Freed (Bad Boy Hitman Romance) (19 page)

Rebecca

“We have to get over this lack of trust issue, Kyle,” I yelled out from the bedroom, giving my cuffed wrist a jiggle. This was day three of me falling to sleep after fucking him in his bed to wake up the next morning with him gone and me shackled with a vicious need to pee.

I waited a moment. Usually there was a smart assed remark from him. But not today. I cocked my head to the side and listened more intently. It was eerily quiet.

“Kyle?” I yelled out a little louder.

I waited.

Still nothing.

What if he left me here and had taken off? What if he was gone for hours or days? All of a sudden, the need to pee became almost unbearable! Sitting up on the bed, I looked around me. I had to find a way out of the cuffs, because there was no way in hell I would sit here in my own urine.

I had thought things were progressing between us. Yes, it wasn’t exactly a normal relationship, but there was something developing between us. Now that the masks were down and the truth was coming out, I would have thought this cuffing me game would be over with. I’d told him I’d help him for fucks sake!

If I’d let him go through with his plan, well, that was an entirely different story. But I did want to face and confront Tanner and my sister. And if anyone could track them down, I suspected it would be Kyle.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glint of silver. Turning my head, I saw the keys to the cuffs on the night side table, just within reaching distance. Hmmm. Reaching over, I caught the set of three keys with my fingertips and pulled them to me. Once I had them grasped in my hand, I quickly undid my secured cuff and pulled my wrist free.

Hmmm.

Getting up from the bed, I rushed to the bathroom and relieved myself. Where in the hell was he? Finishing up in the bathroom, I made my way into the kitchen. This was so weird. The least he could have done was left a note.

Making my way back into the bedroom, I began rummaging through his drawers, first grabbing a t-shirt and then a pair of gym pants. Grabbing the drawstring of the pants, I pulled it as tight as I could to keep them from falling down over my hips.

Moving back into the living room, I made my way outside. His car was gone. Did the fucker leave me stranded at his cabin? The nerve!

Going back inside, I went into the bedroom and began searching through the room. I had my mobile phone with me when I went to his place, so maybe he brought it with him?

It wasn’t in the bedroom, although had I thought about it I would have remembered I’d already ransacked that room a few days earlier looking for the keys to the car. But I wasn’t about to give up. Not like there was anything else to do in this godforsaken place. I was in the process of looking through the kitchen when I heard a car drive up, the crackle of the gravel sounding as it slowed and came to a stop.

 
 
Standing in the center of the living room, I planted my balled fists on my hips and waited for him to come inside. After a moment, the car door opened, closed, and his footsteps sounded coming up the stairs. A moment later, he appeared in the doorway with a garbage bag and a couple of grocery bags in hand.

His smile faded when he looked up and saw me. “Okay, what’s the problem now?”

“Where were you?”

A grin spread across his lips, and he walked into the cabin, leaving the door wide open. “I’m sorry, did we get married over the past few days and I not know about it?”

“No. No, we didn’t. That would be an in your dreams scenario.”

He laughed as he set the bags on the breakfast counter. “Nope, no wedding bells for me baby.”

“That’s sad.”

“How is it sad?” he asked coming up to me and folding his arms over his chest.

“Because it is. Never having someone to rely on or be there when you need them. Or have someone who loves you unconditionally.”

Kyle laughed, a hearty belly laugh. “There’s no such thing as unconditional love. You know that. You also know humans, while animals in general, are not naturally monogamous. That is a concept made up through time in our civilization.”

What he said was true, and it made sense. There was a part of me which whole-heartedly agreed, but there was also a part, deep-down, which had a secret fear of being old and alone. Now I was at the prime of my life, and people were easy to come by, but those things changed. I saw it with my mother. She was miserable now that my father was gone. Sure, she was a different sort of person than I was, but at the same time, the general principal applied.

“That still doesn’t mean it doesn’t suit certain purposes.”

“Okay, I’ll give in on that.” He shrugged. “Maybe one day I’ll put value on intimate relationships. Just not something I’m after at the moment.”

I chewed at my lower lip and looked down at the floor, at my bare toes to be exact. The ruby red polish was beginning to chip. I needed a pedicure when I got out of here. Truth was, I didn’t like his answer. Why I would even give a shit if he was relationship material was beyond me, but this man was temporarily in my life whether I liked it or not.

“What’s that look for?”

 
My head perked up to see him looking at me intently as if trying to get into my head and read my thoughts. It made me uneasy, even though I knew it wasn’t a ridiculous notion. Since he was extremely observant, if I didn’t keep my guard up, he’d get a whiff of the fact that despite everything, I was still into him. Worse yet, I thought I might be falling for him. I’d have thought it could be a case of Stockholm’s, but that was hardly true.

“What look?”

“Like disappointment or something?”

I huffed. “Like I said before, the quicker I’m out of this situation and away from you, the better.”

“Really?” He shifted his attention back to the grocery bags, unloading the contents. It looked like a few carry out containers, a bottle of white wine, and candles.
 

“What’s all this?” I crinkled my nose up at him as I walked over to the counter.

“Dinner for tonight.” He looked up and caught my gaze, hitting me with a wide sexy smile, the kind
 
that made my heart beat just a little bit faster, but after everything he’d done, it shouldn’t. I wanted to hate him. He was here to capture my sister and her boyfriend. Anyone else, given the circumstances, would hate him.

I laughed and cocked a brow at him. “Oh, I see, a nice candle light dinner, like sort of couple in love on a weekend getaway, huh?”

His grin widened. “Something like that. Maybe I’m trying to make up for the whole kidnapping thing.”

“Oh, I think you need to be a little bit better than - ” I opened one of the white carry-out containers. “ – Ohhh lobster. Hmmm. Pulling out the big guns, huh?”

“I have a bit to make up for. Plus, I have a plan. I’m trying to butter you up.”

Sliding onto the stool in front of the counter, I raked a hand through my hair. “Sounds like you’re not too confident in me going along with this. I already said I would, so it must be a really extreme plan.”

His smile faded a smidge. “Yeah, well. Knowing what I know about your sister from what I’ve been told by you over the past few days and the intel my father gave me, I think it might take an extreme plan to get her and Tanner out of hiding, but it’s not impossible. It will just take a little convincing for you to go through with it.”

I laughed. “I see. Well, by all means, hit me with it. What’s this extreme plan you’ve come up with?”

His smile faded completely. His expression becoming a complete blank canvas. “I’m going to have to shoot you.”

Chapter 20

Rebecca

I laughed. And when I say laughed, I laughed so fucking hard, I peed myself a little. “Shoot me, huh?” I wiped a stray tear from my eyes. “Oh god, you have to have the craziest sense of humor of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Kyle’s stony expression broke, and he laughed with me. “Ya, I do know how to tell a good joke.”

“Seriously, though.” After a minute, my laughter died down a bit, and I reached for one of the carry out containers, placing it in front of me, while he lit the two lavender scented candles. Even though it was morning, there weren’t many windows in the cabin, so it was just dim enough inside that the candles shone nicely.

“Yup. So, I decided
 
this should really be a nice meal, since you’ll be stuck on crap food for a while. I remembered you saying how much you loved lobster on one of our first dates.”

“You remembered that?” I was impressed. Kyle might have been a lot of things, but he seemed to drink in everything I said. Of course, part of that may have been because he was waiting for me to give up something useful for him and his mission.

I sighed. Damnit, I wished I wasn’t such a realist and could just pretend he remembered this stuff because he wanted to know more about me, and he actually cared.

After dinner was set out, we began eating, but questions still rolled around in my mind. Finally, I asked one that had been nagging me. “So here’s a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“What do you feel?”

He stopped eating and looked hard at me, as if he were trying to figure out my angle. It felt like an eternity before he replied. “What do you mean?”

“I mean feelings.” I actually flushed a little, because I was sounding soft. “Like your emotions. What do you feel? Love, fear, embarrassment?”

He smiled. “Well, ask yourself that same question, and then, you tell me. We are one in the same.”

I’d given it a lot of thought since Kyle took me. Did I feel some things and not others because of how I was wired? Or was I more a product of my upbringing? Or maybe both. By definition, psychopaths were a product of genetics, but I didn’t exactly have a typical upbringing.

“Okay,” he dropped his fork and smiled at me. “Have you ever been in love?”

I shook my head.

“So you’ve never felt that head over heels, can’t stand a moment without you feeling?”

I laughed. “No, not exactly. And you?”

He leaned back and stared at me. “I’ve felt infatuation and a desire to be with someone. I’ve felt possessiveness and the sense that something is mine.”

“And who was the lucky lady?” I grinned.

“You.”

His answer struck me. My expression went blank, and I was rendered speechless. I honestly wasn’t sure what to think about his answer. It wasn’t exactly the proclamation of love you would expect from a man, but then again, he wasn’t normal, and this situation wasn’t normal.

When I didn’t reply, he continued. “I would risk my life to save yours.”

I knew he meant it. The mask he wore while around me the first couple of weeks had dropped, and it was like I could see into his soul and the truth in his words, which only made this so much harder and confusing.

“As for other emotions.” He shrugged. “I get pissed. Frustrated. Bored. Really fucking bored, but being around you keeps me thinking.”

“I’m glad I’m not boring...”

“If you were, then chances are you’d already be buried in the backyard.”

My eyes narrowed at him. “You know my knees start knocking when you turn on the charm like that.”

“Would you rather I lied? I’m not foolish enough to think you wouldn’t be able to see through my lies if
I were to tell you one. Honestly, it feels quite liberating to be with someone who understands who I am and can relate.”

“I’ve never killed anyone before.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you can’t relate to everything, but certainly enough.”

My mind flashed to the day when I was a little girl and watched my father kill some woman. I hadn’t tried to stop him. I hadn’t felt anything.

“What about fear?” I asked. As I asked the question, I considered it myself. Fear never factored into any decision I made. I wanted something, and I went for it. Period.

He laughed, a whole-hearted laugh. “No. Fear is for the weak, and all it does is hold you back.”

“You’re right.”

“When you were locked your room – ”

“ – That’s not my room,” I cut in, getting angry all over again that he’d had the nerve to lock me in there.

He grinned. “Fine, I apologize. Locked in
the
room. Were you scared?”

I gave it thought, but for just a moment. There’d been several emotions during those couple of days – anger, frustration, boredom, anxiety because I had classes I needed to attend and was uncertain as to how long it would take before I escaped. However, fear wasn’t in the list. I slowly shook my head. “No, but I came up with numerous creative ways to kill you.” I didn’t smile. I was dead serious.

He laughed.

Normally, if you told a man you were imagining ways to end his life, while being completely serious, he wouldn’t sit there laughing like you’d told the most amusing of jokes. But then again, Kyle wasn’t just any man.

After he finished laughing, he grew serious again and looked long and hard at me. “To get back to the love issue. How many people truly fall in love? They fall in lust. They think they’re in love, because they’d rather convince themselves they were in love with the one they were with than be alone. But what we have is honest and pure. There’s no smoke and mirrors, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

I paused a minute and slowly nodded my agreement. Now that everything was out in the open, as fucked up as it seemed at least it was real. And there was honesty between us.

For the first time in my life, when I was with him, I felt free to be who I really was.

~*~
 
TT
 
~*~

Kyle

I looked across the counter at Rebecca, amused she’d want to compare feelings or lack thereof. But then again, she’d had a whole fucking lot of eye opening these past few days. She seemed to be doing a mental and emotional autopsy of herself, and considering the circumstances, I suppose I couldn’t blame her. But I suppose she’d been in denial all of her life. Not sure why she was the way she was, but it could have to do with not having any real direction or guidance.
 
Her life had been like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. For a brief time, until I accepted who and what I was, I had felt the very same way, so I did know the confusion
 
she was going through.

The expression on her face when I told her I’d risk my own life for hers had been priceless, though it had been the truth. It might not be romantic, but the bottom line was that she challenged me, she entertained me, and she gave me joy. I had no intention of letting that go or allowing someone to take it from me. I’d do whatever I had to in order to keep her with me.

I was just about to take a sip from my wine, the glass at my lips, when she spoke, giving me pause. “So you were the one who attacked Adam, weren’t you?” Her dark eyes narrowed at me.

“Would that bother you?”

She hesitated a moment and seemed to really be considering it. “No, not really. But why would you do it?”

“As I said, you’re mine. He was attempting to swoop in and steal what I’d already claimed.”

“Oh god,” she rolled her eyes at me. “I seriously doubt he even knew we’d been seeing each other.”

“He does now.”

“A bit of an overreaction, if you ask me.”

“I’d do it a dozen more times if need be.”

“You realize I can take care of myself, and when it comes right down to it, I’ll be with you if and
only
if I want to be.” She stressed the only, as if to prove her point.

I cocked a brow up at her as a grin spread across my lips. “Funny, for a woman who can take care of herself, you managed to get yourself kidnapped.” I saw a flash of anger in her eyes.

“In my own defense, you were working me the entire time.”

“Still, you can take care of yourself, but you’re here with me now.”

“Again, you worked me.”

“That’s irrelevant.” Our gazes locked, and I could see her getting more and more pissed with me. It was cute seeing her angry, winding her up and watching her spin.

“Besides, I’m here now, not because you’re forcing me, but of my own free will.”

“So, is that you admitting you’re into me?”

She huffed. “It’s me telling you that I need your help in finding my sister.”

I didn’t feel slighted by her comment. I knew the truth. I could see it in the dark depths of her eyes. She was falling for me. Maybe not in the traditional sense of the word, but she was infatuated with and drawn to me on an emotional and mental level. Sexually, there was no question. We were perfect together in that regard.

She was just the right amount of fucked up to match me perfectly.

“So what is this big plan you have to lure them out of hiding, or track them down? I’m assuming this Tanner guy isn’t exactly stupid. I’m guessing he and my sister are pretty well hidden.”

“I already told you.” I became amused all over again.

“Told me what?” Her brow furrowed, and she looked at me as if I’d grown an additional head.

“The plan. If your sister is as good and noble as you claim, it’s our best chance.”