“I’m not sleepy.” Her skin was itching and she was tired of his attitude. She was tired of being a captive. Tired of the emotions that refused to stay locked away. “Really, Tanner, have you considered the black mark this is going to become against the Breeds? Kidnapping General Tallant’s daughter? Father will let me live for years more once this becomes known. It could bring the entire Breed community down.”
“Who says you’re going to come out of here alive?” He didn’t even pause. He stripped off his shirt as he asked the question, before tossing it to the end of the bed and staring back at her. “I didn’t say anything about it.”
“Oh well, that puts me in my place,” she snapped back. “So what, you get the obligatory f**k before you break my neck?”
“I wasn’t trained to break necks,” he pointed out as his hands went to the buckle of his belt. “I was trained to rip your heart from your chest with my bare hands. Remember? Thought you had my file, pretty girl.”
Yes. He was. He was trained to kill painfully, as well as silently.
“You would have killed me by now if that was what you meant to do.” She spoke with more confidence than she felt.
“I haven’t f**ked you yet. Spread your legs, keep your damned mouth shut and let me get off, then I’ll kill you.”
Her lips twitched. He was angry, and because of it, he was striking out at her. What had he said before? He had spent nights jacking off watching her sleep.
Then she frowned.
“You actually watched me. Have sex?”
“Of course.” He arched a brow at the question.
“Why?” Outrage colored her voice and she knew it. “There’s no way you could have monitored me. You’re lying.”
She refused to look down. He had already removed his boots and now he was pushing his jeans over his hips. She would not look.
“When you use that cute little blue vibrator, you always run it gently, so gently, around your cl*t first. It takes three times to get it in your tight little pu**y. But when you do, your lashes flutter before you force yourself to hold them open. Afraid someone’s going to come in on you, darlin’? I packed the vibrator, by the way.”
He wasn’t lying. He had been watching her.
“Why?” She could feel herself trembling. Shaking. If he had been watching her, in her bedroom, then she could be in more trouble than she had ever imagined.
“Because I loved watching you trying to find what I knew didn’t exist anywhere but with me.” He tossed his jeans to the bottom of the bed, and before she could stop herself, she looked. And looked.
Oh. My. God.
Surely that couldn’t be real. It wasn’t that he was overly large, though he was large. Heavily veined. Darkly bronzed. And so f**king tempting her mouth was watering.
Her eyes jerked back up.
“You’re crazy,” she whispered, suddenly knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt at this moment that his insanity was entirely possible. Just as she knew he had no intention of hurting her. Yet.
She knew General Tallant didn’t have the control over his spy that he would have liked. That there were weeks, sometimes months before a report came through, and when it did, it was often sarcastic and bordeline insulting. That would suit Tanner’s profile. He did what he wanted, not what others expected.
For the moment, maybe, she was safe.
“Get undressed and get in the bed, Scheme. If you’re a good girl, I’ll even turn the television on for you while you’re going to sleep.”
The television? Her eyes narrowed as he smiled back at her benignly.
“That is so not fair,” she grated out. “Put some pants on at least.”
“Take your clothes off and get into bed or I’ll go to sleep while you’re standing there and there will be no television for a week.”
Her teeth clenched. “Do not talk to me as though I were a child.”
He slid into bed before pulling the sheet over his nude body. His eyes gleamed back at her, rich, golden, daring her. He was daring her to get into that bed with him.
“I can do without the television.” She shrugged, moving for the seating arrangement and the overstuffed couch. It looked more than comfortable. “Good night, Tanner.”