Bullet to the Heart (14 page)

It was bizarre, and he didn’t understand it, but there was no use dwelling on it. He could control his body, but his rage may cause her to do something he’d regret. He needed Joseph. She was the key to making that happen.

He entered the kitchen and found her making coffee. “Thought you said you were hungry,” he said.

“I am. But I can’t drink that stuff you call tea. It’s insanely sweet. I’ll have to make do with coffee. Water is tasteless and um. . ." she quirked her lips, “not my favorite thing to drink. So coffee, it is.”

“Carmelita made a shepherd’s pie, and it should be done in a few. Think you can answer some questions for me?” He was willing to tread lightly and though it galled him to ask, he’d known for a while now he’d get more flies with honey.

She shrugged and sat down at the table. “Depends on the questions.”

“Of course it does,” he said sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes and waved a hand. “Go ahead, ask away.”

“Where are you from?”

She stood up, walked out of the kitchen, and headed to the stairs.

“Hey! You said ‘ask away,’” he reminded her as he rushed after her.

She glanced at him and said, “You just don’t give up, do you?”

“Not when it’s something I really want.” There was an edge to his words even he wondered at.

She shook her head, long red braid flowing over her shoulder. “I do not want to discuss me, Mr.—Rand.”

“I understand, but I have to know a little about you.”

Her gaze was brittle, and anger flushed her cheeks. “You don’t have to know a fucking thing about me, Mr. Beckett, to know that I’ll hand The Collective to you on a silver platter. Our objective when it comes to that entity is the same: destruction. Other than that, any tell-me-about-yourself questions should end.” She snapped the words, and they flew between them like barbed arrows.

“It’s Rand,” he said lightly.

“What?”

“My name is Rand. You agreed to use it,” he reminded her, keeping his tone easy, non-threatening.

She snorted. “I don’t understand you,” she spit out. She came toward him, glorious in her sudden pique. “What happened to the hard-ass who put me in the water pit? Where is the man who thought I killed his precious wife and daughter?”

Rage bled off her words. It took him aback. Something was there, and it resonated within a part of him that couldn’t let it go.

Rand held his hands up, palms outward. “We’ll share information, then.”

Her jaw dropped as a strangled sound emanated from her throat. “I don’t fucking want to share information with you. I want to do what I set out to do and end this!”

Her face went white, and for a moment, Rand thought she’d explode with fury. “What is
this
, Bullet?”

He was dying to know her name. The flavor of Bullet rolling of his tongue was acidic . . . wrong.

She turned away from him, hands on her hips, shoulders set in taut lines. Her figure was hidden pretty well by the sweats and T-shirt, but he knew the curves under the material. He shouldn’t, but he did.

He walked and stopped within a few feet of her. “What did you set out to do?”

“Don’t do this to me.” Her voice was soft, filled with, oh holy shit, her voice was filled with
pain
.

He wanted to soothe, while at the same time destroy anything that had ever harmed her. Insanity, but there it was.

He reached for her and she pulled away. “Don’t do this to me,” she said again.

Rand hardened himself against the plea in her words. “Tell me then. What did you set out to do?”

She drew in a deep breath and turned back around, spearing him with a look from dulled blue eyes. “I set out to kill, Mr. Beckett. It’s what I was bred to do. I eliminate targets. I put holes in people that can’t be plugged up. I’m a—what did you call me? A murderer. A
killer
.”

Her pain sliced at him, drew welts on his soul. A soul he’d long thought incapable of feeling at all.

“Have I lied?” he asked, then wished he hadn’t.

She went cold. Ice fucking cold. It seemed every hint of heat had been sucked out of the room. The change devastated him so that he rubbed his chest before he could check the action. He liked her heat, her rage.

But this frigidity he couldn’t handle. Her eyes were blank, face lax, breathing even.

“No, you haven’t lied. You’ve told exactly the truth. Therefore, let’s keep our communication as limited as possible. When it’s time, I’ll give you what you need to have your revenge. But tell me, does that keep you warm at night?” She cocked her head and continued to simply stare at him.

“I didn’t mean—” he began, and then cut it off, unsure what he’d been about to say.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she whipped out between clenched teeth.

“Look, you’ve got to know that—”

She raised a hand, cutting off his words. “I know all I need to know. And you’re right,” she said as she stepped closer to him, going on tiptoe and getting in his face. “I am a killer. There’s no use denying what you’ve seen with your own eyes. But all these questions you keep asking mean nothing to your end goal. So stop asking them, Mr. Beckett. I will neither answer them, nor will it engender your cause to me. Revenge is a wonderful emotion. I’ve reveled in the thought of it for long years. And yet, ultimately, it is a vacant feeling, empty and cold. And when it’s all said and done, I’d rather not have to drag your dead body behind me as I struggle to enact mine,
oui
?”

He grabbed her by the upper arm, loosening his hold when she grimaced. He lowered his head. It seemed he was always in this woman’s face, crowding her space. It was an ineffectual tool, though, as it never threw her off.

Her warm skin was at odds with her tone. Her full lips drew him, and his mouth watered for another taste. “I’ll walk beside you; you’ll not have to drag my ass anywhere. And Bullet? You will tell me. Sooner or later, you’ll answer every question I have. It’s inevitable,” he finished, and then he grabbed her head, fingers tangling in the fire-kissed tresses and took her mouth with his.

Volatile and potent, what flared between them didn’t have a name. It surpassed everything in his experience. The control he thought he had of his body was a vapor on the wind of his lust. He tried to reach deep, grab hold of it, but was left with ashes as she burned him from the inside out.

She lifted a hand, tried to push her fingers between their mouths. He grabbed that hand and put it behind her back. She hissed in a breath, said something he crushed beneath his lips. He wanted. And he would damn well have this moment.

She was fey and delicate. Need poured through him, straight desire to bend her to his will. Strap her down and tunnel into her soul, leave a mark she could never erase. Thoughts came at him quickly, the craving to possess her untamed in that moment.

Her lips finally, God in heaven,
finally
acquiesced, softened, and the battle of wills became a new skirmish—one of need. Her fingers wound in the hair at his nape and tugged. Heat settled in his groin. He stroked from her face all the way down to her hips, which he lifted into his hands. She automatically wrapped her legs around his waist and groaned.

It was a beautiful sound, full of all the things he wanted to hear from her. He never released her lips, licking along her tongue and the inside of her mouth. She bit down lightly and he pushed into the V of her legs, grinding against her mound.

The wall was right there, and he moved until her back met it, giving her leverage to push back against his hard cock. The denim he wore was a constriction, though he was loathe to release her long enough to free himself.

But he wanted in. Desperately. Her legs were strong, squeezing him, demanding deeper contact. His eyes crossed as she rolled her hips, and he lost his breath.

Lost his mind.

If she kept it up, he’d fuck her against the wall, killer be damned.

This was bad. So very bad, but unstoppable. He did things to her she’d never known possible, and if he kept it up she’d let him fuck her where they stood. In the hall. Against this wall.

His large hands delved into the waistband of her sweats, bypassed her underwear, and ended up on the bare flesh of her ass. So much warmth, such an overwhelming feeling. Every callus on his fingers, each clench of his hand, sent tremors through her abdomen.

“Please,” she whispered, and had no idea what she was pleading for.

In answer he spread her cheeks and settled his hardness in the notch he’d created. His action caused lightning to zing to her clit. She squeezed him with her legs even as she pulled his hair.

He moaned and pressed into her harder, lifting her higher on the wall. He settled her against the leg he’d wedged between hers and moved his hands from her ass to her shirt, lifting the cotton and exposing her breasts. The kiss broke then, and she was left gazing up at him, chest heaving as desire blazed inside her.

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. Their indigo depths were hot. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and never in her life had seen lust on a man’s face like what flashed across his.

“Goddamn, you’re lovely,” he said reverently and reached to touch a fingertip to her nipple.

It furled tighter at his touch. He lowered his head as he continued to stare in her eyes, watching her so closely she almost couldn’t bear it. Then he flicked his tongue over her flesh.

This man would be the one who broke her.

The knowledge stopped the breath in her lungs, and everything that had been warm was left cold. He moved in again to nuzzle and lick, and she pushed desperately at his shoulder.

“No,” she said with an almost silent sigh.

He must have noticed her frantic movements because he pulled away enough for her disengage and sidle away from him.

She had to close her eyes at the sight of the hard ridge in his jeans. His face was ruddy, black hair mussed from her hands, eyes narrowed at the interruption. He was a huge man, heavily muscled, and filled every need she’d ever had. But he was not for her. She was for no one.

“I can’t do this with you,” she whispered, breath breaking in her chest.

His gaze lowered to her chest, and she felt the cool air whisper over her heated flesh. She hurriedly lowered her top, unable to stop her eyes from dropping as the soft cotton rubbed over her distended nipples. When she looked back up, he was within inches of her.

She stepped back and he stepped forward. A dangerous game because though every instinct screamed at her to run, all she wanted to do was step
into
him.

He didn’t say anything as he fisted his hand into her shirt and pulled her forward. He leaned down until they were nose to nose.

“Stop it,” she demanded, though it came out wimpy and breathy.

Remi had never sounded breathy. Ever.

“Make. Me.”

“Let me go, Mr. Beckett.” Her voice was stronger now, though still with an edge of desperation she didn’t care for. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He barked out a laugh at that, and anger curled through her gut. Or maybe it was lust. It was hard to tell with his heat and scent all around her.

Long moments passed, and he cocked his head, all traces of lust vanishing. “The fact that you’re alive at all hurts me.”

Her heart shriveled in her chest. She looked down, wondering for a crazy second if he’d drawn blood with his words. She straightened her spine and then shot out her right hand to grab the one that held her, breaking his hold.

Something shifted over his face, some mysterious emotion that looked like regret, but she knew for sure it was not. He’d reached inside her and pulled out the weakest part, forced it to the light, and then he’d stomped on it.

Arrow, Blade, and Bone would mock her for the weakness she’d just displayed. Her body was a tool, and it’d just been used against her. She took stock of her wounds, named them all in an instant, and locked them away.

“Then we are of an accord, Mr. Beckett, and you will ask me no more questions.” She struggled to maintain the coldness, but managed. Remi tossed her head back, looked him in the eyes, and said, “I’ll help you get The Collective. Do not touch me ever again.”

He stepped back then, and she walked around him, up the stairs, and to her room. There were cracks in her foundation she needed to repair. She needed to bleed off some of this rage. After a few minutes of trying to calm down, she gave up and made her way to the workout room.

She was her toughest taskmaster, but she’d discovered a worrisome fact. Joseph had nothing on Rand Beckett.

What the fuck had he done? Rand pushed a hand through his hair and looked at the ceiling. There were no answers to be found there. The scent of her skin lingered, in his nostrils, in his mouth, on his skin.

She was a temptation to everything he’d buried deep. He couldn’t let that happen again. He walked back to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of Scotch. He poured a snifter and downed it, and then poured another and did the same.

And still she lingered on him . . . inside him. It was crazy how quickly she ramped up the man he’d hidden away seven years ago. His love for Lily had been sweet, lingering, and dedicated. What the woman upstairs did to him was unnamable.