Jordan (2 page)

Maybe his brilliant blue eyes and intellect had fooled her. Hell, if she put his picture on the news, the female half of the
planet would fall in love at first sight and forgive him anything. Mr. Dark, Tough, and Brilliant’s gorgeous face might just
sway the general population and perhaps her stockholders, as well. And she needed his expertise badly enough to give him the
chance to convince her he had a damn good reason for his deception, before she called in the authorities.

“What other lies have you told me?” she asked.

“Whatever would get me this job.”

“Real inspiring. Why didn’t you respond to the memo I sent last week?”

“If I spent all my time reading your memos, how would I get anything done?”

Vivianne tried coming at him with another tactic. Last week’s change orders had been over the top—even for Jordan. “You’ve
installed miles of wiring that aren’t in the specs.”

“We’re ahead of schedule, so why are you concerned?”

She frowned. Before she’d known about his lies, she’d shrugged off his clever modifications. But now she wondered if his alterations
had been necessary. Or simply a sneaky way to delay and undermine the entire project.

She’d tried to hire theoreticians to double-check his work. But the specialists couldn’t keep up, remaining bogged down in
theory while Jordan had gone on to build working prototypes. Now even his brilliance seemed suspicious. How did he know what
he knew? Where did he come from?

In a desperate attempt to suppress her frustration, Vivianne reminded herself how far she’d come. Peering at the
Draco’
s shiny metal, she had difficulty believing they’d built this ship in just over three months. Almost every system was a new
design, and while the number of things that could go wrong was infinite, she had high hopes for success.

“If the story of your doctored credentials leaks, our client may get cold feet,” she explained.

“Chen won’t back out.” Jordan sounded completely certain.

She didn’t bother to keep the exasperation from her voice. “Billionaires willing to buy a spaceship in order to search the
galaxy for the Holy Grail aren’t a dime a dozen.”

Jordan grunted.

“If Chen does back out, I’ll have to refund his investment. And with the way you’ve been spending, not even I have that much
credit.”

“Down to your last few billion, are you?” Jordan teased without glancing in her direction.

She clenched her fists in irritation. “That’s not the point.” She wished he’d trust her with the truth. Maybe he would if
she reassured him. Because in truth, the government had gone a bit overboard looking for alien moles. As far as she knew,
they hadn’t found even one. “Maybe we can break the news, spin it in our favor.” She pictured an advantageous story. Something
like “Genius engineer discovered.” “The article could praise you and some little-known college. I’ll have my PR department
put together a package.”

“Not a good idea.”

His blue eyes glittered dangerously, and his response made her uneasy. Something wasn’t right. He should be grateful that
she was willing to fix the publicity nightmare he’d created. Instead he was acting like a man with something else to hide.
But what? Was he here to damage her ship? But if so, why would he work day and night to build it? Why give them all his marvelous
inventions?

She needed more information. She’d hire new PIs. Dig deeper and watch him more closely.

“Do you always make contingencies for contingencies?” he asked.

She snorted. Orphaned at age ten, Vivianne had become a ward of the state. Control became her lifeline. She’d used her obsession
to earn herself a first-class education and to build a successful small business into a worldwide conglomerate.

The downside of running a huge company, however, was that she had to rely on others. Brilliant engineers like Jordan didn’t
give a damn about her minute-to-minute expectations. He got the job done—but he certainly didn’t do things her way.

But was his allegiance to Vesta, the
Draco
, and Earth? Why wasn’t he trying to reassure her?

“In your case, I haven’t planned enough.”

Jordan rubbed his ear and stood, reminding her just how tall and broad he was. But if he was attempting to use his size to
intimidate her, he’d learn she didn’t back down.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “You have someone else who can build the
Draco
on budget and under deadline?” He didn’t wait for her reply. Why would he? They both knew the answer was no.

“Where
did
you go to school?”

Jordan shrugged. “Here and there.”

Her blood pressure shot up ten digits, but she did her best to keep her temper under control. “Could you be a little more
specific?”

He shot her a nonapologetic smile that was way too charming. “I’m pretty much self-taught.”

Hell. She needed more than a damn charming smile to convince her he hadn’t been educated on another planet. That he wasn’t
a spy.

“You don’t have a PhD?”

He didn’t answer.

Vivianne reminded herself that she’d dealt with many difficult situations in the last few years. She’d funded archeologist
Lucan Roarke’s risky mission to a moon named Pendragon to find the Holy Grail. While he hadn’t brought back the Grail, he
had found a cure for Earth’s infertility problem.

Vivianne stared at the scales on the inside of her wrists. Like one-tenth of the population, she now had two hearts and could
shapeshift into a dragon and fly.

Too bad her new genes hadn’t increased her intelligence. How could Jordan have fooled her so easily? More important, what
was he hiding? “What about job experience?”

“Nothing verifiable.”

“I suppose you fudged the glowing recommendations, too?” Her pulse pounded, and she massaged her aching temple. Was Jordan
her ally or her enemy? “Who are you?”

“You might want to take an aspirin—”

“Thank you,
doctor.
” Her sarcasm escaped unchecked. “Oh, excuse me, you aren’t a doctor of anything, are you?”

“I don’t need a medical degree to see that your head hurts and you’re taking it out on me.” His tone was calm, low, and husky,
and that she found it sexy irked her even more.

“So now you’re a shrink.”

He’d barely glanced at her before turning to work on his beloved circuits, but it was so like him to notice details, even
her wincing in pain.

Vivianne willed Jordan to turn around. “How did you do it? It’s as if you appeared in Barcelona six months ago. Until then,
you had no credit. You attended no schools. Even your birth records are fake. I can’t find anyone who knew you before you
walked into my office to apply for a job.”

“And you’ve never regretted it.”

“Until now.” Damn him.

“You don’t mean that.” Jordan shrugged again. “You don’t regret letting me design this ship.”

Vivianne hadn’t built up her company by allowing handsome men to sweet-talk her into trusting them or by ignoring urgent government
warnings that alien agents may have infiltrated her company. Both Vivianne and the Tribes were after the Grail, but her goal
was to save Earth, theirs was to enslave it. And according to legend, whoever possessed the Grail held the upper hand. So
it was very possible that the reason her chief engineer had faked his past was because he was a spy—for the Tribes.

She couldn’t put Earth’s future into Jordan’s hands until she knew more. Feeling sick to her stomach, Vivianne’s tone snapped
with authority. “Jordan, put down your tools. You can’t work on the
Draco
until security clears you.”

In typical Jordan fashion, he kept right on working. “Don’t you want to see if the new engine’s going to work?”

“We’ll straighten that out later.” Her temper flared because Jordan knew just how to pique her interest. From the get-go,
the engines had been a major issue. It almost broke her hearts to know that the
Draco
might never fly now that she was pulling him off the project.

“I’m about ready to test a new power source.”

His words teased her curiosity as much as they raised her suspicions anew. “What are you talking about? What new power source?”

“The Ancient Staff.” Jordan reached to a sheath he wore on his belt and drew out an object that resembled a tree branch with
symbols carved into the bark. When he flicked his wrist, the rod telescoped and expanded with a metallic click.

Oh, God. Had he just unsheathed an alien weapon?

The air around the Staff glittered like heat reflecting off hot pavement. It was if the Staff folded and compressed the space
around it, the eerie effect and haze continuously rippling outward.

She peered at Jordan. The cords in his neck were tight, his broad shoulders tense as if he were bracing for her reaction.

She tried to tamp down a pinch of panic. “Don’t move.”

He turned to place the staff into position. “The Ancient Staff will supply far more power to the
Draco’
s engines than a cosmic converter.”

That Staff wasn’t in the plans. She’d never even heard of the mysterious artifact. For all she knew, that power source was
alien technology and once he attached it to the
Draco,
they’d all blow up.

Hiring Jordan had been a gigantic mistake. One that might cost Earth… everything. Unnerved, she reached for her handheld communicator
to call security, but there was no time. It would take only a second for him to snap the Ancient Staff into the housing.

She’d have to stop him herself. “Turn it off.”

“The Staff doesn’t have an off switch.”

Stiffening, she forced authority into her tone. “Don’t attach that thing to my ship.”

“It’s meant to—”

“I said no.” Mouth dry with apprehension, she clamped her hand on his shoulder.

Before she could yank him back, Jordan snapped the rod into place. The anxiety she’d been holding back knotted in her stomach.
Sweat broke out on her brow, and her nerves stretched taut.

But controlling her fear was the least of her worries as the air around the rod shimmered, then spread up his arm.

Voice trembling, she asked, “What type of energy is this?”

“The powerful kind.”

“The engines can deal with that kind of power?”

“I hope so.”

Energy crawled all the way up his arm and stretched toward her hand. Terrified, she tried to jerk back, but her body refused
to obey her mind. Her feet wouldn’t move. Her fingers might as well have been frozen.

Panicked, she watched the glow of energy flow over his shoulder to her hand. Every hair on the back of her neck standing on
end, she braced for pain. But when the glowing energy engulfed her fingers and washed up her arm, then sluiced over her body,
the tingling sensation somehow banished her headache and expelled her fear.

The effect was instantaneous and undeniable. Her breasts tingled. Her skin flamed as if they’d spent the past fifteen minutes
engaging in foreplay rather than arguing over his nonexistent past. She’d always found Jordan attractive, but now it was as
if the Staff had turned on a switch inside her.

She swallowed thickly. If he was feeling the same effects, he wasn’t showing it.

Every centimeter of her skin was demanding to be stroked. Unwarranted sensations exploded all over her erogenous zones. Her
nipples tightened, exquisitely sensitized. The scales on the insides of her arms and legs fluttered. Sweet juice seeped between
her thighs.

Drenched in pure lust, she shook her head, trying to clear it. “What the hell is going on?”

“Don’t know.” Jordan practically growled, as if it took superhuman effort just to speak.

So he felt as totally, inexplicably aroused as she did. Obviously, he wasn’t handling it well, either, but that didn’t stop
desire from rushing through all her senses.

She craved him like a starving dragon needs platinum, yet this could not be. Not without an emotional connection. She didn’t
do chemistry. She didn’t do one-nighters. She didn’t crave a man she barely knew, a man who was very likely a traitor.

But there was no fighting or denying the potent passion that blazed within her. Sexual need burned into her flesh, smoldered
through her blood, the sensations fiery hot.

If she didn’t have sex in the next few seconds, she was certain she would spontaneously combust.

Beneath her hand, Jordan’s shoulder tensed. Mouth tight and grim, he turned and faced her head-on, those blue eyes seemingly
searching into her soul. Tingling and breathless, she suddenly found it very hard to breathe. Heaven help her, she wanted
him. It was a terrible thing to lose control over her own desire, to crave sex with a man she didn’t trust, but she could
no more stop what was going to happen than she could prevent a hurricane.

Jordan was clearly caught in the same sexual firestorm. Eyes flashing with a primal blue-ringed flame, he focused on her with
a fevered intensity, right before he crashed his hard mouth down on hers, his kiss so demanding he bruised her lips and her
heart jolted.

Wrapping her arms around him, she arched her back and thrust her breasts against his chest. She ground her hips into his straining
sex.

Lips locking, they ripped off their clothes. His flesh was smooth, muscled, male. She couldn’t breathe enough of his scent
into her lungs. She couldn’t touch enough of his warm bronzed flesh to satisfy her cravings.

All coiled tension, he backed her against a bulkhead and she could see desire flash in his eyes, hear the sexual rasp in his
breathing.

Wrapping her arms over his powerful shoulders and around his corded neck, she clamped her legs around his sturdy hips. And
she attacked him like a savage, with lips and nails and teeth, while his strong hands clenched her bottom and he lifted her
onto his straining sex.

She took him inside her, greeting his fullness with molten heat. She was burning, going up in flames. Nothing mattered—not
her suspicions, not this raging spark of need that neither of them had kindled—nothing mattered, except having him.