J.T. HAD TO keep his head on straight, but he was still seeing red.
He was going to kill that bastard for what he’d done to Hope.
Hope stumbled and went to the soggy ground, ripping the flimsy material of her genie pants.
“Ouch!” she cried out, frustrated as he helped her back to her feet. “This stupid outfit is beyond ludicrous.” She wiped the mud from her knees and shook off her hands. “I feel like an idiot.”
“If we weren’t in mortal danger, I’d help you out of that outfit,” he said in a silky tone as he pulled her into his arms for a searing kiss that was inappropriate given the situation, but he didn’t he care. Hell, if he was going to die, this wasn’t a bad way to go.
Sealing his mouth to hers, he let his fear and rage coalesce into something white-hot as Hope clung to him, meeting the plunge of his tongue with a parry of her own.
“Should we be doing this?” she managed to ask, breathless. “I mean...this is probably not the time. I mean, not that I’m not enjoying it, because I am, but this is sort of like those movies where people start making out when they are clearly not out of danger yet.”
“Always gotta be the voice of reason, don’t you?” he teased gruffly, but she was right. He reluctantly turned her loose and they struck out again, pushing through the dense foliage until they were far enough away for J.T. to make a phone call safely.
Hope bracketed her waist as she drew harsh breaths from running, cheeks flushed and hair flying every which way. She looked like a crazy person—and had never looked sexier.
Deliberately cutting his gaze so he could concentrate, J.T. called Teagan, but got his voice mail, which meant Teagan was still on his way, and that was a good sign.
“Teagan will use the GPS on my phone to find us. We just have to hole up and stay safe until he does.”
“Anso will be looking for us,” Hope said, worried. “How are we supposed to hide out until then?”
“We’ll have to. It’s our only choice. We can’t trust anyone right now. Our best bet is to remain in the forest.”
“With the snakes and bugs and mercenaries?” Hope groaned when he nodded. “Fabulous. Well, I suppose that’s a step up from what Anso had in store for me by way of my education.”
“Education?”
“Yeah. That’s what he called it. He was going to whip me into submission. Apparently, that’s his thing. I was not looking forward to the prospect of being beaten.”
“What a sick prick.”
Hope shuddered at the memory, still too fresh. “Yeah, you don’t know the half of it.”
J.T.’s expression sobered and by the set of his jaw she knew what was coming and she didn’t blame him when he said, “It’s about time you tell me what the hell is so special about that pack of yours.”
J.T. was right. At this point he’d more than earned the right to know what he was risking life and limb for.
Time to come clean. “I’ve wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t find the right words. And then after everything... I didn’t want you to judge me.”
“Why would I judge you?”
Hope drew a deep, fortifying breath and met his gaze bravely. “I work in the virology department of Tessara Pharmaceuticals. My supervisor, Tanya, and I managed to create the single most devastating virus in the twenty-first century. It has the power to mimic any known pathogen introduced to it.”
J.T. did a double take, trying to absorb what she’d just revealed. “Wait a minute—are you telling me that this virus of yours can suddenly become, like, Ebola or the plague or smallpox?”
“Yes.”
He stared, incredulous. “That’s what you’ve been protecting this whole time? Why the hell would you create something like that? That’s nuts, creating something so dangerous.”
The very thing she’d been afraid of happening was unfolding right before her eyes and she couldn’t help the defensive tone that flowed from her mouth. “There are other applications aside from destruction and that’s what we were looking for. If it has the power to mimic any pathogen, then we were one step away from finding a way for it to mimic powerful cancer-fighting bacteria. Imagine if we could design a virus that would act as a warrior against disease, going after it with single-minded purpose. If we could do that, we could wipe out cancer, sickness, pretty much put a stop to anything aside from aging that could affect a human being’s quality of life.”
“Yeah, but you had to know that when word of that lab bomb got out, you were going to have unscrupulous people—such as Anso DeLeon—coming after you.”
“No, we didn’t think of that,” Hope admitted, facing his censure with a lifted chin. “Anso accused me of being naive and maybe I was. Tanya and I were too excited about our research and the breakthroughs to look at the potential ramifications. I’m sorry, but if you want me to be honest, that’s the truth of it. Am I aware now that it was a mistake? Hell yes. But it’s hard to explain to someone who couldn’t possibly understand what it felt like to be on the verge of a discovery like this. It’s intoxicating.”
His mind was blown, she could tell, but she needed to come completely clean if they were going to move forward.
“Anso wanted the virus to wipe out a tribal village standing in his way of a development in the Amazon. I refused to do it.”
“And how was he going to make you do that? Make the tribe drink your virus or something?”
She shook her head. “The virus had to be turned into an aerosol for the most effective way of distribution, and he set up this entire state-of-the-art lab for me to do this. I wasn’t going to do it. Which is why he was going to educate me in the reasons why I should cooperate.” Then she admitted her shameful fear. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did...I might’ve caved and done what he wanted. I was so afraid.”
Even though he was struggling with her revelation, he pulled her to him. “Most people would’ve been pissing themselves. You were brave. Don’t ever forget that.”
Hope didn’t deserve his praise, but she sank into him, inhaling the spicy scent of his body, feeling safer in that moment than if she’d been tucked away in a panic room built with thick steel walls.
J.T. held her for a long moment and then after a brief kiss on her crown, he drew her away to return to the most pressing issue aside from survival, saying, “Okay, so we’re back to the original question...what the hell are you going to do with that virus now? You have to destroy it.”
That was the crux of it.
“That virus is my life’s work. It’s what Tanya died for. I can’t just toss it in the trash. Besides, it’s not mine to destroy. That’s why I was taking it to the South American lab. Tanya and I thought it would be safer there. More contained.”
“Are you sure Anso was the only one who was after the virus?”
She frowned. “I think so. Why?”
“How would he have known about your work? It’s top secret, right?”
Hope nodded, getting where he was going. “Anso had said that he’d been watching my research for a while. Someone on the inside had to be feeding him updates.”
“So that means whoever your mole is...is likely still embedded in your circle. Who has access to your files?”
“I don’t know. Probably only the higher administrators in our department. Tanya was my supervisor, but I imagine her supervisor had access to our research docs.”
“And who is that?”
Hope shook her head. “No, it can’t be her. She’s been with the company for years. She’d never do something so dirty.”
“What’s her name? My buddy Ty has some friends in IT who can dig around in her background and see what pops up.”
“Deirdre Ellison, but we can’t go digging into her life. What if we’re wrong and we just violated her privacy for nothing?”
“And what if we’re right?” J.T. tossed in as tension returned to her gut at the possibility of Deirdre’s involvement. “If there is someone on the inside, you’re still not safe and neither is that virus. Can you destroy it any other way?”
“It has to be destroyed in a specialized lab with heat and pressure. It’s too dangerous to try it on our own.”
“We’ll figure it out.” He cupped her face as he sealed his mouth to hers. She drank in his kiss, losing herself for a brief moment in the stolen pleasure. Their tongues tangled almost desperately, but there was a sweetness to it, too. J.T. had quickly become someone she needed, not only for her safety, but something deeper that she wasn’t ready to examine.
Clinging to one another, J.T. broke the kiss and she was reluctant to let him go, but she knew now was not the time.
Had it been only days that they’d known each other?
Days that felt like a lifetime.
Of course, that wasn’t good.
But it felt like heaven.