Guardian (15 page)

They stopped next to a new Camaro, and he bit back a curse. The damned things were not designed with six-foot-four men in mind. She unlocked the door with the key instead of the remote, silently, so there were no flashing headlights to alert anyone to their presence. She’d either done this before or planned in advance. He took the keys from her, reached in to hit the unlock button for the other door and escorted her around.
 

“I’m driving.”
 

Seconds later, he backed out of the space and checked the rearview mirror in time to see a man bursting from the door they’d just exited. He lifted his weapon but didn’t fire as Brax accelerated. Instead, he lifted his wrist to his mouth. If Brax had to guess it would be he was calling in the rest of the team Mason had seen enter the building, or a backup follow team. It seemed like a lot of work and effort for one lone researcher. Brax had a bad feeling the situation was a hell of a lot more complicated than he’d first believed.

He keyed the mic on his earpiece. “Follow us to the compound.”
 

Esme didn’t speak until they were off the small college campus and on the highway heading out of the city. “Care to explain what the hell is going on?”

“I’m saving your pretty little ass,” he hissed, spotting their tail. He’d guessed right about the second team. He would have had a team standing by to follow in case his prey escaped too. Acting without intelligence and a plan was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. He accelerated, whipping around slower cars while she gasped and grabbed the
oh shit
handle.
 

“Seems more like you’re trying to kill me the hard way.”
 

He loved that flash of waspishness. He grinned, punching it when a stretch of clear lane opened on the left and watching in the rearview as the SUV behind them smoothly moved in to block their pursuers.
 

“Baby, I have no intention of killing you.”
 

Unless it was with ecstasy. Damn. He didn’t know what the hell had come over him, but he was staking his claim. He’d have her in his bed within the next twenty-four hours.

It wasn’t going to be as hard to lose the tail as he’d feared. Traffic was heavy and he remembered there’d been a big concert and baseball game that evening. One or both must had recently finished. He saw an opening in traffic in the right lane and slid into it just in time to take the next exit. There was no pursuit in the mirror when he checked, so he keyed the mic.
 

“You still got them?” he asked Mason.
 

“Yep. By the time they realize they lost you and circle back, it’ll be too late,” he said. “Get her safe. Zach is waiting.”

He didn’t bother with a response. He flipped the speaker up and turned off the earpiece.
 

“Tell me what you think you found, Esme, and who you shared that information with.” He needed to know who to kill.
 

“Dr. Durand,” she said primly. Grinning, he glanced over at her. She sat straight, hands clenched together in her lap, and stared out the front window.
 

“Esme,” he crooned. “If you don’t consider this situation enough for a first name basis, I promise to change your mind at the earliest opportunity.”
 

There was no mistaking his meaning. The look she flashed him was full of awareness. Shock and disbelief, but also interest and desire. Her scent was lush with it. He wanted to drown in her, and it would be hours yet before he could.
 

“The tests?” he reminded her, desperate to retain some semblance of control before he pulled to the side of the road and took her with all the finesse of a horny teenager.

The silence stretched, a not-so-subtle sign of defiance. The primitive core of him rose to the surface. He wasn’t human. He was something more. More advanced. More evolved. A predator. And his woman was defying him. Disobeying him. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t realized yet he’d claimed her. He was the hunter. She was the prey.
 

“Esme.” It was a snarl, a demand full of menace and promise of retribution. Her hand convulsed on the door handle. “Don’t even think about it, baby. You’d never survive the fall.”
 

That she considered trying to escape him pissed him off. That she’d do it in a way that guaranteed her death enraged him. Was she always so damned careless with her life?
 

“Answer me. What did you find in the blood tests?”
 

“It isn’t human,” she answered softly, her voice still vibrating with anger. “It’s close. About three percent variation, but it isn’t human and it isn’t in any database of recorded genetic samples. It’s something…new. Or more accurately something that hasn’t been discovered yet.”
 

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.

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.