Wild Thing (3 page)

No sign of it at all.

Damn Nick Carter, anyway. Mark had a lot of practice in giving Tayla Garrett space…

He had no practice at all in being close.

“Here,” she said, stopping outside a copse of trees, turning to him—and something in her voice gave her away—a bit of tightness and a bit of tremble. Nothing he would have seen if he hadn’t been…

Wishful thinking.

“It’s a good place,” he agreed, putting his mind back to the work. The afternoon heat sat heavily on him, dampening the edges of his hair even in the low humidity.
It’s a dry heat
only went so far; after a certain point, hot was
hot
. Tayla seemed more at home in it, with barely more than a flush on her cheeks. But something else…

Something else had her uneasy.

Mark did a quick check of their surroundings; he did a quick dive into less obvious senses, hunting for a suspicious trace—for the sour taste of the Atrum Core. He found only the sweet tingle of subdued personal power beside him.

Her trace wasn’t particularly strong; it was private, as was she. And yet as he looked closer at her, the trace grew stronger, invading him from the inside out—hot savannah grasses and musky dry air and lurking, wild speed….

“Do you smell that?” she asked, and the tension in her voice brought him out of his tracking focus. “Do you
feel
that?”

“Nothing but—“
you
“—us,” he said. “If the Core is here, I’m missing it.”

“That dog,” she said, her gaze pinpointing a big goofy, hairy animal on the other side of the narrow pond. A little bit camel, a little bit Rastafarian, a whole lot Disney. Tayla took an unconscious step away from it—away from the narrow little arching footbridge that would take them over the thin neck of the pond before it widened out into the next teardrop in the chain—and Mark remembered, suddenly, how she’d avoided the dog at the park. Remembered, vaguely, that she’d simply never liked dogs. “It should be on a leash,” she said. “Do you see its owner?”

“Must be here somewhere,” Mark said, sounding, he thought, reasonable and not the least bit amused.

She drew herself up in affront. “If you think I’m frightened of that thing, then you don’t know me very well.”

“If you think I’m that easy to fool, then you don’t know
me
very well.”

Tayla watched the dog. It hesitated long enough to slake its thirst from the pond, and moved on. “I don’t like dogs,” she admitted. “It’s a—“

Mark let out a startled snort of laughter. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “It’s a cat thing!”

She glared at him. “That doesn’t mean I’m not right. Look at it, out there in the heat. It should be holed up in the shade somewhere right now. And did you see the way it looked at us?”

“I saw the way you looked at it,” Mark observed.

She pulled her attention away from the dog, anger growing. “I knew this was a bad idea,” she told him. “I don’t know what Carter was thinking. He should have known you’d ignore me—it’s what you’ve always done. Tell you what, Mark—you do your thing, I’ll do mine.” She turned away from him, heading for the footbridge—toward the dog.

Surely not. “Tayla—“

“What are you worried about?” she asked, turning around but not stopping, the net result of which was swift backward progress, unerringly aimed at the little bridge. “You’re right, I’m wrong. The dog’s nothing and I’m just a scaredy-cat. Literally.”

Now
, said the prescience.
Make the difference.

Not how; it never told him how. Only that nudge—
time to act
.

He startled off into a run. A few quick strides and he was past her, grabbing the footbridge railing and swinging around to plant himself in front of it—in front of her. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Whatever.” Her attempt at
casual
wasn’t the least convincing. She almost stepped closer; she
almost
stepped into him. But she closed her eyes and she set her jaw; she shifted back—imperceptible but definite. “Look, just go back to ignoring me. It worked better for both of us, don’t you think?”

“It didn’t work for me at all,” Mark told her, and he wanted to pull her close again. Never mind the dog snuffling around on the other side of the pond, or anyone else who might just be watching, or the work they were supposed to be doing out here. “I only ever did what I thought you wanted.”

“Oh, sure, because having my heart slowly ripped out is just what I’ve
always
wanted!” she snapped, and then clapped her hands over her mouth.

Mark’s mouth opened; no sound came out. His throat constricted—hope, or maybe fear, or maybe—
gusty panting, a cry of pleasure, a demand for more, the delicate touch of a tongue
—

“What?” she demanded, all drawn up and drawn into herself, about to retreat into the very distance that had fooled him for so long. “Did you say
tongue
?”

He shook off the prescience—
hell, let it
be
prescience
—and tried, less successfully, to shake off the net of sensation tightening around his body—hope and anticipation and aching
want
, so much that he almost found himself pulling her in as if he had every right, kissing her hard and taking her down—

With his mind fighting such things, it took him by no surprise at all when his mouth said, “Son of a bitch, Carter was right. He was
right.
It’s
me
.”

She gave him a wary look, ducked beneath the arm he had planted on the footbridge railing, and slipped past him to the center arch of the bridge. “What’s
you
?”

He whirled to face her, gesturing at her, lost to discretion.
“This
. What’s going on with you.” What he’d seen the night before. What he’d seen in her just then.

Because she’d wanted him.

She’d
always
wanted him.

She’d been protecting herself all this time, and tearing herself up inside—keeping herself from her own potential.

If he’d figured it out for himself, he might well have been with her by now. Never mind Carter’s damned
assignment
—this was about Mark and Tayla and what
they
could be. “Not you.
Us
,” he corrected himself, and hooked a finger over the nosepiece of her sunglasses, plucking them free and exposing her eyes. He tucked them into the V neck of her shirt. “What’s going on with you is about us.”

She sucked in a breath. “
No
,” she said. “I mean—no! What are you even thinking?” But those green eyes looked trapped and wild as she backed up against the railing, hands blindly seeking out that support.

He closed the space between them. Beautiful early spring day, romantic little footbridge, quiet park. Meant for it. He closed the space and he took her shoulders, holding them tightly, drawing her forward slightly with his emphasis, feeling the intense fullness of prescience throbbing heavily between them and about to turn into truth. “Tell me,” he said, his senses swimming with her, “
tell
me you don’t feel this.”

She shook her head, short and sharp and with a flare of panic. She shoved at him, if not hard. “I never said I didn’t want you.” She snapped out the words with such emphasis that he almost missed them. “I’ve
always
wanted you. It’s just not
messing
with me. I had to learn to deal with it, didn’t I?”

“Problem is,” he said, throat tight around the words, “it’s messing with
me.
”

She froze. She stared at him, wide-eyed. “Oh!” she said. And “Oh!” And, fingers suddenly in his hair, mouth on his and kissing him hard, back arching into the play of his fingers on her back, no words at all.

Kissing.

She was kissing Mark Burton. Mark Burton, for whom she’d yearned these past ten years. Mark Burton, who’d never seemed to look twice at her, who always had a date in the wings or on his arm, who’d walked past her so many times over so many years that she’d developed a huge coping callus and resolutely developed her mediocre dating life outside the Sentinels.

Mark Burton, wrapping his arms around her, all but wrapping his body around her, suddenly noticing her very intently indeed. Unmistakably. Thoroughly. With all the fiery hot, sparky special effects her own body could produce, from the tingling down her spine to the whirl inside her head to the hot, heavy gravity gathering in the very center of her.

But…

She was kissing Mark Burton out in public on the middle of the footbridge when she should have been hunting Atrum Core trace, fully learning the park.

Screw that, I already know the park.

What she didn’t know was
this
. Strong hands stroking her back, exploring the curve of her waist, heading up for her breasts. She leaned toward anticipated touch—and then ached at the loss when he returned to her waist. She hadn’t known, either, that two mouths could anticipate and tease and promise with such intensity. That she could lose herself in the moment so completely.

Or that she could affect him just as deeply. Mark Burton, the distant…the casually aloof lion secure in his domain. And here he was, his breath made of jerky little rasps and everything in his body straining toward hers—everything in his energies twining up with hers—

And then someone laughed nearby and they froze, lips still touching and breath mingling, just as their energies had done and their bodies yearned to do. Together, they remembered that they stood in public—on the exposed arch of the bridge at that. After a moment, he pulled back far enough to rest his forehead on hers. “You do feel it,” he said, voice so rocky she barely made out the words.

“I…”

She’d meant for there to be more words after that, she was sure of it. But none came, and she mutely shook her head. “We…”

No words there, either. But he only laughed, short and self-deprecating. “Yeah,” he said.

“Work,” she said desperately, her hands rebellious enough to wander along his arms, just barely obedient enough to stay away from his delectable ass. “The dog…”

Still easily within sight, it had wandered down along the pond. Mark shrugged it off. “We’ll call animal control.”

“Work—“

“This
is
work,” he asserted—and stopped short.

Too late for that.

“Excuse me?” She went stiff in his arms.

An unspoken expletive came through quite clearly in his expression. “Tayla—that didn’t come out right—“

“You
think
?” And if he hadn’t meant to say it was work to kiss her, then he’d meant to say that kissing her was part of work, and the only way that could be was—

“Tayla—“

“No,” she told him, more brittle yet. “Don’t even try to make it better. What are you going to say, that this was somehow part of your assignment? That Carter
told
you to—“ And that’s when she knew. Her breath stuttered in her throat. “Oh my God. He
did
tell you. He told you I haven’t been initiated, didn’t he? And he wants it done, I’ll just bet. Did he tell you that? Does he think it’ll settle me out?”

Mark winced; he closed his eyes, his expression one of pain and his hands tight on her waist. She shoved him away—not with the frantic cry swelling in her throat, but with angry disdainful defiance, drawn from the cheetah within. Long strides, shoulders straight, head up. Off the footbridge and heading down the path toward the park entrance.

The day, so pleasant a moment ago, suddenly felt hot; she wanted nothing more than to reach their condo and walk straight into the shower. She knew this park; Mark didn’t. Let him learn it, then. He’d no doubt concentrate better without her—and if he needed to cool off, maybe someone would push him into this manicured little pond.

One could hope.

She stalked across the road.

She stalked into the condo.

She skipped the elevator and strode up the stairs, two at a time, third floor up and barely breathing hard.
Kissing him took more breath.

Kissing him.

She lost a sob on that one, blindly digging for her key and inserting it in the lock. How had she even thought he’d suddenly found her interesting? To him she was what she’d been then—all the legs, all the awkward, face not grown into its features…emotions running wild and awareness of her shortcomings so crippling that she could only function by hiding all that insecurity away from everyone, including herself.

And these days, if she thought she’d probably grown into herself, if she thought she was generally good at her job, that lack of confidence still lurked…quiet and completely camouflaged—at least until Mark Burton had shown up in her sector and brought it out, turning her right back into that teenage girl.

So she made it into the condo and she quietly closed the door, and she slumped back against the wall and slowly slid to the floor. First a sniffle, then a sob, and then that young teen was back, crying all the familiar feelings she’d thought she’d long outgrown.

Because Nick Carter was right. She’d gone downhill these past months. Her work was crap. But if he’d thought this would help…

He must be thinking with his man-brain.

She’d ask for reassignment, that’s what. Phoenix wasn’t the only place for an American cheetah to thrive.

The thought speared through her. If at first she’d cried in desperate hurt, now the grief came from loss—of home, of years of longing. But she could do this. If Carter insisted on this partnership, she’d take whatever disciplinary action he meted out, and she’d leave—because as much as she wouldn’t work with Mark Burton, she wouldn’t work with the adjutant who put them together.

“Aah, Tayla.”

She startled; she had no idea when he’d come in and that alone infuriated her. That he stood in the doorway, dismay in his dark honey-gold eyes—that infuriated her over again. Too close to pity, that dismay.

“Get out,” she told him, her voice amazingly hard for all the crying she’d just done. She swiped away the remaining tears, through with them. “You’re done with this assignment.”