Unleashing the Storm Read online

  A muscle in his jaw twitched with the force of his clenched teeth, and she inhaled, found the harsh scent of anger beneath the more potent aroma of lust. A battle raged inside him, and terror sliced through her like a cold blade. What if he wasn’t going to do this? What if he left her to suffer and die in the field?

  “Tommy?”

  She reached her cuffed hands out for him, tried to sit up, but he pushed her back down with one forceful hand to the ribs. His other hand gripped her thigh, spread her wide, and she breathed a sigh of relief as he backed up, put his mouth between her legs like she’d been wanting him to do since they’d met. Angling her pelvis to meet him, she melted at the first gush of hot breath that enveloped her sex.

  His fingers parted her swollen flesh, opening her completely to his invading tongue. She struggled to suck in a ragged breath as she shivered with the deliciousness of his eager licks, and though this wasn’t what she needed, his talented mouth dared her to argue. She lost the dare. Her body would just have to wait a few minutes longer to get what it craved.

  “I’ve thought about how you’d taste,” he said, in a low, guttural voice, and she whimpered, arched against his mouth. He sucked her throbbing nub between his lips, pulled hard, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. “Jesus,” he panted. “It’s like a fucking drug.”

  He dragged his tongue up her center, lapped at her juices like he’d die if he didn’t get enough of her. Two fingers thrust smoothly into her slick entrance, and his thumb pushed up on her clit as his tongue flicked over it. Sliding his fingers in and out, he found a rhythm that made her writhe.

  “That’s it,” he said, his voice vibrating deep inside her sex. “Fuck my hand.”

  She moaned. “Yes, Tommy, yes.”

  Oh, damn, he was good at this, and she reached for him, gripped his hair to hold him there even though he wasn’t going anywhere. The cold metal cuffs sent a chill up her belly from where they rested against her hot skin.

  Still easing in and out with his fingers, he reached for the cuffs with his other hand. He dragged her wrists down, breaking her hold on his hair, and then she gasped when he used the chain between the steel bracelets to stroke her clit. The action forced her to spread her thighs wider to prevent the cuffs from digging into her skin, but the feel of the cool links rubbing her most sensitive flesh…she was out of control, mad with the need to come. She heard herself begging, “Please, please, oh, please,” but he drew out the torture, flicking the chain up and down, around, finally pushing one link around her clit like a cage. His tongue tapped the exposed, sensitive nub, and she came off the ground, digging her toes into the soil for purchase.

  It was all too much, and when he replaced his fingers with his tongue, thrusting it inside her, she couldn’t prevent a throaty wail of pleasure from escaping. He circled her opening, plunged deep, stroked her inner walls until she wanted to scream.

  His eyes had been closed, but he opened them as he dragged the flat of his tongue back up through her wet folds. The sight of him pleasuring her with his mouth as he watched her reactions threw her over the edge. Thrashing wildly, she closed her eyes as always at release, and threw her head back to howl at the moon.

  She came hard, pumping herself against his face for what seemed like hours as his talented tongue took her higher and higher. Her legs shook, her breath burned her throat and, finally, just as she worried she might pass out, her orgasm melted away. Her muscles felt rubbery, but the tension inside remained, seemed to have worsened now that Tom’s lust had grown, and hers had only been held off.

  Tugging at his hair, she tried to pull him up so he could give her the rest, but he tore away and pushed to his feet. She blinked, confused, as he dug into his pocket.

  “Just looking for the keys. I swiped the cuffs off Derek.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t care. Just finish.” She crawled toward him, but he stepped back.

  “We’re done. I have work to do.”

  “No,” she breathed. “No! You can’t do that to me!”

  He stared at her like she’d gone insane as she clawed at his leg, attempting to grab a fistful of his shorts to yank them down.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? I just gave you what you needed.” He wheeled away and bent to grab her shorts.

  A haze of red clouded her vision. Panic and rage and lust squeezed at her like a vise. Her blood, already running hot with primal need, now boiled, seared into ash everything that made her human.

  Snarling, she leaped. Landed hard on Tom’s back, took him down like a lion on a wildebeest.

  CHAPTER

  Seven

  Ender knew he’d been off balance when he’d attempted to walk away from her, was dizzy from the second he’d put his face in between her legs and felt the undeniable urge to stay there for days, screw the rest of the mission.

  Off balance, yes, but something else was wrong, evidenced by the way he’d been taken by surprise and taken completely down by a tiny stick of a woman who couldn’t weigh one-ten soaking wet.

  “Fuck,” he grunted as she tumbled against his injured ribs and sore kidneys and grunted again as she dug her claws into his chest and scrambled on top of him to straddle his hips. He could fight her, but shit, he’d be fighting an animal, because Kira had left the building. Even her eyes had changed, had gone luminous, feral, like the harsh growl rumbling near the surface of her throat.

  There wouldn’t be a fight—he’d just have to kill her. And he wasn’t ready to make that choice yet, not until he was able to see for himself just what in the hell was really happening here.

  She moved like a cat, tore at his clothing with her cuffed hands. Her position pinned his shorts, allowing only the head of his cock to poke up from the waistband. Apparently, that was enough. She lunged forward, slammed the cuffs against his throat so the chain cut into his windpipe, and in the same motion sheathed him inside her.

  “Need. Sex.” She snarled, baring her teeth when he grasped her arms to take pressure off his throat, dug her nails so deeply into the sides of his neck that he winced.

  Her body moved like it was possessed, her quick, shallow thrusts impeded by the shorts keeping his cock partially clothed.

  Maybe he should have given her another orgasm, but shit, he’d been in a hurry, had things to do. And he hadn’t wanted to be a slave to her pheromones or whatever the fuck it was that clouded his mind and made his body answer hers.

  “Kira, pull down my shorts,” he said, his voice rough and low thanks to the chain-link collar she’d made for him. “It’s not going to work this way.”

  But she’d stopped listening, her movements getting more frantic, especially once she realized she wasn’t getting what she needed from him.

  He turned his neck slightly, so his trachea wouldn’t take the brunt of the chain, pulled his hands away and reached down to free himself from his shorts. He gagged, choked, the world spun from the pressure on his neck and, fuck, he wasn’t so kinky that he got off on asphyxiation. But as much as he struggled, his reflexes, his speed, didn’t seem to matter—like the life was being sucked out of him, and he forced himself not to panic.

  He exerted what seemed like an inordinate amount of energy to get his hands back under her wrists at the same time he slid fully inside of her. That seemed to satisfy her, because she groaned, released his neck, and he responded with a grateful gulp of good, clean air. And even though he didn’t want to, was pissed as hell, the part of his body that never gave a shit about his other emotions pulsed inside her, his hips rocked upward and he knew Kira was going to take what she wanted, with or without his consent.

  He wanted more too, wanted to feel himself pushed deep inside her heat, because it was so fucking good when they rutted together. And when she moved forward, he was able to sink fully into her with a loud, satisfied groan.

  “God, Tommy, God,” she whimpered. She’d thrown her head back, closed her eyes and smiled as he let her wet heat rub him in all the right ways.


  So fucking good.

  He grabbed her hips for leverage as she arched back, her cuffed wrists pressing his rib cage as she came. He followed soon after, came with enough force that he sucked air through his clenched teeth as she collapsed against him, sobbing.

  She was fucking sobbing. He’d never, ever understand women. She rolled off him, curled up in a ball as her crying quieted, and his breath came in harsh gasps. He’d have the impressions from the chain across his throat for days.

  He moved his hand in front of his face, pleased to see the silver blur. His excedo skills were still there. Just not when Kira had him so deep in her rut.

  A man’s never safe when he’s fucking, Dev always said, and Ender had always laughed, told him, I’m always in control.

  But this, this wasn’t control, not with her spring fever increasing in a violent cycle that promised to last two weeks, if not longer.

  They’d find ways to service her at ACRO safely. Privately. She wouldn’t be his concern anymore once they got to the facility. None of them ever were, and this wouldn’t be any different.

  Ender took the keys from his pocket and unlocked the cuffs from her wrists. After he backed away, she sat up, hunted for her shorts. Once she’d pulled them on, she pulled her knees up to her chest and looked at him where he continued to lay sprawled on his back on the grass.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He ignored her question. “Twenty-one hours,” he told her instead. “I’ll give you twenty-one more hours here on the refuge. Until midnight tomorrow night.”

  “Then what? Either I join you and your agency or you kidnap me?”

  “Something like that,” he said, shifted on the ground to find a more comfortable position. He’d heal more quickly than the average person, but he still felt pain just like everybody else. “By tomorrow night, it’s not going to be safe for you to stay here. You’ll put everyone’s lives in jeopardy. Including your precious animals.”

  “Stop trying to scare me.”

  “I thought I’d already succeeded in doing that, Kira.”

  “Screw you,” she said, pushed up off the ground and stood over him. With the moonlight streaming behind her she looked almost unreal, too pretty and too pure to be anywhere near him, despite what had just happened.

  “You just did, honey,” he said, his voice harsher than he would’ve liked. But his patience had finally worn through. “I’m trying to tell you the truth, but you’re too pigheaded to hear it. This is much bigger than you are. I can only hold off the men Derek worked with for so long. I’m not Superman.”

  “Yeah, could’ve fooled me,” she muttered. “And you never told me what you are. You know everything about me and I don’t know if a single thing I know about you is true.”

  He swore softly, grabbed for his shorts and shirt and dressed quickly before standing. “That’s the way I like it. And you’ve got the day to decide if you’re going down easy or hard.”

  “Aren’t you worried I’ll escape?” she asked, absently rubbing her wrists where the cuffs had been. He was pleased to see that the red marks were already fading, and no bruises were apparent.

  She hadn’t even struggled against the steel bonds. He wondered what it would feel like to be that out of control, and realized she’d given him a real taste.

  He reached out, grabbed her wrist and brought her hand to his crotch. Then he smiled. “No. I’m not worried, honey. You seem to know what side your bread is buttered on.”

  He’d planned on walking away then, leaving her jaw-dropped and sputtering mad in the middle of the field. He had work to do, and by his calculations she needed sex approximately every four hours.

  He turned his back, but she called after him. “Just because your dick’s big and you can bring me to orgasm doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to keep me satisfied. Asshole.”

  He didn’t turn back to face her. “I’ve never had any complaints.”

  “Yeah? Well, guess what, Mr. Big Shot Bionically Enhanced Operative. I don’t need orgasms. Not when I’m in a heat cycle. Don’t you think I could take care of things myself if it were that simple?”

  He sighed, finally turned to face her. “Then why are you craving my dick every four hours?”

  “Your agency didn’t hire you for your brains, did it? It’s all about your orgasms. My body gets what it needs from your fluids, like any good animal does.” It was her turn to smile now, and damned smugly too. “So we’ll just see how up for this job you are. In the meantime, I hope you’ve got a backup plan.”

  He wanted to ask her what happened if she didn’t get what she needed, but didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Still, she knew. She walked up to him, her eyes gleaming.

  “If I don’t get what I need, I die. Mate or die, Tommy. Like I said, I hope you’re up for it, because my life is on the line.” And then she marched past him, toward the main house, as every muscle in his body tensed.

  Son of a bitch. He needed to get back into control, hit the ground running again and find some way to bring this forty-eight hours to a satisfactory close. “Kira, wait,” he called. She stopped, her shoulders tightened but she didn’t turn around to face him.

  Instead, he closed the distance between them, ended up in front of her. “It’s a lot to take in,” he said.

  She nodded, crossed her arms in front of her and looked somewhere over his shoulder before settling her gaze on him. “Are you saying you’ll give me more time?”

  “I can’t do that. Wish I could. But here’s the deal—in twenty-one hours, no matter what else happens, I’m out of here.”

  “And I have to go with you,” she said.

  “No, you don’t. But what I told you before is true. Your life is in jeopardy.” He spoke slowly, carefully, wanting his words to sink in but not wanting to use intimidation this time. “If you don’t leave with me, you’re going to be killed. And that’s something I can promise you will happen.”

  “So I can stay here and take my chances or leave with you tomorrow night?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed, but it came out harsh and bitter. “That’s not much of a choice.”

  “We never have much of a choice, Kira, no matter how much we try to kid ourselves.”

  She nodded slowly. “And you’ll be, ah, around for me all day tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be around for you,” he said.

  She turned and took a path that would lead her toward the barn instead of the main house, while he limped there instead. He’d take care of Derek, make a comms report to Itor using the codes Bryan had gotten for him. He knew trying to convince Kira to leave this fucking place before she was ready, if she was ever ready, was worthless. He was going to use tomorrow to get his freakin’ perspective back so he could do the job he was sent here to do, no matter which way things went down.

  RYAN MALMSTROM DISCONNECTED his comm link to the man who had just pretended to be Derek Martin. Whoever the guy had been, he’d done an admirable job with the impersonation, but Ryan was an expert in voice recognition and languages, and no one could fool him.

  The consequences of being caught in a lie firmly in his mind, he e-mailed his Itor supervisor, a soft-spoken, stuffy Brit named Andrew, letting the guy know that everything on the animal whisperer assignment was rock solid, that Derek had checked in as scheduled. And then Ryan signed the e-mail as Steve Kurtz, because that was the name Itor had given him upon recruitment. All Itor agents took new names and identities.

  Of course, Itor had no idea ACRO had given him a false identity as well, had named him Curtis Hancock and had planted him in the civilian world to make waves until Itor took notice and recruited him.

  Such was the life of a secret agent.

  A knock at the glass door of his tiny cubicle startled him, and he turned to see Gabrielle, a stunning blond psychic with a heart of titanium. She didn’t wait for permission to open his door. “Have you heard from Victor?”

  He shook his head. “He�
��s not due to check in for another day.”

  She sniffed, shut the door. No thanks, no acknowledgment, no fuck you. Bitch. It wasn’t his fault her precious Victor, a Dreamer who got off on giving people nightmares that caused heart attacks, hadn’t completed his assignment in Israel.

  A green flashing symbol appeared on his computer, and he opened the file sent by someone a lot higher up in Itor than anyone he’d met, and cursed at the photo on the screen. A photo meant to titillate. Yeah, right.

  His boss at ACRO had cooked up a full meal deal when he created an identity meant to lure Itor to Ryan, and that identity included an extreme BDSM fetish. The more depraved a person was, the easier to control them through their desires, and Itor thought they had him under their thumbs. Small gifts, like the picture on his screen, were supposed to make him happy and hard.

  They made him want to take Itor down from the very top to the bottom, to erase every one of the sick bastards from existence, especially because he knew the picture was only the beginning of today’s gifts. Tonight they’d send him a woman. Hopefully, this time a willing one, because he couldn’t afford to fake illness again to get out of a potentially nightmarish situation.

  Yeah, these fucks needed to go down. Unfortunately, doing so would take time and a hell of a lot more freedom than he’d been given. He didn’t even know which of Itor’s six main sites he’d been taken to. All he knew was that the sites were located outside the United States, all in different countries, which ensured that the destruction of one would in no way cripple the agency.

  Their paranoia didn’t end there. Until new agents proved their allegiance, constant surveillance kept them in check, and regular interrogation and intrusive psychic procedures kept them honest.

  Fortunately for Ryan, his gifts went well beyond the ability to learn any language in a matter of hours and crack language-based codes. He could also portion out his thoughts, something many psychics could do on a limited basis to fool other psychics, but that he’d taken to an exceptional level.