He pulled his erection out of mouth and punched her square in the face, sending her sprawling unconscious to the cold bathroom tiles. Tavia awoke an u...known amount of time later, she had a wicked headache and her eye was black and swollen. She touched it gently, and the stinging sensation made her cringe. She heard shaky breathing and quiet sobbing behind her, and she turned to see Brad sitting in the bathtub,knees to his chest and rocking back and forth. He was naked from the waist down, and. At Mary's soft spoken command Smokey rolled over and presented his belly to Jeff.Jeff spoke quietly to the animal as he scratched its unprotected underside, "I love her as much as you do. Together we'll be her protectors."At the sound of Mary's dad approaching, Smokey sprang to this feet and assumed an defiant position between Mary's dad and the errant couple. Mary's dad did not intend to cause a confrontation. He stopped well back and said, "Mary, its time to come in: Jeff thanks for being a. ”I smirked, “Don’t be so sure!”Clarissa smiled and shook her head, “All teasing aside, you could never just have sex with me anymore than you could with Jocelyn. That was the problem after the accident. You both claimed it was ‘just sex’ and it wasn’t. In fact, I suspect you both knew that.”“I did,” I admitted, “and I’m reasonably sure she did.”“And that’s part of your trepidation with Tasha, too. It’s the whole mix. What if the reality doesn’t live up to the fantasy? What if she expects it to. “And as Major Demurer said, cost is no objective.”“Yeah, and if they manage to do what Dahlin says is impossible, I plan to be on the winning side,” Patmore murmurs.“I know what you mean,” Cooke acknowledges. “I plan to have a family left when all this is over and if that means helping them, then so be it.”The truck comes to a slow halt. The two soldiers in the back with the two scientists motion for them to exit the truck.“Looks like we made it,” Patmore remarks sounding enthusiastic. He is.