His skin was so young and smooth. Strong. “Enough training. We have business to discuss.” She turned on her high heel and strode back into the newly furbished laboratory building. While the fifteen-acre facility in Boise wasn’t nearly as big or as well outfitted as the facilities and compounds in her past, it was a good start. There were barracks for soldiers, offices for medical personnel, a lab, and now a training field. She’d invested well through the years, as had Sheriff Cobb.
Heat filtered around her as she made her way down the fairly sterile hall to her office, which had a window facing the training field. Shrugging out of her jacket, she took a seat at her wide glass desk.
Daniel had followed her and stood at attention behind one of her two modern guest chairs. “Yes?” he asked, seemingly unconcerned by his bare chest or ripped jeans.
She swallowed, her abdomen heating. It would take an hour to kiss down that chest. “How has recruiting gone?”
“Not well.” He planted both broad hands on the back of a chair. “We need to reach out to mercenaries for hire, and your boy is stopping me on that.”
She arched an eyebrow. “The sheriff is stopping you?” Elton Cobb had better get on board with her plans.
“Yes. Said he only wants ex-military with honorable discharges.” Daniel’s voice was smooth, like honeyed whiskey, and his eyes were an intriguing brown veiled of any emotion. “I disagree.”
“He’s a sheriff and wants to stay within the law as much as possible.” She let her gaze roam over Daniel’s broad chest. “I wonder. Once this place is up and running, do you think the sheriff can run the military side as well as the commander did?” She’d begun her career in genetic research and manipulation with her one love, the commander, so many years ago. Now that he was dead, she needed to continue their work. “Is Elton Cobb up to the task?”
“No. The sheriff is soft.”
She lifted her head. Daniel was nowhere near soft. Anywhere. “What about you?”
For the first time, Daniel’s eyes flared. “Absolutely.” His chin lifted.
“What drives you?” she asked, trying to probe into his head. Ambition looked good on him. She’d known him since birth, and yet she still didn’t fully understand what made him tick. Many of her other highly trained soldiers were driven by family and the need to protect each other, which was why and how they’d escaped her for now. Daniel didn’t have that. “What do you want?”
“A home,” he said simply. “I grew up in a compound as a soldier, and that’s all I know. This is what I want.” He shoved a hand through his short hair. “If I’m in charge, this is my place, too. It’s mine.”
“I see.” She crossed her legs, showing plenty of leg. Half naked, he made her mouth salivate. When was the last time she’d been taken and hard? Oh, the sheriff was getting into shape and had a nicely sadistic bent, but there was something about a dyed-in-the-wool soldier—one who rarely let go—that was truly unique. The commander had been like that, and he’d trained Daniel on how to kill and control his emotions. Would Daniel be as good in bed? Her last wild time with a man holding frighteningly absolute focus had been way too long ago. “You said something last time we spoke about me being the closest thing you have to a mother. Do you really see me as a mother?”
His head lifted slightly. “Not mine. No.”
Interesting. She stood and crossed around the desk, her heartbeat humming nicely. “No?”
“No.” He looked down several inches at her, his gaze sweeping her entire form and making her breasts tingle. “I’ve never seen you in that light.”
Fair enough and very good news. “Do you have a woman?” She had made sure her boys had the best training in sexual techniques from many experts, so he definitely knew how to please a woman in a thousand ways. “Are you attached?”
“No.” He kept her gaze, one of the few soldiers who apparently did not feel the need to turn away. Was that curiosity in his eyes? “It’s hard to maintain a relationship with secrets. I prefer casual.”
“As do I.” She’d have to tread softly, but she could have both Daniel and Elton Cobb. Maybe. Just imagine the churning depths beneath Daniel’s calm exterior. “Don’t you want more? A relationship of some sort?”
He frowned. “Not now. I like sex, and women have their place, but I don’t want the picket fence.” He gave a mock shudder. “Although . . .”
She paused. “Although what?”
“I’m interested in the command here. I wouldn’t mind something, someone, who was just mine. Even secretly. But mine.” He brushed her long hair away from her shoulder.
She shivered. They were definitely on the same page. “I’m glad to hear that.”
Daniel leaned into her space just enough to catch her breath. “You said we had business to discuss, which always comes before pleasure.”
She swallowed. “Good point. I want you to find Heath, Denver, and Ryker now. Report only to me and not to Sheriff Cobb.” While Elton wanted those boys dead, she wanted them alive, well, and donating sperm for her experiments. “Have you studied the news conference given by Anya Best?”
“I have.” Daniel crossed his muscled arms and stood straighter. “When Anya Best gave her little impromptu news conference, she lied.”
“Agreed.” Isobel’s hands itched to touch his chest. “Do you think she was lying about the engagement, the move to Snowville, or both?”
“Both.” Daniel shook his head. “No way would Heath allow her to announce their engagement or, more importantly, their location. She set herself up for the serial killer who had taken her sister, and she set Heath up at the same time. My guess is that he told her to give Snowville as a location and then headed right for Florida.”
Isobel sighed, her mind spinning. “I agree. Yet I think we should check out Snowville just in case.”
