by Lea Griffith
Logically, she knew this was wrong, outside of her intended plans, but when she’d seen Mother lying there, so still and pale against the dark marble of Rand’s foyer, something in Remi had ripped open.
“Bayu-bey. . ." she whispered as she settled on roof of the tiny cottage and popped up the scope on her rifle. “I see you. . ."
Her palms itched, fingers twitching with every heartbeat. Her head pounded, and the muscles of her right shoulder cramped, but she bit her lip and centered her thoughts. Inside the house, Hobbs’ oversized girth moved in the kitchen. The moron didn’t even have bullet-proof glass, a true testament to his feelings of invincibility.
Had Joseph not warned the man? Walking around freely in front of windows was just begging for one of Remi’s bullets. She slid one out of her pocket, the sounds of the night building in her ears. Mother’s tiny, beautiful face marred by a single bleeding hole in her forehead flashed across Remi’s mind, so it was Bullet who loaded the cartridge into her sniper rifle, and it was Bullet who took aim.
The wind stirred at her nape. He was there. She didn’t turn, everything focused inward. Black crept on the edge of her vision, insistent and demanding. Her muscles relaxed, and her vision constricted within the field of the scope. Hobbs pranced around his kitchen, lips moving. The strains of a song flowed from the house, a tune Bullet neither recognized, nor was concerned with.
Mother was dead. A bullet to the forehead in a manner only Minton had ever been responsible for, slightly off-center. He’d never been able to hit a target directly. He’d killed Rand’s Lily and Anna that way, bullet skewed slightly to the right.
Mother, Mother, Mother . . . broken.
“Don’t do it, Gretchen.” His voice was a wave crashing against the pounding need for vengeance. For a second the blackness of her rage parted, allowed in a glimmer of frosty light.
“You will never learn, will you, Rand,” she sneered.
His hand stroked her hair, dove into the heavy tresses as he gripped her head. “What, Gretchen? What will I never learn?”
She closed her eyes, his touch taking every desire to kill from her. Then sharp and rending, it bit back into her mind, the rage more potent, more volatile than anything she’d ever felt.
She allowed herself another few moments of his touch, and then she jerked her head from his grasp and focused on Hobbs.
“He kills them all—all the little ones. The weak and infirm. He breaks them until there is nothing left. I will not allow her killer to go free. Hobbs ordered his men there, Joseph sent Mother as a message to me. Me, Mr. Beckett. Perhaps—” she glanced at him beside her, wished she hadn’t. “Perhaps I should turn the gun on myself? Maybe I am to blame more than any other. So much life wasted, Mr. Beckett. She was twelve. A caretaker, a mother to the young ones.”
He stroked her cheek, taking the moisture that had fallen before she’d been able to check it. “Don’t cry, Gretchen, not here in this place.”
She hung her head. “You will never learn, Mr. Beckett, that I am Bullet. Only ever Bullet. Gretchen died on a mountain in Arequipa twenty-two years ago, and in her place I was born.”
He refused to relinquish her gaze. Her heart hurt. “She’s still there, inside you. That’s who I made love to earlier. Gretchen. Bullet wasn’t present in that bed.”
She smirked, fire racing through her veins at the memory of his body on, in and over hers. “No, Mr. Beckett. You fucked Bullet. Bullet is all you will ever have because there is no more.”
She hardened herself against him in that second. Nothing would deter her. Rand Beckett was a mistake . . . holding him deep in her body, sharing emotions and breaths, the worst mistakes she’d ever made. The memory of it would carry her to death, but it would haunt her every waking step.
She put her eye back to the scope and was surprised to hear a vehicle pull onto the property. A short, portly man exited a blacked-out SUV and walked directly into the residence. Hobbs seemed surprised when the man walked into his kitchen and leveled a gun at his forehead.
“Goddamn it, who is that?” Rand questioned in a furious whisper.
Bullet never pulled her eye from the scope, blood flowing sluggishly through her body, pulling in from her extremities as a very visceral reaction to the man who now stood in front of her target. It would be so fucking easy . . .
Slightly off-center to the right, Randolph Minton popped Griffin Hobbs, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in the forehead, and then calmly wiped blood spatter from his face with a pristine white handkerchief. Hobbs fell lifelessly to the ground, and Bullet tracked Minton with her scope.
She never made a shot she wasn’t assured of. Minton remained in the shadows until he stepped onto the porch and looked up directly at her. He smiled. Remi’s finger tightened on the trigger but she hesitated.
A shot rang out, pinging off the roof in front of her, and she rolled.
“Get down!” Rand yelled, and returned fire in the direction the shot had come from.
The SUV’s door closed and tires squealed as Minton left as quickly as he’d pulled in.
Remi settled, put the scope to her eye, found that shadow of blackness on the roof of the enormous house across from her, and made a kill shot.
“Two more,” she spit out as she shimmied off the roof and made her way to the woods. She fell to the ground, rolled into a tiny depression behind a tree, and readied herself.
“Six o’clock, Bullet, six o’clock. . ." she murmured.
Rand fell in beside her and said, “One at two o’clock. I think I have a shot, do you have the other one?”
She didn’t respond, just took a shot and looked at him. “Kill.”
He fired at her two o’clock, glanced at her and replied, “Kill. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
He made to help her up, but she was already running deeper into the woods.
“Where’re you going?” he called out.
“People are coming, Rand Beckett. You better follow me,” she called back.
It took about thirty minutes to make it back to where she’d hidden his Jaguar. The sound of sirens wailed in the near distance. She slid into the passenger seat, watched with dazed amusement as he cursed and moved the driver’s seat back, and then put the car in gear and hauled ass away from Hobbs’ house.
“Why didn’t you take the shot?”
The question she’d been dreading and known he’d ask. Damn it.
“Minton isn’t mine to kill.” She took a deep breath, wondered why she didn’t panic when she divulged that information.
“Whose is he?”
His voice never failed to move her. It rippled through her body like a tsunami wave of heat and light. Picked her up and rearranged everything inside her, burning her even as it tore her asunder. Left feeling shaken, she craved hearing it and feared that response more than any other.
She would leave him. One way or the other, she would have no choice. Once Joseph was nothing but a memory, Remi’s life would change. She would never be able to have a normal life. People would forever hunt her, attempting to enact retribution for the loss of their lovers, spouses, fathers and sons.
She laid her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “He is Bone’s to kill.”
“Who’s Bone?”
“Nobody to you, Mr. Beckett.” She sighed.
Each life she took weighed on her. No matter that the ones in the woods had been seeking to end hers, it was life, and she’d not created it, therefore had always wondered at her ability to take it.
The feeling of death was nothing new. It smoldered in her bones, ravaged her blood, and tasted sickly sweet sometimes, but it was never easy.
“Who are you, Bullet?” Again, she had a physical reaction to his voice. Nipples peaking, legs easing apart slightly, lower body going boneless as liquid heat flowed through her abdomen.
“Je ne suis personne.” Truth. She was nobody.
He sighed now. “You will not give me anything, Gretchen. I
cannot help you if I don’t know what, hell why, you’re fighting.”
“I am not Gretchen. My name is Bullet. Use it.” Hard demand layered with the coldness of her anger at him for using that name.
“You are both, I think. Gretchen and Bullet. A complete mix of the two. Tell me, Bullet, why didn’t you kill me in Seattle?” Command rode the undercurrents of his voice now.
She softened even more and cursed herself for it. What would it be like to lie with him again? She’d never known the depth of their connection, that elemental bonding of one person’s body with hers. It had been joyous on a scale she’d never dared hope for. He had worked her body so effortlessly. A masterful lover, a beautiful man, but he would never be hers.
“You were my target, Mr. Beckett. But I never kill good men,” she whispered in the silence of the car. “You were the beginning for me on this path to redemption.”
“You aren’t responsible for my family, Gret—Bullet. I know you didn’t kill them, and you haven’t killed me or Ken. In fact, every chance you’ve gotten, you been nothing but protective of us. Why me?” Deep, dark, and so warm she wanted to sink into him. Goddamn his voice.
She turned her head and gazed at him. He slowly brought the car to a halt in the middle of the deserted roadway. She took a deep breath. She would give him this, but nothing more. She gasped and brought her hand to her chest, pain slicing into her, making her eyes water. Remi had already given him the biggest part, a part she’d thought long gone.
Her heart.
“I’ll tell you what I dare, but not here. I need time, Mr. Beckett.”
He cupped her cheek, thumb feathering over her cheekbone, and then tracing her lips. His face hardened, and he nodded.
It took them another twenty minutes to get to his estate. She immediately got out of the car and set off to check the perimeter. He had security out the ass, but nothing was impermeable anymore. She had to check for herself, or she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.
Not that she ever really slept anyway.
It took her an hour, and then she was back in her room, stripping out of her clothes, and putting on the vile swimsuit. She need a workout, and what better way than to punish herself with the water?
Chapter Twenty-Two
The water always mocked her, its caress over her skin creepy and taunting. Remi had to grit her teeth through showers, suffering beatings as a young one for not being clean. No matter that water brought life, to her it was a jeering reminder . . . pain and loss. That’s what water brought.
She swam the laps though, arms slicing and retreating through the warm liquid, avoiding thoughts of the past. How long she stayed at it, she didn’t know, but her neck prickled and awareness had her stopping at the far end of the pool.
Rand.
He had on swim trunks, upper body gloriously naked. She sucked in air and found her throat locked as she gazed at him. He had such broad shoulders that flowed into a heavily sculpted chest and tapered to a trim waist. His chest was devoid of hair, but a tiny path of silky darkness began at his bellybutton and trailed down beneath the trunks.
She tried to swallow. He was a magnificent man in all ways. His face was hard but planed perfectly, the small cleft in his chin a delight to stroke her tongue over. His nose flared at her perusal, and his cheeks went ruddy. He took a single step, body coiling, and then he dove into the pool, swam underneath the water the entire length, and then he surfaced inches in front of her. He stood, and the water came to his mid-chest. It was five feet at this end; it would nearly cover her head.
He pushed his black hair back, and her hands itched. “I knew you’d be in here.” The man didn’t even sound winded.
Remi remained silent. She really wanted to lick at the drops of water that fell down the strong column of his neck.
He smirked. She splashed him with water and took off down the pool.
Rand followed, grabbing at her ankle and halting her progress. She almost panicked, recognized the feel of his calloused palm, and managed to settle her heart before she sucked in great gulping gasps of water.
She twisted and pulled her foot free, and then swam deeper, blood pumping furiously as she moved farther from the surface, from air and life. He followed her, and when she could go no farther, she turned and looked up.
His gaze burned her. Then he smiled and reached for her. She didn’t question herself when she took his hand, and he pulled their bodies flush. His head descended and she raised hers, mouths met and tongues danced. Hearts raced, and Remi felt something in the caress of the water she’d never felt before. Desire.
He kicked up and off the bottom, taking her to the surface with him. He allowed her one great breath before he dove into her mouth again and pushed her against her wall of the pool. He aligned their pelvises and pushed against her, his flesh hard and promising ecstasy.
She grabbed his shoulders, reveling in the muscles that bunched and flexed beneath her palms. She locked her legs around his waist and used the leverage to push forward, riding his cock, needing that release.
“Slow down,” he whispered.
“Now,” she demanded.
He pulled at her suit, and she pushed at his trunks with her feet, finally getting them down and feeling the heat of his cock so close to her entrance.
“Move it aside,” she demanded in a keening whimper.
His big hand pulled the bottom of her suit over and out of the way even as he pushed the top of the suit down, mouth latching onto a breast and suckling, pulling her deep into the heated recesses of his mouth.
She reached for his cock and positioned him at her entrance. “Now,” she commanded him.
He pushed once and filled her completely. Her heart stuttered and her head fell back.
“So fucking tight,” he whispered at her breast. “Mine.”
His word was guttural, and Remi almost didn’t understand it, but once her foggy brain recognized the word it acceded to his statement, going softer, more pliant as he fucked her against the side of the pool.
Over and over, it seemed never to end, the thrust of his cock inside her and her mewling pleas for release. She kept her eyes closed, despairing at her soul’s need to do so.
“Open your eyes. Look at me.” Persistent. The water lapped between them, almost as if it were desperate to relieve the ache inside her.
“Ne me faites pas faire cette chose.”
“English!”
“Do not make me do this thing.” She whimpered as he pushed in deep and stayed there.
“Look at me, goddamn it. Look at me as I take your body. Give me Gretchen.”
She rolled her hips, helpless to her body’s demand for release. He wanted too much. She was Bullet.
His hips flexed and so did his cock, striking tiny bundles of nerves, sending lightning to her extremities, crossing her eyes behind her lids. “Look at me!”
She opened her eyes, her body locked on his, and orgasm rippled through her. His eyes widened and warmth bathed her cervix, his hips moving even as he groaned harshly, but he refused to relinquish his hold on her gaze.
“You are Gretchen.” He breathed out harshly when her eyes would have closed. “Right now, with me inside your body, you are Gretchen.”
He pulled himself from her, and she moaned as his movement caused aftershocks. The loss of his heat brought the panic. The water was too close. She was too tired.
He lifted her into his arms and walked to the steps, bringing them both out of the water. Rand stopped for a moment to grab a towel and pull her suit back up, but then he walked out of the swim room, past the workout equipment, and up the stairs to her room.
Butt-assed naked, he’d not cared who saw them.
Her heart cracked open and slid into her stomach. No, no, no, no, no!
Rand placed her on the bed, pulled her suit completely off, and settled his body on top of hers. With hot strokes of his tongue, he started at her temples and kissed his way down her body to her toes, then worked his way back a
gain. Every touch of his fingers over her skin stole more and more pieces of Remi, until she didn’t think there would be anything left.
Why would he want those pieces? She was nothing. No one.
His mouth sipped at her nipples and played at her navel. His hands caressed her legs, buttocks, her arms, and neck. There was no spot of her body left unattended. He slid deep and stroked her then with his cock. Created a magic in her body and soul that knew no boundaries.
Over and over he pushed and pulled, attacked and retreated until she was left without breath, gasping his name.
“Come, Gretchen.” It was a seductive decree.
Her body responded instantly, arching up and squeezing his until he was the one groaning, without breath.
She knew she should get up and check the perimeter, even moved to do so.
He pushed her back, laid his head on her chest, and said, “We’re okay.”
She gave in. What force was he that she gave up all thoughts of protecting herself and simply bowed to his every whim?
“Sleep, Gretchen. I’ll keep you safe.”
She felt herself smile inside, but she was so very tired. With no more ability to fight the lure of his warmth and promises, she felt the darkness close over her.
Her body relaxed finally as she sank into sleep. He ached for her. Somewhere along the line, this woman had become something other than a killer to Rand. He pulled himself from her depths, wincing as the feel of her walls over his flesh brought a delicious torment.
She took him places he’d never been before. Inside her body he found a contentment he’d never known. It made him alternately angry and sad. He’d always thought Lily the other half of him. Yet, never had he experienced this level of completeness with her.
Lily had been his high school sweetheart. So blonde and perfect, she had captivated him with her hazel eyes, and the promise of their future had seemed so bright. He’d planned for their life, and when it had been snatched away, he’d suffered.
