Project Terminal: End Game by Olivia Starke Page A

darlin’.”
    “It’ll be the last thing you do with your dick, Morris. One last warning.” Amelia closed her fingers around a rock. “Get off.”
    Morris chuckled, pressing his lower body against hers. His pelvic bones dug into her ass cheeks. “I’d love to, and I can think of about ten different ways we can accomplish that this very moment.”
    His thick Texas drawl taunted, she’d never cared for the men from that state. Her experiences with its male population didn’t suit her feminist’s tastes.
    She squeezed the rock, and as fast as a snake’s strike, she smashed it against Morris’s temple. His oomph of surprise followed, and his body dislodged enough that she could roll away. She pounced on his back, yanking his wrist behind him and shoving his balled fist between his shoulder blades. Rendered immobile, he growled a threat.
    “That’s not a very nice thing to say to me.” Amelia straddled his hips. “And haven’t you learned I’ll always get the best of you?” Catching her breath, she wiped sweat from her brow with her free hand.
    “Honestly, I’m open to any position you like, Amelia. Though I didn’t take you for a woman who’d be into pegging, and that’d take a fair amount of liquor and sweet talk on your part.”
    “You’re a pig. Are we finished with this?”
    He growled again, low in his throat, and it tickled her insides in a way it shouldn’t. The firm curve of his ass between her thighs pressed against her in a too intimate way. The tickle became something more, and she resisted the urge to wiggle against him. She swallowed, and wrenched his wrist, tightening her hold.
    “Well?”
    He sucked air through his teeth. “Yes.”
    She took a deep breath and on the count of three, jumped away. Putting distance between them, readying in case he lunged. He rolled to a seated position, working his broad shoulders. He was a big man, a huge man, actually. A mountain of muscle and bone, and he hadn’t lost his fit condition. Packed muscle rippled beneath his tan colored t-shirt, and his fatigues hugged his thick thighs.
    In normal society he’d appear a freak, but in Project Terminal he’d been perfect. Genetically engineered as she had been, making the most of natural attributes. Attributes making him decidedly not her type—an overbearing man with an overbearing physique. Not that her love life invited pickiness, but she wasn’t desperate.
    He flexed his hands, his long fingers capable with any weapon given him, crossing his forearms over his bent knees. He peered up at her, his dark blue eyes searching her face.
    The corner of his lips curled up. “It’s good to see you, St. James.”
    Her cheeks warmed as he took her in head to toe, and she squared her shoulders. Towering over him didn’t make her feel she had the advantage. She studied him closer. His hair had grown too long, the ends curled at his collar. He shoved his fingers through the glossy, dark brown strands.
    She glared back, annoyed with noticing details in his appearance. “Reed says they’ve found a way to bring down the project. What do you have to report?”
    “Max has a cure, and they’re coming here for safety reasons.”
    Amelia sucked in a breath. A cure? For the deadliest virus known to humanity? “How is that possible?”
    He lifted a shoulder. “Don’t know, darlin’.”
    Keep it together. She forced her fingers to relax and strode past him toward the cabin. His pet name bugged the hell out of her, one he’d never used with another woman in the project. Everything about Morris bugged the hell out of her, and it had since she’d first met him several years back. He knew it too, and exploited it for his own amusement.
    She redirected her thoughts to the mission. Reed would be arriving with Max. She, Morris, and Reed would focus on keeping Max safe while she worked. With the cure they could stop the plague of the R1LN virus spreading through Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, turning people into the