Consumed by Fire (Fire 1)

A large, icy glass of Diet Coke appeared in front of them, along with a plastic pitcher filled with the stuff. “You drink all that and you’ll be peeing all night long, and I’m not making a dozen stops.”

She shrugged. “You forget—I have an iron bladder. Anyway, it’s my truck. I’ll pee in it if I want to.”

He couldn’t let himself smile, much as he wanted to. He shrugged. “Your problem, not mine.”

“Oh, I think when we get farther south and warmer it’ll be your problem too.”

“Drink your damned pop and shut up.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Aha. You’re from the Midwest.”

“What makes you think that?” he said lazily. Wyoming was a far cry from the Midwest.

“Only Midwesterners call soda, pop,” she said smugly.

It wouldn’t do any harm to spike her guns. “Well, you’re wrong. I’m from Wyoming, and we call it half a dozen names, like liquid poison and pig swill.”

“What part of Wyoming?” she countered. “Are we near your home?”

“I don’t have a home anymore, and any connection I have to this place is long gone. And stop asking me questions you know I won’t answer, Angel. The less you know the better.” He used his name for her deliberately—he liked the way it made her bristle.

“I hardly think that’s fair, since you supposedly know everything about me. Including my birthday and where I was born,” she added, taunting him, clearly doubting him.

“You were born September tenth, at seven twenty in the evening, at Jefferson General Hospital in Port Townsend, Washington. You weighed seven pounds, fifteen ounces, and . . .”

She looked slightly ill. “Enough,” she said. “I believe you.”

“I also know the name of every man you slept with when you first came back from Italy and tried to fuck me out of your system.” The resources of the Committee were far-flung, and he’d been able to find out anything he wanted while keeping his distance, even though it had driven him crazy.

If he was hoping his words would cow her some more he was mistaken—she met his gaze fearlessly, and he allowed himself a moment to fall into her green eyes. “Now that’s impressive,” she said, a challenge in her voice. “There were a lot of them, and I don’t think I even remember them all.”

“Well, if there’s anyone who particularly annoyed you, just describe him and I’ll go beat him up when this is over,” he said lightly.

Shit. Shit shit shit. How stupid could he be? The woman he was in . . . the woman he was protecting was smarter than should be legal, and her eyes had narrowed.

“You had Pete beaten up, didn’t you?”

He stalled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right after our divorce went through, and I found out he’d taken all my work and passed it off as his own, some random stranger backed him into an alley and beat the shit out of him. Was it you?”

“Now what makes you think I’m a knight errant?” He took a delaying sip of his coffee.

“Because you just offered to do the same to anyone else I slept with. It’s not a major leap.” She was watching him intently.

“Maybe I just like an excuse to hit people.” He had the vague hope she’d only hear the threat in that, but she ignored him. For someone so damned smart, she was really fucking stupid. “So drop it.”

She was going to test him, and he tensed. “Well, there was this guy in Boston. I forget his name, but he was six foot six or something, and a total asshat. He thought he was God’s gift to womanhood and he couldn’t even get me off.”

She said it deliberately, and he’d warned her. He kicked her, hard, beneath the table, enough to hurt, and she stifled her squeal of pain, her eyes dark at his betrayal. She probably thought he’d never hurt her. It was past time she knew that he’d do whatever he had to do.

“You keep forgetting I’m the enemy, Angel,” he said laconically. His appetite had vanished. She had to do what he told her, or they’d never survive, but he’d kicked her harder than he’d meant to, and it made him sick. He didn’t let it show, and kept his expression bland. “I have nothing to do with the man you met in Italy five years ago, and you need to remember that.”

“Then why do you keep insisting we’re married?” Her voice was small, subdued, and he felt guilty, which was flatly absurd. He killed people, beat people, tortured them when ordered to, and women weren’t exempt. Some of the most vicious, deadly creatures he’d ever met were women. So why was he feeling guilty about a little kick?

“John Hall,” he said suddenly.

She blinked. “What?”