“I don’t know.” He hadn’t moved—his hips were still pinning hers to the wall. “Do you want to fuck?”
She tried to kick him then, but he must have sensed her movement, and he wrapped one leg around hers, further imprisoning her. “No,” she said, furious.
“Don’t pretend, Ji-chan. You’ve got a crush on me. I’m about to fulfill your dreams.” His voice was breathless, mocking.
“You’re about to get kneed in the balls, and then you won’t be fulfilling anyone’s dreams, not even your own,” she snapped.
“You know I’m not going to let you do that. You know you can’t do anything unless I let you. I’ll ask you again—do you want to fuck?”
“I don’t know why you’re asking me,” she said bitterly. “We’ve already established the fact that you’re not interested, and—”
“Does this feel like I’m not interested?” he said, pushing against her.
“So you’re perverted enough to get turned on by women dressing in little girls’ clothes. It has nothing to do with me.”
“So take them off and we’ll see if I?
??m still turned on,” he suggested reasonably.
She looked into his eyes, at the tattooed tears beneath them. “Reno,” she said in a calm voice, “if you’re so bored, then go out and get laid. I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s interested.”
“You’re interested,” he said. And then he released her just as suddenly as he had caught her, and he grinned. “No, you’re right. You’re not my type. Besides, I have a healthy respect for Taka, and he’d kill me if I fucked you.”
“Would you stop with all the ‘fuck’ talk!” she said, exasperated. “It’s called making love.”
“Jilly, I don’t make love. I fuck.”
“Not me.”
He tilted his head to one side, watching her. “Want to bet?” And pulling her back into his arms, he put his mouth on hers once more.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been kissed before. When she was seventeen, she’d decided, in the spirit of scientific discovery, to explore making out, and she’d found her Advanced Physics tutor to be up to the task. She’d learned to use her tongue, her teeth, how to tease, how to demand, how to suck gently, and while the whole experiment had been rather wet and sloppy, it left her with a better understanding of what people were doing when they were grinding their faces together.
Wrong. Reno didn’t kiss the way Jeffrey did, or anything like the rudimentary kisses Duke had given her during their miserable, botched coupling. He kissed her like an angel, sweet and sad and so wonderful that her body seemed to lift into his, trying to get closer. He kissed her like the devil, hot and hard and deep, and she closed her eyes and wanted to sink, skin to skin, into some dark whirling place where there was nothing but heat and sex. He kissed her mouth, using his tongue, he kissed her eyelids, which had fluttered shut, he kissed her jaw and her temple and then her mouth once again, and she simply leaned against the wall, stunned, unable to move, unable to do anything but let him kiss her.
He moved his mouth down the side of her neck, nipping slightly, and his breath was warm on her skin, his hands were moving up her thighs, slowly, his fingers threading through the long lace garters, and she moaned quietly, a soft, impossible sound of surrender.
“Shit.” The word muttered against the delicate skin of her neck was enough to throw her right out of the moment. Her eyes flashed open, and she looked into his, momentarily dazed.
She opened her mouth to say something, but he shook his head, silencing her, and the hot, stolen moments might never have happened. He was still pressed up against her, pinning her to the wall, but there was no sex in the air. There was violence.
“They’re here,” he mouthed.
“Shit,” she said, just a breath of sound.
His eyes met hers, for a long, silent moment, and she had the sudden, terrible feeling that he was saying goodbye. And then he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her, hard, practically throwing her across the room, so that she slammed against the computer chair, knocking over the small table and landing hard on the floor.
She scrambled as far back as she could into the corner, trying to stay out of the way of the melee. It seemed as if an army had invaded, and it took her a moment to realize there were only three of them, in their fancy suits and their pomaded hair, closing in on Reno.
He wasn’t going down without a fight. He was a blur of motion, leaping in the air and kicking one man in the throat, and the man went down, choking, as Reno spun around. He slammed his fist into the second man’s belly, then brought them down on his neck, knocking the man flat.
But the third man was on him, bigger, catching him around the neck and pulling his head back. Reno kicked out, struggling, but the man was too strong, and he was being pulled backward as he struggled, clawing at his captor’s hands.
He was going to die. The man would either choke him to death or break his neck, and then he’d turn to her. And she didn’t have any choice.
The gun had fallen on the floor when she’d knocked over the table, and she picked it up, cold, deadly metal, as Reno and his opponent flailed around the apartment. Reno was strong, knocking the man holding him back against the wall, but the man didn’t break his grip. She could hear Reno choking, and his struggles were getting frantic.
She should have said something. A warning, anything. She didn’t. The man smashed Reno down on the floor, and for a moment Reno lay still, dazed, staring up at him as the larger man loomed over him, and Jilly could see the gun in his hand, and there wasn’t any time.