Taming the Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

asshole. Asshole.” The man turned to walk away but Dev yanked him around and shoved him against one of the Colonial-style columns that flanked his front door.
    “I'm not just some guy who works at ACRO. I'm your fucking boss.”
    “I'm supposed to be impressed by that?” The younger man's nostrils flared slightly—it wasn't because he was intimidated by Dev's title, though. This guy wasn't used to being threatened, not with physical force, and he seemed about to retaliate with his own.
    “You're supposed to show some goddamned respect. I'm assuming that you came here for a job.”
    “Look, I just want to get some sleep. I didn't ask to be here—I was recruited by a few of your people. Against my will. So now I'm here and I've got no place to sleep and what the hell do you want me to do?”
    Dev knew exactly what he wanted the cocky boy to do… and there was no point in denying it anymore. But it wasn't going to happen. No way. “What's your name? Never mind, don't tell me, that's not important. Wait here—someone's coming to take you to the trainee quarters.”
    He finally slammed the door in the young man's face and let his body sink to the ground on the other side.
    T RANCE HADN'T SLEPT well—hadn't slept at all really, merely tossed and turned and stared at the ceiling. He could still feel the light scrape of the leather bindings on his wrists, even though he'd been long released, felt the pulsing pressure of the leather wrapped around the base of his cock.
    He'd had to get himself off three times last night after he'd sent Rik safely away in a cab. Would've followed her all the way home too, but she'd have sensed that, and he couldn't afford to blow things now.
    He was lucky as hell she'd agreed to see him a second time.
    Still, he was going to wear his leather pants tonight. Didn't give a shit that he was supposed to be the pretty little unassuming submissive—Rik already knew he wasn't pretty or unassuming, and after last night, he was done playing around.
    Kira understood Rik, maybe better than the woman understood herself. And while Trance had asked his boss to allow Kira to come along with him on the trip, Devlin had refused.
    “She'd probably sense me.” Kira agreed with Dev, told Trance so the second she'd opened the door of her house last month. “I would spook her and then she'd be lost. I could talk to her, woman to woman, but until we know if the animal inside can communicate when she's in human form… well, I just can't deal with her the way you'll be able to.”
    With Trance's excedo powers and better-than-average vision, he could bend a person's will. He was a sideshow hypnosis freak of nature who had to be careful of his own powers because he believed wholly in free will, never wanted to convince people to do things his way just because.
    Occasionally, in his former life as an MP, it had come in handy, but honestly, it helped the prisoners more. He'd rather stop them with his mind than have to subdue the men physically.
    “You're going to have to let her be the alpha for a while. That's the best way to gain her trust,” Kira had lectured him, while her husband, fellow ACRO agent and excedo, Ender, unsuccessfully tried to hold back a laugh.
    Unfortunately, Ender didn't try all that hard. “Dude, you're going to have to be the submissive. You, the big bad leather daddy again.”
    “I was never a leather daddy,” Trance said through clenched teeth as Ender doubled over at the idea, and Trance mentally cursed the day he ever fucking agreed to this assignment.
    He also wondered when in the hell Ender got a fucking sense of humor, because last time he'd looked, the asshole seriously lacked one.
    “Tommy, stop.” Kira pushed at her husband's chest. “Go—now.”
    To Trance's surprise, Ender did what she asked. Probably because he was laughing too hard to contribute anything more to the conversation.
    Kira had shaken her head before turning back to Trance.
    “Listen, Rik needs to feel in