Tempting Evil (Riley Jenson Guardian 3)

He glanced at me. My infrared vision made his eyes glow strangely, but even so, amusement was very evident. This man might be attracted, but he wasn't about to be distracted. Damn.

"There's another guard in security. He'd tell."

"And here I was thinking grown men were above being tattletales."

"He values his life, just like I do."

"What if he joined in the fun? He could hardly tattle if he's guilty of the same crime."

The amusement got stronger, touching his lips. But for the first time, excitement spun through the air.

"I don't think Mr. Merle would be too pleased if we did his lady."

My snort was derogatory. "I may be his latest fuck, but I'm not his lady."

He grinned. "You sound like a woman not being satisfied."

I arched an eyebrow, and lowered my voice several notches as I said, "And are you the man who's going to relieve that problem?"

He glanced at the door ahead, then back at me, and cleared his throat. "Probably not."

Well, this was definitely a first. A naked woman throwing herself at a man, and him refusing. It looked like I was going to have to use my werewolf aura because while I could take out one well-trained, well-armed man, I wasn't sure enough of my skills to take out two. Not when I had to beat bullets as well. And given the time restraints, and the fact that even this guard was showing wariness, I just couldn't afford to play around.

We stopped at the door. The guard pressed his thumb into the scanner, keyed in a code - which I noted - then pushed the door open. The room beyond was only semi-dark, lit by a flashlight that sat on the middle desk, its bright light beaming upward and splashing across the ceiling. There was no one else in the room, but as the door clicked shut behind us, the second man came and poked his head through a doorway across the other side of the room.

"Just about to fire up the emergency generator." His gaze ran down my body and a smile tugged his lips. "You're one hell of a messenger, lady."

Though this second man wasn't as big as the first, he also wore a thin strand of wire around his neck. Obviously, in the security heart of his empire, Starr wasn't taking chances with having just the one mode of psychic protection for his men. And personal shield wires like these weren't disrupted by power blackouts. I'd have to get them oft to get the information I needed. Luckily, a wolfs aura worked on a base level rather than mental, so the wires weren't going to be a hindrance.

"The papers are on my desk, Joe. I'll just finish cleaning the generator before I start her up. The maintenance boys have been damn slack."

He disappeared again. Joe had barely taken a step when I unleashed my aura, flicking it across him like a live thing, letting the heat of it overwhelm him, until the desire to take what he wanted, what he craved, was all-consuming.

I knew what it felt like. Knew the flame of it, the way it snapped control and made you need as you have never needed, because Misha had once used his aura on me. But at least I'd had the option of negating the power of it with my own aura. I could have controlled just how much it affected me.

This man, enhanced human or not, had no such choice.

His hand shot out and thrust me hard against the wall, his lips crushing mine as he ripped at his clothes with one hand and groped wildly with the other.

I kissed him back, enjoying the taste of him, the feel of him, giving him that much as I slipped my hands up his back and around his neck. My fingers found the wire's connection. The second it was undone, I slid into his mind. When he was mine, I let my aura drop and forced him to stop. He was panting heavily, his mind dazed, confused, but not fighting. He wasn't psychic, so my hold was complete.

But the little lances of fire beginning to shoot into my brain suggested I had better not push this too far or too long. The recovery from controlling Merle was taking longer than I'd thought.

I quickly sorted through his thoughts and memories to find the information I needed. The controls to Iktar's implanted bombs were indeed here, locked in a cabinet in the main office - which I hadn't noticed but was apparently to our right. Joe didn't have the code for the cabinet. The other man, Maz, did.

That was all I could get. I made him step back, and put my hands around his neck. His neck muscles were tense under my fingertips, the beat of his pulse erratic. Killing him was just a matter of applying some pressure to the right spot, feeling his flesh and bone crack and break under my grip.

My stomach rolled.

I couldn't do it.

I just couldn't.

Jack might want me to be a killer, he might have trained me to be a killer, but killing so coldly, so matter-of-factly was a state of mind, a zone you went to. Or so Rhoan had once said. I didn't have that zone, not yet, and I'd be damned if I'd step on the path to that dark place unless I absolutely had to.

But I couldn't leave this guard as he was, memory intact, either.

Sweat trickled down my cheek as I went back into his mind and reorganized his memories. Made him remember not me, but a short, blond man with green eyes and a bulbous nose. I had no idea if such a man actually stayed here, but at least Starr would waste time looking for or interrogating him. Better than me or Rhoan. I left him remembering Merle's order for the papers - a fact Merle and his memories would strenuously deny, therefore heightening the confusion. Then I added a fight and gave him bruises to prove it with a quick one-two punch to the jaw that knocked him out cold, and threw him back to the floor.