Dancing on the Wind (5 page)

holding his hand to signal the counter girl he wanted a refill.

The chief physician of Operational Services stared at Fallon. “Then you don’t

know.”

“Know what?” Fallon snapped.

“That she’s an interceptor,” Groves told him. “A primary channeller.”

Fallon gave the man beside him a narrowed look filled with ferocity. “You’ve got to

be shitting me. A fucking psychic?”

Shaking his head, Groves sat forward and reached for his fork. “I shit you not, my

man. I’m really looking forward to meeting her because I saw her test results. They

were off the chart. I studied them in detail.”

“That’s all the hell I need,” Fallon exploded. “The Supervisor is saddling me with a

tarot-reading, tea-leaf swirling, crystal ball-breaking shyster with…”

“Her talents are real, my friend, and no shit, they are fucking off the scale,” Groves

insisted. “She doesn’t have just one or two psi abilities, Misha. She has several.”

“And just what the hell am I suppose to do with this marvel of parapsychology?”

Fallon demanded.

“Use her!” Groves said then shook his head as though he realized how Fallon

would interpret his words. He waved a dismissive hand when Fallon would have made

an obvious vulgar remark. “Use her abilities to enhance your own. That’s what the

21

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Network is expecting. That’s why they are pairing you two. You’re a strong empath,

she’s a primary channeller. Together you two will rock, my man.”

“I hunt bad guys, Matthew,” Fallon stated. “I don’t do anything but.”

“She can find those bad guys for you.”

Fallon snorted. “Finding them is not a problem I have ever had.”

“I agree your natural abilities are a major asset, but I don’t think she would have

been handed over to you unless what she can do will help you on your assignments.”

“How?” Fallon challenged.

“Any way the Supervisor sees fit.”

“I don’t want her,” Fallon said, and when the man beside him made no comment to

that assertion, Fallon folded his arms over his broad chest. “And I don’t need her to

help me do what I was born to do.”

With still no response from Groves, Fallon pushed his chair back and stood. “And

besides, the bitch reads romance novels.”

“How positively evil of her,” Groves mumbled before taking up his glass of orange

juice and sipping.

“Retarded is more like it,” Fallon pronounced, and sauntered off with his hand dug

into the pocket of his tight jeans.

* * * * *

Keenan was mentally numb by the time she left the Supervisor’s office. It was well

into the afternoon before he’d allowed her to leave and she was exhausted.

“You’ve no reason to fear Agent Fallon, Keenan,”
the Supervisor had tried to assure her.

“I will keep his ass in line, believe me.”

On the way up to her floor at the dormitory she studied her reflection in the

polished titanium doors of the cage. Soft, pleasant music—something Celtic she

thought—was coming quietly through the overhead speaker and the interior of the

elevator smelled of oranges. The scent and sound was comforting, relaxing, and when

she stepped out of the cage, she felt calmer.

Until she came face-to-face with the man who would be her unwanted partner from

now on.

Keenan stepped back, a deep frown between her brows. “You surprised me,” she

said.

“I’d have thought you would have known I’d be waiting here for you. Didn’t your

little inner voice tell you I would be?” he asked with a mean smirk. He was leaning with

his shoulder against the wall, arms crossed over his wide chest.

Keenan stiffened. There was only one thing that pissed her off more than all others

and that was to have her talents, her abilities, dismissed as though they were

22

Dancing on the Wind

unimportant. She knew he was insulting her, and the hateful gleam in his unusual eyes

made her bristle. Her chin came up.

“What exactly would you like to know, Mr. Fallon?” she queried.

Fallon’s gaze narrowed dangerously. He leaned toward her—towering over her

five-foot six-inch frame—and with his face set and hard replied, “Tell me what I was

doing on September 5, 1977, if you know so fucking much.”

He grinned nastily, knowing there was no way in hell she’d know where he’d been

on that day, but she stunned him by replying, “You were in your grandfather’s barn

with a girl named Elana playing doctor until her older brother Feodor caught you.” Her

lips twisted with a smirk of her own. “Don’t you think you were a little young at eight

years of age to be…”

“That’s enough!” he snarled, and pushed away from the wall.

“Satisfied?” she taunted, and her unease with him seemed to be melting.

He gave her a brief glower before walking past her to head in the opposite direction

from her quarters. “Doesn’t prove anything,” she heard him growl. “That could be in a

file somewhere.”

“Privately you call your penis Yindy, which is short for
Yindyssagh mie
—meaning

mighty good in the Manx language—so I can’t help but wonder if it really is or if that’s

just wishful thinking on your part,” she called out to him.

Fallon spun around with his eyes wide. No one—and he meant
no
one!—could

have known about the nasty nickname he had for his cock. He stood there staring at

her, and for the first time in his life felt the world shift beneath his feet. She said

nothing, but the scorn on her face was enough to set his blood to boiling. Slowly he

walked back to her, never breaking eye contact and wondering why she was standing

her ground, not backing away from him since he allowed his most menacing expression

to settle on his face.

“Let’s you and me get something clear right up front, baby,” he said as he glared

down at her. Because of his six-foot six-inch height, she had to crane her neck back to

look up at him. “I’ll leave any guesswork about the tightness of your cunt out of our

conversations if you’ll leave the speculation of how good my dick is out of yours.

How’s that?”

Keenan ignored his crude words. “I’m good at what I do,” she said, and wished she

hadn’t for the look he gave her had nothing to do with her abilities as a medium or his

talents as an Alpha agent.

“So am I.”

She watched him turn his back on her and stroll down the hall, his wide shoulders

displacing more room than those of a normal man. Her gaze lowered to the tight

roundness of his ass in those faded jeans, down the long legs to the well-worn sneakers

then back up to the play of muscles in his back as he walked—no,
strutted
—down the

hallway.

23

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Conceited prick,” she called him before turning toward her suite. She could feel

his surprised gaze on her, knew he’d intercepted her insult, but refused to look around.

As soon as she closed the door, she shrugged off her shoulder bag, hung it on the

clothes tree behind the door, kicked off her shoes then bent over to neatly align them

side by side at the base, then marched over to the loveseat, cracking open her book as

she flopped down. She needed to dive into the story to take her mind from the

unsettling thoughts that were plaguing her.

* * * * *

Fallon twisted his head around one last time before she disappeared into her new

quarters. Despite his irritation at her, he liked the way she filled out her dark blue linen

slacks. The curves were sweet, legs long, ass just right. There was plenty up front as

well with breasts that pushed invitingly at the pale blue silk blouse—just a hint of

cleavage showing in the opening. Long brown hair French braided down her back

reached almost to a waist so small he knew he could encircle it with his hands. Those

hazel eyes could flash verdant fire and that pleased him. Her high cheekbones gathered

a blush easily, her full lips were no strangers to pouting. He had to admit she was a

knock-dead gorgeous female who smelled like mangoes, their branches wrapped

around on a fence ripening on a late summer afternoon.

“Wrapping around,” he said as he opened the door to his quarters. For some reason

those words stuck in his mind and he had a sudden vision of twisted sheets and tangled

limbs, sweaty bodies cooling by a lazily moving fan overhead, a slender foot slowly

traveling along his calf.

It had been a long time since he’d lain with a woman, taken comfort from a soft

feminine body, was cradled by silken arms and stroked by gentle fingers. He had

plunged himself into his work to push aside the need for any of that. He was a loner

and preferred to keep it that way. Women needlessly complicated things. That was the

main reason he’d never wanted an Extension, a fellow agent who would amplify his

own powers.

But at that moment, he couldn’t force his mind away from the woman at the other

end of the corridor and he felt his cock swelling, aching, demanding. He put a hand to

his growing erection.

“I bet if I come on hard to that prissy little bitch…”

He stopped, considered how she might react to his blatant sexual demand, and an

unholy light spread over Mikhail Fallon’s face.

“She’ll run screaming to the Supervisor,” he said aloud. “Begging him to reassign

her. That’s one way to get rid of her.”

The more he thought about it, the more the need intensified. He reached for the

door knob.

24

Dancing on the Wind

* * * * *

When the heavy, intruding knock came at her door, Keenan jumped, her head

snapping up. She knew precisely who had come to call and thought of ignoring the

interruption. She had been engrossed in the hot sex scene between the hero and heroine

in the book, had been turned on by it, and the interruption exasperated her. When the

knock came again—louder this time—she hissed and swung her feet off the loveseat,

snatched the bookmark from the side table to mark her place as she moved to answer

the door. Even before she reached the portal, that insistent knock sounded once more.

“All right already!” she snapped. “I’m coming!”

The moment she opened the door, she knew what he wanted. She read it on his

face, in the cruel set of his full lips, in the look he gave her. Hell, she could even
smell
it

on him. His eyes were glowing with a preternatural light that practically singed her.

That stare made her heart rate increase, her blood race, and caused a pool of heat to

form between her legs. She shook her head. “No,” she stated emphatically. “Don’t even

think you’re going to…”

“You have no choice,” he said, and barged right past her, “and it’s what I want, and

I always get what I want.”

“Excuse me!” she declared, eyes snapping green fire. “I did not invite…”

Fallon whipped out an arm to encircle her waist, dragging her to him so quickly

Keenan barely had time to bring her hands up to slam against his chest wall. But her

strength was nothing compared to his and she could not stop him from molding his

body to hers. His mouth swooped down to claim hers, slanting across her lips with

hard, unrelenting pressure, his tongue slipping past the soft flesh as smoothly as a hot

knife through warm butter. With careless ease he kicked the door shut and backed her

against it, pressing into her without breaking the possession he had of her mouth. His

hands dropped to her buttocks and he cupped her, aligning her to the hard bulge in his

jeans. He ground himself against her, one hard thigh insinuating into the V of her legs.

He growled low in his throat and all will to resist him flowed out of Keenan

McCullough.

The romance book fell to the floor.

She ran her arms up to wrap around his neck. She lifted her legs to drape them

around his lean hips, locking her ankles together. Her mouth took his with just as much

heat and need, and when he turned around, started through the great room with her

straddling him, her only thought was on what the weight of his body would feel like

upon hers.

Fallon blinked, blinked again and lost it completely. He’d gone there to scare her—

nothing more—but something else entirely was happening, something he’d damned

sure never expected, and he found he had no control whatsoever over it. What was

worse, he didn’t want to.

Fallon carried her into the bedroom and propelled them onto the patchwork

coverlet like a man possessed. The bed vibrated beneath their weight but all he could

25

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

think of was writhing upon the soft body under him, entering the sweet, hot warmth

between the long legs wrapped around his middle and pumping his flesh feverishly

into hers. He wanted to rip the silken blouse from her and taste her nipples, remove her

slacks and see if the nectar down there was as delicious as the honey from the lips his

own assaulted. Jerking his hands from under her rump, he slid one onto her breast to

knead her flesh—at first urgently then with thoughtful gentleness—his mouth still

locked on hers.

Keenan loved his hand on her. His thumb was stroking over her engorged nipple in

such a way she felt it all the way down to her bare toes. His weight was sublime and the

knee he had thrust between her legs to push them apart made her want to draw her