Seduced by the Storm

Faith
Black had been beaten, drugged and imprisoned, but none of that scared her. No,
what frightened her to the core was the man confined with her. Chained to an
improvised medieval rack and bare from the waist up, he lay on his back, arms
over his head, his incredible chest marred by bruises and a deep laceration
that extended from his left pec to his right hip.

He
might have been rendered immobile, but he was in no way helpless.

His
weapon, far more dangerous than the telekinesis—to her, at least—was his
overpowering sexuality, a force that tugged her toward him, made her burn with
need despite their grave situation.

Head
pounding from a brutal blow to her cheek, she pushed to her feet and padded
close, her nudity barely registering. She’d been stripped naked while
unconscious, her clothes tossed into one corner of the windowless, steel-walled
room. The weak yellow light from the single bulb emphasized the deep amber of
Wyatt’s eyes, no longer green, as he settled into the transitional period many
telekinetics experienced when their powers flared up. The air in the room
stilled, and the chain around his right ankle began to rattle.

"Don’t,"
she said quietly.

He
shifted his head to look at her as though he hadn’t realized she’d regained
consciousness. "Faith." His voice was rough, as haunted as his gaze.
"I didn’t tell him. I swear."

"Tell
who what?"

"Your
boyfriend. I didn’t tell him about us. He knew."

"Sean’s
not my boyfriend," she said, and Wyatt cocked a dark eyebrow like he
didn’t believe her. "And I know you didn’t say anything."

She
knew, because she’d been the one to spill the beans that she and Wyatt had been
sleeping together.

Wyatt’s
head lolled back so he was staring up at the steel beams crisscrossing the
ceiling. The corded tendons in his neck strained and tightened as he swallowed.
"I’m sorry I got you into this."

"You
didn’t."

A
growl rumbled in his throat. "I seduced you. I shouldn’t have. Not here.
Not on the platform, where he could find out."

She
inhaled him into her, the masculine scent that threw her off balance whenever
he came near. No, she couldn’t blame him for anything, least of all her
out-of-control desire for him. He was here to do a job, just like she was,
which meant getting the assignment done by any means necessary.

"I’m
not here because Sean is jealous." Though Sean was, furiously so, but
Wyatt didn’t need to know that.

"Then
why?"

Dragging
her gaze from the strong, ruggedly handsome features of his face, she let her
mind focus on a realm of existence most people never saw. Instantly, Wyatt’s
aura became visible, a shifting, undulating layer of light around his body. And
God, something was wrong, so wrong she nearly gasped.

Wyatt
radiated power, so his aura should reflect the same. Instead, it stretched thin
around his body like an ill-fitting, secondhand coat, ridden with weak spots
and holes, as though he’d suffered repeated supernatural attacks. She could
repair the damage, but her efforts would amount to little more than a patch job
on his psychic garment. Replenishing his aura, renewing it…that only he could
do, subconsciously, through healthy living and mental wholeness.

For
now, she concentrated on the cut on his chest, worked her power into a psi
needle and thread that knit the wound together. The muscles in his abs rippled,
carved so deeply that they cast shadows on one another. She knew how they felt
beneath her touch, how they flexed when they rubbed against her belly, and she
had to clench her hands to keep from reaching for him.

The
wound closed in a whisper of sound, and Wyatt sucked in a harsh breath.
"Jesus. You’re a fucking agent."

His
eyes glowed amber again, and the chains binding him rattled.

"Please
don’t," she said, letting her psychic fingers slide south on his body.
"Let me. Follow my lead."

He
moaned and then grit his teeth against the sensations she sent streaming into
his groin.

"I’m
going to need you to scream, Wyatt. Scream like I’m killing you."

His
shaft began to swell with each of her virtual caresses deep inside his body,
and his eyes flashed green fire. "You are, Faith." His voice rumbled,
dark, dangerous. "I’ve been through the gates of hell and survived, but
somehow I think you’re going to be the devil who takes me down."

Two
Days Earlier

Wyatt
Kennedy was a dead man, and other than a few problems, like being unable to use
his credit cards, it hadn’t been so bad.

Of
course, he’d already been declared dead once before, a long time ago, so he
knew the drill. Lay low, use cash, watch your back.

When
he’d dropped off the face of the earth years earlier, he’d had ACRO—the Agency
for Covert Rare Operatives, of which he was one—on his side. ACRO had recruited
him, changed his name and killed him off so he wouldn’t face a murder rap for
the death of his half brother.

Which,
for the record, he still wasn’t sure he was responsible for, thanks to a memory
lapse that had lasted for the past five years, despite ACRO’s best efforts.

This
time he got to keep the same first name, at least. The most important part of
being dead this go-around was letting everyone at ACRO think he’d been
killed—for reasons he didn’t quite understand but when orders were given,
orders were followed. The rest of the world, and Itor Corp—ACRO’s major
nemesis, had never known Wyatt existed anyway, and he knew the mission he was
dealing with—finding the weather machine that Itor Corp had built and hidden on
an offshore oil platform—was some serious we-plan-on-destroying-the-world shit.

He’d
handle it easily enough. It’s not like he looked as if he had special powers.
But he was tall enough that most men gave him a wide berth, which was cool with
him. He tended to live mostly inside his own head anyway and preferred his own
space, big-time. Even when he was in a room full of people, like now.

The
bar crowd tonight was rough, made up mostly of roustabouts who wanted to be
roughnecks and roughnecks who wanted to be drillers, all either preparing to
rejoin their offshore crew or just coming off their fourteen-day workweek.
Wyatt was just coming off his own two-week break, prepared to go back in and
finish up the job he’d started for ACRO. He’d been on the rig, doing recon on
the weather machine—ACRO wanted to make sure there weren’t any more out there
like it. So he’d spent the first days getting the code and transmitting it back
to Haley at ACRO. Now he’d been ordered by Oz to actually destroy the machine.

Wyatt
had grown up in this life, under the name of James Jasper. His father owned his
own drilling company by the time Wyatt had been born, and he’d already had two
sons from his first wife.

Wyatt
had been thirteen at the time all the other crazy shit had started happening
around him.

For
as long as he could remember, he’d always had what he’d thought of as secret
powers. He remembered moving an object with his mind when he was just two years
old, and it had gotten worse when he hit puberty. Out of control, until every
time he lost his temper even slightly, shit would fly.

At
first, the doctors at the mental facility he’d been forced into were concerned,
and then they became downright fed up with him. Especially because he became
really good at ripping up their offices, all while sitting in a chair, looking
innocent.

One
minute, he’d been drilling, the next, learning how to avoid medication he
didn’t want to take by hiding it in his mouth. He never did tell anyone at that
mental institution about the sex thing, a power that ACRO scientists now
believed had roots in his telekinesis—it hadn’t begun full force until he was
fifteen. Even then, everyone just assumed he was getting laid on a regular
basis because he was good-looking.

Yeah,
totally
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,
only not as fun, and he’d
escaped before the electroshock therapy, by seducing all the female nurses and
pretending to be normal.

Pretending.
Wyatt did that a lot. Pretending to not be telekinetic. Pretending to be dead…

So
far, pretending to be dead this time around was pretty cool. He’d always wanted
to come back as a ghost, thought that would be the coolest part of actually
being dead. Creed, another operative at ACRO—a ghost hunter—had assured him
that most ghosts were on the up-and-up, but Oz, a medium who spoke to ghosts
who were the worst of the worst, disagreed.

Oz
had temporarily taken over for Devlin O’Malley, the head of ACRO. Oz was the
one responsible for Wyatt’s death and his current assignment, which placed him
back on the job as a roughneck.

Like
fucking being reincarnated.

Just
concentrate on getting your shit together, man.

When
his concentration went elsewhere, his gift began to scatter like loose marbles
on a slick, hardwood floor. But then, he always felt scattered, not fully whole,
not integrated. Motherfucking crazy. Like maybe he really did belong in a
padded room somewhere. He’d tried to explain it to the psychics at ACRO, told
them it felt as if his powers were Legos missing the connecting pieces.

When
he’d been released from the mental ward at sixteen, he’d worked on the oil rig
with his father and brothers until he was nineteen and then he went the
military route. Learning to drill had been cool, and in his blood—learning to
destroy had been equally so. Fuck the middle-of-the-road bullshit. As bent on
extremes as he was, he went straight for the roughest route possible.