don’ be thinkin’ about her panties or I’ll have to pound you into the ground. Don’ even say the word ‘panties.’ ”
He groaned inside his head deliberately, centering Pepper’s attention on him. Now he’s got me thinkin’ about your panties. You are wearin’ some, aren’ you? Wait. Don’ be answerin’ that. If you’re not, we’re goin’ to have words about it, and if you are, I’ll be deeply disappointed.
You really are obsessed with sex.
Ma’am, I do thank you for the compliment. It’s true. Absolutely true. Know I’ll take good care of you and anytime we have an argument, I will find the perfect way to make things up to you.
Wyatt poured sincerity into his voice.
Pepper burst out laughing. “You really are insane, and if you keep it up, I’m telling Grand-mere on you.”
He placed his hand over his heart. “I’m just reassurin’ you, darlin’, that I can take very good care of you, that’s all.”
“Miss Pepper,” Ezekiel said. “Would you like me to take him outside behind the barn and teach him a few manners? I’d be happy to do that for you.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting in on that,” Malichai added. “Having been on the receiving end of his lessons on manners quite a few times, I can testify that my brother has excellent skills in this particular area.”
“Don’ even think the two of you city boys could take on a Cajun born and bred in the bayou and win,” Wyatt cautioned. “’Specially when a lady is watchin’.”
Pepper tapped the blueprints. “Maybe we should just forego the lesson in manners altogether. My guess is, Grand-mere tried her best, and if she couldn’t get anything through that thick skull of his, no one could.”
“So how did you get out?” Trap asked, bringing them all back to the important matters at hand.
“The ventilation system, which, by the way, is very narrow. I actually was afraid I’d get stuck a couple of times. Every eight feet they have high-speed fans. I believe it was more to ensure against escape than to ventilate, but I could be wrong.”
“So thick concrete, elevators requiring both palm prints and a code,” Wyatt said. “Whose palm print?”
“A specific guard. There’re only two of them. They always are the ones to accompany the prisoners. They escorted me and the children, and they left and came back with the other woman.”
“You had no communication with the woman?” Draden asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Pepper said. “I just don’t know anything about her. We used a kind of Morse code. Every soldier is taught it at school and I knew she was one of us – the flawed rejects, not worthy of being called a soldier.”
“Don’ say that.” The table trembled and Wyatt pulled his fists from the top of it and put his hands on her narrow waist. “That just pisses me off. You’re one of us – a GhostWalker – and so is that woman. If she’s still alive, we’ll go in and get her out. We don’ leave anyone behind.”
“Her name is Cayenne. That means she was developed at the school in France. Everyone there was given the name of a spice. She wasn’t with my group, so she’s probably a little younger than me.”
The men looked at one another. “That means she can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen. Twenty at the oldest,” Wyatt said. “What the hell did she do to get herself on a termination list?”
“Unfortunately, if you don’t follow orders and you try to escape or you refuse to do something they think is important, with Braden, that’s pretty much all it takes, especially if they already think you’re dangerous.”
“Every GhostWalker is dangerous,” Trap pointed out. “We’re supposed to be. I think the original idea of enhancing our psychic abilities was lost a bit when Whitney switched that over to genetics.”
“Whitney uses women and children to experiment on,” Draden said, “to perfect his ideas before he tries them on his male soldiers.”
“Damn him,” Ezekiel said. “Why can’t one of us get to him?”
“The intel on him is that he moves every couple of days. He can be anyone,” Wyatt said. “He’s become that good.”
Malichai nodded. “He was actually at the White House for an event with Violet Freeman a couple of months back. Violet is now officially a widow. Senator Freeman died. Whitney used an alias, but Lily Miller, Whitney’s daughter, has facial recognition software constantly searching for him and it identified him positively. While he was there, he met with several top members of the president’s staff. We don’t know why, of course, but we think he’s moving Violet into position to run for president next election year.”