Taken by Fire (11 page)

He did neither.

At the last second, he pivoted, roared, and shattered the door with a jumping kick that sent the thing blasting into a million pieces. He stood there for just a second, panting, his assessing eyes taking in the area, and then he fixed his gaze on her.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here. And that Maurice asshole? He’s mine.”

* * *

S
tryker’s fists had curled as he spoke Maurice’s name, the anger welling up inside of him in a way that would be deemed unacceptable by the National Earthquake Society, Devlin, and just about everyone else who liked their planet in one piece.

And then, with the elemental changes came the god-awful arousal that caused him to lose any and all train of thought.

Breathe, man, breathe and relax
.

He did and his cock got harder. Yeah, the whole change-in-atmosphere thing was totally screwing him over—and badly—because all he could think about was screwing.

Mel’s close proximity wasn’t helping, and man, seeing Phoebe had sent him on a really not-nice trip down memory lane.

Phoebe
.

He wanted to kill that bitch—and the more he learned about what she was into, the more his instincts to protect Mel kicked into overdrive. Which was ridiculous, because they were the same person.

Somehow.

“Stryker, we should go.”

Mel was touching him—yanking on him, actually. And he snapped to, because they were nowhere near out of danger. The shattered door in front of him was a great reminder as well.

“Let’s move out,” he said, like it had been his idea all along. Mel shot him a
duh
look and started walking and he tried not to stare at her small, round, perfect ass … the one he’d held with a death grip while she’d moved up and down, impaled on his dick.

The perfect ass Maurice claimed he’d sunk his teeth into.

He ground his teeth and he swore he felt the building … shift. Mel felt it too.

“You’ve got to control that,” she said.

“You’re telling me about control? That’s fucking rich,” he muttered, and she yanked at him again, and dammit, the pull to her was much stronger now that they’d had sex twice.

Would it get worse after each time? Because that would be really not good.

“Stryker, come on,” she said, and he was about to make another cutting remark when he saw the look in her eyes—it was couched, but the fear was there and he remembered what the fire-bitch of a sister put her through on a regular basis. Mel wasn’t even an agent and she was doing a pretty decent job of holding it together.

But this was his show and he had to do better.

“We’ll be fine—come on.” He paused to grab her injections and his weapons, then took her by the hand, her cool palm in his warm one, and they traveled along the maze of basementlike hallways until they found the exit to the stairwell.

He put his hand on the door and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He pushed Mel behind him as the door swung open away from him seemingly of its own accord.

Maurice stood on the small landing, waiting for them.

Fists curled. Uncurled. Building shook. Not good to bring it down on their heads. “Move out of the way and I’ll let you live,” Stryker said.

Maurice pushed his sleeves up, revealing wide leather wristbands, and Stryker froze.

Those bands hid wicked poison-filled spurs. That had been Akbar’s power, and now Stryker’s mentor’s face swam in front of his eyes.… He remained locked up hard as Maurice unsnapped the bands and smiled, showing those damned, perfect white teeth.

Stryker swore he smelled smoke and he definitely saw red, but the emotion was too raw, too real, and pretty soon they were going to be covered in rubble.

Maurice threw out his arms and let loose a thin, caustic stream in Stryker’s direction. Too late Stryker wheeled to the side; he was going to get nailed—
holy shit
.

The poison solidified in midair, the arc encompassed in a crystal clear coffin of ice, and it looked like some kind of avantgarde
sculpture in its deadly beauty. Mel nodded with satisfaction as Maurice cried out in agony—the ice had not just frozen the liquid, but his arms to the elbows.

Excellent.

The building settled and Stryker’s anger calmed sufficiently. He strode forward, asked, “You like biting helpless women?”

“Phoebe’s not helpless,” Maurice managed, his face white, his words pained.

“No, Phoebe’s not,” Stryker agreed, right before he cocked his arm back and punched Maurice in the mouth, shattering his front teeth.

He took immense satisfaction in making sure Maurice swallowed all the pieces before he pushed him aside, watching in fascination as the man’s arms broke off as he fell.

“Do you want me to do anything else?” Mel stood to the side, gaze averted away from the semi-conscious Itor agent.

Stryker’s cock throbbed, blood strummed, and he couldn’t thank her.

Instead, he grabbed her and they headed up the stairs. They were one floor away from street level and they needed to make tracks to the safe house. From there, ACRO would send plenty of support, if they hadn’t already.

He stopped at the door, peered through the glass at two hulking guards who seemed to have no clue that there’d been an escape.

“I’ll take them—you back me up,” he told her.

“I don’t know how much control I’ll have—when I’m scared, I lose it,” she whispered urgently, and he thought about Akbar again … and about both their pain and fear.

“You’re doing just fine, Mel.” He needed to be fine too, dammit, and he willed it so as he slid through the half-opened doorway.

He loved the element of surprise, he thought as he slammed the men’s heads together with a satisfying crack and let their bodies slide to the floor. At the same time, he felt the shift in the
atmosphere and heard the now familiar whoosh of icy air rush past him.

Mel had frozen three other men who’d been rushing toward him, and by the quick, almost fearful look she gave him, he knew she’d shot her load. “I’m all out.”

“It’s all right. I’ve got you,” he said, way more gently than he’d intended. He’d have to recharge her once they got to the safe house—and relieve himself in the process, because his cock was harder than before. It would make running … interesting.

First, he systematically stripped the unfrozen men of weapons, including a Taser, one of his personal favorites. He pressed a pistol into her hand, his fingers brushing the pulse on her wrist. His own quickened with that simple contact and he gritted his teeth and turned toward the doorway that led to their freedom.

G
abe was well beyond incoherent when Devlin asked him if he wanted to come. Spread-eagled, wrists and ankles cuffed to the heavy head- and footboards of Devlin’s bed, Gabriel had very little choice in the matter, thanks to the leather strap Devlin had put around his balls before he’d buried his cock deep inside of him.

“Tell me,” Dev murmured as he watched Gabriel carefully. Devlin was always careful when Gabe was tied, always made sure there was no panic or major discomfort.

Well, beyond the fact that his balls were tight enough to burst.

He opened his mouth but sounds jumbled together in a string of what sounded like low howls. Lately, there were always restraints between them, and while Gabe obviously liked it, he missed the way it had been in the beginning, with nothing but Devlin’s hands on him.

He realized that he’d gone quiet, floated away, although his erection remained.

“Stay with me, boy.” Dev’s voice brought him back to the scene. “Where’d you go?”

“Sorry,” he panted. “I was just … thinking.”

For a second, the old Devlin was looking at him and Gabe almost told him what he’d been holding back. But then Devlin drove into Gabriel harder, slamming his prostate at the same time he released the leather strap.

Gabriel came so hard he was pretty sure he screamed … the orgasm seemed to last forever. And then Dev’s nails scored Gabe’s ball sac as he came himself, a heated rush that sent Gabriel into another orgasm.

The sensations rocked through him for a long while, even as Devlin unhooked the cuffs, rubbed the circulation back into Gabe’s arms and ankles, checking his skin carefully.

All this shit was a not-so-clever way of Devlin trying to put distance between them. And he didn’t even seem to notice he was doing it.

Gabe wanted to talk to Dev about that. Wanted to tell him about a lot of things.

Just this week, he’d found a rental available on the community bulletin board—a small house on the compound—and he’d checked it out. It was private, way bigger than his dorm room, and far more spacious than any place he’d ever lived in—and while it didn’t have Devlin, Gabe still needed it.

But Devlin was quiet, lying on his side, staring into space. It had taken Gabe several minutes—if not longer—to come back to full consciousness. Dev tended to fuck him into the mattress on a good day, more so when he had something big on his mind, and tonight’s problem must be damned near monumental, because holy good God, Gabe lost it twice in a short span of time.

But the sex was never the problem. No, it was always fucking mind-blowing. Lately, it was the before and after that had been severely lacking.

Because after sex, there was simply nothing. Dev would stare
into space or at the ceiling and Gabe felt like he should be taking money off a dresser top and leaving without a word.

Gabe got Dev’s distractedness—beyond being in charge of ACRO, his gift of controlled remote viewing often interfered with his life. Dev’s CRV was kind of like being able to flip on a spy cam into the other ACRO agents’ minds. Most agents—especially when on a mission—were more than willing to have Devlin as their backup.

No, the problem was the other big shit going on that Gabe wasn’t privy to. There were secret meetings, conversations that stopped when he walked into the room—again, all normal, except normal typically didn’t make Dev moody to the point of shutting down.

And fuck it all, Gabe was tired as hell of the walk of shame back to the dorms and the label as Dev’s boy toy. Although he had gained respect—along with a great deal of well-deserved trouble—after his unauthorized mission to the Amazon, he still wasn’t officially
with
Devlin.

Gabe remained in the excedo quarters, spending time at Devlin’s when invited. He trained hard, tried his best to be friendly to the other agents, and he felt more and more unsettled on a daily basis, rather than the other way around.

He craved privacy. He craved Devlin in a way he hadn’t thought possible. And all of that was taking a heavier toll than he’d imagined it would.

“He’s got a damned good job and a safe place to hang his hat. He’s just young. Impatient,”
he’d heard Dev tell Marlena.

“
And you’re old and impatient,”
she replied. Marlena had always defended him to Devlin, but even she couldn’t persuade Dev to give Gabe what he wanted most—a home.

Another few minutes. He touched Dev’s shoulder. Nothing. Cleared his throat.

Nothing.

Ah, fuck it. He shoved the covers aside and began to root around for his clothing.

Devlin finally woke from his reverie, turned on his back. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my quarters, the way I do every night.” The words came out more harshly than he’d wanted, dammit. He’d been trying to show Dev that he was cool with this couple-times-a-week thing. That he didn’t want to rush into anything more serious. That he wasn’t falling in fucking love for the first time in his natural-born life and he was more scared of that than—

“Hey.” Dev touched his arm and Gabe jerked like he’d been burned. “Gabriel—I wasn’t trying to read you. I promised you I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, okay,” he muttered, shoved his pants on and grabbed his shirt. His shoes were somewhere by the front door. “I gotta go.”

Dev didn’t try to stop him.

T
he safe house was three miles from where they’d been held, but they’d gotten there relatively quickly even with Mel slowing at every café and asking if they could eat. The answer had always been the same, which was “When we get where we’re going.” Mel seemed to have no sense of self-preservation or she’d have put running ahead of her stomach.

At least her constant stops hadn’t caused them any trouble, and they hadn’t been followed, from what Stryker could tell.

Still, he couldn’t afford to take any chances, and between that worry and the arousal clouding his brain, he pulled Mel to him the second he got the door secured.

She didn’t fight him. No, she seemed to melt into his kiss, even as he yanked the shirt out of her jeans. She wanted him, and he wanted her to get the worried look off her face, liked when she responded to him like that …

Her attachment to him was not good. Sex would cure this touchy-feely crap by, well, touching and feeling. But that would be coming from a totally different head.

“You need this,” he murmured.

“Stryker, wait—” She was pushing against his chest with her palms and he pulled back immediately because he wouldn’t be one of those guys like Maurice. No matter that he had to have an orgasm soon or else he’d explode and not in the good way.

“Did I hurt you?” he demanded, and Jesus, so much for the no touchy-feely crap.

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just … I was worried about you back there with Maurice. You froze and it had nothing to do with me.”

It had
everything
to do with her. And it had been humiliating. He
never
froze up like that.

She looked so damned concerned that it pissed him off. He wasn’t the one with the problems.

“Honey, pointing out my flaws right now isn’t the best way to assure your orgasm.”

Mel ignored him. “Your friend who died—he had the same powers as Maurice did, didn’t he?”

“Akbar didn’t die. He was murdered.”

She blinked hard. Obviously waiting for him to add
by you
, but he didn’t. He wanted to, but it wouldn’t come out.

He’d been inside of Mel. There was no way Phoebe was that good at pretending to be innocent. The second Phoebe had taken possession of their body, his own had chilled. With Mel, despite the ice, he’d started to melt a little.