The Lost by Caridad Piñeiro Page A

for Bobbie Carrera and the other members of her family.
    The images and information surged from the computer into his brain, where he processed the data at speeds far faster than that of any human.
    High school yearbook pictures of Bobbie were posted on a friend’s Facebook account. She hadn’t changed much in the six years since graduating. That would make her about twenty-four, he calculated.
    There were articles from the local papers about the Carrera clan. Besides Tony, Bobbie had two older siblings, and her parents ran a popular Mexican restaurant in nearby Bradley Beach, not that he had ever eaten there, although he lived and worked nearby. Adam continued surfing through all the digital data spewing out of the computer until he encountered a short article about Bobbie and her platoon. Sixteen men dead in an IED attack. Only Bobbie and her platoon leader had survived.
    The graphic images of the aftermath jolted him, breaking his mental connection with the computer. Emotion had once again disrupted his control. Resuming the search through more traditional means, he continued reading the article about Bobbie and her men.
    She had survived, but broken, he thought, recalling the evident pain on her face after the incident and the sensation of scarred skin and bunched muscle beneath his fingertips.
    He shouldn’t have touched her, especially not in his wired condition after the attack. Too late he had noticed the leakage of energy from his fingertips. The recollection rekindled the sensation of Bobbie’s skin beneath his fingers.
    So warm.
    Amazingly alive.
    He imagined moving his hand from her arm to the fragile skin where her shoulder met her neck. Trailing it downward to cup those generous breasts outlined so beautifully by her simple white T-shirt. Taking off that shirt. Would her nipples be dark as berries and taste as sweet?
    He sucked in a shaky breath as he hardened and readjusted the fabric of his pants over his erection. He forced his mind from such thoughts, reminding himself that hebarely knew her despite the intense synergy when he had touched her.
    But her obvious physical distress and courage in the face of that had reached deep inside him that afternoon, prompting a surge of emotion and energy. It had danced along his fingertips as he skimmed his hand along that injured flesh. Before today the few times he had accidentally released his power had been shocking. Literally.
    Since learning of his abilities, he had guarded his touch, fearful of it after he had innocently created havoc with just the brush of his hands. Shapeshifting, blasts of power, or just vibrations could occur when he came into contact with other living things.
    Today had been different from anything which had transpired in the past.
    He’d wanted to help her, and with that want had come the unexpected—a gentle kiss of energy wherever his skin had met hers, a living and demanding connection like none he had ever experienced. Desire, unforeseen and demanding.
    His gut tightened with the possibility that he could just as easily have hurt her if he had lost command of his power. As it was, she had clearly been in pain from her actions during the attack.
    The attack.
    Those words drove away the last of his passion and pulled him back to his worries, including those about Bobbie.
    Bobbie, he thought with a sigh, recalling the intensity in her whiskey-eyed gaze. He hoped she hadn’t caught his disappearing and reappearing act when he shot through the air to wrestle one of the assailants to the ground.
    As for him, he needed to find out more about the two men and whoever was driving the van. But for right now, his immediate goal was to discover more about the woman he could not forget. Swiveling in his chair, he faced his computer and accessed his company’s employment records. He located Tony’s personal info and with a mental command dialed his intern’s cell number. Tony picked up on the third ring.
    “Tony, this is Adam Bruno,” he