“I don’t have porn….”
“Your erotica, then, if you’re going to be squeamish. You have a taste for sci-fi sex—interplanetary kinkiness. Tell me, is it better when I did it for you? Am I alien enough for you?”
“I suppose it would be a waste of time to tell you how much I hate you,” she said in a tight voice.
“At least you’re honest.” He let go of her hands, and she pulled away, rubbing her wrists.
He glanced over at her. “And if you’re trying to distract me, I can think of more effective ways. You could try going down on me and see if it makes me slow the car enough for you to jump out.”
“You are such a rat bastard,” she said, sick at the thought. Sick, because she felt his words between her legs, and she wanted to lean over and see exactly what he would do if she tried it. Sick, because that wasn’t the reason why she wanted to.
The houses were fewer and farther between, the wide, flat countryside was starting to look desolate. If she somehow managed to get away from him there’d be no place to go, no place to hide. Why was he taking her out to the middle of nowhere?
Silly question. She was now just as expendable as her sister. He was taking her someplace where he could kill her, where no one would hear her scream, where he could hide her body…
“Cut it out.”
He’d startled her enough to make her look at him. He was staring straight ahead, concentrating on the almost empty road. “What?” she asked.
“Stop thinking about death. I liked it better when you were thinking about sex.”
She didn’t bother asking him how he knew what she was thinking. She’d worked long and hard on masking her feelings—it was far too dangerous to be vulnerable when you had a mother like Lianne. But Taka seemed to have the ability to know her inside and out, even before he’d known her body.
“And your likes and dislikes are of primary importance to me because…? And don’t say it’s because you’re the only thing that stands between me and the Shirosama. Right now I’d welcome him with open arms.”
“I’m sure you would. It would be a mistake.”
“Oh, I forgot. You’re so much kinder than he is.”
“Kindness has nothing to do with it.”
“I noticed.”
He’d slowed down again, almost imperceptibly, and turned onto a dirt road. She was toast, she thought. If she jumped out of the car she’d die, saving him the trouble. But then, she wasn’t particularly interested in saving him from anything, and if he could look into her eyes and choke the life out of her, then she’d come back to haunt him.
“How are you planning to do it?”
“Planning to do what?” He was barely paying attention to her, concentrating on the barren landscape.
“Kill me. I’ve never actually seen you kill—just witnessed the aftermath. Are you going to strangle me? Break my neck? Stab me?”
She made the mistake of watching him to gauge his reaction. His eyes met hers, and a faint smile touched his mouth. His beautiful mouth, which she wanted to smash with a two-by-four. “I’ll probably cut you up in tiny pieces, boil you and eat you.”
“Very funny. Are you telling me you’re not planning to kill me?”
His eyes slid away. “Not if I can help it. Not unless you’re really annoying.”
“Then if you’re not driving me
out into the middle of nowhere to kill me, why are we here?”
“Use your eyes, Summer.”
She didn’t like him using her name, but replying “Dr. Hawthorne to you” would be like something out of a Marx Brothers movie. She looked around as he slowed down, and realized the vast, empty field was exactly that. An airfield, and there were several small planes sitting over by a ramshackle metal building.
“I’m not getting on a plane,” she said in a tight voice.
“Afraid of flying?”