Seduced by the Storm (7 page)

"Hey,"
he called. "You’re too close to the edge."

She
turned on one high-booted heel to face him. Hot mama in all leather, and
shit,
the breath squeezed right out of his lungs.

At
least Faith had her mouth partially hanging open too, but she got it together
quickly. More so than he did. He was happy in the knowledge that she’d remember
nothing beyond their time in the bar, and a little sad as well. None of them
ever did. All part of the gift and the curse of the sexual portion of his
talent.

"Still
running from your ex?" he asked, and she smiled, that killer smile she’d
used on him last night.

"Not
exactly. This is part of my job."

"You
don’t look like a roughneck."

"You
don’t either, but you are," she countered as she moved away from the edge
and closer to him. "As for me, I’m an auditor for the company that owns
the platform. Here to check the books."

"I
don’t know too many accountants who wear leather."

"Glad
I could be your first."

"I
hope I’m around next time you need to get away from your ex. Although I sure
wish you hadn’t left in such a hurry."

"You
were the one who left my bed—and I don’t remember anything rushed about last
night."

"You
remember
?"

She
bit her bottom lip and he had a hard time not taking her, right here and now,
against the pipes. "Of course I remember."

Something
was wrong.
Really motherfucking wrong.

"Are
you trying to play it cool or were you drunk last night? You didn’t seem to be.
Do you want me to talk about it—remind you how often we enjoyed each
other?"

He
blinked, and she continued. "In the hot tub, in the shower, again on the
bed…"

The
thunder, which had been merely a distant rumbling minutes earlier, grew louder.
More forceful.

As
the wind picked up, the platform began to shake and shudder, and Faith held the
metal railing behind her for support. Wyatt grabbed the same railing, one hand
on either side of her, his body protecting her from the rain that began to fall
nearly sideways.

"I
don’t want you with other men," he said suddenly, because whenever he was
feeling strongly enough about something those thoughts tended to fly the fuck
out of his mouth.

Faith
stared at him, again as if he were crazy. Didn’t matter—when his feelings
pulled him, he went with it. But before she could answer him, the platform’s
alarms began to ring.

"What’s
wrong?" Faith asked.

"Could
be a blowout," he said.

"Len’s
not coming up!" Don shouted from the upper portion of the platform.
"He went down to fix one of the leg floats. He should’ve been up by
now—he’ll be out of air soon."

Len
was one of the divers—a job Wyatt would’ve much preferred, and had the training
for, thanks to his SEAL days. But being under the water most of the time on
this hunk of junk would not be conducive to destroying the weather machine from
hell.

"Why
the hell was he down there alone?" Wyatt demanded.

"Clarence
didn’t feel well. It was calm as shit ten minutes ago—the weather wasn’t
supposed to turn like this."

The
way this storm was behaving, it had to be man-made.

Yeah,
that weather machine had to go, and soon. But right now, there was a man down
and Wyatt had too much training to ever leave a man behind. He knew that no one
else on the dive team was going to volunteer to go either, even though they
wanted to. They weren’t rule breakers and refused to go against the foreman most
of the time. Pussies.

"I’ll
go," Wyatt said. "Get me a drysuit, fins and a weight belt."

"You
can’t go until we unload the tanks and rebreathers off the supply boat. Give it
ten minutes," Don said.

"He
might not have ten minutes."

"There’s
no other choice. He’s too deep."

"I’ll
free dive."

"Are
you fucking insane?"

"Yes,"
he said calmly.

He
yanked on the equipment Don brought him without further argument and prepped to
head into the swirling ocean.

He
looked at Faith. "Stay under the deck. Hang on tight—it’s going to be
wild."

"Are
you sure you should be doing this on your own?" Faith’s voice held an
urgency, let him know she heard what he’d told her about not being with anyone
else. And she liked it. "Wyatt, it’s dangerous."

"So
am I, Faith," he drawled. "So am I."

FAITH
WATCHED WYATT jump into the water at the crest of a swell, her heart pounding
harder than it did even during situations more hazardous to her own life. The
man was insane, diving with no air tank. Though she had to admit that watching
him strip in order to put on the drysuit had been half the reason her pulse
rate had doubled.

Wyatt
sank into the dark depths after shooting her a cocky wink that set fire to her
blood. Even up to his neck in water, he was a menace to women everywhere.
Mermaids would probably flock to him in the deep.

"Ma’am!"
the foreman shouted from the deck above, "get off the dive deck! It’s too
dangerous."

A
medic crew had arrived, the men waiting in yellow slickers at the top too,
because as the storm churned up the ocean, the swells were crashing into the
platform, splashing her with water. Soon, the low-hanging dive deck would be
overtaken by the waves. But no matter how freaked by the tempest she might be,
she couldn’t leave until she knew Wyatt and the other diver were safe.

"Faith!"
She looked up to see Sean hurrying down the caged metal stairs, toward her. His
black overcoat billowed out behind him in the wind, and rain had plastered his
sandy blond hair to his head.

Sweat
dampened her palms, a silly nervous reaction that irked her even as her heart
seized up for just a moment. He was striking, as handsome as she remembered,
and she drank him in like a recovering alcoholic facing an open bottle of
expensive Scotch.

He
was shorter than Wyatt, but broader in the shoulders; light in coloring, where
Wyatt was dark; and why in the hell was she comparing the two? She had a job to
do, and her hormones would have to wait.

Sean
halted at the base of the steps, 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 jobs
done. But lying to Sean…it was such a betrayal, even though he’d gone over to
the dark side a long time ago. At times like this, she truly believed he could
turn himself around.

"There’s
something to be said about being your own boss," she said as she pulled
away from him, too distracted by what was going on around them and in the water
to fully concentrate on Sean. Which, she knew, could be a fatal mistake.
"But it’s also nice to have backup."

"We’ve
always backed each other up." He grinned. "Remember the time our
calculus professor accused me of cheating?"

She
smiled at the memory, of how she’d come to his rescue by making the man’s lips
swell so he couldn’t talk. "He was such a tosser."

Sean’s
gaze darkened into something she couldn’t read. Startled, she tried to shake
off the feeling of dread that rippled down her spine. She’d always been able to
read him, but before she could ponder the new development too much, he
murmured, "Remember how I paid you back? How I came to your room that
night and used my tongue to make you beg? Now that we’re together again, I’ll
do that every night. I’ll make you beg."

"I
don’t beg anymore," she said, even though she’d begged Wyatt last night.
God, she hoped he was okay. Biting her lip, she looked out at the boiling ocean
and wondered how much worse it was going to get. She’d thought she’d gotten
past her fear of storms—or had at least gotten a grip on her fear—but with
Wyatt in danger, bad memories had started to surface. Surface…something Wyatt hadn’t
done yet. How long had he been down there anyway? Too long, dammit.

"So
stubborn. And beautiful. You’ve always been so beautiful, Faith…Faith?"

She
blinked, shook her head, unable to believe the mistake she’d just made. If she
wanted to survive this mission, she had to make Sean believe he was her sole
focus. She couldn’t make an error like that again, for her own sake, and
Liberty’s.

"Yes,
sorry. I was thinking about how nice it is to be on the same side again."

"As
it was always meant to be. We should never have gone our separate ways."

She
hadn’t wanted to, but he’d grown increasingly jaded with Britain’s Secret
Intelligence Service, the patrons of the school they’d attended and the agency
he’d joined after graduation. She had struck out on her own and watched
helplessly as he degenerated into something cold and hateful. Three years ago,
he turned his back on the British government and defected to Itor. Still, even
as enemies they couldn’t deny their fierce physical attraction or the
sentimentality of their past, and their encounters always ended in sex, when
they should have ended in the death of one of them.