Unleashing the Storm

by Sydney Croft

  At first, the doctors were concerned, and then they became downright fed up with him. Especially because he became really good at ripping up their offices, all while sitting in a chair looking innocent.

  One minute, he’d been drilling, the next, learning how to hide medication he didn’t want to take by hiding it in his mouth at a certain angle. He never did tell anyone about the semi-psychic thing he had going on, and the sex thing, a power no one, not even the ACRO scientists, had been able to figure out, hadn’t begun full-force until he’d been around fifteen. Even then, everyone assumed he was getting laid on a regular basis because he was good-looking.

  Yeah, totally One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, only not as fun, and he’d escaped before the electroshock therapy by seducing all the female nurses and pretending to be normal.

  Pretending. Wyatt did that a lot. Pretend to not be telekinetic. Pretend to be dead…

  So far, pretending to be dead this time around was pretty cool. He’d always wanted to come back as a ghost, thought that would be the coolest part of actually being dead. Creed, another operative at ACRO—a ghost hunter—had assured him that most ghosts were on the up and up, even though Oz, a medium who spoke to ghosts who were the worst of the worst, disagreed.

  Oz was taking over temporarily for Devlin O’Malley, the head of ACRO. Oz was the one responsible for Wyatt’s death and his current assignment, which placed him back on the job as a roughneck.

  Like being fucking reincarnated.

  Just concentrate on getting your shit together, man.

  When his concentration went elsewhere, his gifts began to scatter like loose marbles on a slick, hardwood floor.

  So right now, he was trying an image, an offshoot some of the psychics at ACRO told him was an anomaly. He didn’t have to touch anything to actually see what looked like a blurred snapshot in his mind, of people, of things, their past, present, or future. And even though it wasn’t his strongest gift, using it meant seriously draining his telekinetic skills. Not that he’d need them tonight—if anyone started a fight, with or without weapons, he could take them down with his bare hands. Just like the military taught him.

  When he’d been released from the mental ward at sixteen—he’d worked on the oil rig until he was nineteen and then he went the military route. Learning to drill had been cool, and in his blood—learning to destroy had been equally so. Fuck the middle of the road bullshit. As someone as bent on extremes as he was, he went straight for the roughest route possible.

  Special Forces. SEALs, specifically. The drill sergeant at boot camp had taken one look at Wyatt’s lanky six-foot-four-inch frame and laughed. Wyatt had knocked him out cold with one punch, spent the night in the brig and found himself in BUDs two days later. As punishment.

  He loved it—every single brutal minute.

  He’d passed his psych evals for the Navy with no problem. He’d faked it, the way he’d faked a lot of things, but the Special Forces community wanted its men to be a little bit on the crazy side, even if they didn’t outright admit it.

  Fuckin’ A-Right.

  But the sex thing, oh yeah, he’d let his handle on that slip, especially this past week. Mainly because it was fun as hell letting it go out of control and he’d known he wasn’t going to get laid at all during the next phase of his mission.

  He’d been tamping it down hard when he’d been rigging for three weeks straight—so hard that it made his head hurt.

  When you could have any woman—or man, if he’d swung that way—sex got old fast. If his libido wasn’t in constant overdrive, he’d have given up sex all together long ago, shaved his head, and become a monk.

  He’d tried the monk thing once, when he was seventeen. His apprenticeship lasted exactly three weeks, until he couldn’t stand the other men trying to break into his room and have him. The head of the abbey finally asked him to leave. Not before trying to screw him, though.

  Wyatt had learned to control his pheromones so that now they only worked on who he wanted them to work on, unless he’d let himself go too long without. In that case, everyone and their mothers—literally—needed to watch out.

  He didn’t need the sex thing to get laid, had put it to rest yesterday after a round with two women in a ménage that lasted all night and into most of the afternoon. It wasn’t a severe drain on his powers, but it did mess with his head.

  When a man’s fucking, his walls crumble, Dev always said. And yeah, that was the truth in plain English.

  English. Like the accent purring against his ear “got any plans for tonight, luv?”

  FAITH BLACK’S PLANS for the night hadn’t included a tall, dark, and handsome man, but with someone trying to kill her, she’d had to make some adjustments.

  The stranger she’d propositioned wrapped his arm around her waist. Before she could so much as blink, he tucked her between his long legs. The bar stool bit into the front of her thighs and his fingers bit into her hip, and for some reason, all she could think about was biting into him.

  “I can always make room in my schedule for a beautiful woman,” he said, in a rich, whisky-smooth southern drawl that made her want to drink him in. And those eyes…even in the hazy, dim light from the beer signs, they glowed clear green. She’d never seen anything like it.

  And as a telekinetic who had grown up alongside people with gifts even more incredible than hers, she’d seen a lot.

  “I’m not usually so forward,” she said, tearing her gaze away from his when the pub door opened. “But see that man walking in?”

  The stranger inclined his head almost imperceptibly, as though he hadn’t looked, and she gave him points for his in astute assessment of the situation.

  “He’s my ex-lover,” she lied. “He’s a loon. Completely mad, and he’s stalking me. I told him I have a new lover—”

  “And I was the first guy you saw?”

  “Yes.” No, but when she’d detected a tail as she strolled along the shadowed boardwalk, she’d slipped into the nearest public place that would be full of men, and as luck would have it, these weren’t just men. They were bikers, oil drillers, and roughnecks, and the man who now held her had stood out as the toughest of the tough.

  Marco watched from near the entrance, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

  “Well,” the stranger said, threading one hand through her hair to pull her face close to his, “I can either take care of you, or I can take care of him.”

  A sweet offer, but no matter how capable this guy looked—and he did look capable, all steel-strapped muscle and broad shoulders beneath his black AC/DC T-shirt—Marco was a trained killer, an excedosapien with reflexes a hundred times faster than the average person’s. She knew because she’d gone head-to-head with him a year ago, and though her combat skills couldn’t be better, his speed and fondness of the wire garrote had nearly spelled her doom.

  She fingered the black lace choker that hid the thin scar circling her neck, before catching herself and dropping her hand to his shoulder. “I’d love it if you’d play along, for just a bit.”

  One corner of his made-to-please-a-woman mouth turned up like she’d picked the right answer, and then suddenly she was experiencing just how much that mouth was made to please.

  The contact was gentle, more a brush of lips than anything, but her body’s response was immediate and alarming. A blast of heat that had nothing to do with the Florida summer temperatures licked at her breasts, her belly, her inner thighs. When the expert sweep of his tongue opened her mouth, her legs opened, too. At least, as much as they could open with her caged between his jean-clad thighs.

  This was not good.

  Mustering all her self-control, she concentrated on Marco, using her unique form of telekinesis to probe his aura with her mind, searching for a weakness, a chink in his armor. On average, it took her thirty seconds to penetrate the protective weave of energy around a human, but in the heat of battle, thirty seconds was about twenty-nine and a half seconds too long—and which w
as why she’d honed her hand-to-hand combat skills to a machete edge. Fortunately, she had time now, but this wasn’t going to be a thirty-second jobber. It figured that Marco’s aura would be the psychic equivalent to Kevlar.

  “What’s your name?” the stranger murmured against her lips, and for a moment, she forgot about Marco.

  “Faith Black. Yours?”

  “Wyatt.” He dragged his mouth across her cheek to her ear. “What did he do to you?”

  Marco sauntered toward them, his khaki business casual out of place in a rough crowd like this. Men jeered…until Marco shot them a dark look that shut them up in an instant. Even predators recognized when they were in the presence of something higher on the food chain.

  His flat, black eyes remained trained on her as he took a seat at a nearby table.

  “Nothing I want to talk about,” she said finally.

  Wyatt pulled back like he wanted to say something, but the bartender, a bulldog of a man with gray hair pulled into a low ponytail, interrupted.

  “Can I get you anything, lady?”

  Taking the opportunity to peel herself off Wyatt, she sank down onto a bar stool. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

  The bartender palmed a highball glass. “Jack on the rocks, coming up.”

  “So, Faith,” Wyatt said after the bartender slid her drink to her, “where in England are you from?”

  She sent out another probing pulse toward Marco, and thank God, found the chink. “All over, really.”

  Standard answer. She’d spent a lifetime cultivating an accent that wouldn’t reveal a background from any particular region, especially Devonshire where she was born, or Yorkshire where she grew up after her parents were killed. In order to confuse people even more, she threw German inflections and American phrasing into her speech.

  Blending in helped keep a secret agent alive.

  One of Wyatt’s hands came down on her knee, but she felt it to her core. Moisture drenched her panties, and her head felt light, her breasts heavy. The sensations breaking over her body were strangely intoxicating, and she had to give a little shake of her head to clear it. No man had ever affected her like this. Not even Sean, the one and only man she’d ever loved.

  It had been a year since she’d last seen him, since they’d played cat and mouse, pain and pleasure. He couldn’t resist her even when his job was to kill her.

  She was counting on his predictability once more, because this mission could get her very dead if Sean’s love for her had finally taken second place to his job with Itor.

  “It’s a little hot to be wearing leather.” Wyatt’s gaze took in her Goth attire, her black leather pants, the crimson silk and lace corset top and leather jacket, his appreciation obvious in the way his lids grew heavy.

  “The heat doesn’t bother me.” Neither did the cold. She’d always been able to regulate her own body temperature, though that was the extent of her powers over her own bodily functions. She could, however, do anything she wanted to anyone else.

  Sliding a glance at Marco, Wyatt downed the whiskey in his glass. The fine muscles in his throat worked beneath the golden, whisker-roughened skin there, holding her gaze for a moment. When he finished, he spun the glass across the polished bar top and nodded to the bartender for another.

  “Think the heat will bother Khaki Boy?” he asked.

  She grinned. “It might,” she said, knowing full well that nothing would deter Marco from his goal but needing time to finish breaking through his aura.

  “Let’s find out, because the way he’s looking at you is bugging the shit out of me.” He cupped his palm around the back of her neck and slanted his mouth over hers once more.

  Even though she’d anticipated the kiss, her breath caught. The way he maneuvered his lips, teeth, and tongue with gentle, dominant skill…Christ, the man could probably make her orgasm from kissing alone.

  “We’ve got be convincing, right?” he whispered, and then licked the swell of her bottom lip so a ragged moan escaped her. “Open for me.”

  She didn’t hesitate, welcomed the slide of his wet tongue against hers. He tasted like whiskey, smelled like earth and man, a potent combination that made her loosen up more effectively than if she’d poured the entire fifth of Jack Daniels down her throat—her throat that throbbed in a grim reminder that Marco wanted to slit it.

  Doing her best to ignore what Wyatt’s hand was doing to her thigh, she used her mind to pluck at the weak strings in the weave of Marco’s aura. Finally, with Wyatt trailing kisses along her jaw, visions of the internal workings of Marco’s body filled her brain.

  He still watched, but had leaned forward, elbows propped on knees, enjoying the show. The dozen or so patrons in the pub could care less, were too fascinated by the two scantily clad women near the pool table who were doing a lot more than kissing the four guys they were with.

  Marco’s heartbeat gave nothing away. Slow, steady, strong. She could stop it in an instant, give him an aneurysm, or boil his blood.

  But all of those things would attract attention. Besides, killing one of Itor’s men when she would be meeting with a top Itor operative tomorrow was not conducive to a good working relationship. Even if—or especially because—she was going to be faking the relationship.

  In the back of her mind, she knew Wyatt was nuzzling her ear, knew he’d pulled her nearly into his lap and that he had a monster erection nudging her hip. She knew her fingers were gliding over his hard, bunched biceps, and that her sex had flooded with silken cream.

  If Marco weren’t a threat, she’d drag Wyatt No Last Name to her hotel room and take him over and over.

  But she wouldn’t put it past Marco to try and take them both out before they made it to her bed.

  A psychic flare of awareness drew her to Marco’s stomach, full after a meal, and in her mind, she reached for his pylorus, the ring of muscle that separated the stomach from the small intestine. With a mental nudge, she opened it, allowing unprocessed food to spill through.

  Marco winced, rubbed his belly. He’d cramp up soon, but she needed something more immediate to distract him until the cramps started.

  “Wyatt, God,” she gasped, when she felt the slide of his palm beneath her corset-like top.

  His tongue swirled against her neck. “Do you think he’s convinced?”

  “I don’t know, luv, but I certainly am.”

  His smile tickled her skin, and before she became distracted again, she dropped south inside Marco’s body, located his bladder, and gave a mental squeeze.

  The expression of horror on Marco’s face as his pants darkened with urine brought immense satisfaction. He looked around wildly for the toilet and, then, clutching his gut, he ran for the men’s sign near the back of the pub.

  “Brilliant,” Faith said, pulling away from Wyatt and ignoring her body’s protests. She drew a ten from her pocket and tossed it on the bar top. “I’ve got to go. Cheers.”

  Read on for an excerpt from Sydney Croft’s

  Taken by Fire

  CHAPTER

  One

  Rome wasn’t a place where Stryker Wills was comfortable. Sure, the women were gorgeous, the food amazing, and fucking and eating were two of his favorite pleasures in life. But man, there was a lot of history here he could potentially destroy. The cathedrals and the Colosseum, not to mention the Vatican, had all survived hundreds, or even thousands, of years and he could take them out in one fell swoop with a flash of temper.

  Knowing that made him more wary than usual. He’d been tense all morning, despite the beautiful women who’d been propositioning him as he ate at an outdoor café—he didn’t like mixing business with pleasure. And this trip was business, pure and simple, as he tried to get a bead on the fire-and-ice woman, a split-personalitied agent who’d killed his friend and nearly taken Stryker out—twice—eight months earlier in the Amazon jungle.

  Stryker had been out for blood ever since—his easygoing personality fading into the background as his h
unger to avenge his fellow murdered ACRO agent grew with each passing day.

  Now the woman responsible for the murder was close. His hands fisted and he realized that he was no longer the same man who’d left ACRO for this assignment all those months ago.

  Itor operative Phoebe Milan had killed his supervisor and friend, Akbar Shatar, setting him on fire while Stryker watched, helpless to do anything. And when Stryker returned to ACRO after Phoebe escaped, he’d gotten his new instructions from Devlin O’Malley, head of the ACRO agency.

  Kill her, Dev told him. No further discussion needed.

  It was an instruction ACRO agents heard often. As an operative with rare abilities, Stryker had actually lived on ACRO’s massive compound since birth, as his parents were also both longtime agents with the Agency for Covert Rare Operatives.

  His parents had assumed he’d have abilities, but man, had they been surprised at both the type and the extent. Mating a telekinetic with an excedosapien with superstrength hadn’t seemed like a crazy idea at the time—and most agents tended to marry other agents anyway. But the first time two-year-old Stryker’s temper tantrum ripped a fault through the middle of his house, everyone at ACRO had taken quite an interest in him.

  So yeah, he’d grown up within the organization and, thanks to that, he was one of the few agents with special abilities who didn’t have major adjustment issues, but that didn’t mean that sometimes he didn’t feel intimidated by his own might.

  He could cause earthquakes and volcanoes. Tsunamis too, of course. Mudslides. Avalanches. Thing was, once he started them, he couldn’t stop them, so he had to make sure to put just the right spin on his power. Typically, if he was forced to use it, he’d start small. Really, really small, because hey, there was always room to advance to life-threatening.

  But there was a downside to his gift—there always was, for all the agents.

  Stryker didn’t have to watch the news to find out about natural disasters that occurred globally. Most were underreported anyway, but he was conscious of every single one, no matter their size.