“What?”
His answer was to yank her into his arms, so fast and efficiently that she didn’t have time to react. He shoved her up against the locked door, his hips pushing against her, pinning her there, his hands holding her head, his long fingers cupping her face, tilting it up for his mouth.
His mouth. She was so surprised she didn’t try to close her lips against him. The feel of his body drained all her defiance, and she let herself mold to him as she opened her mouth for his kiss, her arms going around his waist to hold on, afraid she might fall.
He used his tongue, sweeping into her mouth, as if he wanted to taste everything, to suck the air out of her, and she sank into it, into the unbearable glory of his mouth, of his kiss, of his kisses. He pulled back and kissed her again, more gently this time, luring her, seducing her, and then he changed again, the kiss so hard she wanted to slide to the floor in a little puddle of desire. It was a good thing she had the door behind her. She released her hold on him a mere second later, putting her hands flat on the surface behind her, staring up at him, fighting her conflicting emotions. He moved away, a cocky grin on his face as he slid into the driver’s seat, and if she’d been anywhere else, she’d have thrown something at him. In the RV there were
no loose articles she could fling, only her tongue.
“Asshole,” she said.
It was definitely the word for the day.
Chapter Thirteen
Bishop drove. He set the cruise control for a reasonable sixty-five, though that was unlikely for a Winnebago of its supposed age, and headed south until he hooked up with Interstate 40 and the broad, flat plains of Texas, where he pushed it up to seventy.
He hated Texas, at least most of it, and he’d considered changing his route. He had a couple of possibilities and he took this one that would bring him into Louisiana the quickest, or he would have headed through the wheat fields of Kansas. Either way, going from the Rocky Mountains to the delta would require a lot of flat landscape, and he was inured to it, even though he knew this seeming bucket of bolts could safely travel a hell of a lot faster and not have a problem. He was going to have to fill up the tanks eventually, have to let Evangeline get something to eat, though damn, that egg thing she’d made had been good.
He didn’t know if she’d be easier or harder to control after last night. He wasn’t going to think about it—driving across Texas with a hard-on wasn’t his idea of heaven. Thinking about that ugly bruise on Evangeline’s leg wasn’t much better. He wasn’t squeamish about hurting women—you did what you had to do, and there was no room for chivalry in a business where a sweet young thing could put a stiletto between your ribs, and in his case, had. But Evangeline was a different matter. Everything he’d done, he’d done to keep her safe from harm. And then he’d ended up being the one who hurt her.
He was being melodramatic, but the long straight line of the highway wasn’t doing much to distract him. Clement had hurt her a lot worse, though she was well on her way to healing. So was he, despite the way he’d ignored his stitches last night.
Last night again, he thought, just when his erection was just beginning to subside. He adjusted his jeans again, grimacing, then laughed to himself. So the little wife could cook and sew? He wondered what other talents she was hiding.
Of course he shouldn’t have kissed her this morning. He’d done an excellent job of making sure they were enemies again, but her presence had just been too tempting, and he’d wanted nothing more than to slam her against the wall and take her standing up. He didn’t, but he gave in to the temptation to kiss the shit out of her. She was still just as vulnerable to his kisses—he’d felt her body soften, relax against his, and if he’d reached between her legs, he was sure she would have been wet.
She’d always been incredibly responsive to everything he did, and he used to wonder how many ways he could make her come. With his mouth, of course, with straightforward fucking, with his hand on her clit. Her tits had never been that responsive, but he hadn’t had time to give them the attention they deserved, and he wondered whether she was one of those rare women who could come simply by having him play with her beautiful breasts. He wanted to catalogue her and their time together in the crudest possible terms. He liked to fuck her, he liked fucking. For some damned reason the term “making love” kept creeping in, and he ruthlessly shut it out, coming up with the rudest words he could think of, but he kept going back to her breasts, not her tits.
He wouldn’t have the chance to find out about them, he reminded himself. Last night had been bad enough—there would be no repeats or variations.
He’d never been able to talk her into going down on him, and he’d accepted her refusal easily enough. He could get a blow job anywhere.
That was before he knew about her ancient, molesting professor. She said she’d had to help him, and she’d had disgust in her voice. She would have used her mouth on the old bastard, and it was just one more reason it was a good thing the man was dead, or he’d rip him apart. He knew how to kill, quietly and efficiently, but he also knew how to make it hurt, make it last, and he would have outdone Claudia in inventiveness if he’d been able to get his hands on the old man.
No, she’d never take him in her mouth, and he wouldn’t ask her. Besides, he intended to make sure they never ended up in the same bed again, so the question was moot.
He had to stop thinking about it. He switched on the satellite radio. Part of him was in the mood for heavy metal, but that would probably get him worked up again. All he had to do was hear Nine Inch Nails sing “Closer” and he’d be on her like white on rice. Cool jazz was the safer choice. He didn’t have to worry about it putting him to sleep—he’d developed the ability to go for days without much more than a couple of hours’ sleep, and the three he’d gotten this morning, after the time he’d spent between Evangeline’s legs, had left him relaxed and refreshed.
Okay, the erection was an annoyance but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it, short of parking somewhere along the barren Texas landscape, going into the back of the camper, and fucking the shit out of her, which was a very bad idea on both their parts. He’d sleep alone tonight, assuming he even slept at all. He wasn’t sure whether he’d go with the farmhouse or the RV—it depended on his usually reliable instincts. Wherever he and Evangeline were, they’d be apart. He’d wait till she fell asleep on the narrow bed before going to bed himself, and if she heard him, she’d ignore him and pretend to be asleep. He knew her so damned well.
He heard her moving around in the back, and he wanted to tell her to sit the fuck down, but he knew she wouldn’t, so he didn’t bother; instead he tried to concentrate on the landscape, on the road, on the music, and on what was waiting for him once he reached New Orleans.
He’d been looking forward to it, but that was before he’d come close to Evangeline again. He hadn’t counted on being so affected by her, though he’d done his best to hide it. At least she was keeping her distance. He had another three hundred miles to go before he reached his planned stopping place north of Dallas—an abandoned farmhouse on an abandoned road that required all-wheel drive to traverse it. This vehicle had the mobility of a tank—it could go anywhere despite its appearance—and they’d be safe for the night, safe long enough for him to check in with Ryder and Peter Madsen; and if the place was habitable, there’d be enough space to keep away from Evangeline, from making her want things she shouldn’t want. It was easy enough to keep her hating him—getting her in bed was a little more of a challenge. He had to remember what was best for both of them, and that didn’t involve the exchange of bodily fluids.
Speaking of which, he didn’t have any condoms on hand. He already knew she was using a monthly contraceptive pill, though given she hadn’t slept with anyone in the three years she’d been divorced, he wondered why. Probably to regulate her periods. He hadn’t checked into her medical records but there’d been no red flags in the general surveillance, and he wasn’t worried.
He’d been a bit more diligent when it came to the men she’d gone through. In his spare time, simply out of curiosity, of course, he’d checked out every one of the men she’d gone through the first year after he disappeared, and they were all clean, at least when she’d gone to bed with them. She’d been self-destructive, but she would have insisted on a condom—he knew that much. Same with that dickwad she married.
She hadn’t said a word about a condom last night, which was a good thing because he deliberately hadn’t brought any, thinking that would keep him out of her bed. He’d overestimated his willpower. Problem was, he already knew he was clean and that she had been conscientious and was protected from pregnancy. There would be no dangerous aftereffects from last night.
At least, not physically. The fact that he couldn’t take his mind off his dick was a disadvantage, but something he could move past easily enough if there was the slightest hint of danger. His instinct, his ridiculously primal urge, was to protect Evangeline at all costs. He’d married her, he’d watched her, he’d given her his best friend, Merlin, all to keep her safe.
Which begged the question, what the fuck was wrong with him? Why did she matter when so many people had to be disposed of, regretfully on his part, but necessarily?
Peter Madsen had never questioned him, never begrudged him hijacking the state-of-the-art surveillance network to keep a close watch on her. He’d made no comment when Bishop had decided to go to Canada to lure Clement out of the woodwork, and if he knew Bishop’s plan involved crashing into Evangeline Morrissey’s life again, he hadn’t said anything. The argument that getting rid of a threat like Clement, tied as he was to the Corsinis, was justification enough.
Of course Madsen knew. He was one scary bastard, and he knew everything. An injury had sidelined him to a predominantly desk-job position, and when he’d taken over the Committee, things ran even more smoothly than they had under the Ice Queen, Isobel Lambert. Madsen trusted Bishop and Matthew Ryder to complete their mission—dispose of His Eminence for one thing, and set up the new branch of the Committee for another. This branch was going to be different than Peter Madsen’s Committee—there would be no old-boy MPs looking over his shoulder. Of course, Madsen paid absolutely no attention to those MPs any more than Isobel had, but they were still a pain.