Flynn (Blue Halo Book 4)

Flynn’s fist shot forward, hitting the bag so hard the thing flew up, barely missing the roof. The bag had just returned to him when he hit it again.

He was vaguely aware of footsteps moving down the Blue Halo hallway behind him. It was early. So early that the place was empty when he arrived. Not that he cared if his team saw him pounding away at the bag or not. He cared about getting rid of some of this pent-up frustration.

Frustration that a woman he barely knew was stealing his sleep, his self-restraint, and his goddamn sanity.

Carina consumed his thoughts, all but torturing him.

The footsteps stopped just outside the gym room. “What did that bag do to you?”

For the first time in over an hour, his fists dropped. He wished he was spent. He wished he’d been able to use every last scrap of energy he had, but it was impossible.

He turned to look at Callum. The man had his arms crossed over his chest and was leaning a shoulder against the doorframe.

“It’s not the bag that did something to me,” he said quietly.

His friend studied him for a beat. “Wanna talk about it?”

No. He tugged off the gloves and moved to the bench.

“I heard your mom has a new nurse,” Callum finally said.

Flynn froze, his gaze flying up. “What else did Tyler tell you?”

A smirk formed on his friend’s face. “That she’s pretty. And funny. That you hate it when he talks to her.”

Asshole. “We kissed.”

Callum’s brows rose. “No shit. When?”

“Yesterday.”

“And I’m guessing by the fact that you’re here, beating the shit out of a bag, it didn’t go well.”

Flynn lifted his water and downed half the bottle. “Best damn kiss of my life.”

“Big call.”

Yeah, it was. That was the problem. Well, part of the problem. “Then she pushed me away and left.”

She hadn’t been able to get away from him fast enough, while he’d had to call upon every ounce of self-restraint to not tug her back and lose himself in her—a woman who was basically a stranger.

Her body hadn’t felt like that of a stranger though. Her body in his arms, her lips against his—all of it had felt oddly familiar.

“Probably for the best,” Flynn continued, shaking his head. “I don’t know the details of what happened in Michigan.”

“So find out.”

“We dug up all the information we could on her. A hospital employee registered the complaint. The investigation was carried out. There wasn’t enough evidence for it to stick.”

Callum shook his head. “No, you idiot. Find out from her.”

Well, that would involve talking to her, and every time he did that, he lost himself in those blue eyes. Got distracted by those curves.

“Uh-oh.”

Flynn’s muscles tightened. “What?”

“You have that look.”

He shouldn’t ask. He knew he shouldn’t. But… “What look?”

“You’re falling for the woman.”

“I just met her.” Literally four days ago. And in that time, he’d fired her, rehired her under supervision, then attacked her with his lips in his mother’s damn kitchen. Not exactly courting behavior.

“What about Victoria?” Callum asked.

“I broke up with her. I don’t know what took me so long.”

“When?”

“Two days ago.” He bent down to lift his bag.

“Did you tell Carina you guys broke up?”

He paused. “No.”

Callum gave him a pointed look, and he almost expected another “idiot” to fall from the guy’s mouth.

“You think that’s it?” Flynn asked.

One side of Callum’s mouth lifted. “Only one way to find out.”

Yeah, yeah, talk to the woman. Sacrifice his sanity and test his control. Got it.

Callum chuckled, tapping the doorframe. “See you in the conference room.”

Flynn nodded before heading down to the bathroom. After a quick shower, he pulled on a T-shirt and jeans. When he stepped into the conference room, he found Aidan sitting at the table, typing away on a computer, and Callum reading something on his phone.

Flynn took a seat. “So, no sign of anyone stalking Simmons or his wife?”

Aidan’s eyes remained on the screen while he spoke. “Actually, just before I left last night, I caught a guy in the backyard.”

Flynn leaned forward. “Did you detain him? Where is he?”

Finally, Aidan’s gaze met his. “Don’t know where he is. I didn’t catch him.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t catch him?”

After Project Arma, they were faster than any normal man. Catching a guy in a client’s backyard should be child’s play.

“I mean, I saw the back of him. Chased him. And when I got to the street, he was gone. It was like he disappeared or something.”

Flynn swung his gaze to Callum. His friend gave nothing away. When he looked back at Aidan, Flynn paused for a second. “You think there’s some truth to what Paul Simmons said? That the guy stalking them is like us?”

It sounded just as crazy from Flynn as it had coming from Paul.

“I don’t know what to think, other than we should stick to the couple like glue. See if we can catch a glimpse of this guy again.”

Flynn wanted more than a damn glimpse. Suddenly, he itched to get to Idaho Falls.

“Should we let Wyatt’s team know?” Callum asked.

Wyatt Gray ran Marble Protection, a self-defense company in Marble Falls, Texas, with seven of his former Navy SEAL brothers. They were also victims of Project Arma. They should be the only other men in the world capable of what Flynn and his team could do.

“Let’s wait until we have some concrete evidence before we drop a bomb on everyone.”

He prayed that never came to pass, because if there were more men like them but on the wrong side of the law…that was just too damn dangerous to consider.

Flynn’s gaze had been on Carina all day. Like, all freaking day. It felt like a hot ray of sun beaming down on her. Burning her. But it wasn’t just his gaze affecting her. At one point, the man had grabbed her arm and pulled her aside. So she’d done what any normal woman would do while trying to avoid intimacy with a taken man. She’d pressed her hands to his ridiculously muscled chest and pushed him away like he was the Antichrist.

He hadn’t touched her again.

She paused while slicing a carrot, glancing over her shoulder. Their gazes clashed, splintering her calm, and she yanked her attention back to the food in front of her.

An involuntary shiver coursed down her spine.

What the heck was wrong with her? It was one kiss!

Yeah, one kiss, two days ago—and it had sent her into fight-or-flight mode. One kiss that had caused her to lose her damn mind. And the worst part was, every time she looked at him, she wanted to lose her mind again.

She gave herself a quick mental shake. No. She couldn’t do that. Even if he wasn’t in a relationship, which he was, he didn’t trust her. And she knew that because he was still here. Still watching her. Still making sure she didn’t take anything she wasn’t supposed to take from his mother’s medicine cabinet.

The scraping of a chair against the floorboards almost had her turning again. Almost.

“I’m going to go clean the gutters,” he said in that too-sexy-for-her-own-good voice.

His mother, who was working at the stove beside her because she’d flat-out refused to sit down, turned with an exasperated sigh. “Flynn, will you just rest? Or better yet, go home. I’m okay. And I don’t need your twenty-four-hour supervision.”

Carina almost scoffed, half tempted to tell the woman it wasn’t her he was supervising. But maybe she knew that and was just trying to lighten the heavy mood.

His steps sounded heavy as he moved closer.

“I want to be here.” When he stopped, he was right behind her, so close, she could just about feel his heat penetrating her skin. “And if I don’t do the gutters now, I’ll just need to do them later.”

She snuck a peek at him from beneath her lashes as he leaned in to press a kiss to his mother’s cheek. She thought he’d walk away after that. He didn’t.

Instead, that big warm hand, the one that felt like it took up her entire back, touched her there again, causing her to jump. The knife suddenly slipped from her fingers, slicing into her skin.

Flynn stopped the knife midslice.

Holy shit, the man moved fast! As in, faster than normal fast. Again. How had he—

“Are you okay?”

Before she could finish her thought, he was taking her wrist, studying the shallow cut. His brows were drawn together, and the muscles in his arms flexed. But that wasn’t what really had her freezing. It was the way his thumb grazed the palm of her hand and how, in turn, her stomach quivered.

Quickly, she snatched her hand away, taking a hurried step back, her hip colliding with the counter. “I’m fine.”

If fine involved teetering on the edge of madness.

The veins in Flynn’s neck strained.

Patricia sidled up beside them, a worried look on her face when she saw blood on Carina’s finger. “Oh, dear, that doesn’t look good.”

“It’s just a small cut.” She spun around, grabbing a piece of paper towel and pressing it to her finger. While her back was to Flynn, she used the moment to take a deep breath. When she turned back, she smiled. “You can go clean the gutters.”

The man was still frowning. He reached out again, but she sidestepped the touch.

Too. Dangerous.

“I’m really okay. You should go.”

One more glance her way, then he was exhaling loudly and running his hand through his hair. “I need to get some stuff from the shed down the hill.”

Patricia’s property was large and sloped, and the tool shed was at the very back.

“We’ll be okay,” she said. And I won’t steal anything. Because she wasn’t entirely sure what he was thinking right now.

The frown deepened. Crap. Could he read her mind? Then he was walking across the room. After the door closed behind him, Carina released a long breath.

Patricia’s gaze softened. “Sorry. My son can be a bit intense. He’s just like his father was.”

She gave the older woman a polite smile. “I’m just going to grab a Band-Aid from the closet in the hall. Are you okay here?”

Patricia turned back to the stove. “Of course.”

Carina eyed the meat in the frying pan before turning and heading into the hall. She knew everything that was in Patricia’s first-aid kit because she’d checked it herself. It had been one of her first tasks when she started, confirming that everything she might need was here. She’d found that Patricia had more than enough stuff on hand. She was sure Flynn was responsible for that.

After opening the closet door, she pulled out the kit and rummaged around inside for a bandage.

Her brain still couldn’t comprehend Flynn grabbing the knife. It happened so fast. Maybe she was mixing things up in her head, because surely, he hadn’t moved as quickly as her mind was telling her. That was impossible. She remembered Superman-type speed. Absurd.

Grabbing the bandage, she quickly unwrapped it and stuck it over the cut.

She was just closing the door when a framed photo hanging on the wall caught her attention. It was the same one she noticed every time she passed it. Carefully, she traced the outline of Flynn’s face. He looked young. Eighteen, maybe? He stood between a younger Patricia and a man she assumed to be his father. He wore a backpack over his shoulder, and he looked happy. Even then, he’d been handsome.

Was that the day he’d left for the military? He looked about the right age, and his parents seemed so proud.

For a moment, she wondered what might have been if he’d met her before everything happened in Michigan. Could he have fallen for her? Trusted her? Blowing out a long breath, she dropped her hand before heading toward the kitchen.

She’d only made it a few steps before the smoke alarm suddenly blasted through the house.

She took off, running the rest of the way. A gasp slipped from her lips when she saw smoke billowing from the burned meat.

Patricia had already grabbed the pan off the stove, so Carina turned to the smoke alarm on the high ceiling. It was between the open kitchen and dining room, right above a tall oak bookcase.

Moving on instinct, she grabbed a chair from the table and positioned it in front of the bookcase. After climbing onto the seat, she reached up, stretching on her tiptoes as she attempted to press the button.

So. Damn. Close.

Grasping the edge of one of the bookshelves, she used it to tug herself the last couple inches.

Almost there…

Finally, she pressed the little button, silencing the alarm—just as the chair slid from beneath her feet.

Carina grabbed the shelf to keep from falling, but the entire bookcase itself tilted forward, pulled off balance by her weight, and books and CDs clattering to the floor.

She screeched, then her breath was knocked out as she hit the floor hard—frozen in horror as the tall case fell toward her, books hitting her chest and legs.

She was seconds from being squashed when suddenly the door to the house flew open and Flynn was there, bent in front of her, catching the heavy piece of furniture with his back.

For a moment, she was still, fear and confusion swirling through her mind, stealing her voice. Not only because he’d just caught what was easily a two-hundred-pound bookcase like it weighed nothing, but because he’d literally been all the way across the room one second, and in front of her the next.

Patricia gasped from the kitchen. “Flynny! Oh, I’m so glad you caught it!”

Carina’s limbs iced. What was he?

Flynn righted the bookcase and shot a glance at his mother. “Are you okay?”

“Yes! My goodness!” She shook her head, obviously shaken. “Who would have thought the time would come when I’d be grateful for Project Arma?”

Carina’s breath sawed in and out of her chest. Project Arma? What the heck was that?

Patricia looked her way. “Dear, are you okay?”

Flynn stepped forward, reaching a hand out, but she scuttled away, not wanting the man—if he was even a man—to touch her.

That familiar frown returned to his face. “Are you hurt?”

“How did you do that?”

His expression remained the same. “What do you mean?”

What did she mean? Was he serious? “How did you move so fast? Why are you so strong?”

A beat of quiet passed. His words were oddly calm when he finally spoke. “You don’t know about me being taken?”

“Taken? Where were you taken?”

He took another step forward, but she scrambled back again, her back hitting the leg of the dining room table. She used it to tug herself to her feet.

Patricia stepped forward. “Carina, it was all over the news.”

She grabbed her bag off the table, edging toward the door while keeping as much distance between her and Flynn as possible. “When everything started happening in Michigan, I stopped watching the news and listening to the radio, and I deleted all my social media accounts.”

She still caught snippets of the news, of course. Hell, it was impossible to avoid in this day and age. But she’d never heard anything about men who were preternaturally faster or stronger.

“I was kidnapped,” Flynn said quietly. “Drugged. My DNA was altered. Now I’m faster and stronger than I should be. I can hear things others can’t. Heal faster. See in the dark.”

Her heart gave a giant thud. That wasn’t possible… Was it? There were no drugs in existence that could do any of that to someone.

“Who took you?” She couldn’t believe those words left her mouth. She should be asking which psych ward he’d escaped from. Her brain must be malfunctioning.

“A military commander. He was trying to create his own army of elite soldiers.”

That sounded like something from a sci-fi movie.

“I’ve got to go.” Before her brain completely exploded.

Flynn moved forward, but Carina held up her hands to stop him. “No, no. I’m okay. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Probably. Hopefully.

She turned on her heels and walked out, all but running from the man who had just told her he was barely human.