Closer to the water’s edge, to his left and near the lowest wall of granite, the water ringed, and something silvery gold appeared to break the surface for a moment. Kadan unconsciously held his breath. An otter? Were there otters up here? Were otters silver and gold?
She rose up out of the water, long wet hair streaming, gleaming, and shimmering like skeins of wet silk. The droplets of water ran off the curves of her br**sts, down her narrow rib cage, dipped in at her small waist to stream down her flat belly to the triangle of blond curls at the junction of her legs. She was naked, skin glowing in the sunlight, her tan so deep it emphasized the white gold of her hair. She tilted her head to one side and brought her long hair over one shoulder in an unconsciously provocative gesture.
The wind shifted and carried her scent to him. Kadan’s body tightened savagely in response. His body knew her instantly. She looked like some wild, pagan offering. Untamed, seductive. For him. He went very still, his breath catching in his lungs. Instant awareness shook him. He’d certainly had his share of women, but he never reacted like this—a vicious, brutal response of his body and mind, everything in him reaching toward her.
“Whitney, you bastard,” he whispered aloud. Not for one moment would he ever believe his reaction to be natural. It was too strong, too obsessive. Too unlike him.
He crouched down for a moment, feeling sucker punched. He’d joined the military, gone through Special Forces training, continued with water, arctic, desert, and even urban training, and then he’d read the call for testing of psychic ability and he had gone immediately, tested high, as he’d known he would, and been accepted into the military GhostWalker program. He’d agreed to be psychically enhanced. He hadn’t agreed to be genetically altered, nor had he ever been told that they would match him chemically to a female.
As the extent of what had been done to the volunteers became apparent, Kadan had hoped he’d been one of the ones who escaped this particular hell. But he knew. His body knew. He tried to breathe away the monstrous hard-on that came out of nowhere. He pushed down the aggression as testosterone flooded his body with burning lust and a savage desire to possess. He’d never thought to ask any of the others what it was like, or even if all of their symptoms were the same, but he felt aggressive, dangerous, almost brutal, a primitive response preprogrammed into him.
Breathing deeply, he grabbed a handful of dirt, closing his fingers around it hard, as if squeezing the life from someone’s throat. And where was the cat? He had to make certain the animal wasn’t about to leap on her.
Once more he lifted the binoculars, breath catching in his lungs as she came back into focus. Even the way she wrung out her hair was sensuous, tipping her head to one side, the long, golden strands rippling like silk as her hands squeezed the thick skein. Water beaded and ran from full br**sts to belly and down to the vee at the junction of her legs. Her legs were slender, her butt firm as she waded toward the edge of the pool, the water lapping at her thighs. His tongue moistened his suddenly dry lips. He would have given anything to lick the droplets of water from her skin.
Reluctantly he moved the binoculars from his fantasy vision to scan the surrounding forest and mountains. Nothing. He shifted his direction, quartering the area, looking high, from branches to boulders. The mountain lion had to be there somewhere, invisible to his sight, maybe, but not to his gut.
There was no camp close by that he could see, but it had to be there. He turned his attention back to the woman. This must be Tansy Meadows. She looked almost as if swimming in the pool and napping and sunning were a daily ritual, and if so, she wouldn’t be hiking too far from her home ground.
There was no doubt in his mind that she owned his body, and that meant she had to be one of the lost girls Whitney had experimented on. The demented doctor had taken infants from orphanages from all over the world and performed experiments on them. A few lucky ones had been adopted out. Kadan had her background information memorized. Her parents had adopted her when she was five years old. She had severe problems in school and other social settings. She’d worked with the police from the age of thirteen, tracking killers and kidnap victims with amazing accuracy. He should have known she was too accurate. He should have known her psychic abilities were enhanced.
Kadan took another long look around in an effort to spot the mountain lion. If it was there, the animal was well camouflaged. Every area he thought would be the perfect place from which to ambush her seemed serene and peaceful. He swung the glasses back to the natural basin.
She stepped from the shimmering emerald water, moving with grace and something else, something so seductive and innocent at the same time that his body screamed at him with urgent demand. His breath caught in his throat as she lifted her slender arms toward the sun, the action thrusting her br**sts upward, the darker ni**les erect from the cold. Kadan could feel the taste of her in his mouth. He took a slow, deep breath to calm the surging excitement, the exultation. His body, his mind, his very soul said she was the one. He was looking at his mate.
God help him, he didn’t want to think that way—not now—not in the middle of such a huge crisis. He needed to be sane, to keep his mind and body under control. And he needed to use this woman, be ruthless if necessary. He swore softly under his breath and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand as he kept the glasses trained on her.
She lathered her body with lotion, every stroke of her hand making his body throb and jerk in need, and then she stretched out, facedown, on the flat surface of the rock, her body an offering in the afternoon sun. Her bottom was curved, well muscled, joining the long expanse of her shapely legs. It was impossible, even with the field glasses, to see her facial features; she was turned away from him, her face in the shadows. His imagination could not provide a face to go with her sensual body or the erotic way she moved. He watched her for a long while, until her breathing became slow and even and he knew she slept.
She was sound asleep and a mountain lion had stalked her all the way down the trail to the basin. It was hidden somewhere above her, maybe watching. Again he scanned the surrounding area, appalled that she lay na**d and exposed, where any hunter or wild animal might come across her. Fury burned in his belly, low and mean, and for a moment, the ground around him trembled. He clamped down on his temper and forced air through his lungs as he sifted through every possible place the cougar could hide. He’d trained at the elite sniper school, taken the test of finding fifty objects hidden at multiple distances, and he’d spotted every one, but the cat remained hidden.