Twice as Hot (Tales of an Extraordinary Girl #2)(14)
Author: Gena Showalter

Besides, hating me is not the future I see for him," she said, voice softening.

Everything inside me stilled. My lungs. My heart. My blood. Cold washed over me, ice crystallizing on my fingers and causing every flame to sizzle, die. "What do you see?" Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged.

I inhaled sharply, and another round of coughing ensued. "What the hell do you see, Lexis?" Again, she remained silent. To be cruel? I was in her face a heartbeat later, scared, angry again, coughing even harder, frost and fire battling for supremacy inside me. Wind whipped between us as I hooked my foot around her ankle and shoved. Down, down she fell. On the mat, she used her elbows to crab-walk backward, away from me.

"What the hell do you see?" The cold began to leave me, my fury eating away at it and leaving a burning trail. Jealousy was there, images of Rome and Lexis living happily ever after with Sunny flashing through my mind. A muddy fireball formed in my palm. "Tell me!"

The agents finally doused the flames in front of them and moved around us in a circle, probably meaning to close in until they rendered us completely immobile. Instead, their positions aided my cause. Lexis hit a pair of boots and stopped.

Gasping, she rolled to the side just as I tossed my bounty. It barely missed her, yellow-orange flickers crackling where she’d been, smoke billowing from the foam. The men jumped back with a collective gasp as another muddy fireball formed. I threw it, too. Again, Lexis rolled, escaping harm, causing more of the mat to hiss and the men to step farther away, widening the circle rather than closing it.

"You really want to know?" she shouted. "Fine, I’ll tell you. But you’ll wish I’d kept quiet. You’re going to continue to plan your wedding, but he’ll want nothing to do with it. Another man will court you, but Rome won’t care. Do you hear me? He won’t care! You’re going to date this other man. It’s him you’ll marry. Him. Not Rome. Him."

She was lying. She had to be lying. Anything to shred my confidence, my hope. Anything to give herself an edge. I wouldn’t, couldn’t believe otherwise. No way I’d marry any man but Rome. No way I’d love any man but Rome. "Too bad you won’t live long enough to find out if your predictions are true." I advanced toward her, stalking my prey with every intention of destroying it. I hadn’t lied to her earlier; I no longer cared about consequences.

But then, panting as I was, the black plumes still wafting from the mat enveloped me, soaked into me and filled me up, and I started coughing again. My steps slowed, then stopped altogether. As the seconds dragged by, those coughs became gut racking, shaking my entire body. Damn it! Not now. Any time but now.

While I gasped for breath, someone tackled me, tossing me to the ground and pinning me. What the – three male bodies weighed me down. I struggled and kicked and screamed.

Lexis, who was being patted on the back and asked if she were harmed, sprang for me. Through wide eyes I watched as she closed the distance, fist drawn back. One of the men dove for her, knocking her down just before she reached me. She scrambled to her knees just as I worked my way free of my own captors. Determination like ours couldn’t be contained.

Even as I coughed, a raging fireball formed in my hand. Attack me while I was unable to defend myself, would she? Try and steal my man, would she? Hurt my friend, would she? Not without paying a very dear price. I pulled my elbow back, wrist relaxing…preparing…

"Stop!" a masculine voice shouted.

Rome.

I twisted, my heart pounding, nearly cracking my ribs. He was clearly angry but all the more magnificent for it. Too bad I didn’t have time to drink him in. Lexis’s foot connected with my back and sent me flying forward. Forever I seemed to trip, the fireball falling from my hand and catching a corner of the mat in a blazing inferno.

As I righted myself, someone rushed over and saturated the flames with liquid nitrogen.

With a quick glance, I rasped, "Low blow, Lexis." I wouldn’t be foolish enough to give her my back again. But damn it. Well played, Miss Know-It-All. Well played. I should have been smart enough to do something similar to her.

She was standing, shoulders squared, expression once again smug. "There’s more where that came from."

How could I ever have trusted this woman? Even a little?

At least I’d gotten in a few good blows. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, and a bruise had already begun to form under one of her eyes. No telling what I looked like, though. Without the rush of adrenaline, without the glacial blast of fear and the conflagration of rage, my knuckles throbbed and my facial muscles ached.

"What the hell is going on?" Rome demanded.

I strode to Lexis’s side, though I remained out of striking distance, and returned my focus to him. This time, I was able to drink him in – but oh, I was sorry for it. Quite simply, he scrambled my brain. He was tall, dark, dangerous. Exotic, sensual. Mine. He was the fantasy I’d always craved, the reality I thought I’d never achieve, but had. Only to lose it.

This isn’t over.

His eyes strayed from Lexis to me, from me to Lexis. I wasn’t sure which one of us caused his pupils to dilate, his nostrils to flare. Sure signs of arousal. At one time, I would have known who that arousal was for. It would have been me, no question. He would have stalked to me, grabbed my hand and jerked me into the hallway – coworkers be damned – where he would have pinned me against the wall, unable to exist a second more without my taste in his mouth. One of his hands would have cupped my breast, and the other would have worked at my jeans.

"Out," he snapped.

Both Lexis and I jolted in response, though neither of us obeyed. We knew he wasn’t speaking to us.

"Out!" he repeated, harsher this time.

There were scampering footsteps behind us as our fellow agents fled.

When there was silence, Rome crossed his arms over his chest. "There will be no more fighting between the two of you. Understand?"

"Yes," Lexis said, clearly wanting to please him. "But I was only defending myself. She attacked me." Perhaps I should have followed her lead, should have tried to placate him. That had never been my style, though, and I wouldn’t change now. "Fuck you," I told him. "I’ll do what I want, when I want, and there’s not a thing you can do about it. You lost the chance to order me around. And besides that, she’s a heartless bitch who deserved every punch I landed. Next time I’m not going to stop until she’s unconscious."

Lexis gasped.

Rome blinked over at me, shock forming in those electric blues.

Someone whooped behind me. I turned – and it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, looking away from Rome. But I had to. Any longer and I would have run to him and jumped into his arms. He was just so familiar to me, so…necessary. More than that, shock was a look I received from him quite often. Every time I said something he didn’t expect but liked, he would blink, grab me and kiss the breath right out of me. Yes, he kissed me for a lot of different reasons.