Taming the Fire (41 page)

“I told you that I couldn't wait to do this to you,” he murmured. “Knew you'd be all wet and hot for me.”

He remembered everything—that's what he always told her during their online chats… using language that had her blushing on the other side of the computer screen and grateful they never used video software. She wouldn't have been able to hide how embarrassed she was… or how intensely turned on.

She used to play with herself, unable to stop her hands from traveling between her legs, rubbing herself to satisfaction while reading and rereading Ryan's words, late at night, long after they'd logged off with each other.

Ryan's words were something, but Ryan in the flesh was beyond what she could've imagined.

“I can't believe this is really happening… that you're here,” she told him, her breath coming fast, even as he leaned down and mouthed a nipple, causing her to arch up and making him slide into her unexpectedly. A long moan escaped her lips even as he continued to tug on the taut nub with his teeth, and her womb gradually relaxed for him.

From the second she'd seen him naked, she'd wondered how he would fit—it seemed impossible, yet he kept telling her he was almost there… almost ready to show her how amazing it was.

She felt so full, and then, one last rock of his hips, and she felt the pinch—it made her gasp, and Ryan went still for a long minute. And then he began to move, back and forth—gently at first, so gently, and at the same time it was urgent. Primal.

It was so good. “Ryan—don't stop.”

“No worries on that.”

She clung to him so tightly, felt her nails digging in his skin and the slick sweat from his body and from hers making traction nearly impossible. But Ryan was tugging one of her legs up and she caught her ankle around his lower back.

“Oh… oh…” was all she could say as Ryan went deeper and the feeling shot straight through to her womb. And she was moving her hips to meet his as though it was the most natural thing in the world, her body responding to him totally.

He shifted then, angling himself so his cock brushed her clit as he pumped in and out of her, and sooner, much quicker than she wanted, she was flying, over the edge, her sex contracting around his cock.

“Meg, I'm coming,” he rasped, and she felt him pulsing, throbbing inside of her, nothing between them at all—it was primal and right, no barriers.

“I love you,” she whispered against his neck. “Love you… love you, Ryan.”

He responded by moaning her name, over and over, like a chant, until he stilled against her and her eyes closed in perfect contentment.

She wasn't sure if it was minutes later or hours, but Ryan moved his body off hers and cradled her against his chest. “You okay?”

“Better than okay.” She shifted to look into his eyes. “So what happens now?”

“What do you want to do next?” Ryan asked, his hand already reaching between her legs. “Because it's only going to get better from here.”

“Well, yes, that. But I mean… I don't know if I want to work for ACRO.”

“You don't have to work there. But I'd love it if you went back with me. Because that's my home. I'd like it to be yours too.”

Home. That sounded so nice. Normal. “I can leave the old life behind.”

“And there's a new life waiting for you, if you want it.”

“Yes, Ryan… I want,” she whispered as he moved to claim her again, the way she'd always imagined it to be.

Trance found himself staring up at the ACRO memorial. He'd been here before, several times, stopping on his way through the woods to pay his respects to the men and women who'd come before him.

His eyes shifted past Oz's picture—Devlin had been dealing with that heavy loss for close to a year now, and Trance had finally seen some light around the man's eyes when Trance had first returned to ACRO with Rik.

When he'd last spoken to Dev, it looked as though his boss had the weight of the world—and ACRO—on him. And fuck, Trance hated blaming him for what had been kept from him, and hated it more that the choice to keep Rik in America or ship her off to England was in his hands.

Finally, he let his eyes stray to the picture of Arthur Scott. His hand automatically went to the plaque and touched the nameplate as he searched the man's eyes and thought about the first time he'd met the agent he never knew as father.

“I'm Arthur. Welcome to ACRO.”
He'd shaken Trance's hand across the meeting table. Trance remembered not wanting to touch anyone, not wishing to be friendly. No, he'd nearly escaped twice by that point, only to be brought to his senses by the Convincers, who'd been damned good at their jobs, and so he'd grunted in Arthur's direction.

It hadn't deterred the man, who, Trance would learn later, had come to ACRO voluntarily. He'd slid a Coke across the table to Trance and then actually moved to sit next to him during the long-ass boring meeting. Trance had been up all night with a team of doctors, getting checked out and up and down before getting a clean bill of health and the now familiar ACRO BDUs.

“It gets easier.”

“Sure,” Trance had said disinterestedly. “What's your thing?”

“Same as you. Strength.”

Their supervisor, who'd overheard the conversation, had shaken his head. “Trance is a hell of a lot stronger than you, Arthur.”

“He can try to prove it, then,” Arthur had said innocently. Of course, the afternoon ended in wrestling matches right in the middle of the first Quad outside the Excedo training area—and saw Trance the winner.

There had been a strange look in Arthur's eyes that afternoon—a pride, almost, and Trance remembered thinking he'd never be proud if someone kicked his ass.

He and his father hadn't looked anything alike—the only thing they'd had in common was their size… and their eyes. But Arthur had known, and still he'd gone on a mission, fully aware that he might not come back to speak with his son.

He wondered what his father could've possibly said to him that would make up for twenty-something years of abandonment, and realized that the answer was: nothing.

And yet somehow, Rik had made his life feel complete in the space of mere days. The irony nearly made him choke out a sob, but he kept it together. He didn't know all that much about forgiveness, hadn't had to give it or receive it much in his life because he'd remained on the outside in all of his relationships.

Neema hurried by—she was talking into her handheld walkie-talkie. “Ulrika's going to let the wolf out—we're going to see if she can control it on her own.”

Trance's gut clenched and his hand dropped from his father's photo as he wondered why it was that, as Rik gained more control over herself, he in turn was losing any semblance he'd once had.

F
OLLOWING THE DISASTER
at Trance's house, Rik spent several days working with Neema on her control issues. Yesterday, Kira had come in for a couple of hours to try to convince Rik to shift, but Rik had refused. Though she'd mastered keeping the beast in, she didn't trust the beast once it came out.

She wasn't entirely sure why it was so important that the beast be tested, but as she, Kira, Neema, and Sela Kahne, a researcher from the cryptozoology department, walked toward the forest where she and Trance had shared a picnic, Kira explained.

“Your wolf needs to feel comfortable and in control. For you to both coexist in one body, you need to trust each other.”

“But if I don't let her out, there's no need to worry about trust.”

“Is that fair to her?” Kira asked quietly. “She's as much a victim as you are. Keeping her happy before this meant doing things you sometimes didn't like. But now, if keeping her happy means letting her out now and then to run, well, isn't that worth it?”

“And I need to be able to trust her to let her out.” Rik sighed, slowing as they approached a small clearing, split down the center by a narrow stream running from the lake. “So where is your overprotective mate?”

Kira gave a sly, secret smile. “Oh, he's around.”

Rik stopped and sniffed the air, and though she smelled nothing, she sensed multiple presences nearby. No doubt, one of them was Ender. The rest would probably be ACRO security personnel loaded down with tranqs in the event that something went horribly wrong.

The one thing she was grateful for was that Trance wasn't here to watch this.

To watch her turn into the ugly monster that had killed his father.

Except,
she
was the ugly monster. The beast had simply finished the job Rik had started.

“Rik?” Sela lay a hand on Rik's forearm and adjusted the camera slung around her neck. “Are you okay?” She was tall, nearly as tall as Rik, but with her emerald-green eyes and black hair, she was much more exotic.

“Yeah,” Rik whispered. “I can do this.” She glanced at each of the three women. “But if Cujo hurts anyone, do what you have to do.”

“It won't come down to that,” Kira said. “It really won't. I have faith in both of you.”

God, where did the woman get her calm, trusting nature?
Not that Rik was complaining. She was so high-strung that she appreciated Kira's tranquil aura, which seemed to encompass everything around her.

“Let's do this.” Neema's no-nonsense voice cut through the Lassie-sweet moment, reminding Rik that there were no gentle do-gooder dogs here.

Squaring her shoulders, she strode away from the three women until she was at the edge of the stream. As if the wolf knew what was going on, it began to stir, growing more excited by the second. Her skin tingled and her muscles tightened.

Quickly, Rik stripped, because although she could shift with clothes on, the clothes would be destroyed, and they could sometimes cause Cujo unnecessary agony. She breathed through the growing panic created by the knowledge that she was letting the beast out.

As the panic receded, the pain began. Muscles stretched, bones popped, and her skin split. With a silent scream, Rik faded into the background, until she was aware only that the wolf was standing on all fours in the meadow, watching the three ACRO women with something Rik swore might be hunger.

K
IRA WATCHED
Rik's transformation with her mouth hanging open. She'd been around animals all her life, but had never seen a human turn into one. Neema and Sela appeared to be as stunned as Kira, but the cryptozoologist recovered quickly and began snapping pictures.

The Rik-beast—Cujo, as she called it—reared up on two legs and sniffed the air, baring its teeth as it caught the scent of something it didn't like. Probably the half-dozen armed ACRO sharpshooters perched in the trees and hidden in bushes nearby. Though Kira couldn't see him, she knew Tommy was to the right, and she had no doubt he had Rik in his rifle's sights.

Her overprotective mate had better be loaded with tranquilizers and not bullets, or he was in big trouble.

After a long moment, Cujo dropped to all fours and turned her gaze in Kira's direction. She seemed torn between wanting to run off into the forest and wanting to charge at Kira and the other two women.

Before she could do either, Kira moved slowly toward her. “Hey, girl,” she murmured, though she didn't need to speak out loud. She could communicate with the beast through a form of mental telepathy, mainly through images, body language and scents, but she knew that deep inside the wolf, the human could understand English, and it would be best for the humans all around her to hear Kira's side of the conversation.

Cujo stared at Kira as she approached, though she didn't show any aggression. Her ears twitched as she listened for sounds of danger, and when one of the sharpshooters in the forest did something to make a twig snap, she let out a low growl, but didn't move.

“We're here to help,” Kira said, coming to a stop about five feet away. She knew that Tommy had stepped into the meadow because Cujo tensed, her reddish fur undulating in nervous ripples. “Hey. No one is going to hurt you. We just need to know what you want. What you need to feel comfortable.”

Broken images slammed into Kira's brain. Wide-open spaces, forests, deer leaping over fallen logs, Trance.

Damn him. This creature did not trust easily, if it ever had, but it had formed a bond with Trance, and he'd broken it. Like a dog that had been abandoned on the side of the road or at a pound, she didn't understand why the only family she'd ever known had rejected her.