Free Play It Safe (The Safe House Series Book 2) by Leslie North Page A

him again, this time schooled by the desires awakening inside her.
    A groan played at the back of his throat. Another gift—that someone as inexperienced as she could elicit from him, a beautiful and unattainable man, such a sound.
    He ended the encounter as if she was a desert oasis and he feared never drinking again. Of all the ways she should be punished for getting them into this situation, this might be the worst. Feed the starving fantasies of a deprived woman and forevermore, there will be hunger. His fiery exhales unraveled the nerves along her neck, a sweet node of connection that elicited gooseflesh along her inner thighs. He trailed two soft, drugged kisses against her cheek before he pressed his lips against her ear.
    “Don’t let anyone—ever—make you feel undesired. If we weren’t…” His head dropped in defeat at the backlog of words on his tongue. Something close to regret stitched his labored declaration.
    “Samson?” To her ears, she sounded fragile, overburdened.
    He pressed a finger to his lips and whispered, “I’m sure this place is bugged.”
    “What’s happening?” What her response lacked in volume, it more than made up in urgency.
    “You have an out. Leave what you have—an imperfect formula that won’t work. We’ll tell him it’s finished and you walk out of here, right now.”
    “What about you?”
    “I can stop him, Angela, from the inside. He’ll lead me straight to Mike. I can save your brother, but we have to say goodbye, here, now.”
    “No. No . Absolutely not.”
    “This is my training, Angela. This is who I am. You know how many men I’ve extracted from bad situations?”
    “And when Julian finds out you betrayed him?”
    “He won’t. Not until I have your brother in safe hands.”
    “You didn’t tell me you knew Julian.”
    “I wasn’t sure until I saw him. We have a shared history.”
    “That he’s using to set you up.”
    “Maybe, but I’m using him, too. Don’t fight me on this, Angela.”
    “I created this formula. You need me.”
    “I need to picture you here, safe, tangled in the sheets of a warm bed.” He tagged a lock of her wild hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead. “Even if it isn’t mine.”
    Her heart crashed into v-fib at his insinuation.
    “Now, go…before Julian changes his mind. Back the way you came, but head straight at the lab and exit the metal doors. Julian has a car and driver waiting to take you to Damian, another of Rockwell’s agents. He’ll stay with you until this is over.”
    “Samson—”
    “Go.”
    “But—”
    “Now, Angela.” He crushed her into one final embrace and backed away, one step then two, reversing the path he had come, his unyielding gaze on hers as if he could hold her that way, in that moment, forever. He turned and disappeared.
    His footfalls faded to silence.
    And Angela knew a new intimacy to the word nightmare .
     
     
    ***
     
    Angela lasted a few miles.
    In the back of a vehicle, this time a stretch, luxury SUV with midnight tint and a glass partition separating her from the driver, she watched an isolated mountain in the distance shift position along the windy roads. All this, while Samson boarded a plane bound for South Africa to save her brother.
    Her brother.
    The brother who thought nothing of putting his future on hold to raise her. The brother who always told her that life began beyond the edge of one’s comfort zone. The brother who was abducted because of something she created.
    And here she was, scurrying away.
    The Angela who had been orphaned when her parents were killed and holed herself up in countless laboratories while the pursuit of intellect became her security blanket would have been relieved to have an escort back to her safe, predictable life. Hell, the Angela from the King’s Head Tavern days earlier would have been satisfied.
    But as hard as it was to fathom, she was no longer that Angela. She had seen too much, experienced too much, felt too much, to