Tempting the Fire Read online

  She knew a hell of a lot more than she was telling him.

  In one quick motion, he had her back against the nearest tree, his body pressing into every soft, sexy curve of hers. He was instantly aroused, but it didn’t matter—couldn’t. Not this time. “Tell me who you are. Tell me now.”

  She rolled her hips against his groin in a long, slow grind, and Christ, it was getting harder to think. “Chance, baby—”

  “No.” He put a hand over her throat, palm touching the hot skin, feeling her pulse beat wildly beneath it. She was doing that thing again—the amazing, sexy thing that made him hot, that made him feel the real Marlena wasn’t behind those eyes at the moment. “Who the fuck are you right now? Because this isn’t the woman I made love to in the tent that first night, or this afternoon. So. Who. Are. You.”

  She swallowed, hard, and no doubt realized her options regarding the truth were severely limited. Especially when his hand squeezed harder. “I’m an ACRO agent. One of the good guys.”

  She’d choked the words out, and he released his grip a bit.

  “Fuck me.” He’d heard rumors of a paramilitary agency that recruited agents with special abilities—and some not-so-special ones too—for years. But he’d never looked beyond the rumors, since all his abilities were purely man-made. And because he’d loved his job as a SEAL.

  Now his blood ran colder than it had been, thanks to the infection from the beast.

  “ACRO is … agents who are like X-men,” she said, confirming the rumors, making them a reality. “We’re a secret organization by necessity, but we’re here to help. Agents are on their way to help us right now.”

  His laugh was low but harsh. “Yes, just like the doctors here were trying to help me. Itor too.”

  She paled, and he continued.

  “I heard Logan and Sela talking about them. Apparently, they’ve taken Logan’s sister hostage and won’t release her until they have the chupacabra. Or a near facsimile of one.”

  He released her then, but she grabbed his arm. “I won’t let Itor take you. ACRO won’t let them.”

  “But ACRO will take me—right, Marlena?” He leaned in close to her, whispered in her ear. “Will this be a nice feather in your cap, Agent? Earn you a medal or a promotion?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “What’s it like then, honey? Are you going to keep telling me you love me … and then freak out every time I turn into a monster?” He lowered his mouth to her neck, kissed her and felt her jump. She was half afraid of him, of the possibility that he could turn at any time. And yet, she was excited by him—he knew that if he dipped his fingers between her legs, she would be wet.

  “Chance.” She struggled but he picked her up and brought her back to the tree, held her there roughly.

  “What is your job with ACRO, exactly?”

  “I back up other agents. I wasn’t lying when I told you that Sela is a cryptozoologist.” She panted slightly—from the run, from fear, because his hand was caressing between her legs through the BDUs. “Chance, please …”

  “Please what? What’s your special skill, honey? Your secret ability?”

  “I don’t have any special powers,” she told him, even as his hands slid down the front of her pants.

  Two fingers inside of her and she squirmed, bit a moan back—but oh, no, he wasn’t having that. “I want to hear you.”

  They were far enough from the camp now—she’d followed him for a good mile, which at night in jungles like this might as well be twenty.

  Her moans intermingled with the sounds of the jungle and he bit her shoulder lightly. “What’s your job, Marlena?”

  Her hips rocked against his hand as she sought relief. “I’m an assistant. That’s all.”

  “Most assistants I know can’t take out a guard and follow a Special Ops operator through the jungle so efficiently.” Impatiently, he tore down her pants and then his own.

  “Everyone at ACRO is … trained.” The last word was a sigh as he replaced his hand between her legs.

  His other hand was wrapped around her throat. “Trained for what, exactly?”

  And then her hand snaked out and fisted his cock. She wasn’t giving an inch, but neither was he.

  “I’m trained for anything,” she told him as she began a slow stroke that almost made his brain—and everything else—explode. Christ, he was quick on the trigger with this fucking chupa blood. Maybe the creature was mean because it was always horny.

  She wasn’t letting go. When he increased the pace of his rhythm, so did she, until his knees threatened to buckle.

  “I want to fuck you. Please,” he murmured against her neck. And then he moved his hand from her throat and leaned in to kiss her, his tongue dueling with hers, their skin sweaty and slick from the humid night.

  She was nodding against his mouth and he pushed her thighs open with one of his. She responded by climbing him, ankles locked around his lower back.

  He thrust inside of her, not caring if her back scraped against the bark. The walls of her sex were tight and hot as he plunged his throbbing cock back and forth, until his breath came in short, harsh gasps that echoed in the still of the jungle night.

  I’m trained for anything.

  “Are you trained to know how to fuck an animal?” he murmured harshly against her ear.

  Her head was thrown back, eyes closed, and still she didn’t answer him. But then she was calling out his name into the dark night—a begging, keening sound that almost made him stop interrogating her.

  But he had to know, once and for all, if he could trust her. She’d saved his life multiple times, even now—but at what price, and for whom?

  He couldn’t hold his orgasm back any longer, held her hips tight and spilled inside of her as she contracted around him with her own climax.

  His release could only be described as ferocious—he felt as if he might’ve blacked out when he came, but when he regained focus, he was still standing, holding a worn-out Marlena against him.

  Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her nose nuzzled against his neck, and yeah, it was time.

  “You know all about me—the ugly side of the beast I live with now. You’ve seen it. Do you have an ugly side, Marlena?” He’d growled the words against her cheek, and now, as she drew in a quick breath at his surprise attack, she simultaneously unlocked her legs and dropped to her feet.

  She pulled up her pants as he buttoned his, and then she walked in a slow circle around him. He remained stock-still in the darkness, watching the soft glow of her eyes, and his stomach clenched.

  “I seduce for a living.” She spat the words brazenly in his face and cupped his ass, caressing boldly. “Is that what you want to hear? That I’ve been trained to sleep with men in order to get information from them? That I’m damned good at my job? Because none of that negates how I feel about you. Man or beast, I’m in goddamned love with you.”

  It wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear, or what he’d expected to. But he’d initiated the damned interrogation and had no one to blame but himself.

  Hands shaking, he shoved her hand away. “You fuck men for ACRO.”

  “You’ve probably fucked people for your country,” she retorted.

  He laughed then, long and loud and not giving a shit who—or what—heard him. “You’re going to sell me down the river, just like Logan and his father.”

  “No.”

  Suddenly, there was a jumble of voices coming from the camp. Chance moved away from Marlena so he could concentrate. Everyone was confused, excited—no, not excited. Scared.

  “What is it?” Marlena asked him urgently.

  He could make out one word, repeated over and over by several different people. “Itor.”

  “What about them?”

  “I think they’re here.”

  CHAPTER

  Twenty

  Phoebe Milan got off on pain. Giving or taking, didn’t matter. She just liked it. She often wondered what her other half th
ought when she took over the body they shared. No doubt Melanie freaked every time she came to in a body covered with bruises and cuts. The wuss loaded up on OTC painkillers, which was annoying, because Phoebe liked the prescription stuff.

  Or the illegal stuff. Both of which Itor provided.

  Once, Melanie had tossed Phoebe’s stash when she found it hidden under their bed, but Phoebe had quickly ensured that would never happen again. She left a note for Melanie taped to the bathroom mirror—which was one of only three ways they ever communicated—and then she’d stabbed herself in the leg with a boning knife.

  Rarely did Phoebe willingly give up possession of their body, but she’d instantly snapped into the background, forcing Melanie front and center. Phoebe had no idea what had happened when Melanie found herself writhing in pain and bleeding on the bathroom floor, but never again did Melanie fuck with anything of Phoebe’s, even when Phoebe intentionally left things lying around to irritate the bitch. It was just too bad Phoebe couldn’t see the look on Mel’s face when she got up in the morning to find lines of coke arranged neatly on the coffee table or sex toys in the kitchen cupboards. And Phoebe would kill to know how Melanie reacted when she came to in a foreign bed with one or more people doing wicked things to her.

  Oh, yes, fucking with Melanie was a load of fun, but even more fun was when Phoebe got to fuck with complete strangers.

  Complete strangers like these Global Weapons Corporation idiots.

  She rolled her head, moaning at the release of tension in her neck. It had been a long trip from the icy wastes of Ukraine, where one of Itor’s bases was set up, to the jungles of South America. And now she was standing in the middle of the camp, surrounded by men with automatic weapons.

  Little did they know that she and her six colleagues were weapons. Any one of them could take out the armed idiots before they could fire off a shot.

  “I want to speak to Logan or Richard Mills.”

  “I’m Logan.”

  The deep, rich voice came from behind her, and when she turned, a shiver of hunger went through her. Though she generally preferred women over men, she could appreciate the male form when it came in a package like Logan’s. Yes, she was an equal-opportunity lover when it came right down to it. Had to be, since sex charged up her pyro abilities, and without it, she couldn’t so much as light a match.

  Thanks to two of the excedosapiens, Mick and Dane, who had accompanied her on the private jet, her battery was at a hundred percent and ready to blaze.

  “I’m Phoebe,” she said, taking note of his bearing, the way he held his weapon as though it was part of his body, and decided that he was who he said he was. She knew he’d had military training, and she also knew it wouldn’t do him any good if she decided to squash him.

  “I’m guessing you’re with Itor.” Logan gestured to his men, and they lowered their weapons and backed off, though they remained watchful. Another man approached, older, and by his looks she deduced that this would be Logan’s father, Richard.

  “Where is my daughter?” Richard took a menacing step toward her, but Logan wisely held him back.

  “She’s safe,” Phoebe said. “For now. The sooner you give us what we want, the sooner you can have her back.” Her gaze swept the camp. “Where is the creature?”

  Richard clenched his fists. “I told you, we need to perform more tests—”

  “You lie,” she snapped. “Itor believes you’ve either lost it, killed it or sold it to someone else. So I want to see it. Now.”

  “It’s in the jungle,” Logan said smoothly. “We staked it out as bait to catch another one. It’s perfectly safe.”

  Yes, and she was the fucking tooth fairy. Oh, he appeared to be telling the truth—his voice was steady, his gaze fixed on hers and he was as calm as a frozen pond—but Phoebe had never trusted a soul in her life, and she assumed everyone was lying about everything. Melanie was the sap who would believe grass was purple if someone told her it was.

  “You’ll take us to it.”

  “No,” Logan said, “we won’t. The sun is barely up and the jungle is still dark. We’ll have to wait until this afternoon.”

  “You’re stalling.”

  “I’m being practical. This jungle is crawling with guerrillas and drug cartels and their booby traps. Messing around without full light is suicide.”

  He wasn’t worried about any of that and she knew it. Neither was she. “We can handle ourselves. You will take us within the hour.” When he opened his mouth to say something, she cut him off. “Need I remind you that we have your sister?”

  “You bitch,” Richard rasped. “This was never part of our agreement!”

  “We’re paying you more than enough to alter the agreement.” She smiled at Logan, thinking that maybe she’d add one more item to the contract. After all, you could never overcharge a battery.

  LOGAN QUICKLY ASSESSED THE ITOR WOMAN. SHE LOOKED LIKE she could damned well handle herself, but she was, no doubt, dispensable to Itor. Capturing her and insisting on a trade for Caroline wouldn’t work. His best bet was to head into the dark jungle and hope to capture the fucking chupacabra, which was exactly what they were doing now.

  Once Phoebe discovered Sela was a cryptozoologist, she’d immediately chosen her to come along. Logan’s father remained back at camp with the Itor men and all the others, including Dax.

  Sela was directly behind him, with Phoebe behind her.

  Phoebe’s last words before they left camp still rang in his mind.

  Your father will be the first one killed if you try anything stupid in the jungle. Caroline second. And the cryptozoologist, she’s third.

  When she’d pointed at Sela, he’d refused to allow himself to have any kind of reaction. Letting this Itor agent know he was in love with Sela meant certain death for her.

  Thankfully, his father had kept his mouth shut, didn’t mention Chance at all. And it was the only thing to hold on to as they tramped through the jungle floor in the near dark of the early morning.

  Six miles in, Phoebe stopped. “I don’t think any of you know where this thing really is.”

  Logan turned to her. “That’s not true,” he said, his heart freezing when she grabbed Sela around the neck and pointed the gun at her head.

  “Really? Prove it.”

  Fuck. He gestured to the north. “In that clearing.”

  “Then you go draw it out,” Phoebe said.

  Logan didn’t hesitate. He feinted left, then turned and kicked Phoebe’s legs out from under her. Both women—and the gun—went flying, and within seconds Logan had Phoebe on her feet, his arm around her neck.

  “Stop fucking with me—you need me as much as I need you right now. And don’t think for a second that I won’t kill you because I’m worried about other people,” he growled, before he pushed her away from him.

  She smiled, as if she’d enjoyed the choke hold, and yeah, this chick was fucking nuts. “We’ll see if you’re spewing truth,” she told him as she clicked her radio to call her minions back at the camp.

  Just then, Logan heard sounds he would’ve been more than happy never to hear again.

  Sela shoved to her feet and moved to his side.

  As they drew closer to the growling and snarling, Logan held a hand up and Phoebe lowered her radio. It sounded like the beast had … perhaps it had gotten hold of another wild animal. Or a drug runner.

  But as they broke into the small clearing, the reality proved to be much more dangerous.

  Two chupacabras were locked together in mortal combat, a dance of death that could easily extend to all of them if they weren’t careful.

  “Two of them,” Phoebe whispered.

  Logan’s blood ran cold—the lie he’d told Phoebe earlier, about staking out the chupa in order to catch another one, had come true … in the worst way possible. Because one of those chupacabras engaged in a death battle on the jungle floor was Chance.

  How the hell had the guy escaped?

  Sela was
clutching his arm. “Marlena,” she mouthed when he tore his eyes off the snarling beasts, her eyes shifting to the right, where the beautiful woman stood in the relative safety of the trees, holding a tranq gun.

  Marlena would have to know which chupa was Chance, although for the life of him, Logan couldn’t tell the two beasts apart.

  He would have to give away Marlena’s position if he was to save Chance’s life.

  “There’s a woman in the trees across the way,” he told Phoebe. “She’s with us.”

  Phoebe’s eyes trained on Marlena. “Shoot her.”

  “No!” Sela yelled.

  “You don’t get a say.” Phoebe raised her gun to take a sniper-like shot at Marlena, but Logan palmed the barrel and shoved it down.

  “One of the chupacabras is half human—he was infected when bitten. She’s the only one who can identify him.” Logan hoped so, anyway.

  “Really? Two chupacabras—and one is a half and half. I like that,” she murmured. “Tranq them both. Now.”

  “The tranq doesn’t work on the full chupacabra,” Sela said urgently. “Tranqing Chance now ensures his death.”

  “Chance? Stupid name. And I’m supposed to stand here until one of them kills the other?” Phoebe stifled a yawn. “Seriously, you people need to find better ways to have fun.”

  A scream straight from the depths of hell silenced everything in the jungle, and then one of the chupacabras suddenly leaped toward Logan, snarling and screeching, and fuck me, this was going to end badly.

  Logan had no idea which beast was now half on top of him, jaws snapping, threatening to rip his throat out. He kicked and rolled, but even with the strength of his bioware, the thing was stronger. Fetid breath stung his eyes and claws ripped into his skin. Panic, the heart-stopping realization that he could die, swamped him. And then, with no warning, the other chupa was jumping on the first one’s back, taking it to the ground right next to Logan. He rolled, fired two tranqs at point-blank range into each creature’s flank, but not before he heard a horrible crunch.

  One of them had broken the other’s neck.