Seduced by the Storm (32 page)

"So
proper." He brushed aside her hair and pressed a hot kiss to the back of
her neck. "Makes it so hot when you let loose and talk dirty to me."

"You
want me to talk dirty?"

The
sound of him shoving his shorts down made her heart skip a beat. "No. I
want you to make other noises." His hands slipped beneath her skirt. He
pulled aside the crotch of her panties and entered her in one smooth, hard
stroke.

She
bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her fingernails scored the wooden railing,
her knuckles cracking under the force of her grip.

His
hands came down next to hers so their bodies touched only where his cock slid
in and out of her slick core. The sound of the ocean blended with the erotic
slap of skin on skin, the harsh rasp of their panting breaths.

Pounding
into her with raw, brutal thrusts, Wyatt urged her toward climax with sheer
force. At the first tremors, he stopped, ground his hips to stave off her
release.

Still,
he didn’t touch her. It was torture and teasing and by far the most amazing
sensation in the world. She groaned, tempted to beg.

"What
do you want, Faith?"

"I
want to come before one of the servants looks out of a window and sees
us." Her voice was little more than a moan, surely as gravelly as his.

"Probably
too late." He rapid-fired a half-dozen thrusts into her, keeping her
straddling the edge of detonation. She felt like a grenade that had been
unpinned but hadn’t yet exploded. "That’s why I’m not on my knees doing
what I really want to be doing to you, licking you from the inside out, making
you come against my mouth. You know how much I love doing that, right?"

Lust
clogged her throat, so she couldn’t answer.

"Yeah,
you know. But I don’t want to give the servants that big of a show. Remember
when I said that no one sees my woman naked but me?"

Swallowing
the lump of lust, she managed to rasp, "I remember I told you I’m not your
woman."

"Yeah,
you are."

She
didn’t have time to protest, didn’t know for sure that she even would have,
because he started pumping into her with a vengeance, possessing her exactly
the way she wanted him to. The primitive cavewoman in her rejoiced at the
me-man-you-woman routine. The modern-day, I-don’t-need-a-man-to-complete-me
woman bristled a little, but with every relentless thrust, the cavewoman beat
Modern Day Ms. Proper down.

"Mine,"
he growled. "You’re mine, Faith."

"Yes."

Ecstasy
ripped through her core and shot up her spine all the way to her skull. A wail
escaped her, a cry of pleasure and pain and everything in between. The climax
waned, but as Wyatt stiffened, his cock swelling inside her and hitting that
spot that made her crazy, another orgasm blasted through her. Her pussy milked
him, squeezed until he began to jerk reflexively from the postclimax
sensitivity, his gasping curses flowing as freely as his fluids did inside her.

When
he finished, then and only then did his arms come around her, holding her so
tenderly, no one would have known he’d just banged her to within an inch of her
sanity.

She’d
shattered, blown into a million pieces, and as with any powerful explosion, she
now had emotional shrapnel to deal with.

"AND
THAT," Annika said calmly, as her foot crunched down on her opponent’s
trachea, "is why you never, ever use that type of hold, no matter what
your old SWAT trainers told you."

Her
opponent, a burly pyrokinetic named Chad, lay on his back, gasping for air. He
wrapped his hands around her ankle to dislodge her, and she was about to make
him regret that decision when the shrill ring of her mobile phone changed her
mind. Chad could stay conscious for now.

"Saved
by the cell." She stalked across the gym to where her duffel sat outside
the ring of students she’d been teaching in her advanced fighting course. The
twice-yearly late-night class was specially tailored for the Hell Month
sessions that required agents to spend four weeks constantly training and
running on only a few hours of sleep a day.

"What’s
up, Dev?" she said into the phone.

"Something
has happened—"

"Are
you okay?" Annika interrupted, because she knew Dev inside and out, and
she’d never heard his voice sound the way it did right now, so…devastated. The
long pause made a rock form in the pit of her belly.

"Never
mind me. Where’s Creed?"

"I
assumed at his house. Why? What’s going on?"

"Do
you know where to find him? Where he’d go?"

"Goddammit,
Dev, tell me what’s going on."

"Just
find him. He needs you." Dev hung up.

This
was too weird. She jammed the phone into her duffel and slung the bag over her
shoulder. "Class is over," she shouted to her students, who all
looked relieved. For most of them, the instruction wasn’t voluntary.

She
took off at a dead run, hit the cold night air in nothing but shorts and the
sports-bra workout top she wore for training sessions. Adrenaline made her
hands shake as she started up her old Jeep. She never shook like that. Ever.
But the idea that Creed might be hurting and upset…

She
tore out of the parking lot and off the base. The radio, set on Creed’s
favorite rock station, kept droning on about Hurricane Lily and its imminent
coastal strike, but she didn’t listen. Lily wasn’t her mission. Remy and Haley
would handle it.

The
Jeep rattled with speed as she shot across the backroads to Creed’s house…where
his Harley was missing.

Cursing,
she sped to the dive biker bar where he liked to hang out, and sure enough, the
bike was there, parked haphazardly near the door. Relief made her start shaking
again. How irritating.

AC/DC
blasted her ears as she entered the place. The first thing she saw was a wall
of leather and tattoos, and none of it belonging to Creed. Just way too many
bikers for her taste.

The
second thing she saw was a wall of tits and too much female skin, all surrounding
Creed, where he sat sprawled in a corner booth, a bottle of whiskey and a shot
glass in his hands. He took a swig from the bottle and she wondered why he even
bothered with the glass.

One
of the skanks sitting next to him in the booth put her hand on his thigh, and
Annika’s jealousy warred with amusement when he spun the shot glass across the
table and rather roughly removed the woman’s hand. She wouldn’t be deterred,
though, and she leaned in, said something in his ear that made him close his
eyes and shake his head.

Annika
cut through the crowd like a knife through flesh. A couple of the women saw her
before she got to the table and wisely cleared out. Two others were too busy
sliding as close to Creed as they could, but they looked up when Annika stopped
at the booth, arms folded over her chest.

"Leave.
Now."

The
women grumbled but scooted out of the booth, and Creed, without opening his
eyes, reached out his hand for her. "Hey."

God,
he looked like shit. She’d never seen him drunk, but he was well beyond that
right now. "Hey, ghost boy," she said softly.

"Don’t
call me that," he snarled, his grip tightening on hers so hard she nearly
cried out, but more from surprise than pain. His eyes, red-rimmed, bloodshot,
bored into hers like red-hot drills.

"Okay."
She eased next to him in the booth. "Okay, baby. I’m sorry." What the
hell was wrong with him?

He
cursed and took another long pull on the whiskey bottle. Before his throat
stopped working on the swallow, he’d slammed the bottle on the table and pulled
her into his arms, onto his lap.

"No,"
he slurred. "I’m sorry. Ah, fuck, I’m sorry."

"Creed,
you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?"

"Not
here."

Slowly,
she extricated herself from his hold, paid the bartender and helped Creed
stumble to her Jeep. Once he was loaded and buckled in, she hit the road,
heading toward his place.

Creed
braced his forehead against the passenger-side window and just stared out into
the night.

"Creed?
What is it?"

"Oz,"
he croaked.

"What
did he do to you?" God, she’d always hated that guy. She’d been wanting to
knock his teeth out for years, and if he’d hurt Creed, she wouldn’t hold back
anymore, not even for Dev’s sake.

"He’s
an asshole." He slammed his fist against the door, startling her.

She
wanted to ask more, but she waited until they arrived at his house, and once
they were inside, she called Dev, left a message on his answering machine that
Creed was with her. When she hung up, Creed was glaring at her from the couch.

"He
was in on it. My parents probably too."

"In
on what?" She sat next to him, rubbed his back when he leaned forward,
holding his head in his hands.

"The
lie. I get it now, Annika. I get why you’re so pissed about the lies. Why you
want revenge. CIA bastards."

A
sick, sinking sensation dropped into her gut. She hated that he was hurting,
even though she had no idea what had caused him the pain. And she really hated
that someone had cut him so deeply that he understood
her
pain. He was
too good, too decent to be that angry. He didn’t deserve it, and she was going
to kill whoever had done this to him.

Because
she
wasn’t
decent, and she had no qualms about playing judge, jury and
executioner.

She
reached out, pulled his hand away from his face and forced him to look at her.
"What happened tonight?"

"Oz."
He fisted his hands, and fury burned in his glassy eyes. "He’s my
brother."

Shock
stole her breath. "What? Your brother brother? Like, you have the same
parents?"

"Funny,
huh?" He pulled away from her and lurched to his feet. He didn’t get very
far, though, came to a rest with one big shoulder propped against the opening
between the kitchen and living room.

She
was going to rip Oz apart. Dev would just have to deal with it. Then she
wondered if Dev had known about Creed all along, and anger flared.

"They
lied to me, Ani," Creed whispered, his head hung low, his shoulders
slumped.

She
crossed to him, pulled him into her arms. "You need to talk to him,"
she said, surprising herself. God, she was turning soft. "Tomorrow. After
you’ve slept this off."

"I’m
not drunk. And he’s dead."

"You’re
very drunk. And don’t say that about Oz. You’ll talk, you’ll make up, you’ll
get tight."

"No,
Ani. He’s
dead
. Fucking killed himself. Blew himself away without ever
giving me a chance to know him."

Time
stopped. Annika’s knees nearly buckled. "But…Oh, God."

Creed
collapsed on her, his weight almost too much for her to bear. His big chest
heaved, his body wracked with sobs. She struggled with him to the couch, where
she held him until he passed out. Then, wishing she could be two places at
once, she covered him with a blanket and headed out.

She’d
be back before he woke.

Annika
made record time getting to Dev’s place on base. She practically flew from the
Jeep to his front door, was surprised to find it unlocked.

She
found him in his bedroom, standing in front of the lit fireplace. Behind him, a
dark stain on the carpet told her all she needed to know. Tears stung her eyes
as she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his back.

For
several minutes, they stood like that, the soft snapping of the flames the only
sound in the room. Eventually he turned in to her, his bloodshot gaze brimming
with pain.

"How’s
Creed?"

"Not
good. He’s hurt. Angry."

Dev
closed his eyes, and she knew he was keeping it together by a thread. "The
thing with Kat couldn’t have helped."

"Kat?"

"Oz
could have gotten rid of her. Now"—he choked on a half sob—"now it’s
too late."

Son
of a bitch.
That son of a bitch!
Good thing he was dead. She hoped he
came back as a ghost, because she planned to shock the shit out of him.

"Come
on, Dev. Let’s get out of here."

"No.
I can’t leave him." His gaze fell to the spot on the floor, and he started
to tremble. Then, like a dam had broken, he collapsed the way Creed had. She
caught him, thankful he weighed less than Creed, and helped him to the bed,
giving the bloodstain a wide berth.

Tomorrow,
she’d make sure a crew came to replace the carpet.

Sinking
onto the bed, she pulled him down next to her. They’d slept together more times
than she could count, fully clothed, but always before she’d been the one who
needed comfort. For the first time since Dev had rescued her from a hateful
life on the run from the CIA six years ago, she returned the favor. She held
him while he fell apart.