Consumed by Fire (Fire 1)

Several of the truckers left while Bishop was off with Merlin, including her erstwhile suitor, who was being helped by a friend, but they studiously kept their gaze away from her old gray truck. Bishop was lucky the bunch of them didn’t decide to ambush him, she thought, but then remembered the looks on their faces when they saw how swiftly Bishop could take a man down. No, no one was coming near them.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. There was nothing she could do about things—she’d tried her best and been shot down. She was just going to have to take her medicine.

She jumped when Bishop yanked open the driver’s door. Merlin leapt in and greeted her with the joy of someone returning after a year’s absence, and Bishop slid in beside them, leaning down and fiddling with something under the dashboard, presumably whatever would have stopped her from driving off. She reached in her pocket for her extra key and dropped it in his lap.

It landed on his crotch, which was unfortunate, but she refused to be sorry. If it were up to her, that was where she’d kick him, good and hard. He scooped it up, shoving it in his pocket without looking at her, and started the truck, pulling out of the parking lot and setting out on the road at his usual insane pace.

Instead of turning left, getting back on the interstate, he turned right, onto a road that seemed to lead into nowhere. There were no town lights that she could see, nothing but miles and miles of flat prairie. He was going to kill her and bury her in that prairie, she thought, suddenly panicked. Why did she refuse to think he meant her any harm? Simply because he said so? Simply because she’d once loved him?

It was a long time before she finally got up the nerve to speak. “I’m sorry I wrote on the mirror,” she said meekly. “But I had to try, you know that.”

To her surprise he didn’t snap at her. “What mirror?” His tone and his face were expressionless.

Relief and hope swept through her. “Uh . . . nothing. I mean . . .”

“You mean you’re sorry you wrote a note on the mirror that gave your license plate number and asked for help? Not a problem. It was easy enough to clean off.”

Her hope deflated like a balloon. “You bastard,” she muttered.

“Don’t push it.”

“Push what? Are you going to shoot me and bury me in the desert?” she demanded. “I’m tired of being afraid of you. What are you going to do with me?”

“You’re afraid of me? You don’t act like it,” he said in a low, affectless voice. He seemed to consider it for a moment, and she wondered if her life hung in the balance. “I’m not going to shoot you, I’m not going to hit you, I’m not going to torture you. If I have to tie you up and gag you I will, but that’s the worst that will happen. Unless I lose my temper, and then I might spank you, but that’s unlikely.”

She turned to him, outrage wiping out her fear. “Spank me?” she said. “I’d like to see you try, you demeaning sexist bastard.”

To her amazement there was a slight lift to his mouth, as if he found her funny. “Would you? I’ll keep that in mind.”

She didn’t know how he did it. There was nothing sensuous in his voice, nothing suggestive in his expression, but all she could think of was sex—dirty, sweaty, nasty, lovely sex—and she could feel her temperature rise, feel her unwilling body react to her arousal in all the familiar ways.

She crossed her arms over her chest, more to hide her hardened nipples than to assuage them, but the sudden pressure made things worse, and she slid even farther away from him, trying to think of unpleasant things and failing entirely. She leaned her head against the window, with Merlin pressing up against her, offering her comfort.

What was it Laurel and Hardy used to say? Something like, “That’s another fine kettle of fish you’ve gotten yourself into.” She could relate. She was in a fine kettle of fish, the sharks were circling, the water was coming to a boil, and she was drowning. She closed her eyes.

It didn’t help that she was so impossibly conflicted. It should have been so simple—she hate

d him. He’d lied to her, and cheated and stole. Worst of all, he’d ruined her for any other man, though she’d done her best to test out a replacement that first year, as he seemed to be fully aware. She’d married Pete because he was energetic and undemanding and he could make her come. After Pete she hadn’t even bothered—she could do it faster and better by herself.

The man who had caused all that grief, the man who had disillusioned and defeated her for the first time in her life had returned to make her life even more miserable. He’d essentially kidnapped her; she’d been stabbed, drugged, and a witness to a brutal execution, and it was only going to get worse. And she was sitting here trying to will her body into behaving.

What the hell was wrong with her? She’d never been into bad boys, though she’d tried a few to see if that was what was lacking. The only bad boy she’d ever loved was James Bishop, and she’d known he was a bad boy beneath the elegant clothes and lazy charm. You only had to look into his eyes.

Not that she’d really loved him, she reminded herself firmly. If he’d been who he said he was . . . if he hadn’t been after her jewelry . . . if he’d loved her . . .

But none of that was true and it didn’t matter. The dismal truth was that her body was remembering the things he’d done to it, the way he’d touched her, and her body wanted him. That was it, she thought. It was her body that was betraying her. Her head and heart weren’t involved.

Bodies could be kept under control. Physical hungers could be ignored. She moved even closer to the door, remembering how to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, quietly, so he wouldn’t notice.

“Don’t get all nervous again,” he said as he turned down an even narrower road. “You’re going to like it.”

She had no idea what he meant by that, and she was damned if she was going to ask. He said he wasn’t going to kill her and she believed him. That was the best she could do, but it was good enough for now. He drove in silence, and she began to close her eyes, ready to sleep again, when something made her glance at him.

He was fiddling with a machine that looked as if it came from Star Trek, though a lot smaller, some kind of uber-cell phone. “Don’t text while you’re driving,” she said, crankily. “It’s probably against the law.”

“We’re in Colorado. Everything is legal here, even weed,” he said, still moving his thumb over the keypad. “And not only is there no traffic, there’s nothing on either side of the road to hurt us if I go off the side of the pavement. So chill.”

Chill, she echoed to herself, almost laughing at the absurdity as they continued down the narrow road at breathtaking speeds. Dolores’s air-conditioning had never been one of her strong points, and it was working overtime. Even night on this flat plain was ridiculously hot, and the engine was probably overheating as well. The vents just seemed to be blowing warm air in on her, and she started to lower the window when he stopped her, simply by overriding the controls on the driver’s side.