Free Python's Embrace (Bitten Point Book 3) by Eve Langlais

flash. He also said, ‘there’s weird shit happening at Bittech, and I’m not just talking about the lousy cafeteria food.’”
    “Wes Mercer, who works there as a guard, is convinced they’re up to no good as well, but we’ve never managed to find anything concrete. But Wes is still convinced. If there are secret levels, then that might explain Wes’s conviction that things happen out of sight.”
    “Things done out of sight and secretively are usually a sign folks are up to no good . I recall being excited about this news. I don’t know why, though. Why would I care what they’re doing at a medical research facility?” Her nose wrinkled.
    “Are you a news reporter?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t think so. And according to Cynthia”—who had called during lunch despite being told not to—“I’m kind of vague on what I do for a job.”
    “Maybe you’re a secret agent spy.”
    He said it in jest, yet something about his words rang a bell. It just didn’t trigger a memory. “I wish I knew why I was so interested in Bittech.”
    “It could be because they’re a medical institute for shifters. The humans think they’re researching the effects of bayou plants on human cells, but in reality, they’re supposed to be researching the shifter genome, and they also provide fertilization for infertile shifter couples. But I say supposed to because we’ve begun to suspect it’s not just research happening, but experimentation, too.”
    “You think they’re the ones who jabbed me? But why? Why me?”
    “Perhaps they thought you’d be an easy mark. Cynthia did mention you were orphaned. Perhaps they assumed no one would come looking for you.”
    How sad that she didn’t have a family to care. I have Cynthia and her folks. The thought and certainty did warm her.
    As Aria paced the motel room, she noted the door remained ajar. She kicked it shut lest someone walking by wonder at the strange tableaux. In order to clarify the memory, she recited it in point form aloud. “So, I met Jeffrey at the bar, where he bragged about his super access. For some reason, I needed to know more. I remember wanting into the institute, so I stole his access card.”
    Much like a femme fatale on screen, Aria had lured the slightly tipsy fellow into the parking lot. Once there, she feigned a sudden passion for him that involved a lot of slobber, on his part, as he mashed his mouth against hers. Shudder.
    The poor sod thought he was getting lucky. In reality, Aria groped him so she could steal his employee keycard. Once she’d switched the card to her own pocket, while keeping her lips clamped tight lest a stray tongue visit, she pushed away from Jeffrey and, with a high-pitched laugh, said, “Goodness, but that was hot. You make a girl want to forget she’s saving herself for marriage.”
    While he stood there bemused, she’d hopped onto her motorcycle and sped off.
    “Did you go to Bittech that night?”
    Her lips twisted along with her forehead as she strove to remember anything past getting on her bike. “I don’t know. Everything after me leaving the bar is a blank.” Not entirely—she remembered also wiping her arm across her mouth to wipe Jeffrey’s slobber. “Ugh.”
    “Why ugh?”
    “Why is it that the only kiss I remember is an awful one?” As a former slut, shouldn’t she have tons of hot-kiss memories?
    “We can’t have that.”
    Before she could ask what he meant, Constantine drew her into his arms and kissed her.
    Kissed sounded so trite, though. This melding of their lips, the electrical spark that arced, and the languorous heat invading her limbs was far more than just a kiss. It was an explosion of her senses. A knee-buckling and breathtaking foray into passion.
    As his mouth caressed hers, she couldn’t help but moan and part her lips. The access led to his tongue sliding into her mouth sinuously so that it could twine with hers.
    She couldn’t have said when her arms wound around his neck