She frowned at him and lifted a hand to push back the stray tendrils of hair tumbling around her face. The action lifted her breasts, immediately drawing attention to her body. He detested that his body reacted to her. That made him suspicious as well. He was a doctor, and he had both control and discipline. He’d never had a problem looking at female patients in his life. Not ever. Not once. Until Pepper.

Now, all of a sudden, he couldn’t get this woman out of his mind. He wanted to keep her. Make her his own. Keep her. Make it permanent. Hell. What was wrong with him? The driving need seemed to be so strong, he felt primitive when he was around her. Caveman primitive. He’d always been dominant, but he had never been jealous, not even of Joy when he stupidly and mistakenly thought he was in love with her. But this one… Pepper. He didn’t want his own friends coming near her.

“I think they were born in the same laboratory where I was kept. I was put in charge of caring for them when they were about three months old. I didn’t mind. I didn’t have a family, and I loved spending time with them. I was told when their teeth came in they might be dangerous but that I was immune to the venom.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “They neglected to tell me all three babies carried both types of venom and I wasn’t yet immune to viper venom.”

“And that’s what they were trying to do with you? Create an antidote to either of the two types of snakebites? A universal donor, so to speak.”

She nodded slowly, her strange eyes moving over his face. “Yes. Without causing so many allergic reactions. But then suddenly, after my fight with Braden, we were told we were being moved.”

“Right after?”

She wasn’t lying to him. He knew the truth when he heard it. Every small nuance of her voice, every tone, every breathy sound, connected to him.

“No. It was a few weeks later. Suddenly. Almost out of the blue. We boarded a private jet. The company, Wilson Plastics, has their own corporate jet. They flew us to a military base and then brought us here. That was just over two months ago.”

“And yet they didn’t issue termination orders until a couple of weeks ago.”

She nodded again, her gaze never leaving his face. “That’s correct, although I knew what that place was. I didn’t know why suddenly they would want to get rid of us. I actually thought it was me they were going to terminate. I wasn’t cooperating with them. They wanted to use me to assassinate someone and I refused.”

“Who?”

“A sergeant major in the Marine Corps. He’s a good man, at least when I did some research on him, he appeared to be. He’s married, and they told me it would be difficult to get him to have an affair with me. They could get me in to work in his office, and I was to take it from there.”

“Which sergeant major?”

“His name was Sergeant Major Theodore Griffen.”

Wyatt stiffened. Sergeant Major Theodore Griffen ran one of the GhostWalker teams. He sighed and shook his head. “Why would they allow you to research this man if they knew you had scruples? Why not just send you off, spinnin’ a story about how he’s sellin’ out his country?”

“I don’t know.” At his piercing look she shook her head. “I swear to you, I don’t know.”

“Did you know those three children are my children?” He watched her face carefully. If she had known, she was a damned good actress. Her face was a total mask of shock. “This mornin’, right on that bed, you casually said Ginger looked more like me than you.”

“Yes, but that’s because you asked if she was mine. You said she looked like me and I just pointed out that she looked like both of us…” She trailed off, inhaling deeply. Her face went pale, more than pale; stark white.

Pepper felt her heart go crazy. Hammering. Hard. Her lungs burned, refused to draw in air properly. He stood over her, intimidating when men didn’t intimidate her. Tempting when men didn’t tempt her. Beautiful when men shouldn’t be beautiful, and he was telling her the three little girls she loved so dearly could very well be their children. His. Hers. Theirs. A tidal wave rolled over her stomach and she shook her head.

“I don’t understand. Why would they create children in a laboratory and then have me watch them if I’m their biological mother? Why not just tell me? I love them as if they’re mine, but when you said Ginger looked like me, I have to admit, I had a few suspicions over the last year, but then I just…” She broke off, reaching for the needle in her arm. “I have to get up.”

She had to do something. Anything. Not lie here like a lump while the world around her shifted yet again. She was tired of being exhausted and afraid. She needed to find some kind of balance, and nothing was making sense. Nothing at all. She could only blame her sluggish mind on the snake venom and her own raging hormones. Wyatt Fontenot was messing with her mind. He had to be.

He moved fast, pinning her hand, preventing her from removing the needle. At the touch of his hand on her bare skin, little tongues of fire flickered over her. The breath hissed out of her and her gaze jumped to his face.

“Don’ be touchin’ that, honey.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped, and felt childish for lashing out at him when it was only because she was beginning to panic.

“Get used to it. I’m like that. Bossy. I like things my way. Right now, the number one priority is to get those children out of that prison. To do that, I need you to be one hundred percent healthy. I know they’re mine. I believe you’re their biological mother, but I know they’re mine and I’m not leavin’ them there. You’re goin’ with me to get them.”