Doubling Down

By Bianca D'Arc

Two soldiers with a weird superpower...

Jay and Zack aren’t just any run of the mill Special Forces soldiers. They can hear each other’s thoughts—and only each other’s—which means they’ll be a team for the rest of their careers...and lives. The military experiment that opened up the silent channel of communication between their minds only solidified a friendship that had already spanned years.

They are a lot alike in many ways, and their taste in women is also something they have in common, which is a good thing, because being in each other’s heads all the time means relationships with women are more than a little tricky. The solution some of the other duos in their unit have found is to find just one woman willing to share and be shared, love and be loved, by them both.

One woman under threat...

Becky likes both Jay and Zack so much, she’s waiting for one of the guys to step up and ask her out because she can’t decide which one she likes more. When underworld henchmen attempt to kidnap her, Jay and Zack play the hero, saving her in the nick of time. But her life is still in danger. She knows something someone wants and they’ll go to just about any length to get that information from her.

Together, Jay and Zack will use their special skills first, to find out why Becky is suddenly a target for kidnappers and second, how to end the threat once and for all. They will take on crime bosses, goons, bodyguards with almost supernatural skills and a man who doesn’t seem quite human. But when push comes to shove, will Becky be able to accept both of them, and the strange power they have? Or will she run from them...straight into danger?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bianca D'Arc
• Release date: Sep 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463832349

Bianca D'Arc

Bianca D’Arc lives on Long Island, in New York. She is the daughter of a Dutch immigrant to the U.S. and a materials scientist who worked on America's space program, including such projects as the lunar module, space shuttle and most of the Apollo missions. She earned a university degree in chemistry, and later, graduate degrees in library science and law. Forsaking the corporate world soon after the terrible events of 9/11/01, she began her writing career in earnest in late 2005. She focuses on the paranormal, sci fi and fantasy genres of romance, and loves creating happy-ever-afters for her characters.

Book preview

Gemini Project 2

Doubling Down

by

Bianca D’Arc

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright © 2018 Bianca D’Arc

Published by Hawk Publishing, LLC

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Dedication

Many thanks to Grace Sandvigen for coming up with the title for this during a little online brainstorming challenge. I truly appreciate your input and support. You’re awesome!

As always, this is dedicated to my family, especially my Dad, who spent a lot of time on his own, watching TV while I sat in my office and wrote, ignoring him. He didn’t see it that way, but that’s how I felt. LOL. He’s a patient and kind man who will never read one of my romance novels, but supports my work nonetheless.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Excerpt from Alpha Bear

About the Author

Other Books by Bianca D’Arc

Chapter One

Nice job, Jay complimented his teammate out loud, rather than using the pathway between their minds that had been forged by a series of experiments.

He and Zach had been best friends even before volunteering as a team for an experimental program run on the down-low by the U.S. military Spec Ops Command. They’d been a highly decorated sniper-spotter team before the treatments that had changed their lives forever. They still operated as a sniper team, but they no longer needed to communicate in words.

They could literally read each other’s minds. Not anybody else’s. This special ability was just between the two of them. As it was between several other pairs of specially selected soldiers in their elite black ops unit.

Officially, they didn’t exist. Unofficially, they were the go-to group for impossible missions. The ghosts in the machine of the U.S. Special Forces.

Right now, they were off duty and between missions. They still reported to the base every day for training and the ongoing testing they’d agreed to when they volunteered for this special unit, but their downtime was spent in town or at home.

They lived together, as most of the teams in their unit had chosen to do. Sharing a brain with someone meant it was a lot easier to share living space, as well. And cheaper, if that was a consideration.

For Jay, the money didn’t matter as much as to some of the other guys. He’d inherited a bundle, which was split with his older brother, Mike, who was also part of the unit. Mike partnered Peter Foster. There was a long history between the two families. Their dads had been in business together, though Mike and Jay’s dad had been the silent partner.

When both their dads had passed, Peter ended up with fifty percent of the company that bore his name, Foster Electronics. Mike and Jay had split the remaining fifty, which still amounted to a considerable sum.

Which was why Jay was footing the bill for the house he shared with Zach. Closer than brothers—even twins—thanks to the experiments they had participated in, it was natural for Jay to share everything he had with Zach. They were two sides of the same coin. Two halves of a whole. What was Jay’s was also Zach’s, and he knew that went both ways.

Including their taste in women.

That was the real dilemma. Every team in the unit had watched carefully when Mike and Peter had claimed their woman, Lilly. Somehow, she had gone along with their trio relationship, and the guys had never seemed happier. Jay knew for a fact that Lilly was happy, too.

Jay thought of her as his sister-in-law, even though she’d married only Peter on paper. Mike had said they’d flipped a coin and Peter won, but Mike didn’t seem to mind too much. She was part of their little family, now, and all three of them lived together.

They were happy. Which gave the rest of the guys in the unit hope that they might be able to find a special woman willing to put up with the pairings that could never be split up.

As far as any of them knew, what had been done to them was irreversible. They would go through life as a pair and have to figure out a way to the happy.

It was a big sacrifice, but all of the guys who had volunteered had been carefully screened. To a man, the pairs had been close friends with complementary skills and points of view. They had shared their outlook on life and had proven their friendships over and over before the Army agreed to take them into the special unit. They’d gone through a battery of psychological testing, as well as physical examinations and extensive genetic and brain scans.

The teams were forever, and after creating their single unit, the military had stopped creating new teams and had begun studying the results in fine detail. Nobody else would undergo the treatment until the results of this multi-year study were in and had been digested on every level.

For now, Jay and Zack were part of an elite, top-secret unit. The rules had been bent to allow one woman—and one woman only—to be let in on the secret for each team. Which was why the duos had to be extremely careful about who they dated and who they ultimately chose for a life partner.

The woman had to be super special and willing to put up with having two men in her life—and in her bed—for the price of one, as it were. Which was why Jay was congratulating Zack on making the first move and finally asking Becky Guthrie out on a date.

They’d both been eying her for a while now, but they’d held back, studying her, trying to figure out if she could handle both of them. Then, they’d had to work out whether or not she was attracted to one of them over the other. Jay had kissed her last night. Just a quick peck that could have turned into something more, if he’d tried, but he and Zach had agreed to take things slow.

They didn’t want to mess this up. Becky could be the one, and this was too important to screw up by moving too quickly. So, Jay had kissed her goodnight, and today, Zach had finally asked her out, and she’d agreed.

Nice work, indeed. Everything was proceeding according to plan.

Last night, as Becky had been locking up Chez Nous, the restaurant she managed, she’d been glad to have Jay around. There had been a number of late-night robberies in the area over the past several weeks, and Becky felt a bit vulnerable doing the final checks on the building all by herself night after night. But a manager’s job was never done…at least not according to her tight-wad boss, Mr. Livern. He’d hired her about eight months ago, at a decent salary, but had promptly turned over every last little task to her, except running the kitchen.

The chef ran the kitchen with an iron fist, but everything front-of-house was left to Becky, and she was the one who had to stay to the very end to deposit the night’s take and lock up after everyone else left. She didn’t like being all alone in the building anymore. Not since the rash of burglaries had started.

There were a lot of bars and restaurants on this street, and the incidents had happened all up and down the area over the past weeks with no apparent pattern and no clue where the thief, or thieves, might strike next. It was something that worried her every night she walked out of the place with a zippered pouch full of cash to deposit in the bank’s night slot.

Lately, though, Jay and his friend, Zach, had been sticking around to keep her company. She didn’t mind in the least, happy to have the burly military men around…just in case. They were good company. Nice guys with funny senses of humor and a way of completing each other’s sentences that made her very aware that they were best friends.

They probably had been for a long time, if their exaggerated childhood stories were to be believed. They and some of their friends and fellow soldiers often came into the restaurant to eat, or just hang out at the bar that ran along one side of the building, talking quietly or playing darts.

Chez Nous wasn’t exactly a high-falutin’ French restaurant, despite the name. In fact, it was more like a British pub, particularly in the bar area. The restaurant side was a bit more upscale, serving impeccable food turned out by the French chef Mr. Livern had hired at reportedly great expense. The guys seemed to like the place…and not just for the food.

Jay had kissed her last night, and she’d enjoyed it. He’d then seen her to her car after she made the bank deposit, which was just a few steps away from the restaurant, and let her go without anything more. She’d been a bit disappointed. She’d been hoping he or Zack would make a move, if they were interested. She’d thought they both might be, and she liked them both.

Not being a forward kind of woman, she’d been waiting to see which one was more interested. After last night, she’d thought that was Jay, but then, he’d sat back and watched Zack ask her out without a peep. Now, she was just confused.

Had he decided, after that one kiss, that he wasn’t interested in her, after all? Had he given his buddy the all-clear to ask her out or had Zack just gone ahead and asked her out without consulting his friend at all? If so, was that going to cause trouble between the friends?

That was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. She hadn’t wanted to set her cap for one or the other and was content to let them decide things, but now, she was rethinking her strategy. But how to choose between them? They were both such amazing men.

Jay had wavy chestnut hair and wicked dark chocolate brown eyes. He was as tall as Zack—both topping six feet—and they both had physiques to die for. Muscular without being too bulky, they were sleek, strong and