Read Storm Kissed for Free Online

all held themselves at the ready, their body language saying they knew how to fight and would do it at a split second’s notice.
    There were a few exceptions: Two of the women, one blond, one dark, were closer to average size, while a third—coppery dark hair, maybe a few years older than the others—sat at a table, staring vacantly, with a funny half smile on her lips. Beside her sat one of the men; he was huge and muscled like the others, but had his left leg strapped into a high-tech brace and propped on a chair. A pair of crutches leaned on the wall behind him.
    None of those details changed the overall impression of deadly competence, though. Not one iota.
    Reese’s instincts checked in, making sure she was aware that she might, in fact, be an idiot. Suddenly, accepting the anonymous invite south of the border seemed less like a welcome getaway and more like a dumb idea.
    Her new, more cautious self said she should do a vanishing act. But at the same time, another part of her—a trusted part—said that she should stay put. Because what if these guys were trying to locate someone worth saving? She’d seen it before. Hell, she’d been it before.
    You can’t help everyone , she reminded herself. But instead of doing a Casper and ghosting it, she hitched her small black carryall a little higher on her shoulder and checked out the setup.
    The reception area was an open-air stone patio surrounded by a high, vine-covered fence. An overhead latticework hung with a gazillion fairy lights failed to disguise the fact that the hotel was smack in the middle of a bunch of other high-rises. There was only one door, which didn’t compute, and not just because she was big on backup exits. In her experience, groups like this didn’t let themselves get boxed in. Which meant they had another way out . . . Unless she’d misread them? She didn’t think so. Even while doing the civilized wedding-brunch thing, they practically screamed “paramilitary.” Or maybe something official, with an acronym most people wouldn’t recognize.
    She should walk away. Call Fallon. Let the pros handle things.
    That common sense sounded awfully thin inside her, though, because the pattern didn’t make any sense. When that happened, she got real curious—and, according to some people, stupidly brave. But some people weren’t there right then, and they didn’t run her life; she did.
    So, glad she had stopped at a pawnshop to buy a decent .38 a mile or so past the airport, she stepped out of the shadows and into the doorway, pasted a pleasant expression on her face, and said, “Excuse me?”
    Within seconds, every one of them had marked her, eyes flicking to her and then to each other, and there was a subtle shift in the room as some jackets got twitched aside, other bodies got out of the line of fire. The smaller six faded into the background with the exception of the soldier-type, who stepped in front of his girlfriend with an expression of “you want a piece of her, you’re coming through me.” A couple of the others looked over at the table, then away when the guy with the bad leg got big and capable-looking all of a sudden, and a dark-haired woman coasted over to join him.
    Nobody drew down, though. They just waited, staring at Reese with an intensity that gave her a funny little skin-quiver, as though she had walked too close to a transformer.
    Pulse upshifting, she held out her empty hands. “I’m not looking for trouble. I was invited.” Sort of.
    A pretty blue-eyed blonde off on one side glanced at the brown-haired man beside her. “We didn’t invite you.”
    Okay. Bride and groom weren’t the prospective clients. Didn’t look like newlyweds, either; the rings weren’t new, and they came across like a solid team. Were they renewing their vows, maybe? Or was this whole thing a setup? Reese didn’t know, but she wasn’t moving away from the door until she did.
    “I invited her,” said a big guy on the other side of the