Edge of Danger (6 page)

 
But realistically? Now that I know someone can just walk in and take the technology? Absolutely not.

 
“Not with every government agency breathing down his neck, he won’t,” Marshall said with disgust.

 
Eden looked at the preliminary designs for the voice-tech band and wanted to hit delete. Who cared? Yes, she grudgingly acknowledged, the concept had military as well as practical applications. The skeletal line-drawing rotated in virtual 3-D on her computer. The unit was no larger than an average wristwatch, but this design would allow the embedded computer portability as well as incorporating basic AI. Once built, it could process, analyze, and mimic everything from the commands of a seasoned general in battle to the mundane dictates of a babysitter. Eden thought it was an unambitious project. A freaking micro-nanny. It wasn’t Rex, damn it.

 
Marshall gave her a cautious look. “Maybe you shouldn’t have been so evasive about Rex to that Homeland Security guy.”

 
“I didn’t lie to Special Agent Dixon.”
She’d lied by omission though.
Once the authorities realized the extent of the technology unleashed, the shit would hit the proverbial fan.

 
The pterodactyls went kamikaze, and she pressed her hand to her midriff.
They don’t know half of what he’scapable of. And please God, let’s hope they never need to find out.

 
“To give Jason his due,” she said, striving for calm she was in no way feeling, “they probably gave him no choice but to shut down the program.” She was torn. Admit the full extent of her research. Or pray that whoever had Rex never discovered all his capabilities.

 
Marshall snorted. “I hate to be cynical, but Mr. Verdine will make a mint from the insurance claim. Without having to go to the trouble of putting Rex into production.”

 
“That’s ridiculous. He was the one who told us to come up with a humanlike robot they could use as a medic in war zones in the first place.”

 
“True…Radio on or off?” He asked absently, already focused on his computer.

 
He’d been about to say something else, Eden knew. Marshall didn’t much like Jason Verdine. “On.”

 
He turned on the state-of-the-art stereo system, and the too quiet lab filled with quiet jazz.

 
She was going to have to come clean to the authorities. She knew it. She had no choice. She’d already waited too long. Guilt was burning a hole in her brain, and in her poor, abused stomach.

 
She’d honored Theo’s dying last words as promised. But she was going to have to break that promise. Because the longer she kept these secrets the worse the possibilities became. She couldn’t in good conscience not forewarn the authorities, even if the bad guys never figured out what they had.

 
The authorities might or might not find the perpetrator and retrieve Rex, but Dr. Kirchner would still be dead. She could at least give him the credit for her work—

 
Oh for God’s sake. Eden thought, furious with herself. And then they’d blame
Dr. Theo Kirchner
for being an overreaching, overachieving, overeducated…
moron
for unleashing Rex on the world.

 
She wouldn’t do that to Theo.

 
He’d been more family than her own. He’d shared her frustrations. He’d celebrated her successes. He’d understood her. Something that couldn’t be said for pretty much anyone she now knew. She’d loved her professor like a grandfather. She would miss his gentle humor, his sharp intellect before age had diminished it. She’d miss their shared experience, miss his joy and pride at each new discovery she made. God. She missed
him.
Desperately.

 
She’d felt more alone, more
separate
than ever, standing at his graveside. He’d had no family there. The closest “family” had been her and Marshall. How sad was that? And who would stand wet-eyed beside
her
grave? It was a sobering thought.

 
Having no interest or excitement in this new project, Eden’s gaze kept returning to the other end of the room and the doorway to the kitchenette where she’d discovered Theo barely alive that night two weeks ago.

 
“Destroy everything. Trust no one. Promise me.”

 
Well, she’d destroyed what was left, and God only knew, she had trust issues by the bushel already.

 
She wished she could share her guilt with Marshall. Wished she could confess that she’d been an egotistical idiot to push so far and so fast with the technology. Marshall would certainly understand. Hell, he’d be ecstatic to learn just how far she’d been able to go. But as strongly as she wanted to tell him, Eden knew she would never put Marshall in the position of knowing something that could get him at best arrested, at worst, killed.

 
God, what a mess she’d made.

 
And how could she drag Marshall into the abyss with her? She knew without looking that his brow would be furrowed like a sharpei as he concentrated. He was cute and geeky, with no social skills, little self-confidence, and a brain few people understood. He reminded Eden of herself at the same age.

 
Like herself, Marshall had a few body image issues. She’d been a plump, shy misfit until she’d gotten rid of two hundred and forty some pounds. Fifty excess pounds of her own, and a hundred and ninety of ex-husband.

 
She missed neither her ex, nor the weight she’d lost through mind-numbing diligence, discipline, and sheer determination.

 
Marshall would come into his own. He was only twenty-two, a mishmash of disproportionate body parts. Not that Eden gave a damn what he looked like. He was funny and dear, and the best lab assistant she’d ever had. He’d worked with her for three years, and she trusted him implicitly. Something she couldn’t say about most men of her acquaintance.

 
She could hear Marshall typing behind her, clicking away as his fingers flew over his keyboard. It didn’t take much to get Marshall deeply involved.

 
Eden glared at her monitor and lightly tapped a short nail on the delete key.

 
She felt burned out. Guilt ridden. Stressed as well. She hated that she had those bodyguards with her 24/7. They’d gone with her to Sacramento, and camped out at her mom’s while she slept. Not that she’d been sleeping well lately.

 
Which brought her full circle to the bizarre dream she couldn’t forget.

 
Suddenly her heart started pounding erratically and she felt hot. Fever hot. She scowled. A hell of a dream if just the memory of it got her all hot and bothered.

 
She related the sensations she was experiencing to a surge of adrenaline. No—more like
anticipation.
Of what she had no idea. She had the sense that, somehow, she was on the brink of something…life altering.

 
Fanciful nonsense, she told herself. She was a scientist. Her elevated heart rate and respiration were directly correlated to her thoughts about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. Her fear was justified. Under the circumstances, she’d be a damn fool
not
to be scared. The ramifications of what had been stolen were far-reaching and of monumental proportions in the wrong hands. And she was almost wholly responsible.

 
Guilt was a heavy burden.

 
She doesn’t look happy, Gabriel thought, not too fucking happy himself. Invisible, he stood unnoticed twenty feet away from her, yet he still felt the same pull he’d felt in her bedroom earlier. He let his gaze slide down her lush body as she sat at her computer.

 
He closed his eyes briefly as her fragrance filled his senses, hoping, praying that the unbearable tension inside him would ease. His attraction to her was powerful. Good sense clanged a loud warning to get as far away from this woman as possible before it was too late.

 
Stunned by the strength of the blinding physical awareness he felt just
looking
at her, Gabriel wanted to be anywhere but here. Wanted to feel anything but the raw longing scorching him deep inside.

 
The fact that he’d
imagined
her naked before he’d entered her bedroom in the early hours of this morning, and she had
become
naked, concerned him a great deal. How was his subconscious suddenly capable of performing magic tasks not commanded by his conscious thought?

 
That had never happened before.

 
He’d have to be a damn sight more vigilant about what the hell he was thinking when he was around Dr. Cahill.

 
Thank God he wouldn’t have to be around her for long.

 
Unfortunately he was near her
now.

 
He remembered the sight of her beautiful plump breasts with the peaks of her aroused nipples begging for his touch. He pictured her parted lips, and the sounds she made as her arousal built, and gritted his teeth hard enough for his jaw to ache, willing away the vivid pictures in his brain.

 
What would happen if he gave in to the powerful temptation? Just to
touch
her? How dangerous could a touch be? Lust wasn’t love. And God only knew, this was lust to the nth power.

 
It was useless trying to resist the compulsion to stare at her. Impossible. He’d proved
that
to himself the last time he’d watched her here in the lab several days ago, and again early this morning before the sun was up.

 
It was even worse this morning. He’d known—
known
—that seeing this woman again would be dangerous. But what choice had he had?

 
The Curse.

 
The fucking, goddamned Curse was alive and well and already biting him in the ass. He’d felt the pull the very first time he’d laid eyes on this woman. A pull he’d never felt before in his life, but one he recognized immediately. Scared the living bejesus out of him.

 
When a Lifemate is chosen by the heart of a son: No protection can be given, again I have won.

 
Not that he’d let it get
that
far. Hell no. He’d do what he had to do and get the hell out of Dodge. Besides, it wasn’t his
heart
that was turned on by Dr. Eden Cahill.

 
Close enough to reach out and touch her, he watched her work. Her hair gleamed, beckoning to be stroked. The curly, chin-length strands bared the vulnerable curve of her neck as she leaned over the keyboard. He wanted to put his mouth there. Her dark lashes cast shadows on her cheeks; he wanted to feel the brush of them on his skin. He wanted to run his mouth lightly across the smooth skin beneath her stubborn jaw, and then taste the lobe of her ear. She was oblivious to his presence as she concentrated. He wanted her to be that focused, that intense as she became familiar with his body.