“Go figure. But to be fair, I’ve been messing up a lot lately. Why not let me go so I can ask him about it? Then I’ll get back to you.”
“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he smiled arrogantly. “I think I’ll keep you for a little while longer.”
“And Sanctuary has ordered this?”
“I think you know better than that. You don’t exactly have friends at Sanctuary, sweetheart.”
No kidding there.
“So I’m here for what reason?”
“Because I want you here.”
“Because you want me here?” she asked in surprise, a mocking laugh leaving her lips as she stared back at him. “For what? Excuse me for being just a bit surprised, Tanner, but you’re not exactly on the allies’ side of my personal contacts.”
“Does it matter why I want you here?” He frowned then. “You’re safe for the time being. Content yourself with that.”
“And my safety matters to you why?” None of it made sense. “Why the hell would you care if a dozen coyote Breeds were after me? You’re not making sense.” This was not part of the profile she had done on him over the years.
Tanner gave a good impression of the classic playboy, the lazy Breed raised outside of the labs, taught mercy, family and values. Bullshit. He was taught how to hide the killer he had become before Callan Lyons ever stepped foot in that New Mexico lab.
“I don’t want you dead before I have the chance to f**k you myself.”
“And once you’ve f**ked me?” She forced the words past gritted teeth. Going to bed with this man would be the ultimate mistake.
“Would once be enough?” He moved forward slowly.
And she didn’t like that. She could feel the air thinning, his very presence taking up the oxygen, almost leaving her lightheaded.
“You’re very confident.” Too confident, and she was weak. She could sense her body’s weakness to him and she hated it.
“Is it merely confidence?”
Scheme steeled herself for his touch, for his fingers as they touched her collarbone, moving slowly over the slight ridge and sending a rapid fire of response racing through her body.
“I won’t have sex with you.”
“Yes, you will. It’s just a matter of time.” His eyes gleamed with the knowledge.
“And you have all this time to waste? Don’t you have a job at Sanctuary, Mr. Reynolds? News releases to send out, press conferences to prepare for?”
“I’m on vacation. Sanctuary allows those, you know.” His hand cupped her neck, his fingers curling around her nape. “We’re not in the labs anymore, Scheme. No matter the attempts your father has made to have us returned there.”
“He doesn’t want your return, Tanner. He wants your death.”
His fingers tightened slightly at her statement as his unusual amber eyes stared directly into hers.
“How will it feel?” he asked her. “To get all sweaty and wet beneath one of the animals you’ve helped track? To feel my c**k burying inside you. Taking you. Marking you. And I will mark you, Scheme. I’m going to come inside you so deep and so hard, you’ll never remember what it was like to lie with another man.”
It would feel like nothing she had ever known before. She knew it. Sensed it.
“I’m liable to puke,” she said and sighed, rolling her eyes at him as his narrowed on her. “That could get messy, Tanner.”
“Oh, we’re going to get messy all right,” he assured her, his smile tight. “Real messy, Scheme. But in ways you might not imagine.”
“No, Tanner.” Her hands slammed against his chest as he leaned forward. “Don’t do this.”
She could hear the desperation in her own voice, the fear.
“Why?”
His lips were close. Too close. The brush of them was like a whisper against her own, a heady temptation she had to fight to resist.
“Because you don’t really want me. You want to strike against me. Hurt me. That’s what the Council taught you.”
“Don’t.” His hand cupped over her mouth before she could say anything more. “The Council didn’t teach me to jack off watching you sleep in your bed. It didn’t teach me to shadow you, or to become bewitched by you. And it didn’t teach me to care if you lived or died. Until I find out the reasons for those anomalies, Scheme, you are stuck with me.”
He was snarling. Furious. She could see the flames of anger sparking alongside the lust in his eyes. And none of it made sense. Nothing should be there but killing rage. No emotion, no regret, and sure as hell no attempt to protect her.
“You watched me sleep?” She walked this edge of danger carefully.
“I watched you sleep, f**k, masturbate and stare out that damned skylight for almost ten years. Since the month you turned twenty, sugar,” he growled. “From the moment I figured out how to direct our f**king satellites where I wanted them, I’ve watched you.”
Watched her f**k. He had watched her each time she had brought a man to her bed, each time she had used her vibrator. She should be throwing up in disgust rather than creaming in excitement.
“Why are you doing this? Did Sanctuary somehow miss a psychopath in their ranks?” She jerked away from him, trying to hide her reaction as her fingers knotted in the towel. “Are you forgetting who I am, Tanner? Scheme Tallant. Remember me? General Cyrus Tallant’s daughter? His right hand. Breed killer.” She was pushing it and she knew it. Tempting her own death, and it wouldn’t be a painless death if Tanner were the one meting it out.
His nostrils flared, his eyes gleaming with predatory awareness as he advanced on her.
This was why she’d fought to avoid him throughout the years. Why she had made certain there wasn’t so much as a chance meeting until that stupid ball. It was in his eyes now, primal, primitive, the same hunger she had felt growing within herself throughout the years. The more she tracked him on the television, received reports about him, the more he had fascinated her.
“Are you forgetting how hot and wet you were in my hand?” he countered. “The feel of my fingers f**king you, stroking that tight little pu**y until you came for me?”
He stopped stalking her, but only because her back met the stone wall and there was no place left for her to go.