Twice as Hot (Tales of an Extraordinary Girl #2)(18)

"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.

"Hello, everyone." Grinning, Cody leaned a muscled shoulder against the door frame, so beautiful he could have been a painting come to life. Hell, in this supernatural world of ours, I wouldn't doubt if that were the case. "Hello, gorgeous," he added, gaze on me.

My brow puckered in confusion. Was he talking to me? Surely not. He'd never spoken to me like that before. The only women Cody wouldn't seduce were those that belonged to his friends or those who were looking to get married. I was both, so I was definitely off-limits.

Or had been, I thought sadly. This sucked.

"I need a moment with the women," Rome said stiffly.

"Well, I need a moment with Belle."

"No."

Cody laughed now. "So you're saying you're her man? If that's the case, I'll leave." Rome's jaw clenched. He remained silent.

"Fine, then. You're no longer her man," Cody said, "so you can't speak for her anymore. Not that you could have before," he added with another laugh.

"Get lost," Rome retorted.

"I believe the little lady told you to f*ck yourself. Rather than tell you the same, I'll just ask Belle what she'd prefer to do. Stay here and receive a lecture about giving naughty girls the spankings they deserve, or come with me and have fun."

My head lashed back and forth between them as they spoke. Rome bared his extra-sharp teeth in a scowl, but Cody never lost his grin. These two men were friends, colleagues, yet here they were, locked in some sort of tug-of-war. Not over me, but over power. Surely. Why?

"Miss Jamison...Belle," Rome said, and hearing my name on his lips was heaven. Nearly my undoing.

"Tell Cody you want to stay. We need to talk."

Giving in to him now would have undermined my take-no-crap stance. Besides, as Cody predicted, he probably wanted to yell at me for hurting his previous and future wife. Ugh. No way. I'd seriously vomit.