Free Taken by Fire by Sydney Croft Page B

gotten them into this? Whatever. She needed to get them out of it. Smiling, she tweaked Stryker’s nose. “Hello, sexy. Did you miss me?”
    Stryker swatted her hand away and scooted as far as he could get from her. “Shut the fuck up and send Mel back.”
    “I don’t think so.” She propped herself against the side of the crate and studied him. He looked the same as he had in the jungle—maybe more tan. And his eyes … those funky eyes. They were harder, as if life had bent him over and railed him for months. “Tell me, did you bury your friend … or scatter his ashes?”
    “Shut. Up.”
    As if. God, she hated ACRO agents. Too many of her colleagues had died at their holier-than-thou hands, and she’d always been convinced that the earthquake that killed her mother had been caused by ACRO. Maybe not, but it was pretty damned coincidental that two Itor bodyguards assigned to keep watch over Phoebe, Mel, and their mother had died too, and yet civilians had been merely injured.
    Continuing with the taunt, she ran her hand over the inside of her thighs to her crotch. “I think about him, you know? When I’m getting myself off. I think about how he screamed—”
    Lightning fast, Stryker was on her, his forearm across her throat, his knee in her gut. She didn’t react other than to smile as he bared his teeth. “You evil fucking bitch … I want your sister back, or I swear, I’ll kill you right here, right now.”
    Phoebe feigned a frown. She was so going to mess with him, fill him with doubts about Melanie. “Sister?”
    “Yeah. Sister.” He narrowed his eyes. “She said you’re some sort of Itor experiment.”
    She widened her eyes. “Oh, right. Sister. Yes, we were an experiment. While my mom was pregnant with me, Itor radiated her, and somehow our cells broke apart, and now we’re two people.”
    “She said you were two embryos created in a petri dish.”
    She waved her hand. “Right. I forget. The radiation, you know. Messes with my head. In any case, I’m not letting her out. And you can’t see Sandy or Jill either.”
    His head whipped back, and she knew he was now running through a multiple personality scenario instead of the truth. Good. He wasn’t going to believe anything Mel said from now on.
    “Wow. She really did a number on you, didn’t she? I really hope you’ve taken everything she says with a grain of salt. She’s got this sweet, innocent act down pat.” She studied her nails. “I’ll bet she said I’m mean to her. And that she knows nothing about Itor. That she doesn’t work for them.” She rolled her eyes. “She’s the fucking best agent Itor has. So if I were you, I’d do whatever she says.” She lowered her voice to a deep, sultry whisper. “She’s even deadlier than I am.”
    A door somewhere slammed, and she reached deep for her gift. It sparked … then fizzled. Dammit!
    “What’s the matter?” Stryker’s voice was taunting. “Can’t get it up?”
    “Fuck you,” she muttered, which was funny, because that was exactly what would have to happen. She eyed him and decided that it wouldn’t be a hardship. Biting her lip, she dropped her gaze to his crotch and felt her body warm up.
    “Oh, hell no,” he growled.
    She raised her eyebrows. “You know what I need to recharge?”
    “You could say that.”
    Interesting. “Did you and Mel do the nasty?”
    “Just let her out.”
    “No,” she purred, as she trailed a finger down his thigh. “We do this, and I get us out of here.”
    He grabbed her hand, squeezed to the point of pain, and shoved it away. “I wouldn’t fuck you with someone else’s dick.”
    She laughed. “See, that’s funny. Because I’ve fucked several men who hated me. Best. Sex. Ever. Maybe not for them, but something about screwing a man who despises you is just … hot. I’ll have you. I promise.”
    “I’ve met some scum in my life,” Stryker said, “but you leave even the psychopaths in the dust. Now, if you want