Bullet Proof: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) (5 page)

Spinning on her heel, she pressed both hands against his solid chest and shoved. Hard. "You asshole."

Taz didn't move an inch or say anything, but the look on his face made her take a step backward. It wasn't far enough. He wrapped an arm around her waist and picked her up as if she weighed nothing, then threw her over his shoulder.

Shock silenced her as he carried her toward the elevator in the back.

"I promise, I won't hurt you," he said. "But you're not going anywhere until we know what's going on and I know you'll be safe."

Maybe it was because of the blood rushing to her head from being held upside down. Maybe it was because of the mystery drug running through her system. Maybe it was because her mind-melting orgasm had turned her brain into a box of rocks. Whatever it was, she knew in her gut he wasn't lying. He wouldn't hurt her—at least not physically. As for the rest, she just had to make sure she remembered the lesson she'd learned while training at Devil's Dip Gym and keep her guards up.

CHAPTER FOUR

Fucking A. What in the hell was going on?

Taz jammed the
three
button on the elevator while trying to understand why he'd just ripped Bianca's dress in half and carried her off like a damn caveman. This wasn't him. He'd made his fortune with his hands but he never used them outside of the ring...not like this. But the frustration and fear for her had screeched through him like a rocket powered with Nitro, bypassing any logical thought. So he'd acted on pure base-level instinct, which is how he ended up walking through the open elevator into his third-floor loft apartment with a naked—and suspiciously quiet—Bianca over his shoulder.

Once the elevator doors shut behind them he was at a loss for what to do next—not a feeling he was used to, which made the moment fit in perfectly with everything that had happened since he'd walked into Bisu Manor and spotted Bianca.

"Are you going to put me down or are you waiting for me to pass out from all the blood rushing to my head?" Bianca asked, and the wobbly catch in her voice was a shiv between his ribs.

He had her feet on the floor in one heartbeat then whipped off his jacket and hung it over her bare shoulders in the next. God, he'd screwed this whole thing up. The garage. Her dress. Coming on her ass. Did the drugs explain that? He had a sinking suspicion he couldn't blame all of his behavior on that. He'd wanted Bianca since she walked into his gym and captured his attention so thoroughly that his sparring partner knocked him on his ass with a piss-poor excuse for a right hook.

"I'm sorry. I—" Lost my ever-loving mind at the idea of her being in danger?

Shoving her arms through the sleeves of the jacket, she narrowed her eyes at him. "Okay, stop looking like you just kicked my puppy. I'm a big girl and I wanted everything that just happened."

If only. He might have had more than his fair share of knocks to the head but not enough to believe that. "That's the drug talking."

She smirked and shook her head. "Whatever lets you sleep at night, Taz."

Not likely. His bank account might say different, but he would always be the kid who'd celebrated too many birthdays in juvenile detention. That had been his life right up until he and his brothers had broken into Freddie Atlas's gym one night and everything changed.

Seemingly satisfied—if wrongly—that she was right, she wandered around his loft. There wasn't an inner wall in the huge space with its cathedral ceiling, except the oversized bathroom with its Roman shower and giant tub big enough for him to soak in after a brutal workout. After how he'd grown up, he'd had more than enough of enclosed spaces. Some nights he couldn't even stand the loft and had to throw open all the windows, even in the summer with the oppressive Texas heat.

Dressed only in his jacket, which nearly swallowed her small frame up, she circled the spartan living area and its brown leather couch, big screen TV, and scratched-up coffee table where he ate most of his meals not inhaled over the sink. That's where she strolled next, totally oblivious to the effect that seeing her so at home was having on him. She should look out of place. She didn't. Instead of being dwarfed by the space, she seemed to fill it, make it warmer, more interesting than granite and leather and hardwood had before. She stopped in front of the single photo in the entire place. A four-by-six framed picture, the last birthday gift Freddie had ever given him. The old man stood in the middle of a group of five light brown-skinned men, so obviously not of his own blood even if he was the only father they'd ever known.

Bianca picked up the picture and turned, but before she could ask about it and dig up answers he'd rather leave buried, he spoke.

"I need to text Keir." He strode over to the large kitchen island.

"Who's he?" She set the picture down on the counter.

"A brother." It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.

"How many do you have?"

"By blood? None." He held out his hand, not willing to go more into depth about the family he'd created or the one he'd been born into. "Can I have my cell? It's in the inside jacket pocket."

The smile she gave him as she backpedaled toward the living area made his cock thicken against his thigh. The drug or his natural response to her? Considering how often he really had jerked off thinking about Bianca Sutherland dressed in the plain black workout bra and matching shorts she wore to the gym, he wasn't about to lay the blame for his one-track-minded dick on the drug.

Letting his jacket part just enough to give him a peek of her amazing tits, she leaned against the back of the couch, which he couldn't help but notice was the perfect height to bend her over and fuck her from behind. "Why don't you come and get it?"

Holy hell did he want to—his stiff prick twitched at the idea—but he didn't trust himself.  "We don't have time for this shit, Bianca."

"What happened to Kitten?" She rolled up the cuffs so the sleeves no longer swallowed her hands, moving the jacket and showing off glimpses of bare skin before covering it up again. "You come on my ass and all of the sudden it's back to Bianca?" She traced the jacket's lapel up past her cleavage before slipping her hand inside and taking out his phone. "Say it and I'll give it to you."

His mouth went dry, like set-up-a-lemonade-stand-and-make-a-million-dollars-in-five-minutes dry. It was a word. Just a nickname. What was the harm? "Give me the phone...Kitten."

She held it out but didn't take a single step toward him. The air in the loft electrified and he took a step forward like a man in a lust trance. He wanted to hear his kitten purr. He'd seen her come, now he wanted to feel her against his tongue, his fingers, his dick that was already wet with pre-come.

Get it together, Hazard. She doesn't really want you. It's the drug. Don't take advantage of someone weaker. Don't turn into
him.

The reminder of his father was as good as taking the polar bear plunge. He fisted his hands and sucked in a steadying breath. The drug. They had to figure out what it was and how long it would affect them.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"Keir's a fixer," he managed to get out, the low raspiness in his voice showing just how close to the edge he still was. "He'll know someone who can find out what's in our system. Once we know that, I can figure out the next steps."

The teasing look on her face melted in an instant, as if the reminder of the mystery substance was enough to sever its hold on her.

"You mean so
we
can figure out the next step." She tossed the phone to him.

He caught the cell without looking away from her beautiful face and the emotions flashing across it. Lust. Annoyance. Fear. Determination. The woman should never play poker.

* * * *

The elevator binged ten minutes later and the doors had barely slid open before Keir Locke's voice boomed through the loft.

"You asshole, Taz. If you could have seen the babe who had her lips around my cock when I got your text, you would understand that when I say this had better be fucking good that I mean it."

Before Taz could tell his brother to shut the fuck up, Bianca picked that moment to walk out of the bathroom, where she'd gone to change into some of his old workout clothes. She wore his worn Texas Steers Football T-shirt knotted at the side so it dipped in at her waist and a pair of his workout shorts held up only by the miracle she'd managed to work by rolling up the elastic waist eighty billion times. Her wavy brown hair was loose around her shoulders and she'd washed her makeup off, not that it did a damn thing to lessen her appeal. If Taz could have shoved his brother back into the elevator before he spotted her, he would have without a second thought.

"Well, hello there, darling." Keir stopped in his tracks and gave her a slow up and down.

Even knowing that Keir flirted as easily and as often as he breathed—with about as much forethought—didn't stop him from contemplating murder. "Bianca, this idiot with more balls than brains is my brother Keir."

She crossed over to him and held out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Looks like my night must be in for an upgrade." Keir took her hand and brought it up to her lips like they'd been transported back in time, and instead of being a quasi-legal security consultant, his brother was the king of KissUpLandia.

Taz fisted his hands. He wouldn't kill him. Just rearrange his face—significantly. "Keep your mouth to your fucking self."

Ignoring him completely, Keir winked at Bianca. "You let me know when this jerk starts boring ya. I'm mighty entertaining."

"I'll keep that in mind." She pulled her hand free and sauntered over to the kitchen island next to Taz without even a second glance back at his brother.

Considering that more women than he could count—including a few of his ex-lovers—had fallen for Keir's tattooed, muscled, bad-boy charmer routine, her dismissal of the other man put a stupid grin on Taz's face before he could stop it. Noticing the pierced eyebrow Keir raised in question and the shit-eating grin on his face, Taz forced his lips back into their normal half snarl.

"Did you bring it?" he asked.

"Of course." Keir lifted up the small black pouch in his hand and strutted to the island. "Care to tell me what this is all about now that you've cock blocked me twice in one night?"

Taz grabbed three beers from the fridge, popped the tops and set them on the island. "Take our blood first and I'll tell you everything over a beer."

Five minutes later, he was a vial of blood lighter and had a fuzzy cotton ball taped to the inside of his elbow with medical tape. He and Bianca took turns bringing Keir up to speed about everything except the exact nature of the Bisu Manor party and the entirety of what had happened in the garage.

Keir nodded thoughtfully, for the first time in his life quiet for longer than five minutes in one stretch, and took a long pull off his beer bottle. "Would this party be one of the rich people orgy variety?"

Taz closed his eyes and sighed. Really, he shouldn't be surprised. The fact that he hadn't asked about what had happened in the garage was a fucking blessing, considering his brother was probably tapped into the building's security feed.

"You know about the parties?" Bianca asked.

Keir grinned and tapped her beer bottle with his before taking a swig and putting it down. "Darling, I fix a lot of problems for a lot of important people in the beautiful state of Texas and beyond. There's not a lot of what goes down that I don't know about." Slow and deliberate, he traced a finger down her forearm. "Now, are you sure I can't talk you into switching brothers? Just look at his nose. It's been broken twice. I'm still one hundred percent as God made me, with the addition of some ink and a few special piercings. I'm more than happy to show you them all."

Her soft giggle and the coy way she looked at Keir through her thick eyelashes put a foul taste in Taz's mouth as he fought to stay seated on his stool instead of jumping across the granite island and landing his fist in his brother's face.
Let's see how your nose looks after that, dickwad.

Then, quick as a spooked mare, Bianca hooked a foot around the leg of Keir's stool and yanked, sending him flying back into the air. His brother landed on his ass, ego dinted but nose still perfectly straight.

"How about you keep your hands to yourself before I fix you?" Bianca took a slow sip of her beer, cool, as if she hadn't upended a guy that had a solid one hundred pounds of muscle and at least a foot on her.

Just when he thought she couldn't get hotter, she made a move like that. Yep, his Kitten had claws and she wasn't afraid to use them. He loved it.

"Okay, so the Genie's Wish has worn off," Keir said as he stood. "That's good. That means you two will be able to concentrate."

"That was a test?" Taz asked, setting his beer down on the island with a hard clank.

Unfazed, his brother shrugged. "And since you didn't tear my head off my shoulders and she didn't turn all hot and bothered, I'm happy to report you both passed with flying colors."

"You're a dick," Bianca muttered.

"Abso-fucking-lutely I am." Keir picked up his stool and sat back down. "But I'm just the dick you both need." His face twisted with horror as what he'd said registered. "That came out wrong. Let's move along."

More than willing to move past that distasteful mental image, Taz asked, "What is Genie's Wish?"

"Up until tonight I thought it was just a problem in Eastern Europe, but it looks like it's crossed the Atlantic." His brother secured the two vials of blood into the black pouch and zipped it up. "It's usually inhaled, although there've been rumors of injections, but those experiments turned gnarly fast, from what I understand. The drug elevates whatever central emotion the user is feeling at the time and grants you that wish. Take lust, greed, and fury as examples. If you're at an orgy, you're going to fuck your brains out. If you're at the casino, you're going to gamble until you can't anymore. If you're on the battlefield, you're going to kill until you're the only one left standing. This gets into the wrong hands and we've got a country where everyone's a porn star, gambling addict, killing machine. It'll get ugly quick, which is why the DEA has a bounty out on any information about it."