By the time he came back she was dressed in the dark blue pajamas, her clothes neatly folded with her sneakers resting on top of them. She was half afraid he’d be wearing the same thing, as he had in the ryokan, but he was still in his T-shirt and jeans.
He vaulted into the capsule, graceful and efficient, and slid the screen closed behind him. In the intervening minutes he hadn’t gotten any smaller—he filled the narrow space. He stretched out, taking up far too much room as she tried to make herself as small as possible in the far corner.
“You may as well lie down, Jilly. You’re not getting out of here past me, and I intend to sleep until they turf us out in the morning. You’re just going to be uncomfortable sitting like that.”
“I’m fine,” she said in a frosty voice.
“I’m not.” With an economy of motion he pulled her down beside him, crammed next to him in the narrow space, and then reached up and turned off the overhead light, plunging the space into darkness.
They were on their sides, face-to-face, and she realized belatedly that she should have left her bra on. Left all her clothes on, and borrowed a suit of armor, as well. She was lying plastered up against him, her legs almost as long as his, hip to hip, breast to chest, faces too damned close.
“Go to sleep,” he said, his voice cool and bored. She tried to move back, but his arm snaked around her, holding her there.
“You first,” she snapped.
It was too dark to see him, but she had the uncanny feeling that he smiled. Not the unpleasant smirk, not the mockery. A genuine smile.
“If you want,” he said, and almost instantly she could feel his body relax, the tension and alertness vanish, as his breathing slowed, even his heart rate steadied.
Whereas she was still wired.
She moved, and his arm immediately tightened. “Stop fighting it,” he murmured.
Stop fighting what? she thought miserably. There’s nothing she wanted more than sleep, but that wasn’t coming anytime soon, no matter how freaking tired she was. Stop fighting his control over her? That was more likely. The more he tried to make her do what he wanted, the more she resisted. If it had been Taka, she wouldn’t have argued, but Reno brought out her rebellious streak.
Or stop fighting her feelings? That wasn’t about to happen, and it wouldn’t do her any good if it did. So she’d spent two years in L.A. fantasizing about him. She’d spent the two years before that fantasizing about Johnny Depp and she’d gotten over it. Within an hour of being in Reno’s company she’d moved miles past her adolescent crush as ugly reality set in.
Unfortunately while her conscious mind had seen the light, her body and her emotions weren’t quite so quick. He was utterly still, too damned close to her, and she wanted to close the inch or two that separated them, press her body up against his and burrow against him. She wanted to see what kissing him would be like—putting her mouth on his. He had the most beautiful mouth she’d ever seen in a man, with rich, full lips. It didn’t matter that everything that came out of that mouth annoyed her—it was still luscious.
It had to be the insanity of the past few days. She’d seen death, feared for her life. It was no wonder she was disoriented and clinging to the only semifamiliar thing in this alien world. For someone so dangerous he was still the only safety she knew, and it was probably nothing more than animal instinct that made her want to mate with him.
What the hell? Mate with him? She was out of her fucking mind. And if she didn’t get the hell away from him, back to the safety of L.A. and minor inconveniences like a broken heart and shattered pride and a future with nothing but calm celibacy to keep her going, then she was really going to lose it.
At least he viewed her with as much interest as her single, lousy lover had—he might not know what a fool she was as far as he was concerned, but he was rejecting her just as thoroughly as Duke had. In fact, she couldn’t even call it a one-night stand—it was more like a half-a-night stand, or even half-an-hour, and the very thought of it was….
A second later Reno moved, from what seemed like a sound sleep to a pantherlike speed, and she was lying beneath him, pinned, and in the darkness she could see his eyes glittering, staring down at her.
And for a moment the world seemed to fall away, as his mouth lowered toward hers.
7
She stared up at him, holding her breath, waiting, waiting for his head to move lower, for his full, rich mouth to touch hers, and she’d let go, she knew she would, just let herself sink into the thin mattress beneath her, into the hard bone and flesh pushing down on her, just let go and take him….
“Go to sleep,” he said. His voice was cool, emotionless, and his body was hot and hard. Definitely hard, she realized with shock. Yet he’d said he didn’t want her, didn’t care….
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Reno said, clearly reading her mind. “I can’t lie on top of a beautiful woman without getting a hard-on, but it’s nothing personal. Unless you want it to be.”
She wanted it to be. She didn’t want to think, didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to fight anymore. In fact, she didn’t want to do anything but lose herself in the strange and seductive man pressed against her. He’d said she was beautiful.
And he wasn’t even going to kiss her. “I don’t want it to be.”
“Now, that’s a lie,” he said. She expected him to mock her, but there was an oddly gentle note in his voice. “But we’ll wait until you can be truthful. In the meantime, go to sleep.”
“I’m trying,” she said. “I don’t have the control over my body that you have.” She realized how her words sounded, and quickly amended, “I mean, over your own body.”
His eyes were glittering in the darkness. “You were right the first time. I can take care of your little problem.”
“I don’t feel like being knocked unconscious again, thank you very much.”