At the Edge of the Sun (Maggie Bennett 3)

His hands had caught her upper arms, kneading slightly. “Why don’t you get more comfortable, Annamaria?” he crooned, the Irish lilt a travesty of charm. “Take off those shoes. I don’t like it when a woman is taller than I am. And you are here to please me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” It came out in a nervous thread of sound, and he laughed.

“Do I frighten you, Annamaria? I’m just a traveling businessman, alone in Rome. I need company, and you’ll do an excellent job of providing it. Won’t you?” His hand snaked around in front of her and cupped her breast, squeezing, just hard enough to hurt.

She swallowed, slipping out of her spike heels, the movement pulling her away from his encroaching hand. “You don’t frighten me, signor. I’m not in holy orders. I know what’s expected of me. I know how to please a man.” She should turn and press herself against him. She should kiss that smiling mouth. She remained where she was.

“Ah, Annamaria, I’m sure that you do,” he whispered. “But I have special tastes.”

She couldn’t control the slight nervous twitch as his body pressed against her upright back. “I will do my best to satisfy them,” she said.

“You’ll do just fine,” he purred. “Why is your heart pounding like that, signorina? Are you excited?” He slid his hand down her arm, across her stomach and lower, his fingers gripping her with cruel force.

“I—I don’t like pain, signor,” she said, swallowing a groan.

He laughed. “Don’t you, Annamaria? That’s too bad. Because you’re going to feel a great deal of pain before I’m through with you.” He slid his hand back up her stomach and snatched her purse away before she realized what he was doing. “You’re going to learn to like it in the few hours you have left on this earth.” He moved away from her, snapping open the purse to take out Ian’s knife. He eyed it like a connoisseur. “Very nice,” he said. “I think I’ll use this one on you.” And he moved back.

Holly backed against the window, no longer able to hide her terror. “But signor, why would you want to kill me?”

“Because, Signorina Holly Bennett, I like to kill women,” he said, smiling that horrifically charming smile as he started toward her.

She watched him come. There was absolutely nothing she could do. He was going to kill her, slowly, painfully, and her choice was simple. She could scream and fight and run, or she could die with dignity. She opened her mouth to scream.

No sooner had the first ear-splitting shriek escaped her mouth when all hell broke loose. It sounded as if the entire Italian army were outside Flynn’s door, breaking it down. Moments later it crashed down, and Ian Andrews stood there, breathing fire, an Uzi assault pistol in his hand, looking for all the world like a green-eyed Rambo.

Flynn whirled around, the knife moving with him, and Holly screamed a warning. It came in time, Ian ducked, and the knife embedded itself in the hallway as he stormed into the room.

But Flynn was gone. He hadn’t waited to see if the knife connected, hadn’t waited to see whether Ian was going to use that assault gun despite Holly’s proximity. He dove out the window, onto the steeply slanted lower roof, and had taken off, disappearing into the shadows.

Ian was halfway out the window, heading after him, when the wailing siren of the carabinieri reached their ears. He pulled back, cursing vehemently. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the suite. She grabbed her discarded shoes on the way, following him out at a stumbling run. He yanked the knife out of the wall and headed for the service exit, ignoring the elevators that stood waiting.

They were halfway down the fourteen flights when Holly pulled back, her breath tearing through her. “Why … are … we running?” She gasped. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

He looked up at her from the lower step, and she couldn’t read anything in his expression beyond impatience and a raw determination. “I don’t want to waste time trying to explain what we were doing there to the Italian police. I smuggled the knife into the country, and this gun is highly illegal. By the time they let us go Flynn would be so far gone we’d never find him.”

“But—”

“Come on, Holly. The sooner we’re away from here the better.”

He hadn’t said a word of criticism. During the surprisingly short walk back to the Ultima in the rain that had started as they had left Flynn’s hotel, he said nothing, holding her arm in a deceptively romantic fashion that helped hide the telltale bulge of the compact Uzi. He didn’t need to criticize. She felt like a criminally stupid fool. If she’d only confided in him, Flynn might be in custody now. Or dead. But in her egocentric quest for revenge she’d blown it, and almost lost her own life in the bargain. And if Ian hadn’t been as quick, he would have ended with his own knife in his throat. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Ian shut their hotel door behind them, leaning against it, his green eyes hooded as he watched her drop down wearily on her bed. It was dark, and Holly’s silk suit was soaked with rain. She sat there, huddled in misery, waiting for his attack. She deserved every blistering word of it.

He pushed away from the door, dropping the Uzi on the table between the beds and pulling off the heavy sweater he’d worn against the December chill. “I think we could both do with a drink,” he said, and his voice carried no reproach.

She looked up at him then. “Aren’t you going to tell me what an idiot I’ve been? What a shallow, selfish, silly bitch? We could have had him, and I blew it.”

“Why should I tell you that? You took a chance, and it didn’t work. Well, there’ll be other chances.” He pulled a flask from his suitcase, unscrewed it, and took a long swallow. He shuddered, the ripple moving across the muscled torso, and then handed it to Holly.

She did the same, tipping her head back and swallowing the fiery liquid. She didn’t choke, but it took all her self-control not to. “I make a hell of a lousy Mata Hari. I wouldn’t blame you if you refused to have anything to do with me,” she said, self-pity taking over. “Maybe I should go back to L.A. where I won’t cause any more trouble.”

She felt the bed sag as he sat down next to her, close enough so that his shirt brushed her arm. His hands were gentle as he turned her to face him, and his green eyes were warm and soothing. “Listen to me, Holly Bennett. I won’t have you sitting here feeling sorry for yourself. You made a mistake, but it was a mistake any beginner would make. You were smart enough to find the man in the first place, just not smart enough to ask for backup. It’s lucky I know you well enough to know something was going on.”

“How did you find me so quickly?”

“They keep very good records of phone calls here at the Ultima. And Signor Palmo was more than helpful. I told him I was a jealous lover, and if he didn’t tell me where you were I’d trash his elegant lobby. He was more than happy to show me the private elevator.”

“You’re not a jealous lover,” she said, and if her voice sounded somewhat aggrieved at that she was too overwrought to notice. “And what do you mean, you knew me well enough to know something was going on? You’ve only known me a couple of days,” she protested, liking the feel of his hands on her arms, wishing she could move closer. She was cold and wet and miserable, and he was warm and strong and there.