Seduced by the Storm by Sydney Croft Page A

apparently oblivious to the rain pelting him. His
lips quirked in the barest of smiles, his sharp gray eyes leveled on her face,
and she knew they wouldn’t scan her body until she looked away. The moment she
averted her gaze, she’d feel his stare like a lover’s touch, would know exactly
where he looked at any given time.
    It
was one way his gift—the ability to temporarily zap energy from living
things—affected her, and to her knowledge, she was the only one who felt it.
    She
also had no plans to look away. Sean was not a man to be met with anything but
eye-to-eye confidence. More than one person had failed to make a strong
impression, mistakes which had proven fatal.
    "Babes,"
he said, in the deep voice that seemed to grow more husky with every passing
year, "did you enjoy your flight?" He stepped forward, as though he
wanted to embrace her, but she backed deeper under the overhanging deck.
    "As
much as I’ve ever enjoyed a heli ride."
    "You
arrived just in time." Another step, and she slipped to the right, keeping
space between them. "This test storm decided to follow its own
timetable."
    They
moved in opposite directions, circling like two rival tigers—a game they’d
played ever since they’d become professional adversaries. "I’m not
surprised," she said. "Nothing is calm around you."
    His
smile socked her in the weak spot of her heart, the one that remembered him as
a frail, mousy child who used to try to protect her from bullies at the
academy.
    "True.
But I’m more fascinating because of it." He moved forward, his long legs
carrying him smoothly, a predator with his prey exactly where he wanted it.
    She
stepped closer as well, not willing to give an inch, though she kept alert to
what was going on around them. She wanted to know the moment Wyatt emerged from
the ocean. "Your ego remains intact, I see."
    "Did
you expect anything to change in the year since we last met?" His cleft
chin came up, and his gaze darkened. "You remember the night in
Paris."
    It
wasn’t a question, and yes, she remembered. She remembered having such violent
sex in Sean’s hotel room that afterward he’d had to pay for the room service
dishes, the telly and a mirror. She’d paid too, in blood.
    He’d
been there with a team from his agency; and she’d been alone, an operative from
her much smaller one—though, like now, he believed she was a free agent who did
jobs for the highest bidder. His team had tried to kill her, and then they’d
gotten away with the prize—a religious artifact associated with deadly curses.
    "I
remember that I didn’t much like your friends," she said, resisting the
urge to grab the railing when the deck shuddered from the force of the driving
wind. "And speaking of which, I’m quite sure Marco intended to kill me
yesterday." No doubt he wanted to finish the job he’d started in Paris.
    A
muscle in Sean’s jaw ticked. "I’m sure he was only playing with you."
    "Is
that what we’re doing now?"
    He
lunged at her, and though she could have fought him, she didn’t, letting him
spin her behind a huge beam and away from the prying eyes of the medics and
riggers above.
    "We
are definitely not playing," he growled. He traced the edge of her
bloodred chain choker, and it took everything she had not to flinch. "When
you called, I wasn’t sure what to expect."
    He
dropped his finger lower, wiped drops of water off the exposed swell of one
breast. She’d come to him knowing they’d shag like rabbits, but the idea no
longer appealed to her, thanks to Wyatt’s skill in bed last night. The amazing
sexual chemistry she’d had with Sean had never been topped. Until Wyatt.
    "I
didn’t know who else to turn to."
    He drew
back, and abruptly the rival agent was gone, and in his place was the man she’d
fallen in love with so long ago. "You said you were tired of being alone.
Of working alone. You didn’t tell me why."
    She’d
worked hundreds of jobs, lied to five times as many people to get those