“Now you’re just being rude.”
“I’m only stating the truth. Don’t tell me you weren’t aware that Chase burns for you. Anyone with eyes in his head can see that.”
“But only you would be coarse enough to speak it.”
That pale purple gaze flashed with outrage and for a second he wondered if he was about to get slapped. He rather hoped he would. He wanted her angry. Wanted her hating him, especially now, when the scent of her warm, wet skin was drilling into his senses. Every curve of her petite body branding itself into his mind’s eye.
He was close enough to take her in his hands. Too close, because at this intimate range, he could see the flutter of her pulse drumming frantically at her throat, and he was all too aware that there would be no one to stop him if he pulled her into his arms and took a forbidden taste of her.
“You hang your callousness on the excuse of truth,” she said, a fierceness creeping into her voice. “So maybe you can tell me why you found it necessary to lie to me about what happened with the Crimson lab.”
Tegan narrowed a hard look on her, the question raising some kind of alarm within him. “I didn’t lie to you about anything.”
She didn’t flinch under his glare, only held his gaze steadier, challenging him. “It was you who destroyed the lab, not the Order. You personally, Tegan. No one else. I heard all about it.”
A low hiss leaked out of him. He drew back, knowing he was the one retreating now, but unable to stop his hedging backward momentum. Elise moved with him, her wet, nearly naked body too close. Too goddamn tempting.
“Why would you do something like that, Tegan? I can’t believe that you had any kind of personal stake in seeing the lab razed. So tell me. Why? Did you do it for me?”
He said nothing, incapable of speech and edging dangerously close to an emotion he did not want to feel.
She stared up at him fiercely. The silence was heavy, immovable. “Where’s your truth now, warrior?”
Tegan forced a scoff, hearing the humorless laugh scrape in his throat. “I’ve warned you once, female. You’re toying with fire. I won’t be gentleman enough to warn you again.”
Elise closed her eyes as Tegan snarled a curse and stalked away from her. She didn’t dare move, hardly drew a breath in the moments Tegan’s swift footsteps carried him to the pool’s exit. She heard him leave. Only then did she allow herself to sag in relief.
What on earth was she thinking? Had she completely lost her mind, provoking a warrior like him toward anger?
And it was anger she saw in his expression. An unmistakable, smoldering fury had lit his bright green eyes as he’d stared at her, probably no less than an instant away from lashing out at her. Was she suicidal, like he’d accused her last night? Because if his ruthless reputation was anything to go by, pushing him like she had was liable to get her killed.
Except it wasn’t anger she’d been looking for just now. She had wanted to see some kind of feeling in him…
Feelings he might have toward her.
Which was utterly foolish.
Still, she wondered. Had been wondering, ever since that early November night when Tegan had taken her home from the compound. Elise didn’t want to think there was anything between them. Lord knew, she didn’t need a complication like that in her life right now.
But in the tense moments before Tegan left the room, something had indeed been there.
Despite his cool demeanor, color had risen in his Gen One dermaglyphs. The beautiful markings had swirled like elaborate, changeable tattoos across Tegan’s muscular chest, arms, and torso…and down, beneath the tight black swimsuit that blatantly accentuated his profane sexuality.
And as she’d stood before him, close enough to feel his breath skate hotly across her skin, those incredible glyphs had begun to pulse in shades of burgundy, indigo, and gold—the colors of awakening desire.
CHAPTER
Twelve
Hey, T. Looks like you’re Berlin bound tomorrow night,” Gideon said as Tegan entered the tech lab. He scrubbed a hand through his spiky blond hair, disheveling it even worse than it had been before and amping up his usual geeky-genius look. “We just got FAA clearance for our private jet. The pilot will be waiting for you at Logan’s corporate terminal at dusk. You’ll have to stop to refuel in Paris, but you’ll arrive in Berlin with about an hour to spare before dawn the following day.”
Tegan acknowledged the news with a vague nod. It had been a couple of hours since his encounter with Elise at the pool, and his blood was still drumming in his temples, his body still alive with a tingling sense of awareness that was frankly starting to annoy him.