Free Tempting the Fire by Sydney Croft Page A

…”
    “Intense?”
    He took in a ragged breath. “I was going to say embarrassing.” He looked down at his cock, still in his hand. “We’re like fucking teenagers.”
    “Without the fucking.” God, she couldn’t believe how fast the flames had built between them … they hadn’t even made it to the cot, were still propping each other up. She pushed away from him and jerked up her pants, which had ridden down to her thighs. “I, uh, need a bathroom.”
    Logan didn’t meet her gaze as he began to clean himself up with a napkin from his table. “Outside to the right.”
    “Not worried I’ll run away?”
    “There’s someone outside my tent to keep an eye on you.”
    Great. That someone had probably heard everything that had gone on in here. She ducked out of the tent, and sure enough, Dax was standing there, a knowing smile on his roundish face. She flipped him off and headed for the portable toilet, but spun around when she was halfway there. She wanted her backpack and the micro-satellite phone inside. Her minute alone in the toilet would give her a chance to send Dev an update.
    Quickly, she tore back the tent’s flap, but drew up short as she entered.
    Logan was sitting on the cot. He jerked in surprise, his head whipping up to stare at her. In his hand he held a syringe, the needle poised to enter his shoulder.
    “What?” he snapped. “Never seen a diabetic before?”
    “I just … ah, I wanted my backpack.” She snagged it and ducked out of the tent, heart pounding.
    Because whatever Logan was doing in there had nothing to do with insulin.
    The substance in the horse-sized syringe was black.
    LOGAN DIDN’T GO AFTER SELA. T HERE WAS NOWHERE FOR
    HER to run to anyway, and she was smart enough not to take off into the jungle at night on her own. Besides that, Dax had been waiting outside the tent the whole time, told to not let Sela out of his sight.
    He stood and massaged the injection site—he didn’t feel pain there but the liquid tended to bubble the skin. He felt the thick, viscous substance seep into the biomechanics in his legs, his right arm, half his brain.
    And then the sting began; it always stung the parts of his body that were still human. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore it—and forget the look on Sela’s face at the same time.
    She knew damned well this wasn’t insulin and now he had a third problem, one as big as the two chupacabras.
    Sela might be a cryptozoologist, but for all he knew, she could be a spy for the government or a rival research or weapons company. She could even work for Itor, sent here to find out if he’d had success capturing the Unclass 8, which was 49

    apparently a chupacabra.
    GWC hadn’t known what it was—they knew they had something special, but they hadn’t known it had a name. And now it was running around the fucking jungle infecting innocent people.
    At times like this, he was very glad his father wasn’t close enough for Logan to fucking strangle him. Because this was bad. Really fucking horrible.
    Three years ago, under his father’s orders, GWC captured the chupacabra while on an Amazonian search for undiscovered species. A few weeks ago, when it got loose, Logan’s father informed him just how much money GWC would lose if they didn’t recapture the beast. Apparently, his father had a contract with Itor Corp, a freelance paramilitary agency.
    Logan had his own suspicions about what Itor wanted to do with the Unclass 8—after meeting it face-to-face, he was even more wary. And even though his father and Itor wanted the creature captured and brought back alive, after what happened to Chance, Logan had other plans.
    He dialed his father, who answered on the first ring.
    “Logan! Did you recapture the Unclass 8 yet?”
    He bit back a sharp reply. “No. And the SEAL survivor? Apparently, he was infected by its bite, and now he’s turning into that fucking creature.”
    When his father spoke again, he sounded shaken. “Let me call