Belle Fury: Manhatten Ten, Book 3 (14 page)

It bled away from me like mist, invisible to human eyes, though it would’ve showed on a thermal camera. I doubted any of the passengers had one of those in their seat.

One man in disheveled Armani shot me a hard look, but I returned a pleasant smile, and he turned around. As long as no one snapped, I could handle a sour glance or two.

In fractions of degrees, the cabin cooled. Tucked in the back corner, I found a man asleep under his blanket. Curled in on himself, he couldn’t hide his massive height, and his skin was so dark it approached black.

He must have been sweltering.

“Sir?” It wasn’t good policy to wake customers, but I couldn’t let him sweat himself to death.

His eyes opened, instantly alert and shocking yellow. He hadn’t been sleeping, and I couldn’t imagine how he’d been comfortable.
 

Instinctively, I took a step back from him. “Sorry to disturb you. I wasn’t sure if you’d suffocated.”

“I like the heat.” The man smiled slow and lazy, his white teeth vivid against his dark skin. As he cast the blanket aside and unfolded, my old hunting instincts tensed. I’d known he was large, but I hadn’t expected his frame to be so muscular.

Taller than me. That was rare.

He radiated a predator’s energy that needled at too many parts of me. His coloring—yellow against black—and the carved shape of his body were exquisite.

His eyes felt like hands as they worked their way up to my nametag. “Valdís. Where’s that from?”
 

“Scandinavia.” I’d been named for the lady of the dead, which most found morbid but was the highest compliment from my people. Another reason I didn’t talk about such things. “Can I get you anything, sir?”

Just standing next to him, the hairs at the back of my neck lifted. Some part was an unavoidable flush of attraction. With that body and those eyes, I couldn’t help myself.

The rest?

Primal response. This man was a hunter, and even relaxed into the leather seat, he represented such a physical threat that my suppressed powers stirred. If I stayed long enough, I’d be forced to respond. That would mean shattering my carefully maintained cool and risking the life I’d carved for myself. No man was worth that. No matter how much man he was.

And he was.

“Hmm.” He leaned in, forcing me to back away from his palpable body heat. “Just wondering how a stone-cold goddess like you ended up a stewardess.” He grinned a cat’s grin, pleased he’d figured me out, if that was what he’d done.

I went colder than usual but kept my mask. “Sorry, sir. I have to see to the other passengers.”

As I retreated to the galley, I could practically feel his gaze on my back. I pulled the curtain closed like I was draping myself in armor.

Retreat didn’t suit me. I fisted my hand and the hard ice in my blood seeped into my palm. I ached to draw it out into a spear and run across the frigid wastes like I had as a girl. No fear. No knowledge of anything else. I never would’ve let his challenge go unmatched. Things were different now.

He was born to be a weapon. For her, he must learn to be a hero.

Phoenix Rising

© 2011 Corrina Lawson

The Phoenix Institute, Book 1

Since birth, Alec Farley has been trained to be a living weapon. His firestarter and telekinetic abilities have been honed to deadly perfection by the Resource, a shadowy anti-terrorist organization—the only family he has ever known. What the Resource didn’t teach him, though, is how to play well with others.

When psychologist Beth Nakamora meets Alec to help him work on his people skills, she’s hit with a double-barreled first impression. He’s hot in more ways than one. And her first instinct is to rescue him from his insular existence.

Her plan to kidnap and deprogram him goes awry when her latent telepathic ability flares, turning Alec’s powers off. Hoping close proximity will reignite his flame, she leads him by the hand through a world he’s never known. And something else flares: Alec’s anger over everything he’s been denied. Especially the passion that melds his mind and body with hers.

The Resource, however, isn’t going to let anything—or anyone—steal its prime investment. Alec needs to be reminded where his loyalties lie…starting with breaking his trust in the woman he’s come to love.

Warning: Contains telekinetic sex, nuclear explosion sex hot enough to melt steel, and various and sundry swear words.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Phoenix Rising:

“I’m sorry for staring. I’ve haven’t seen your equipment up close before.”

“Hah!” He sat in an easy chair to lace up his boots. “You know you can see my equipment anytime you ask.”

“Um, that’s not quite what I had in mind.” Alec had charmed her. Lansing had been right about that. She hadn’t counted on him being so genuinely interested in her.

At least she’d had the willpower not to touch Alec’s hand and risk that intense jolt of energy a second time. Just being around him was seductive enough.

Alec shrugged at her refusal, walked back to the bed and loaded a clip into his handgun. Some sort of pistol, though she had no idea exactly what kind. Philip would have known. Alec’s eyes narrowed as he double-checked the weapon. For a moment, he was completely the competent military officer.

Satisfied, he set it down and turned to face her. He frowned, on uncertain ground again.

“Did anyone ever show you a life without guns?”

He raised one of those perfect eyebrows, oozing more confidence than ten men. Who wouldn’t have that confidence, if fire literally danced to their command?

“You know, I thought Lansing agreed too quickly to send you. Did he want you to check up on me?”

“No.” But it would be like Lansing to say that he had.

“Hah. I think you’re a bad liar, counselor. A life without guns? That’s the kind of leading question that he uses to test me.”

“I’m not lying.” Not about that. “No, it’s the first time I’ve seen you prepare for a mission. It worries me.” She looked down at the dark carpet and scuffed her feet. “I have doubts about what you’re doing. I think you’re not seeing the big picture.” Like how your foster father is using you to gain power and influence, at the risk of your life. “You don’t have to put your gift to this use. There are so many other things you can do that don’t involve violence.”

Or the possibility of being killed.

Philip had been terrified at letting her walk into danger. Looking at Alec, she knew how Philip felt. Just how dangerous was this mission tonight?

“Only I can do what I can do,” Alec said.

“Which is all the more reason not to risk your life so recklessly.” She was pushing too hard, out of fear. No choice now. She’d run out of time.

“I’m not reckless,” he said. “I’m as careful as I can be.”

“With weapons and body armor? If you’re doing something careful, you don’t need them.”

He buckled on the body armor and walked over to her, so that they were only a few feet apart. He towered over her, even more than Lansing, but she didn’t feel the least bit afraid of him, not since their first meeting. He wouldn’t hurt her. Despite his work as a soldier, there was no meanness in him. She rubbed her arm, remembering Lansing’s anger. Alec wasn’t like him at all.

“I like doing this,” Alec said. “I make a difference. It’s what I’m trained for.”

“Yes, I know. But you never had a say in any of that training. You’ve told me that.”

“Fighting the bad guys is family tradition.” He straightened. “Lansing’s too old now, so it’s my turn. It happens all the time. Daz has the same deal, on both the American and the Filipino sides of his family.”

“Daz didn’t grow up isolated in this place.”

“Yeah, well, Daz didn’t have to worry about accidentally burning down the schoolyard as a kid. I did.” He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you seriously trying to talk me out of going tonight? C’mon.”

“I’m trying to get you to reconsider what you’ve been forced into doing for your entire life. There’s a whole world out there you haven’t seen.”

She walked over to the coffee table, reached down and brushed her fingertips over the gun. Her hand trembled. The gun looked like the same kind that her kidnappers had used, years ago. If he stayed with the Resource, Alec might become like those men, using any ends to justify the means.

“Hey! What’s with the nerves? Where’s my competent, no-nonsense counselor?”

The gun rose from the coffee table, floating in air. She turned and followed its flight. He snatched the gun out of midair with a smile and holstered it.

“See?” he said. “I control the guns, not the other way around.”

“And who controls you?”

His chest, Kevlar vest and all, rose and fell in a deep sigh. “I know someone in this room who’s trying to control me. What’s wrong, Beth?” He walked to her and lifted her chin with two fingers, his dark eyes crinkling around the edges.

“This is not a life you chose, this is a life that’s been imposed on you, from birth.”

“And?” His fingertips moved along her jaw, in a soft caress. I should move away. It feels too good. But he’s listening.

“I’m scared. About this mission, about you being locked up inside the Resource forever.” Deathly afraid, so afraid her stomach felt like a heavy lump of coal. “There’s so much you don’t know about the Resource and about Lansing, so much you don’t understand. And you need to know it before it kills you.”

“Hey, I know Lansing can be a bastard. And that he’s overprotective and controlling. I’m working on it. But it doesn’t change the fact that this is my job.” Alec leaned closer to her face. “We can talk about that another time.”

“Do you really think there’s going to be another time?” Her voice rose, almost panicked now. She wasn’t getting through. “What if you get hurt tonight?”

“Look, this cell might have a dirty bomb. They need to be stopped, and I’m the one who can do it. I have to do this, right now.”

“Just that simple?”

“Yep. I walk away, people get hurt. I do my job, people are saved. That’s the deal, that’s my life. You analyze things too much.” He cupped her face in his hand. “But if it took this mission to find out you care, then good.”

She shuddered. Wrong, wrong, she shouldn’t let him touch her like this. Yet it felt like he touched her somewhere far deeper than her skin. A shiver, like the one from their first meeting, traveled from her neck to her toes, setting her nerves jangling. “This is wrong.”

“The mission isn’t wrong,” he said, misunderstanding her. “Relax.” His face was less than an inch from her lips and his breath fell on her cheek. Her skin felt inflamed, sensitive to the slightest movement of his hands.

He kissed her.

His lips were softer than she had expected, tender, not at all like his casual, even macho, confidence. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling those strong muscles and pulling him against her, intensifying their contact, even as her mind screamed in protest. This is not what I came for!

Her body became enveloped in that strange energy, alive as never before. It was like the kiss had a second level, one which she responded to instinctively, creating a living connection between them. He drew her lips apart with his tongue, still tender, still allowing her the chance to back away. But she opened her mouth to him instead, her whole self consumed with wanting to touch him, her face flushed with desire. She grabbed the buckles of his body armor for balance, her equilibrium lost along with her reason.

He crushed her against him, no longer tender, a bruising kiss demanding conquest. She allowed him full control, despite the buckles digging into her shoulder. He lifted her completely off her feet and brought her up to his eye level.

“Beth,” he breathed, brushing his lips against her neck before moving back to her mouth.

Her mind whirled, too lost to remember that she should stop him. She wanted him too much. The air heated up, warming them. The papers on the coffee table began to smoke.

Startled, she broke the kiss. There was a momentary disorientation, like a soft mental slap. The tingling stopped. Her skin went cold.

She let her head fall to his shoulder and closed her eyes. Her last chance to reach Alec and she’d blown it. More, she’d crossed all ethical boundaries. Yet his arms around her felt so right.

Alec spun around and set her into his easy chair. He swallowed, breathing heavily, his face and neck flushed. Staring at the papers on the table, he reached out a hand and they burst into real flame. He twisted his wrist, calling to the fire. It came to him, wrapping itself around his wrist like a bracelet. He smiled, blinked, and the fire vanished.

He whistled through his teeth. “Wow. You are some kind of hot, counselor, to set me off like that. I usually have to think about creating fire.”

Belle Fury

Lola Dodge