Beauty Loves the Beast

by Robyn Peterman

  “Is there another option?” she asked, wrinkling her nose and tilting her head.

  Goddammit, she was stunning.

  Inhaling in through my nose and breathing out through my mouth, I gave myself a second to reconsider suggesting she could get naked and crawl into the bed with me. Clearly, I’d lost a few necessary brain cells when I was beaten to a pulp… or run over by a truck… or poisoned… or God only knew what. At least I was in still in the state I’d chosen as my temporary home.

  Home was a vague term. I hadn’t had a home in years and that worked for me just fine. Being tied to anything for longer than a month or two made me uneasy. Quite honestly, this situation was making me uneasy. The woman running the show at the moment wasn’t working on all cylinders.

  And why in the hell wasn’t I wary of Georgia from Georgia? I wasn’t in any position to be threatening anyone, even a small woman at this point. She could end me with a needle, a gun, or possibly just by leaving me here to die.

  Not being in charge was not my idea of a good time. “You have three seconds,” I growled as she watched me like I was a science experiment gone awry.

  “Okay,” she said, expelling a long sigh and gingerly sitting down on the edge of the bed.

  For a bad guy—or girl—she smelled awfully good.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “I’m forming my dang thoughts,” she shot back, running her hands through her wild hair and rolling her eyes at me.

  Unbelievable. She’d clearly done something to incapacitate me and was now acting the victim? If I could just stand, I could get my bearings and get the hell out of here. Since that seemed beyond the realm of possibilities at the moment, I’d have to listen to her story. However, the longer she paused, the less likely the truth would fall from her mouth… a mouth that was made for sin.

  Damn it, I didn’t do the enemy. Right now, Georgia from Georgia was the enemy until she proved otherwise.

  “Now, this might sound a little weird, but…” she said while twisting her hair in her slim fingers.

  “Did you just say weird?” I asked.

  Was I being punked? Was this some sort of fucked-up joke compliments of my former unit that I’d avoided like the plague since I’d been stateside?

  She nodded and then jumped up and began to pace again. “Yep, weird.”

  The room was small and her movement made me dizzy. There wasn’t much to the room—more like an afterthought—a bed, a dresser, a chair and a braided rug that had seen better days.

  Was this her home? A motel? Shit, as my body began to regain strength, my mind became more muddled.

  “Go on,” I said, not letting on that I was able to move my arms and legs with more ease now. I had no clue if my beautiful Georgia was working alone.

  “Okay, so Sean told me to find you.”

  “Bullshit,” I interrupted her. “Not possible. He doesn’t know where I am.”

  Her pacing stopped, and I watched her search for her next lie. “True,” she agreed. “He didn’t know exactly where you were, but… umm…”

  “Listen lady,” I snapped, quickly losing what little patience I possessed—which had never been much. “Get to the point. Now.”

  “I picked you up in a bar because I’m a… well, I suppose the fastest way to explain it is I’m a government experiment. You weren’t hard to pick up at all. I figured you’d be… you know…”

  “Clearly, I don’t know,” I said, closing my eyes for a brief moment and shaking my head. Georgia from Georgia was missing a few screws. A government experiment?

  “I thought you’d be old and ugly.”

  “Because?” I asked, somehow finding this bizarre exchange amusing.

  “I don’t know,” she replied with an annoyed shrug. “Sean said you were a deadly killer. I need a deadly killer and someone who can help me disappear. He didn’t mention you were hot and ripped and really freaking tall. Anyway, I don’t want to live on an exam table or in a cage for the rest of my life. So since it would take a nuclear explosion to kill my abnormal ass, I decided to escape. But escaping from the government when they’ve spent millions of dollars on you tends to be a bit difficult. Plus, I’m pretty sure I might have accidentally had to kill a few people on my way out. I didn’t want to, but… you know, they weren’t too keen on me busting out. Plus the Taser wand really hurt.”

  “Are you right in the head?” I asked, trying to follow her ridiculous story. I did have to admit I enjoyed the hot and ripped part, but she was unkillable? Living in a cage? Accidentally had to kill people? The Taser hurt? If her goal was to confuse, she was succeeding.

  “Well, no, probably not. But really, who is?” she asked.

  “Fine point. Well made,” I said, sarcasm dripping from each word. “Please do go on, I’m sure this gets better.”

  “It does,” she assured me, either ignoring my cynicism or letting it fly right over her insanely sexy head. “Well, umm… so after the shit show of my escape and a brief detour, as I said, I picked you up and then…”

  She stopped, let her head fall back on her shoulders and stared at the ceiling.

  “Clock is ticking,” I reminded her.

  “This was a bad fucking idea,” she muttered, turning away and lightly banging her head against the wall. “Such a bad idea. Never should have listened to Sean and now I’m stuck with him. Bad, bad, bad idea.”

  “Georgia,” I said harshly.

  She paused her self-flagellation and glanced over in surprise, as if she was shocked I was still in the room with her. She was off her rocker, but unfortunately, I was attracted to trouble that looked like her. And she was clearly going to be a lot of trouble.

  “What exactly is the bad fucking idea? And while you’re at it, explain why I can’t move my limbs.”

  “Should I start at the very beginning?” Georgia asked.

  “It’s a very good place to start,” I replied, trying to bite back the grin that was pulling at my lips.

  Her delighted laugh filled the small, dingy room and she clasped her hands together in glee. “I didn’t take you for a Sound of Music fan.”

  “And why not?” I asked, pretending to be insulted.

  What the hell was I doing? Playing von Trapp Family trivia with a lunatic who I secretly wanted to bed? Her laugh was like a breath of fresh air and for a moment I forgot all of the ugliness in my past. My gut said she was for real, and my gut had served me well, but far too many puzzle pieces were missing at the moment for me to break into Edelweiss.

  And trust me, I could. Reciting that movie almost word for word had kept me sane during some of the most horrific moments of my existence.

  “Back to the story, Georgia. Now,” I said, getting serious. I would not be seduced by a laugh. I was too far gone for normal.

  “Right. The story… You’re not going to believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  2

  Georgia

  He’s going to think I’m insane. Actually, he’d be correct, but I wasn’t always insane—or at least not this insane. They’d made me this way, and now I might have made him the same.

  Sean was an idiot. No… Sean was my brilliant friend. He’d been trying to help me and I’d screwed it all up—royally. Although, if Sean had really been my friend, he would have warned me how beautiful Carter Wylde was—all blue-eyed, black-haired, muscle-bound, dangerous beauty. He should have sent me to someone old, ugly and mean—or hairy like Scott Hair Pants. Being attracted to Carter Wylde was going to be a problem. To be fair, Sean probably didn’t really notice how smoking hot the man was.

  Well, wait. I suppose Carter Wylde could be mean even though he was gorgeous. I was fairly certain he was going to get mean when he figured out what I’d accidentally, possibly, maybe done to him… but his lips. He had such beautiful lips and he smelled so damned good. And his ass. You could bounce a quarter off of it. I should know. I’d been staring at it for days.

  “Let me start off by apologizing,” I said with a
forced smile on my face.

  “For?” he asked suspiciously.

  “I’ll get to that in a few,” I assured him and began to pace the small room again. “We’re safe here. I mean, we’re in a safe house that Sean told me about.”

  “And why do we need to be in a safe house, Georgia from Georgia?”

  “Because it’s safe,” I told him, wondering if his brain had been affected.

  His eye roll and grunt of disgust made me realize his brain was fine. Mine? Debatable.

  I was very aware he’d regained use of his limbs even though he was playing as if he hadn’t. And why should he trust me? I sure as hell wouldn’t. I could have a whole posse of bad dudes with me.

  I didn’t.

  Instead, I had a whole posse of bad dudes after me—two seriously bad ones in particular. Which is where Carter Wylde was supposed to come in and help, but…

  “You’re a government experiment?” he questioned with doubt, prodding me out of my very busy and jumbled internal thought process.

  “Well, I was CIA, but then it all went a bit wrong,” I replied, relieved to tell the truth.

  “And by a bit wrong you’re referring to the government experiment part?” he asked, looking as skeptical as I would if someone laid the bizarre tale in my lap.

  “Yes. A bit wrong is kind of mild, but clusterfuck of epic proportions is over-the-top dramatic—even if it’s accurate,” I muttered.

  The truth will set you free or get you killed by a pissed-off ex-SEAL. Which honestly, might not be a bad way to go all things considered.

  Folding his arms over his massive and beautifully bare chest, Carter raised an annoyed brow and waited.

  Fine. He had every right to know everything, especially since I might have ruined his life.

  “I speak ten languages,” I explained, barreling right into my freakish abilities—well, some of them. “I can hack any computer, build a bomb with my eyes shut, hit a target from a spot that isn’t humanly possible… and I can bake. Cakes. I bake really great cakes. I was a savant as a child and my parents had no clue what to do with me. I scared them, myself, and pretty much most people. My parents liked my cakes, but that was all they liked about me. They sent me off to a school with others like me and it sucked. But that’s not important—at all. Basically, I’m a scary freak.”

  “Who bakes cakes,” he added, squinting his eyes at me in what I thought might be amusement.

  It was more likely fear. “Yes. I bake cakes,” I confirmed.

  “You don’t scare me,” Carter replied with an exasperated grin. “You annoy me and confuse me, but you don’t scare me.”

  “Thank you. That’s actually really nice to hear,” I told him with my first genuine smile in a long time.

  “Welcome. So how does a bright, beautiful, multilingual, annoying CIA agent who bakes cakes and makes bombs end up as a government experiment who needs to disappear?” he questioned.

  “That is an excellent question,” I told him as I pulled a chair up and sat next to the bed. I stayed on the side of the room nearest the door in case I had to make a run for it. “I’ve wondered that myself.”

  We sat in strained silence for a few moments while he stared at me. God, how I wished I’d met this man under normal circumstances. However, normal was no longer in my wheelhouse. Ever.

  “Don’t you want to know why you can’t move?” I asked, deciding to get some of the hard stuff out of the way first before he had complete use of his body again.

  “I figured that’s what you were apologizing for,” he shot back.

  “Umm, yes,” I replied, trying really hard to give him a reassuring smile. I was quite sure it came out like a pained wince.

  “You want to be a bit more specific?” Carter asked.

  Bizarrely enough, the beautiful man seemed amused. “Yes, I do,” I told him. “But there’s more weird stuff before I can get to that part.”

  Again we stared at each other in awkward silence. I knew it was my turn to talk or come clean as it were, but it was really fun looking at someone so pretty. I’d only seen evil nerds in lab coats for so long now that a real man was an incredible treat.

  And in a matter of minutes, he would no longer be amused.

  “Okay, hear me out before you kill me,” I bargained.

  “Thought you were basically unkillable,” he replied flatly.

  “Pretty much,” I agreed. “However, if you decapitate me, I’m sure that would work. I mean it would have to… right? There is no way I could survive being headless. At least I don’t think I could. It would suck so hard being alive and headless. You feel me?”

  The look on his face told me I was losing him fast.

  “Okay, you don’t have to reply to that one. Just keep it in mind if we need to kill me. I’m ninety-eight percent sure if you behead me, I’ll die. I will not go back. Death is very preferable to being strapped to a gurney and shot up with poisons.”

  “Keep going,” Carter said, staring at me like I was the nut job that I was. “But I’d like to know why I’m naked.”

  “That’s a fair question.” I nodded and wondered how much I could leave out of the answer and still tell some of the truth. “What do you remember from three nights ago?”

  “Three?” he demanded. “I’ve been here for three days?”

  “And nights,” I reminded him. “But like I said, we’re safe here.”

  “Georgia,” he growled, narrowing his eyes and trying to stand.

  “Don’t,” I told him, gently pushing him back down. “I promise I’ll explain. I don’t think you’re strong enough yet. Took me weeks. At least I didn’t kill you. I call that a plus.”

  “Not sure I agree,” he said, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose and expelling a frustrated breath.

  “I got your scent from Sean and found you,” I said, holding up my hand so he wouldn’t interrupt. “Let me finish and then you can kill me or help me. Cool?”

  He nodded tersely and waited. It was clear he still thought I was insane.

  “You were in a bar drinking. Alone. You’d had a lot and I bought you a few more rounds. I figured it would be easier to get you to go along with me if you were a bit fuzzy,” I explained, staring at my shaking hands. “So you know… one thing led to another and we were making out in your car because you’re so freakin’ hot and you were biting on my neck.”

  The room suddenly felt way too small.

  “If you hadn’t bitten my neck, I don’t think I would have bitten you back.”

  “Not really seeing a problem here except I don’t remember it,” Carter said easily.

  If only this was easy.

  “Normally,” I said, stressing the word, “a little neck biting and a hickey or two—or three— wouldn’t be a bad thing, but…”

  “But?” he asked, sitting totally upright and easing his legs over the side of the bed, revealing his mind-bogglingly beautiful private parts.

  Immediately my eyes shot to the ceiling and I pinched my nose shut. His scent alerted me he was aroused, and I knew I would jump him instead of doing the right thing and explaining why he should probably kill me dead.

  “I don’t smell,” he said with a chuckle. “And I still don’t know why I’m naked. Did we…?”

  “No,” I shouted, startling both of us. “And you don’t smell bad. You smell good—which is bad. And I would greatly appreciate it if you would cover your thingie.”

  “It’s a dick, not a thingie. Remember that,” he said, draping the sheet over his now growing thingie.

  “Right. Sorry. Dick,” I replied, mortified. “Do you want to hear more?”

  “Please,” he said sarcastically. “Especially the government experiment part.”

  “Your tone is kind of rude,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, you clearly did something to incapacitate me. You called my dick a thingie and asked me you decapitate you. Can you see why I might be a bit annoyed?”

  It took everything I had not
to roll my eyes. Carter Wylde didn’t get it. Honestly if he did get it, he was crazier than I was. “While you make excellent points, I didn’t mean to incapacitate you and I’ve called dicks thingies since junior high school—which is a difficult habit to break. And when I’m done with my story, you’re most likely going to want to tear my head off. I just don’t think you need to be a butthole.”

  “My apologies.”

  “For real?” I asked.

  “No. Finish the damned story,” he growled.

  “Fine. I thought I was going in for a round of shots because I was being sent overseas,” I said with my voice void of emotion. I’d gone over the story so many times in my head, I felt like I was talking about someone else. It was far more fun to banter back and forth with a beautiful man than to tell my sad, ugly truth.

  “That’s normal protocol,” Carter pointed out.

  “Normally I’d agree.”

  “And?”

  “The government is making super soldiers—of a sort,” I whispered.

  “Again,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

  “They’re taking men and women and turning them into high-tech killing machines,” I said, feeling light-headed. “Messing around with DNA, and I’m not even sure what else. I have scars all over my body. I was in blackout mode for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “The better part of a year,” I admitted.

  “And you’re one of them?” he asked with a look of what I was certain must have been revulsion on his face. Or maybe it was pity. I couldn’t tell and I really didn’t care.

  “I’m one that survived,” I told him as I stood and moved closer to the door.

  “How many of you exist?”

  “Exactly like me?” I asked, my stomach churning.

  He nodded and watched me closely.

  “Only me—and now maybe you.”

  “Explain yourself,” he barked, no longer amused.

  “I bit you,” I choked out. “They screwed with my DNA, and now I might have screwed with yours. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to get so carried away.”

  The bottom felt like it was falling out from underneath me and I wanted to run, but Carter Wylde was more my responsibility than I was his at this point.