Tempting the Fire (17 page)

The idea got her wildly hot, and she felt a warm rush between her legs. His thumb dragged through her slit, spreading her cream up to her clit.

“Tell me what you see,” she said, and his eyes darkened even more.

“You’re so wet,” he said roughly. “You’re swollen and pink, and your juice is making my cock glisten.”

She moaned as his words sparked the beginnings of another orgasm. Crazy, since they were both utterly motionless. Motionless until he began that maddeningly slow sweep of his thumb again. Her clit pulsed with need every time he skimmed it. She whimpered and rolled her hips in an attempt to catch his maddening, fleeting touch, but he grasped her thighs and held her still.

“Don’t move.” His voice was a hot whisper as he held her in that exposed position and thrust up. Slowly. Deliciously. His retreat was just as prolonged, and at the same time he lifted her so the head of his cock nearly came free.

Again he thrust and drew back, with the same torturous, lagging strokes, all the while watching their joining. His cock stretched her opening so she could feel every texture along the shaft, the velvet skin, the firm, ropy veins, the ribbed striations of muscle. Shuddering with pleasure, she ground against him, clenching her sheath around his erection.

With a groan, he picked up the pace and pumped into her with increasing strength and speed until the quick-time double slap of his ass against the cave floor and his legs against her butt echoed off the rock walls in an erotic soundtrack.

Still he watched as he fucked her hard, his expression intense and dark. Fire burst in her belly, spreading through her pelvis so fast she couldn’t stop the orgasm. It crashed into her and she cried out as Logan did the same. She felt him swell and pulse, and he kicked his head back as the pleasure took him.

Fuck … she bit her lip, forced herself to let go of the physical sensations in order to get inside his head and get a read while his shields were down.

It happened quickly—his thoughts swirled in a jumbled mass, but once again, they were all of a personal nature. More images of childhood, and then the military—a few things she was pretty sure were secret missions, but nothing that was relevant to her mission. There was a fight with a friend … he’d accused his buddy of fucking his girlfriend, but he’d been mistaken; scowling, she pushed harder, because he was jerking beneath her with the last spasms of pleasure.

Again, she ran into a wall that was much more solid than any psychic could put up. It didn’t feel like a psychic wall at all. Didn’t have the soft give. Truly, it was as though her mental probe struck a titanium shell around his mind.

And then there was nothing. His orgasm had faded away, along with her ability to get a read. Confused and exhausted, she fell forward and collapsed 97

against his chest. For a couple of heartbeats, he lay there, frozen, as if he didn’t know what to do, and then his arms came around her.

The intimacy should have bothered her—would bother her later—but right now she only wanted to rest. To revel in the feel of a connection with someone, something she hadn’t experienced in … well, never. Maybe they could lie like this for a while. No talking, no thinking. Just enjoying basic human contact.

Oh, man, she was seriously thrown off her game here.

Logan drew in a ragged breath. “Get off me.”

“I don’t have the strength,” she muttered.

He went taut beneath her. “Now.”

The hard tone of his voice startled her, and she lifted her head to see what the hell was wrong with him, but he didn’t give her the chance. Roughly, he shoved her off him so she was left sitting in the dirt.

Humiliation spread like a sunburn from her cheeks to her entire body as she grabbed for her pants. Clearly, his thoughts hadn’t taken him down the same connection trail she’d been on. The rejection stung with poisoned memories; she’d seen her mother completely trashed by men she’d slept with. “What got up your ass?”

He picked up the glow stick and moved toward the rear of the cave. “I need to clean up.”

Like she was dirty or something. Shaking with anger, she jumped to her feet. “What? You can’t just—”

He wheeled around. “I need a minute. Give me a goddamned minute, okay?”

She felt her jaw go slack, and had no idea how to respond, which wasn’t normal. At all.

Logan closed his eyes and blew out a breath. “Jesus. I’m sorry, okay? I just

… I need a second.” He spun back around and stalked off.

Sela stood there in the last, faint rays of sunlight, confused and pissed.

Once he was out of sight, she did what any agent in her situation would do. She followed him.

Silently, she crept toward the back of the cave, hoping the trickling water would mask the sound of her footsteps. It didn’t mask the squeaks of bats and the skitter of unidentifiable creatures in the cave, however. She just hoped none of the creatures were poisonous. Or huge.

She eased up to the bend and carefully peeked around the damp wall of stone, expecting to catch him taking a piss or maybe washing himself in the tiny pool.

None of the above. Holy shit, Logan had taken off his shirt and was injecting himself with the black sludge, like she’d seen him doing last night.

Except his arm, the one he’d said hadn’t taken a bullet, was … shredded. A bullet had definitely struck him in the triceps—or what should have been his triceps.

There was nothing there but metal. Metal and wires, instead of veins and 98

muscle.

She must have made a noise, maybe a gasp, because his head whipped around. Fury lit up his face as he threw down the syringe and crushed it beneath his foot.

“I told you—”

“Yeah, you told me,” she snapped. “You fucked me and then tossed me off of you like I was a whore you picked up while drunk, and now you’re sober and have realized what you’ve done. So fuck you. And fuck you for being so secretive about this. So you have a fucking artificial arm. You think you’re the only person on the planet who has lost a limb?” Except she got the feeling this went way deeper than just a limb, and she also suspected that his arm was no ordinary piece of machinery.

“It’s a hell of a lot more than that,” he growled, confirming her suspicions.

“So does this have something to do with your diabetes?” For some reason the fact that he’d lied to her about that rankled. Hurt, even. God, she’d actually believed him! The knowledge that she’d basically forgotten all her ACRO training and believed a bad guy fried her temper to a crisp. It was definitely time to get back on track and do her damned job. “Is there anything else you’ve lied to me about?”

He stalked toward her, fists clenched and eyes sparking. “Excuse me for not telling a complete fucking stranger that I’m half machine.”

Half? Jesus. “I … ah … Are you serious?”

“No!” he shouted. “I always tell that to the whores I pick up while drunk.”

He raised his arms, and alarm shot through her, an instant of panic she regretted but couldn’t stop, and she flinched, brought her hands up to shield her face.

When no blow fell, she risked a peek at him, and instantly wished she hadn’t. He looked … devastated. Pale and worried.

“Sela?” His voice cracked. “Hey, I’m sorry.” He eased toward her, but she shook her head, smiled like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just had a flashback to her near death.

“It’s okay. I got spooked. You know, dark, scary cave.” Skepticism flashed in his eyes, but she aimed for distraction by grabbing his hand and turning his arm to expose his injury. “Now,” she said firmly, “tell me about this.”

99

They took him sometime in the late afternoon. Chance had been in a restless, fevered sleep because, although he’d let Marlena go willingly, his inner chupa seemed to know it was still a forced separation.

He’d barely heard the footsteps, the hushed voices. Then he’d felt something sharp in his arm and had woken up again strapped to a stretcher, with an overhead light shining into his eyes.

He’d told himself it would happen, but nothing could’ve prepared him for this.

A steel band ran across his forehead, so he couldn’t even turn to see what was going on around him.

And Christ, the pain … He could handle pain, it came with his job, but holy mother of God, it hadn’t been like this.

There were needles placed into his eyeballs, his spine. He heard talking around him as if they yelled directly into his ears.

Some voices were familiar—like Shep’s—but there was one voice he didn’t recognize, someone new to the camp. Most likely, that man Richard they’d spoken of earlier. He was urging the doctors to take the testing as far as they could go.

Without killing him. Yet.

And then another voice, saying, The woman could be infected too. We’ll test her next.

Chance heard himself howl at the threat to Marlena, and then he clamped down hard as the light faded and a wash of crimson slammed down over his vision. Suddenly his skin wasn’t big enough for his body, the bones in his arms and legs were stretching, and there was a God-awful ache in his skull.

He heard snapping, wondered for a second if his bones had broken, and then he was free from the restraints.

THEY WERE HURTING CHANCE.

Marlena knew that, felt it keenly, had been pacing the medical tent they’d taken him from a couple of hours earlier. Watching him walk with the men had been heartbreaking. Knowing she’d been helpless made it even worse.

She’d fisted her hands as she moved, so tightly there were crescent marks in the tender skin of her palms. Had almost left to find him, several times.

It wasn’t until she heard the bloodcurdling screams coming from the admin tent that she ran in the direction of the yells.

Shep was coming out of the tent, and even in the growing dusk she could 100

see the blood running down the side of his face. “Stay the hell out of there,” he ordered her, but she didn’t listen, slammed past him and into the room where Chance—at least, she thought it was Chance—was crouched over one of the doctors.

He turned to her and let out a powerful, roaring growl that shook her confidence, and this was getting more dangerous than she’d ever have imagined—

for her heart and soul.

Her palms began to sweat and her stomach clenched and she cursed herself for not being stronger, for being afraid of Chance when he took this form.

The chupa prowled toward her and she heard a low, stuttered breath escape her, felt her knees start to buckle. The clawed hand stretched out toward her …

“What are you doing? This thing could kill you,” a man she’d never met before yelled even as she took a step toward the chupa and the chupa took a step toward her.

“It’s not a thing,” she snapped. “What did you do to him?”

No one answered. No one except Chance, with a screech that threatened to shatter her eardrums.

She took a step back and hated herself for it. “Have you given him a tranquilizer?”

“Four,” the doctor said from the corner of the room.

“Try a fifth,” she said as Chance roared toward her, with no sign that he recognized her at all. Frozen to the spot, she closed her eyes and waited, felt the cold breath on her neck as the beast leaned in and sniffed her.

She opened her eyes and looked at the red ones Chance’s had morphed into, tried to find something in the animal who stood before her that was the man she’d been with.

The whir of the tranq gun cut through the air, followed by a dull thud of the dart piercing flesh. The chupa’s eyes widened and then his body began to sway, his legs ready to give out.

She couldn’t grab him before he fell, but Chance began to change back almost immediately.

She knelt beside his prone body, stroking his hair and taking his hand as she spoke to him softly. “Chance, are you okay?”

His fingers tightened around hers even though his eyes remained closed.

Bruises mottled his skin from where they’d stuck him with needles, and there were heavy circles under his closed eyes. She knew he was awake, although he kept his eyes closed.

The man she’d identified as Richard had left the room while she was talking Chance down. Goddamned coward. One of the doctors who’d remained in the tent approached her now. “Ma’am, I think—”

“ I think you should leave,” she interrupted. “When he wakes, the last person he’ll want to see is you.”

The doctor nodded. “I’ll be right outside the door, then.”

101

When the tent door closed softly, Chance opened his eyes and looked up at her. “Thanks. I don’t think I’d have turned, but I kind of want to wrap my hands around his neck for a bit.”

“I figured.”

“You shouldn’t have risked your life like that,” he murmured. “You don’t know for sure that I wouldn’t hurt you. And, I don’t trust any of these men.”

“I couldn’t let you suffer. I heard you screaming. I felt it.”

“They talked about testing you,” he said. “I had to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Again, he’d worried about her. Put himself at risk because of her.

In a sense, he’d been cursed himself, forced to live with a beast inside of him he neither wanted nor could control.

She understood how he must be feeling, better than he knew. But she certainly couldn’t share that with him. Not now. Maybe not ever.

This was all such an impossible situation. Unbelievable. And there was nothing else she could think of doing beyond kissing him. Avoidance for sure, but between the primal heat she felt when she was near him and his kisses—oh, they made everything else seem completely unimportant.

A shiver went through her as he rolled her to her back, his heavy body on hers. His hands were swift and sure, unbuttoning and unzipping her BDUs, his fingers finding her core.

He pulled his mouth from hers. “You’re so wet for me. You want me …

still,” he murmured, as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Make me come, Chance … just like this.” Her hands gripped his shoulders as he complied, slid one finger along her sex, another sliding inside of her in a maddening rhythm.

He had no problem complying with her request. The imminent danger and adrenaline rush combined with Marlena’s scent made it impossible for him not to want her. And the soft smile of pleasure on her face was enough to make him forget all the pain he’d just endured.