Spinning her chair around, she looked up at her commando. He’d taken a shower and changed clothes, although now everything was black, just like the other men—males. His long red-and-black hair was damp on the ends and he smelled … heavenly.

“Is Nate still okay?” she said.

“He’s doing very well. He ate something and now he’s resting.”

“What did he have?” Like he was her kid or something. “That ginger and rice—”

“Roast beef.”

“Oh, that’s great! A serving or two of that can help his iron counts.”

“It wasn’t just a serving. He had a whole roast beef. As in … a bone-in, standing prime rib roast. I believe they said it weighed sixteen pounds.”

Sarah blinked. “Jeez, what was dessert—an entire pie?”

“Vanilla ice cream.”

“Oh, that’s more reasonable. It’s not like he ate a whole half gallon.”

“And the pie.”

“What?”

“He ate a half gallon of vanilla ice cream with an apple pie. He’s in a food coma now.”

Sarah threw her head back and laughed. Part of it was relief. Part of it was lack of sleep. Part of it was … the smile on the commando’s face: Because he felt the same way she did, that connected them.

And she liked being connected to him.

“What is your name,” she said as she caught her breath. When he hesitated, she shrugged. “Come on, I already know everything. Well, a lot of things, at any rate. Your name is a simple thing, right?”

The commando cleared his throat. “I come from a warrior tradition.”

She looked up and down his magnificent body. “Really? And here I thought you were a baker.”

The fact that he laughed again made her feel good.

“No,” he said. “I don’t make bread or rolls.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“Ah, no.”

“Okay, well, don’t feel bad. Neither have I. You were saying? You’re a badass?”

That smile got bigger. But then faded into a wince. “So our names … the names we are given are meant to inspire fear. They are identifiers of our nature as defenders of the race—”

Sarah put her palm up. “Just tell me. How bad can it be?”

“Murhder. My name is Murhder.”

She laughed. And then her mouth fell open before she could catch herself. “Wait, you’re serious.” When he nodded, she tried to compose herself. “Oh. Wow. Is—um, is that first or last?”

“Last. My first name is Cold-Blooded.” As she did a double take, he smiled shyly. “I’m joking. It’s just Murhder.”

Sarah broke out in a laugh. “Did you make a funny?”

He blushed. “I did. I made a joke.”

He was so hesitant, so … endearingly unsure of the humor … that she wanted to hug him.

“That’s a good one.” She got up out of the chair. “And I am starved. Do you know where food is?”

“I do. Everyone’s gone up to the big house for First Meal, but there’s a break room down the way. And yes, Nate’s being monitored by machines with loads of alarms. If he needs anything, people are going to come running, including us.”

“Good. Let’s do this.”

Sarah followed the commando’s—Murhder’s—lead, heading down the concrete corridor and coming up to Nate’s hospital room. Opening the door, she leaned in and reassured herself that he was, indeed, sound asleep, a slight snore rising from his man’s throat.

“I still can’t believe what he went through,” she murmured.

Murhder’s voice was quiet. “It’s just the way it works for us.”

Making sure the door closed silently, they continued down the hall, walking side by side—and it felt normal. Natural. As if she had been striding next to him for years.

“So how’s your work with John?”

She exhaled. “Well, they refuse to tell me how he was injured. It’s the one piece I don’t have, but I’m working around that. At the end of the day, the ‘how’ is not as important as the ‘where.’ ”

“Like in the shoulder location?”

“No, as in the status of the wound. I mean, on a molecular level, where are we—is it getting worse? What can I do to make it better? This kind of thing.” She glanced around. “Speaking of which, where are we?” And then she held her palm up. “I know you probably can’t tell me, but I’m just … who paid for all this? Where does the money come from?”

“Here, let me get the door for you.”

As he jumped ahead and opened the way into a cafeteria-like space, she knew he wasn’t going to answer any of those questions—and it was a reminder that she was just a visitor here. Not a new resident.

Sarah stopped abruptly and stared at the dorm couches, the tables with chairs, the vending machines and the hot and cold buffet that was stocked with food that smelled delicious.

“I won’t remember anything,” she said in a rough voice.

When she looked over at Murhder, he met her eyes. “No. Nothing.”

In the silence that stretched out between them, she tried to memorize everything about him, from the fall of his incredible hair to his strong, handsome face, from his broad shoulders and heavy chest to his long, long legs. When her stare returned to his, the air between them changed, that electric current igniting, the sexual attraction not returning so much as resurfacing because it had never really left her: With all distractions pushed aside, and the fact that they were alone together, she became keenly aware of her own body … and his.

“Sarah,” he said in that way he did, in that low growl of his.

The first thing that went through her mind was that if she wouldn’t remember this anyway, why not pursue the attraction? She had never judged people for having casual sex, and God, who could blame her for wanting him? But more to the point, there were going to be no aftershocks, no regrets, because she was going to have no memory of being with him, however the sex went.

Yet the instant those thoughts went through her mind, she threw them out. She had more self-respect, for one thing—she was going to own her decisions, whether or not she had any memory of what the sex was like. And for another, that kind of thinking dehumanized him, reducing him to a kinky sex toy she used in a proverbial hotel room while away on a business trip—nothing more than a romp outside her normal bandwidth that she didn’t need to feel guilty about because it was out of context and didn’t count.

Wait, “dehumanized” wasn’t the right word, was it. More like … “devampired him.” Or something.

Shit.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said.

In the back of her mind, she realized it was the second time he’d said that to her. And she believed him. Down to her core, she had this strange, abiding faith that, regardless of whatever else was being kept from her, when it came to keeping her safe, he was speaking the truth.

Sarah reached her hand up toward his face. And as if he knew what she wanted, he leaned in from his great height, giving her the warmth of his skin, the rasp of his five o’clock shadow, the cut of his jaw.

The instant the connection was made, she knew that she would do this anyway. She would choose him, this man—this male, she corrected—even if she would have memories that made her miss him for the rest of her life. And the strength of that conviction was such that she wished she would remember him. In fact, she wished for things even further along than that, things she was not going to get out of this … whatever it was.

Things like a future. A relationship. A partnership.

Which was nuts. She barely knew him—and had only just learned his kind even existed.

“Anywhere,” he groaned. “Touch me anywhere you want.”

When she glanced at the door and wondered if anyone was going to interrupt at an inopportune time, there was a subtle click, as if it locked itself. Before she decided whether that was alarming or not, he pointed to his chest.

“I did that—so we won’t be disturbed. But you’re free to go. The lock’s on this side and I will never stop you from leaving.”

“You always read my mind.”

He opened his mouth to reply—except as her fingertips brushed over his lower lip, the contact seemed to make him lose all thought.

“I’m not using you,” she told him. “I just want to be clear.”

“I wouldn’t care if you were.”

Sarah put her hands on the pads of his pecs and rode the big muscles up to his shoulders. Waves of that cologne he wore got into her nose anew, as if the sexual connection was turning up all her sensory receptors and amplifying everything.

God, he was big. And hard.

Everywhere.

“Kiss me,” she said as she tilted her head up.

In spite of his obvious strength, he was gentle with her, his hands slipping around her waist and pulling her against him just enough so that their clothes brushed. Thanks to the proximity, body heat ricocheted and magnified in the space between them, and then she wasn’t thinking about even that.

Murhder lowered his head … and kissed her.

Oh … wow. His lips were velvet on her own, all summer-breeze soft and slow as an August sunrise as they caressed hers. And she would have called the contact sweet, except no. His enormous body … his mysterious, other-than-human, incredibly powerful body … trembled, and that was what made everything utterly erotic: The subtle shaking meant he was holding himself in strict control, clamping down on his drive, chaining, jailing what was inside of him.

There was a beast on the far side of his will, a wild creature rattling at the iron bars of his restraint, a force so much greater than she could understand.

And she wanted the monster in him. The unleashed. The crazed.

Against everything that made any kind of sense, she wanted him to devour her, master her, take her down onto the hard floor right here, right now, and pin her under his naked, pumping body until she had no thoughts of who or even what he was.