Any Way You Want It (18 page)

Undeterred, Zandra turned and followed him. He sat in a chair, and she knew it had been deliberate. He didn’t want her sitting close to him.

Her throat tightened at the sting of his rejection.

Ignoring the plush sofa and other chairs, she lowered herself to the floor at his feet, tucking her legs under her. She was determined to get through to him once and for all, even if it took all night.

“Talk to me, Remy,” she said softly.

He sat with his back at an angle to the kitchen. The light cast shadows over his face, making it so impenetrable he might as well have been covered with the camouflage paint he’d once worn.

“I feel like you’re keeping an important part of yourself from me,” Zandra whispered. “And it hurts.”

Something like guilt flickered in the dark eyes that met hers. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know.” She swallowed tightly and moistened her dry lips. “You were there for me after my mother died. You took leave so you could look after me, and those two weeks you were home meant
everything
to me. You brought me food and made me eat when no one else could. You comforted me, held me when I needed you to. You kept me from falling completely apart, Remy.”

He leaned his head back against the chair. “Zandra—”

“Ever since you came back I’ve wanted to return the favor, but you haven’t let me.” She shook her head. “It’s not fair.”

He clenched his jaw, his grip tightening on the beer bottle until she thought it might shatter, slicing his hand.

She waited tensely, breath suspended in her lungs. She was surprised at just how badly she wanted him to confide in her, bare his soul.

They were quiet for several moments before he finally spoke, his voice low and remote. “The commander of my SEAL platoon was a guy named Dustin Shaughnessy. He came from a long line of naval officers dating back to his great-grandfather, who’d served in World War One and earned the Medal of Honor. Shaughnessy’s grandfather and father were also decorated war heroes. If ever there was such a thing as navy royalty, Shaughnessy was it. He graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, reported for duty as an ensign and was promoted to lieutenant within a year. But he never acted entitled, never lorded his family pedigree over anyone. He was a good teammate and a damn good SEAL. A frogman’s frogman.”

“Sounds like you had a lot of respect for him,” Zandra observed quietly.

“I did. We all did. Out in the field, rank rarely ever matters. Officers and platoon leaders never have a problem taking advice from their men. We’re a team, working together to achieve the same goal. I was second in charge to Shaughnessy. I was an LTJG—lieutenant junior grade. But even though he outranked me, Shaughnessy never tried to pull rank.” Remy paused, his expression hardening. “Until that night in Fallujah.”

He stared into the distance for several moments, lost in memories that were beyond Zandra’s reach.

She waited.

He took a deep swig of his beer, as if he needed to shore up the courage to proceed with his narrative.

“Three years ago my platoon was tasked to conduct a body snatch, which is an operation to kidnap high-value enemy personnel. Our target was a Muslim cleric I’ll call Jaffar. He had ties to a terrorist cell that was plotting to attack several U.S. embassies and navy warships. But Jaffar wanted no parts of the plan. He’d had some sort of spiritual reawakening, and he wanted to defect from the group. But by doing so, he would have signed his own death warrant and endangered his family. So my team was sent to Fallujah to extract him. We weren’t supposed to kill him. He was wanted alive. Like I said, he was a high-value target, and we needed the intel he could provide about the terror plot.”

As Remy paused to down the rest of his beer, Zandra could sense his growing tension. She braced herself for what he would reveal next.

He set the empty bottle on the floor, leaned back against the chair and started bouncing one leg up and down, an agitated gesture he probably wasn’t even aware of doing. “That night we were inserted by helicopter into Jaffar’s residential compound. We’d executed these kinds of operations so many times before, we could do them in our sleep. But not that night. After we dropped in from the roof of Jaffar’s house, all hell broke loose.”

Zandra stared at Remy’s grim face, every muscle stretched taut. “What happened?”

His eyes hardened. “Shaughnessy went way off course. After we secured the target, we should have gotten the hell out. But Shaughnessy insisted on rounding up Jaffar’s family members and putting them in one room. Jaffar had a pregnant wife, five children and an elderly mother. None of them were armed. By this time some of my other teammates were engaged in a gunfight with Jaffar’s guards outside.”

Remy shook his head. “Everything happened so damn fast. One moment I was in another room guarding Jaffar. He was rambling in Arabic, talking about Allah and the gift of redemption and second chances. He was scared, but not because I was holding a machine gun to his head. He was worried for his family, and I assured him that they wouldn’t be harmed. No sooner had the words left my mouth than I heard gunshots down the hall. I put a man on Jaffar and ran to the room—” Remy broke off, rubbing his face with trembling hands.

Zandra waited, her heart pounding with dread.

He swallowed tightly. “Shaughnessy had shot and killed Jaffar’s family members. All of them, including the youngest child. A four-year-old.”

“Oh, my God,” Zandra breathed in shock.

Remy’s nostrils flared, his eyes burning with raw emotion. “I lost it. I stormed over to Shaughnessy and cracked him on the jaw with the butt of my gun. When I asked him what the fuck had happened, he said that Jaffar’s family had been whispering to one another, plotting to kill him. He said the oldest son rushed him with a knife, and he was just defending himself.” Remy snorted bitterly. “The kid was fourteen years old.
Fourteen.
I’d seen Shaughnessy dismantle a three-hundred-pound, AK-47–toting tango without breaking a fucking sweat, and here he wanted me to believe he’d felt threatened by a skinny teenager wielding a butter knife. I was furious. We started yelling at each other, and then I heard a scream from the doorway. An anguished, bloodcurdling scream I will never forget for as long as I live.

“Jaffar had overpowered the man guarding him and run down the hall. When he saw his family members sprawled across the floor...his pregnant wife...his children...all the blood...
Jesus,
” Remy whispered hoarsely, closing his eyes with a hard shudder.

Zandra was horror-stricken. She couldn’t speak as nausea clawed at her throat.

After several moments, Remy inhaled a shaky breath and opened his eyes. “When Jaffar saw what Shaughnessy had done to his family, he tried to kill him. But as he pointed the gun at Shaughnessy, I couldn’t let him do it. So I shot him without thinking twice. When he fell to the floor, I went over to check his pulse. Before he died, he looked into my eyes and he...he condemned all of our souls to hell. I was the only one who spoke Arabic, so no one else understood what he’d said. But I did, and it’s haunted me ever since.”

“Oh, my God, Remy.” Zandra touched his thigh, feeling his muscles tighten beneath her hand. “I’m so sorry. What an unspeakable tragedy.”

His jaw hardened, grief and regret stamped into his features. “It was.”

Zandra rubbed his knee, trying to soothe him. “What happened after that night?”

He grimaced darkly. “The operation was a colossal clusterfuck. We’d not only lost our high-value target, we’d lost one of our own. Heads had to roll.” His lips twisted bitterly. “I was a convenient sacrificial lamb.”

Zandra was stunned and outraged at the injustice of it. “So that’s why you were discharged.”

He nodded tightly. “Shaughnessy wanted to cover his hide, so he accused me of misconduct and insubordination. Our commanding officer intervened to ensure that I received an honorable discharge.”

Zandra was livid. “And what about Shaughnessy? He slaughtered eight innocent people that night, including an unborn child. Why wasn’t an investigation launched? Why weren’t charges brought against him?”

“The Pentagon didn’t want the public to know,” Remy admitted grimly.

Zandra snorted. “How fucking typical.”

Remy pushed out a heavy breath. “You have to understand something. There are some classified missions that aren’t disclosed to the public for years. And then there are covert operations that will never see the light of day. The Fallujah op fell into the latter category.”

“So what happened to Shaughnessy?
He’s
the one who went rogue and botched the mission.
He’s
the reason you were forced to kill Jaffar. Did he at least get discharged?”

“No,” Remy answered in a low, embittered voice. “As I explained before, Shaughnessy hailed from a long line of decorated naval officers. No one wanted to tarnish that legacy.”

Zandra frowned, growing angrier by the second. “But he was obviously a loose cannon.”

“That’s true. He was. But he hadn’t always been.” A dark shadow fell over Remy’s face. “Four months before the Fallujah operation, he’d lost his best friend in Afghanistan. It devastated him. That night at Jaffar’s house, he looked into the faces of Jaffar’s family members, and all he could see were the insurgents who’d killed his childhood friend. It was too much for him, and he snapped.”

“Dear God,” Zandra murmured, shaking her head at the senselessness of the carnage. One tragedy begat another tragedy, and innocent lives were destroyed. When did it ever end?

“Shaughnessy wasn’t discharged,” Remy continued, “but he was reassigned out of the platoon to a desk job.” He paused, his eyes darkening. “Four days ago, he shot and killed himself.”

Zandra gasped, staring at Remy. “Oh, my God. Why?”

He pressed his lips into a grim line. “Knowing the type of man he was, my guess is he couldn’t go on living with the guilt of what he’d done that night.”

Zandra felt moisture pricking her eyes. This story couldn’t get any more tragic.

Remy shook his head slowly at her, his eyes haunted. “I’ve killed more men than you will ever know. I’ve killed with guns, with bombs, with improvised weapons. I’ve killed with my bare hands, and I’ve watched men take their last breath as I shoved my knife through their heart. Fighting to win is what I was trained to do, and I did it well. But no life I’ve taken has ever affected me the way taking Jaffar’s life did. Watching him fall next to the body of his pregnant wife...surrounded by their dead chil—” His voice hitched, and he dropped his head.

Zandra’s heart constricted painfully. She pushed to her knees, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him, absorbing his pain and anguish as if it were her own.

When he lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes were bright with unshed tears, and so full of sorrow her heart broke.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered fiercely.

His nostrils flared with suppressed emotion.

“Do you hear me?” Zandra urgently cupped his face between her hands. “It wasn’t your fault, Remy.”

He stared at her another moment, then made a muffled sound deep in his throat and threw his arms around her. Tears flooded her eyes. He clung tightly to her, and she clung right back. Nothing could have separated her from him at that moment.

He’d finally opened up to her, giving her the missing piece to the puzzle he’d become over the past three years. She was devastated for him. Devastated for the innocent people who’d paid the ultimate price that harrowing night. She was grateful that Remy had finally entrusted her with the painful secret that had been slowly ravaging his soul. Right then and there she vowed she’d do whatever it took to help him find peace and healing.

She didn’t know how much time passed while they clutched each other. It didn’t matter.

When Remy eventually drew away and exhaled a shuddering breath, she kissed his forehead and whispered, “Let’s go to bed.”

He nodded silently.

He helped her to her feet, then Zandra took him by the hand and gently led him back to the bedroom.

As they climbed into bed, she pulled him into the cradle of her arms. Her heart swelled to aching as he curled his big body into hers and tucked his head beneath her chin. She held him close, rubbing her cheek back and forth against his soft, low-cut hair.

They didn’t speak. Words would have interfered.

But when his breathing had grown deep and even, she brushed her lips across his forehead and tenderly confessed, “I love you, Remington.”

And tomorrow, when he was awake, she would tell him again.

Chapter Nineteen

“D
id you know that vibrators were once used by doctors to induce orgasms in female patients suffering from hysteria?”

The audience for Zandra’s impromptu lecture on antique vibrators included Remy and an elderly couple wearing matching T-shirts emblazoned with the American flag, brand-new white sneakers and bulging fanny packs. The couple looked as out of place in a museum of sex as two nuns at a biker convention.

Remy, on the other hand, looked like a badass who’d feel right at home at a rowdy gathering of Hells Angels. He wore a black T-shirt that showed off his tattooed biceps, black jeans and black combat boots. His eyes glinted with wicked fascination as he watched Zandra deliver her spiel while handling the antique vibrator.

“That’s right,” she continued as the elderly couple exchanged shocked glances. “In Victorian times, it was believed that the way to cure any disease was to induce a crisis during the course of the illness. So if you had a fever, sweating would break the fever and you’d feel better. Well, the crisis that supposedly cured female hysteria was hysterical paroxysm—known today as an orgasm.” She held up an unwieldy metal device. “Before the vibrator was invented, doctors had to use their fingers to manually massage their patients to orgasm.”

The old man chortled. “Not a bad gig.”

His wife shot him a lethal glare.

Smothering a grin, Zandra held out the vibrator to her. “Would you like to touch it, ma’am?”

She shrank back from Zandra, looking scandalized. “Absolutely not.”

Her husband gently patted her arm, his blue eyes twinkling with laughter as he thanked Zandra for the “informative lecture.”

As he and his wife shuffled off, Zandra didn’t have to wonder whose idea it had been to visit a museum of sex that day. When the old man glanced over his shoulder and winked at her, she chuckled.

As she returned the antique vibrator to the glass display case, Remy sidled close and murmured in her ear, “You’ve been a very bad girl.”

Zandra gave him a cheeky grin. “What do you mean?”

“Come on,” Remy gently guffawed. “Are you gonna pretend you didn’t notice the way that old dude was checking you out during your presentation? Wearing this tight little blouse and short black skirt. Hell, he probably didn’t realize his old dick could still get that hard.”

Zandra choked out a laugh. “Will you stop that?” she whispered, glancing around at the crowd of people browsing about with audio-guide phones pressed to their ears and studious expressions on their faces.

Remy grinned. “I’m just speaking the truth. His wife should send you a thank-you card, because if that smile on his face was any indication, they won’t be needing any Viagra tonight.”

“Stop it,” Zandra laughingly scolded, ushering him toward the next exhibit.

“How did you remember all that stuff anyway?” Remy marveled, briefly stepping out of character. “It’s been almost thirteen years since you worked here.”

“I know, but I’ve always been good at memorization. Spend a year lecturing tourists about antique vibrators and ancient sex practices, and after a while the facts just roll off the tongue.” She winked lewdly. “Pun intended.”

Remy laughed.

After enjoying a day of sightseeing capped by an early dinner, they’d headed to the Institute of Sex, where Zandra had a memorable evening of role-playing planned for them.

The museum’s nondescript three-story building in London’s East End was off the beaten path, but its obscure location had never hurt business. If anything, it seemed to heighten the museum’s risqué appeal, adding to the allure of the forbidden. Back when Zandra had worked there as a tour guide, herds of tourists had arrived daily to view sexually explicit photographs, illustrations, books, stag films and an eclectic collection of artifacts that included vintage condom tins, tokens from burlesque peep shows and prototype sex machines.

Before leaving Chicago, Zandra had contacted the museum’s owner, who still remembered her fondly and had been pleased to hear from her. After Zandra explained what she wanted—sweetening the unusual request with a generous donation to the museum’s coffers—the woman had graciously granted Zandra and Remy free roam of the building tonight. She’d even provided Zandra with an updated tour guide uniform to wear as part of her role-playing.

Remy was thoroughly enjoying himself—and they hadn’t even gotten to the grand finale yet.

Returning to character as an irresistibly sexy stranger she’d just met, he followed her into a cool, dimly lit room that featured pornographic woodblock prints and brothel guides from eighteenth-century Japan. This, too, was one of the museum’s permanent exhibits that Zandra was already familiar with.

“So,” he drawled, “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

She gave him a coy smile over her shoulder. “How do you know I’m a nice girl?”

“You mentioned earlier that you’re from a small town.” He raised an amused brow. “Aren’t all girls from small towns nice?”

“Only the ones who stay behind,” Zandra quipped.

He gave a low, husky laugh that made her nipples harden.

“As for the other part of your question,” she continued challengingly, “what do you mean by ‘a place like this’?”

Remy grinned, glancing around at the explicit paraphernalia on display throughout the exhibit hall. “I think that’s self-explanatory.”

“Oh, I see. You’re one of those people who thinks this is nothing more than some raunchy sex museum, like you’d find in some red-light district. But you’re wrong. This
isn’t
a sex museum. It’s a museum of sex. There’s a difference.”

“Really?” His dark eyes glittered with genuine amusement. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“Well, for starters, this is one of only a handful of museums in the world that takes an academic approach to sex. Our exhibits aren’t designed to titillate, but to educate.”

“Educate,” Remy repeated thoughtfully as he wandered farther into the hall. She fell in step beside him as they walked the length of the wall, studying a series of handpainted scenes that depicted men with monstrously exaggerated penises in various sexual positions with women.

“The society was really obsessed with genitalia,” Zandra explained.

“Aren’t we all?” Remy mused, giving her a sidelong look that naturally made her think of
his
obsession-worthy genitals.

Ignoring the hungry throbbing of her pussy, she continued her educational spiel. “These prints are called
shunga,
which means ‘spring pictures’ in Japanese. Each
shunga
was mass produced to be used as masturbatory aids.”

“You don’t say.” Remy had stopped to face her. “So they were basically like porn in those days.”

“Yes. They were considered visually stimulating.”

He looked at one of the prints on the wall, assessing. “Doesn’t do much for me.” His gaze returned to hers. “What about you?”

Zandra gave a husky laugh. “With all due respect to the artists, it takes a bit more than a kinky drawing to turn me on.”

Something hot and wicked flared in Remy’s eyes, and his voice dipped indecently low as he asked, “What turns you on?”

You,
Zandra thought without hesitation.
The way you look, the way you smell, the way you say my name. The way you fuck.

She swallowed, watching his hooded gaze follow the path of her tongue as she licked her parched lips.

He’d shifted subtly closer. His nearness, his sheer physicality, always made her acutely aware of her own body. The friction of lace against her tight nipples. The dampness of her panties between her thighs, rubbing against her clit.

“It’s kind of dark in here,” Remy murmured.

“To protect the art from harmful light,” she explained, feeling and sounding breathless. “The room is also temperature-controlled.”

“You’re very good at this,” Remy remarked, and Zandra suspected he was talking about her role-playing. She could definitely say the same of him.

“Good at what?” she asked.

“Your job. You really know your stuff.”

“Thanks. I’m still learning.”

Mischief glimmered in his eyes. “Do you have to be an expert on sex to work at a sex museum?”

“Museum of sex,” she corrected with a chuckle. “And, no, you don’t have to be a sex expert to work here.”

“But it probably doesn’t hurt.”

Zandra smiled demurely. “When does it ever hurt to be an expert on anything?”

One side of his mouth lifted in a smile. “Well played.”

Grinning, Zandra glanced toward the entrance to the hall. She could see people milling around, but so far no one had ventured into the exhibit.

Deciding she and Remy had better leave before she was mistaken for a real tour guide again, she took Remy’s hand and ushered him from the hall.

“I need to use the ladies’ room,” she told him as they headed up to the second floor of the building, which was far less populated than the first level.

Remembering what had happened the
last
time they were at a museum together, Zandra gave him a warning look. “
Don’t
follow me.”

He chuckled, snapping his fingers. “Damn. I was just about to do that, too.”

“I know you were.” She shook her head at him. “Wait for me by the Kama Sutra exhibit.”

He wiggled his brows suggestively. “Is that code for—”

Zandra laughed, pointing him in the direction she wanted him to go.

Inside the clean restroom, she found the bag she’d secretly stowed earlier and quickly changed into the costume she’d bought at an adult store in Chicago.

When she emerged wearing a belted trench coat and red stiletto boots, Remy ran a slow, speculative gaze over her. Just as slowly, he smiled.

“What’re you wearing under there?”

Zandra smiled mysteriously. “You’ll see soon enough. Follow me.”

She took his hand and guided him to a rear stairwell that led up to the third level, which the museum’s owner had agreed to close to the public for the night.

Zandra’s spiky heels clicked seductively against the floor as she escorted Remy down a shadowy corridor to a glass-fronted chamber, where an antique Victorian bed was on display. It was decadently draped in red silk and featured ornate medallions on the head and footboard.

“What’s this room?” Remy murmured as they entered the chamber.

“This,” Zandra proudly explained, “is the museum’s showpiece exhibit. This bed belonged to one of the last great courtesans of Victorian London.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Her name was Millicent, but everyone called her Millie. She was rumored to be the illegitimate daughter of King Edward the Seventh, but he never acknowledged her birth. She grew up to become a fashion trendsetter and one of the most beautiful women in England. Men couldn’t resist her and, well, she couldn’t resist them.”

Remy grinned wickedly. “Sounds like my kind of woman.”

Zandra smiled, sauntering over to the bed. “Some of Millie’s benefactors included political leaders, intellectuals, aristocrats, even members of the British royal family.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Zandra seductively trailed her fingertips over the silk spread. “She embraced her sexuality and enjoyed many pleasurable liaisons in this very bed.”

Remy cast an appreciative glance over the antique showpiece. “Many, huh?”

Zandra nodded, lips twitching with humor. “But she was known to be something of a control freak in bed.”

“Really?” Remy looked both amused and fascinated. “How so?”

“Well—” Zandra sighed dramatically “—Millie’s biggest lament in life was that she would never become queen. She was a courtesan who wanted more than anything to ascend to the throne someday. But it wasn’t possible, especially since her father refused to even acknowledge her existence. It saddened and angered her. So whenever she was in bed with her lovers, she made them call her ‘my queen’ or ‘Your Highness.’ And if they didn’t, she punished them in ways you can’t imagine.”

Remy’s eyes gleamed with lascivious interest. “What kind of ways?”

Zandra smiled enigmatically. “Let’s just say it kept them coming back for more.”

“Damn. That good, huh?” Remy grinned, shaking his head at Zandra. “Are you making this all up?”

“Of course not. Why would you think that?”

“Beautiful woman with lousy father. Fashion trendsetter. Unconventional occupation. Lusted after by hordes of men.” His mouth twitched. “Sounds like someone we both know.”

Zandra gave him a blank look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh.” He chuckled, pointing to the bed. “Are those the original sheets?”

“No.” The museum’s owner had replaced the linens for Zandra’s purposes. “Anyway, what made Millie so desirable to men was that she was different from the well-bred English girls who came to London for the Season. Millie wasn’t at all repressed. She was exciting, adventurous. Naughty.”

“Mmm,” Remy murmured. “I’m liking her more and more.”

Zandra grinned. “Oh, but I don’t think you could have handled a woman like her.”

He arched a brow. “And why not?”

“Because you’re too domineering, Remy. Too much of a control freak. You could never be...submissive in bed.”

“Submissive?” he repeated.

Zandra laughed. “It even sounds foreign coming out of your mouth.”

“That’s not true. I can be—” he paused over the word “—submissive.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really. I can be any way you want me.”

“Any way, huh?”

“Any way. Anytime.”

Their gazes locked in seductive challenge.

A slow smile curved Zandra’s lips. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Yeah?” His voice turned smoky. “Why’s that?”

Zandra slowly unbelted and removed her trench coat, letting it fall to the floor.

Remy’s eyes widened, and his jaw dropped at the sight of her body sheathed in a red satin dress that was a modern twist on Victorian-era gowns. His hungry gaze traveled over the lush mounds of her breasts spilling over the vintage corset, down to the translucent skirt that slitted up to her bare thighs.

“Dammmnnn,”
he breathed, licking his lips. “So that’s what you were hiding under that coat.”