Fire and Ice (Ice 5)

He watched her, his eyes wary. “You’re not a woman I sleep with,” he said. “You’re not someone out for a good time with no strings attached, and that’s the only thing I’m interested in. The problem is,” he said, rising on his elbows to look at her out of his wicked eyes, “you’re just too tempting. If I’d just kept my hands off you in the first place, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But if you’ll remember, you asked me. Hell, you demanded. And I’ve never been the kind of man to resist an offer like that.”

“And last night?”

“I was bored.”

A knife, she pictured dreamily, stabbing straight into his heart. “It’s a great deal too bad that I shot the man who was about to kill you. I should have let him do it and saved myself a great deal of trauma.”

“You’d be dead, Ji-chan.”

“Then neither of us would have to worry, would we?”

“What do you want from me?” he asked. “Because I can tell you right now, whatever it is, I can’t give it.”

She was silent, looking down at him. His long body was stretched out on the cot, and his white shirt was unbuttoned. She could see the scrapes and bruises marring his smooth, golden skin, and she hoped each one of them was painful.

“I was going to say I want an apology, but come to think of it, even that’s not good enough. I want you to keep away from me. We’re related by marriage, but if we make an effort, we won’t have to be in the same room with each other once we get out of here.”

The slow smile that crossed his face was both ironic and fatalistic. “I don’t know if we’re getting out of here, Ji-chan. But I promise you, if we survive, you’ll never have to see me again. Does that satisfy you?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice cool. “Now, get the hell off the cot and let me sleep. I was here first—I claim rights to it.”

His soft laugh was as irritatingly seductive as always. Why didn’t he have a light, breathy voice? Why was his voice, whether he spoke English or Japanese, so distressingly deep and warm? Asshole.

He rose, and she backed away to make sure he wouldn’t brush against her. The instinctive retreat seemed to amuse him even more, and she wondered what would happen if she kicked him.

She knew what would happen. He’d already warned her—if she hit him again, he’d hit her back. If she kicked him, he’d put his hands on her, and then all hell would break loose. Because he wouldn’t hurt her, no matter how much he threatened. He’d put his hands on her, and then she’d be lost again.

“Thank you,” she said in a clipped voice, moving around him to stretch out on the cot. It was sheer will that kept her there, trying to look relaxed.

It was warm. Warm from his body. It was like a virtual embrace, his heat to the cot to her body. Goddamn it. And if she closed her eyes, it was even worse.

And then he was standing over the cot, and she froze, waiting for him to touch her. Why the hell had she demanded the cot? Was she asking for trouble? Was she wanting him to start this all over again?

“Here,” he said, yanking something from under her feet. It was the thin blanket they’d left, and he covered her with it, careful not to let his hand touch her. It smelled like sex, it smelled of almond soap and Reno, and she wanted to throw it back at him.

But that would be letting him know she was still vulnerable. And she wasn’t. She was going to lie here and go to sleep and wait for her brother-in-law to rescue her.

He heard the noise before she did. She’d been drifting off into an uncomfortable sleep when Reno moved, immediately on full alert.

“What’s happening?” she said sleepily, as she heard the noise outside the door.

“I think they decided not to wait,” Reno said in a grim voice. He grabbed her hand and hauled her out of the bed, and she didn’t protest. “Stay behind me,” he said.

The door slammed open and four young yakuza pushed in the room, and Jilly had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. These were like yakuza-boy, not the exquisitely polite Hitomi-san. These were trouble.

It took her a minute to even begin to understand the conversation. It was in Japanese, and the intruders spoke with a strange accent, rolling their R’s, using phrases Jilly hadn’t learned in her intensive study. Reno was answering them the same way, even with the rolling of the R’s. And then the words began to make sense.

The leader, a slightly older gangster with a high shellacked pompadour and sour expression, was the spokesman. “We’re taking her,” he said. “Hitomi-san has decided she has no use. Your grandfather has barricaded himself in his rooms, and she will be of no help in getting to him. We have orders to kill her, show her body to the oyabun to prove we will stop at nothing, and then dispose of her body.”

“That would be a mistake,” Reno said, his voice calm and almost bored—as if he were discussing different ways to cook fish. “The Americans get very upset if their people meet with trouble in Japan, and this one is a young, pretty girl from a good family. Her face and name will be in newspapers all over the world, and the authorities will not let her disappearance go unnoticed. They will search until they find her.”

“We know how to dispose of a body, Shinodasan,” one of the younger men said with a sneer.

“They will look until they find her,” Reno said. “And if they don’t, they will keep looking. The police, who turn a blind eye to most things, will be on notice. You will make life much more complicated for Hitomi-san and the family.”

“Hitomi-san’s orders are clear. If your grandfather is presented with the dead body of the gaijin he will realize he is defeated.” Two of the men started approaching, and Reno grabbed Jilly’s arm and pulled her tight behind him.

“You can’t take her,” he said. “If you need a dead body you can take me instead.”