Free HeatedMatch by Lynne Silver

Shepard’s office.
    “Here she is, Shep.” He opened the door for her and inhaled
her unique scent one final time before turning and heading out to his own room
on campus.
    “Fifteen, Adam.” Shep’s voice echoed behind him.
    “What?” He turned back, pausing in the doorway.
    “You made it fifteen minutes before you caved, Blacker.”
    He wanted to tell Shep to shut the fuck up, but his
ingrained habit of showing his senior officer respect was hard to overcome. “It
means nothing. She may be my match, but I don’t want a partner.” He forced
himself to stride away without a backward glance at Loren to see how she took
his lie.

Chapter Four
     
    The bastard actually left. She stared at the now-closed door
where Adam had exited not two seconds ago without even a farewell kiss. Not
that she’d had a hello kiss either. During the past twenty-plus hours of the
most intense sex she’d ever experienced, they hadn’t kissed on the lips even
once. They’d come close a few times, but one of them would pull back at the
last second. It was too intimate, too personal for the animalistic sex they’d
shared.
    He was gone, and she was fine with it. Really. She had a
life to get back to. As soon as she interviewed Commander Shepard about the
kidnapping, she’d be on her way.
    She turned back toward the commander and waited for him to
speak. They sat and eyed each other for a few moments. Her cheeks warmed from
fielding the intense stare from a man her mother’s age who knew how she’d spent
the night. She tried to hold his gaze without blushing. She had nothing to be
ashamed about. The whole situation was Shepard’s fault. If he hadn’t locked her
in a room with Adam…
    The commander broke the silence first. “Ms. Stanton, I’m in
a bit of a quandary here.”
    “How so?”
    “Normally, my soldiers volunteer to find their breeding
partner.”
    “But Adam didn’t.”
    Shep shook his head with a grimace. “No, he didn’t, and he
possibly never will. Too much family baggage. I thought once he met you and was
intimate with you, he wouldn’t be able to refuse.”
    She glanced at the empty seat next to her. “Having second
thoughts now?”
    If he was, he didn’t admit them to her. Only a slight
wrinkle between his eyebrows told her things hadn’t gone exactly how he’d
hoped.
    “I’m not ready to give up on Adam breeding and giving us his
children for the next generation yet. If you’re amenable, I’d like you to stick
around for a bit,” he said.
    “My children.”
    “Excuse me?”
    Loren leaned forward, ignoring her aching sex-sore muscles.
“You said Adam would give you his children. They’d be my children also.”
    Shep looked surprised at the distinction. “Oh, of course.
So, will you stay?”
    She shook her head and squelched the tiny part of her brain
screaming to stay within a one-mile radius of Adam, her perfect match. “No, I’m
afraid I can’t stay. I have a job, a life outside of here. If you’ll be kind
enough to answer a few questions about the kidnapping, I’ll be out of your
hair.”
    Shep nodded and stared at a distant point on the wall for a
long minute. “Before you run off, would you take a look at this?” He picked up
a small picture frame from his desk and flipped it around, handing it to her.
    She nearly dropped it in shock. Staring back at her from the
plain, pewter frame was a much younger, black-haired Commander Shepard with his
arm around a woman. Standing next to the happy couple was a man who looked like
Loren’s dead father. Loren would stake her next year of paychecks that the man was her father.
    What. The. Hell?
    Why was her father in a picture with Commander Shepard? Her
father had been a journalist, an award-winning journalist. So dedicated, he’d
died covering a story in Iraq when she was ten years old. TIME Magazine had sent a letter recognizing his contributions to their publication. She
remembered Mom clutching the letter nightly, tears dripping down onto