“That’s just the tail. You can’t see mine in full unless I’m naked.” He lifted a hot green gaze and a grin to Halina. “I’m happy to drop my—”
“Ryder.” Mitch released Halina’s waist and stepped back, unable to hold contact without doing something about it. “Don’t make me kick your ass.” He touched Halina’s arm and she looked at him. “Where is yours?”
Halina hesitated, then slid her hand beneath her hair, lifting it off her neck. The scar was pale pink, barely darker than her skin, which was probably why Mitch hadn’t noticed it. The phoenix was an abstract, stylish sweep that disappeared into her hairline. Its tail flared across the base of her neck. And Mitch had a sudden, insane need to trace it with his tongue.
Kai passed on his way to the kitchen with an empty glass and paused to glance at her scar. “Mmm, sexy.” He flashed a smile at Halina. “I’ll show you mine later.”
“Not if you’re dead,” Mitch muttered, earning another grin from Kai.
“So,” Kai said, continuing to the kitchen and setting the glass on the counter before wandering back toward the massive windows. “Do you travel? Like Quaid does?”
Halina tossed her hands in the air. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Teleporting.” Quaid pinned his gaze on Halina again. “Your energy is . . . spilling . . . out of you.”
“My . . . what?”
“Your energy. You’ve got electromagnetic current screaming through your body.”
“Electromagne—what?”
“Electromagnetic current. It’s—”
“I know what electromagnetic currents are. And of course they’re in me. They’re in everyone. They’re found everywhere on earth. They come from the sun, radiation, heat, light, every living creature. We all have electromagnetic currents inside us.”
“But you have an extreme amount. The way it flowed into me when I shook your hand is the way I feel after I teleport, but times a hundred. A rush. A high. I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but the amount of energy inside you is on par with what I get crossing all the alternate planes of reality in the universe when I travel, combined.”
Everyone’s gaze turned from Quaid to Halina, like a tennis match. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.
Mitch closed a hand over her shoulder. “Come sit down, Hali.”
“I don’t want to sit down.” She dropped her arm and turned to Mitch, but she looked exhausted, her emotions raw and exposed in every expression now.
“Quaid and Mateo have already located the papers in Mitch’s old apartment,” Kai said, now standing sideways, splitting his attention between the windows and Halina. The new look on his face made Mitch’s gut tense. He was serious now. With an edgy concern darkening his eyes. “If you see the future, isn’t there a way you can see how this is going to work out? See if you get them without trouble?”
She crossed her arms and shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. I can’t just call up the future anytime I want. I can’t control when the flashes come to me or what I see.”
“Everyone here has some control over their powers even if it’s small,” Kai said. “We’ve all developed our original abilities by taking that small amount of control and building on it. You can’t think of any way you can instigate the visions?”
Mitch fisted his hands to keep them from rubbing his own tired eyes. Halina’s face flashed with color and she slid a don’t-you-dare look his way.
Which, of course, taunted him into asking, “What if she did?”
“Then I’d say she needs to try and focus on what she wants answers to,” Kai said, “then instigate her powers and see what kind of visions come. It’ll probably take some practice.”
Mitch could practically feel Halina’s heat. It matched his own—only hers came from anger; Mitch’s came from sexual need.
“Intention,” Quaid said. “With all that electromagnetic power rolling around inside you, Halina, you need to be focusing your mind on your intention. If your intention is to see the outcome of your trip to Washington with Mitch, that’s where your focus should be while you’re calling up your power.”
She rubbed her face with both hands. “I need some air.”
Mitch caught her arm. “Halina, it’s twenty degrees outside and it’s snowing.”
She glanced out the window, where a light sprinkle of flakes dusted the sky. “That’s why jackets were invented.”
“No.” The command in Kai’s voice caught Mitch off guard. “No one’s going outside.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket, hit one button, and said, “Send a few guys to check the tree line on the west side of the meadow.”
Halina stepped closer to Mitch. He loved the way her fingers tightened around his arm. He slid it further around her waist, pulling her close.
“What is it?” Mitch asked.
The room had gone quiet and tense. Everyone serious. Keira and Luke both held weapons in their hands now. Cash got up from the floor and moved into the kitchen, unlocking a cabinet over the refrigerator. He pulled out two more weapons, handed one to Kai.
“Don’t know exactly.” Kai shot a look at Halina and all signs of his earlier teasing were gone. “Get with Quaid and figure this out, Halina. You may not have another chance.”
Owen checked the tuck of his uniform shirt in the window’s reflection, then ran his hands through his hair, which was too long and probably a freaking mess.
“Why didn’t I wear a suit today?” he muttered before taking a breath and opening his office door.
He started down the short hall toward his secretary’s desk and stopped in three steps. Seville was standing directly in his line of sight, hands clasped behind her back, face tilted up as she studied the photographs Stephanie had framed and used to decorate the office.
Seville wore a long, straight navy blue skirt with a slit up the side, a long-sleeved translucent cream blouse that showed a lace camisole beneath, and sexy navy heels, one of which was tilted on its spike, her foot twisting back and forth as she smiled at the images on the wall.
The way she held her arms pushed her breasts against the fabric of her top. In profile, her skirt showed off a flat belly and trim backside. And with her head tipped back like that, her long, thick dark hair fell past the middle of her spine.
“Are you going to stand there and stare?” she asked, never looking away from the photos, her familiar smoky voice rich with a smile. “Or are you going to say hello?”
Heat cascaded through his chest and pooled between his legs. He’d forgotten how much he loved that voice. “Uh . . . staring works for me . . .”
She turned her head, grinned at full throttle, dark eyes twinkling with mischief. That he’d forgotten too.
Slowly, she let her body follow, turning toward him. And, oh, holy hell . . .
“You look . . .” He scanned her, head to painted toe and back, delighting in the glimpse of those white teeth in her smile. He put his hands on his hips, knew he was grinning like a complete idiot, but couldn’t stop. “Wow.”
She twisted to grab a briefcase and a blazer on a chair and started toward him. And, whoa, he didn’t remember that walk either. She paused within six inches, grinning up at him. A dazzlingly white grin against warm Mediterranean skin. So many long-repressed wants churned up inside him. Wants that had developed in those years after the end of his very early relationship with Jocelyn decades ago and before he’d met Libby. Long-ago wants never acted upon because of all those damned military rules.
“Am I drooling?” he asked.
She laughed. The sound was so . . . happy. Almost like a kid in the joy, but there was definitely a full-fledged woman in its edge of heat. “Am I? How do you manage to get sexier every time I see you?”