Unleashing the Storm by Sydney Croft

asked.
    “Don’t
ask questions I can’t give you answers to, Kira. Answers you don’t want.”
    “Here’s
an answer I’m sure you don’t want—I’m not joining your agency. Ever. And
there’s nothing you can say or do to convince me. I’ve lived through worse than
you,” she said. “Now you need to get the fuck out of here before I call out my
dogs.” But her voice lacked a certain conviction even though he was pretty sure
she meant what she said.
    Something
else was wrong.
    He
stared at her, the tank-top strap falling off one shoulder, the hastily
pulled-on shorts, her hair loose around her face and shoulders. And there it
was—the need was back in her eyes. He could tell she was torn between hating
him and wanting him.
    Join
the club, honey.
    She
wrapped her arms around her chest, squeezed her legs together tightly like she
was trying to keep from reaching out and grabbing him. Even her jaw tensed, and
she closed her eyes momentarily, swayed a little like she couldn’t control her
own body.
    “Let
me take care of what I need to,” he said. “We’ll talk more about this in the
morning. When you’ve calmed down. When you’ve gotten your needs met and you can
think clearly.”
    “No.
I can’t stay here with you tonight,” she said. “I have to go find…someone.
Seeing how you killed my backup.”
    “You’re
not leaving my sight.”
    “Then
you can come with me and watch.”
    “And
give you an opportunity to escape or get help? I don’t think so.”
    “I
have to, dammit.” The need was burning bright in her eyes, and she shifted from
foot to foot. Part nerves, part lust. “Tommy, you need to let me go.”
    The
way she called him Tommy reverberated straight to his dick. “You need me, ”
he said. “And I’m all yours.”
    “I’m
your prisoner,” she snapped. “I can’t trust you. And I don’t.”
    “I
don’t trust you either. That didn’t matter the last two times, and it can’t
matter now. I know how to help you.”
    “You
don’t know anything about me.”
    “That’s
where you’re wrong. Very wrong,” he said.
    She
hesitated briefly, the adrenaline almost visible around her, before she took
off out the back door, and in a dead run through the empty field behind the
barn. She had to know it wouldn’t do her any good, but he gave her credit for
having the balls to try.
    He
was on her within seconds, tumbling her to the soft earth and pinning her
underneath his weight. For a minute, he just lay there, his face inches from
hers, letting the hard planes of his body feel every soft curve of hers,
reveling in the fact that she didn’t try to struggle.
    The
adrenaline from the run seemed to have taken the edge off her craving slightly,
but the heat from her body began to rise all around him, scorching through his
T-shirt and making his skin prickle.
    “Want
to play This Is Your Life, Chastity Belle?” he murmured roughly against the
side of her cheek.
    “No,”
she spat out through gritted teeth. Her eyes shot fire at him. “And it’s Charity, you asshole. But you knew that.”
    He
grinned, because yes, he had known that. “Too bad. We could talk about the fact
that you’re much more used to wearing handcuffs than you let on to Derek. The
fact that you’ve been arrested at animal-rights rallies.”
    “Big
deal. Protesting the unethical treatment of animals is something I have every
right to do under the Constitution,” she said.
    “What
about lighting fires at slaughterhouses?”
    “Never
proven.”
    “The
sinking of the whaling ship?” he asked, watched her eyes grow slightly wider,
half panic, half lust taking over, and the dizzy feeling he’d gotten earlier
was coming back strong. “You know you’re on the government’s terrorist
watch-list.”
    No,
she didn’t know. He could tell by the way her mouth fell open, her full, pink
lips parting in a way that left him breathless.
    He
stared from her face down to the graceful column of her neck, thought about