“You won’t be able to do it.” Rome ’s voice flowed like warm honey from directly behind me.

I drew in a sharp breath and stiffened. He’d moved so silently, I hadn’t heard him approach. Now his warm exhalations caressed the back of my neck. He was so close I could feel the heat of his body seeping through my clothes.

I gulped but didn’t turn to look at him. Probably lack of courage on my part, but I chose to think of it as prudence. “If you strike me from behind,” I told him, “you’re nothing more than a coward.”

“For the last time, if I had wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already. Now, put your arms down and we’ll go into the kitchen to have our chat.”

“Hell, no.” Maybe I should have tried to run away just then. Maybe I should have turned around and kneed his balls into his throat. Oh, wait. That wasn’t a bad idea. I spun, raising my knee.

Rome gripped my shoulders, twisting me back to the window before I could do any damage. He pinned me in place. “I don’t think so. I didn’t hurt you, so you’re not going to hurt me. Understand?”

My gaze narrowed on the glass. “Why didn’t you hurt me?”

He ignored my question. “You ready to eat?”

“No, I’m ready to leave you.” At my sides, I shook my hands, increasing their blood flow. Wind, come on!

“Fine.” He sighed. “Keep trying. Failure will be good for you.” He released the pressure on my shoulders, and I was able to hold my palms out in front of me. “You’ll realize that you can’t get away from me, no matter how hard you try, and we can get down to business.”

My eyelids squeezed tightly, and I visualized what I wanted: a gusting, torrential wind. Hard, pounding. Several seconds passed as I waited for something, anything. Was a slight breeze too much to ask for? Obviously. I got zilch. Nada.

“I told you.” He tsked with his tongue.

“I hate when people say that.” Irritation swam through me. Irritation and powerlessness, frustration and humming thrums of awareness of him-which only increased my irritation. “I wouldn’t be standing here trying to blow this window to smithereens with my bare hands if it weren’t for you.”

He chuckled, a tender purr at odds with everything I’d come to think about him. “Stubborn,” he said.

“Determined.” How dare he laugh at me? Tendrils of fury began to replace my other emotions, burning them away.

“Look, I’ve been threatened, taken against my will to an unfamiliar apartment and infected with some sort of formula. And there’s no end in sight! I’ll try to escape if I damn well-” My fingers caught fire and I screamed.

“Wonderful,” he said drily.

“I’m on fire. I’m on fire!” Panicked, I waved my hands through the air. The flames only intensified. If I hadn’t already been convinced I had powers, I would have believed it then.

Rome sighed. “Stop wiggling and take stock. Does it burn you?”

His words penetrated my mind, and I stilled. The panic receded (slightly), as did the flames. The dying fire produced heat on my skin, I realized, but somehow not enough to burn me. “No,” I said, shocked.

He reached around me, running his fingers down my arms to my now-extinguished hands, then tracing a fingertip over each nail bed. A delicious shiver stole over me, warm and erotic, enough to lick tiny embers of sensation over my skin. Hot, like the flames. Maybe hotter.

“You’re a menace to yourself, not to mention the rest of the world. No wonder the paras want you.”

“Excuse me. The what-a’s?”

“The paras. Para-agencies.” When I made no reply, he added, “Agencies that deal with the paranormal, like PSI.”

“Whatever. Those agencies can go to hell,” I said, returning my attention to my hands. There were no burn marks, not a hint of redness. What struck me most, though, was how delicate they appeared next to Rome ’s. While mine were slender and olive-toned, his were thick and strong. A lovely tawny color. My nails were a little scraggly-I hadn’t had the time (or inclination) to file them lately. His were perfectly buffed, obviously well maintained. Scars laced his palms.

“How did I start that fire?” I asked. “That was-that was… ”

“Dangerous.” He let out another sigh. “You’re going to be more trouble than I anticipated.”

“You don’t know how I did it either, do you?” I felt like crying. “I set my fingers on fire, damn it. I don’t want to do that ever again. Not ever!”

“But you will. You’ll do worse before the day is out, I’m sure. These new abilities have already found their place in your chemical makeup. They’ve already changed you. While you slept, they were erratic and uncontrollable.” His words were whisper-soft, a caress that traveled along my spine. “Now… ”

“Now?” I prompted, my stomach twisting painfully.

“Now you must wield them, not they you. You must dominate them or they will consume you.”

I tried to turn and look at him, but he stopped me by resting his chin on top of my head. Fine. He didn’t want me to move, I wouldn’t move. “How do you know they’ll consume me?” I asked, remaining in place.

“Maybe I’ve been where you are.”

My mouth fell open, and I instinctively tried to glance at him again. He applied more pressure to my head, keeping me immobile. “You can control the four elements, too?”

“No.” He didn’t elaborate.

I bit the inside of my cheek at such a cryptic nonanswer. He’d been where I was, yet he hadn’t experienced the same thing. How? Why? I despised this puzzle; I needed answers. Rome was the only person I knew who understood what was happening to me. And so, unfortunately, this government agent who’d threatened to neutralize me was also my only link to sanity. And I didn’t even know his last name.

“Help me understand, Rome. Please.”

No response.

Tears gathered in my eyes as wave after wave of helplessness bombarded me. “I won’t let you kill me, and I won’t let you take me to a lab. I didn’t ask for this to happen to me.”

“But it did happen.” His fingers became steel shackles on my wrists. “And just so you know, I didn’t keep you alive-” He cut himself off. “I didn’t keep you alive to watch you escape.” A note of warning dripped from his voice.

Before I had time to act, before I had time to protest, he had my arms anchored behind my back, wrists tied together. The cord he bound me with was cool and firm, unyielding-and foreshadowed malevolence.

My heart slammed against my ribs. “Let me go! What are you doing?”

He gripped my shoulders and whipped me around, finally letting me see his face. His gaze pierced me with a fierceness that somehow managed to shock, frighten and rock me all at once. It darted over me, hungry, reading me, perhaps, before it went flat again, the light in it suppressed as quickly as it had flared.

“Your five minutes are up.”

CHAPTER SIX

FASTER THAN I COULD OFFER up a prayer of “strike this bastard dead” I was trussed up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey and tossed over Rome ’s shoulder. While he had me in such an undignified position, he tied my ankles with the rest of the cord.

“Put me down this instant!” I shouted, attempting to knee him in his midsection.

“Stop wiggling.” He purposefully bounced me on his shoulder, cutting off my air when my stomach hit the sharp edge of his collarbone.

When I could breathe again, I muttered, “You’re squashing my kidneys and my pancreas! Do you know how dangerous that is? Put me down before I sink into a coma.”

“If you can point to exactly where your pancreas is located, I’ll do as you so sweetly asked.”

“It’s-oh! Damn you. Put me down right now. I do not want my face in your ass.”

He chuckled, that deep, seductive sound all the more potent because this time it held rusty layers of disuse, as if he didn’t allow true humor in his life very often.

Keeping his stride smooth and easy so I didn’t bounce on his shoulder again, he sailed down the short hallway and into the kitchen. He plopped me onto a bar stool. Without the use of my hands, I teetered precariously and almost tumbled to the floral linoleum.