Deadly Game by Christine Feehan

still possible. His breath rushed from his lungs and sweat beaded on his forehead. He gripped the edge of the bed and forced himself to breathe through the pain. All the while his gaze never once left hers. She’d done, with one stroke of her fingers on his face , what he thought no one could ever do for him again.
    “Son of a bitch,” he repeated, fighting for air, fighting not to let the pain and pleasure, now mingling together, become the same.
    “Ken?” Mari tried to push herself into a sitting position. “What is it?”
    He was hunched over, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, he needed help. She couldn’t sit up; her leg was held tight, and movement threatened her precarious control, so she did the only thing she could think of. “Jack! Jack! Get in here!”
    Ken’s hand clapped tightly over her mouth, and he bent closer until his lips were directly over hers, with only his hand separating them. “I don’t need him.”
    The sound of the helicopter was loud outside, and she was fairly certain Jack hadn’t heard her call. Ken had been so fast he’d muffled most of what she’d said.
    A drop of sweat fell on her face and her eyes widened. She caught his wrist with her one good hand and tugged. When he reluctantly lifted his hand only inches from her mouth, she touched the droplet. “Tell me what’s wrong with you.”
    “Every now and then I feel a few residuals from my little vacation in the Congo.” He shrugged. “It’s nothing to worry Jack over.”
    “You don’t worry Jack much at all, do you?” she guessed.
    “There’s no need. Stop squirming around before you hurt yourself.” He tested himself, straightening his body just a little, trying to ignore the way her lips had been so soft against his palm. He could feel sensation with her, every sense heightened beyond normal until he could almost taste her in his mouth. “How well do you know Whitney?”
    “No one knows Whitney, not even his friends. He’s like a chameleon; he changes his skin when he feels like it. He presents one face, one personality, one day, and the next he’s totally different. Personally I think he’s a lunatic, drunk on his own power. The government gave him too much authority without anyone to answer to, and he has too much money, so he’s like the number one megalomaniac of the world. And I told him so on several occasions recently.”
    “Are you aware he does very accurate profiling? I mean dead-on, Mari.”
    She knew he was leading up to something, and she was already there. “He has to have some kind of psychic ability. Otherwise, how could he have managed to choose the right infants in an orphanage? He knew we all had talents. He touched us, or was drawn in some way to us, because of our psychic abilities. That would have been impossible unless he was psychic himself. It’s how he knows things about us.”
    Ken swallowed the sudden bile rising in his throat. He’d had a bad feeling, ever since he’d taken Jack’s mission in the Congo and been captured, that it had all been orchestrated. Even down to Jack’s delay in Colombia so he couldn’t lead the rescue team when the senator’s plane went down.
    He cleared his throat. “You said Whitney wasn’t exactly friends with the senator. Did Whitney know the senator’s plane had been shot down in the Congo by the rebels a few months back?”
    “Yes. We were told.”
    “And did you know the first rescue mission was successful but that a man was left behind? Did Whitney know?”
    “I overheard Sean telling him the news.”
    “And how did Whitney react?” His chest hurt. His lungs burned for air.
    “He seemed excited. I thought he was excited the senator was rescued, but then he said something about it being too bad that Freeman had to survive.”
    Ken kept his face carefully blank as his world crashed around him. He should have known. Dr. Peter Whitney found great joy in using human beings in his experiments. He went to extraordinary lengths to