She surged up from her seat, breaking his hold, shoving him back against the wall. She had the short blade of the pocketknife against his throat, against the bloody mark her teeth had made, and she couldn’t afford to hesitate. One sharp, deep slice and he’d go fast. Covering her in blood.
His eyes were half-closed, that damnable smile still on his face. “What’s stopping you? You know how quick and easy it would be. I won’t stop you.”
She froze. He reached up and took her hand in his, pulling the knife away, making her drop it on the floor. “Show me how much you hate me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Prove it to me.”
She hit him, both of her fists raised, beating at his chest as he imprisoned her in the circle of his arms. She was striking him, scratching him, tearing at his clothes in a silent, deadly rage, and she could feel his skin beneath her hands, hot, sleek skin. He picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist as he fell back against the door, the light switch, plunging the room into inky darkness.
And Isobel was gone, swallowed up in rage and darkness and heat, and she was the one who pulled his head down to hers, she was the one who kissed him, openmouthed and full.
He turned her, and they fell crosswise on the bed, and he was tugging her clothes off her body, yanking at them, and it hurt, and she wanted it to hurt. She hated herself, hated him.
She heard the rasp of his zipper in the darkness, his muffled curse, and she caught her waistband in her hands and shoved her jeans down her legs, kicking them free. He arched over her, pushing her legs apart, resting against her, heavy, hard, pressing against her.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. And slammed into her, so fast and hard that her breath caught, and she waited for the pain and tearing.
Except she was wet. Her body had welcomed him, even as her mind rejected him, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, trying to pull him in deeper still, scratching at him, clawing at him, trying to get more of him. He caught her wrists, slamming them down against the bed, holding her still as he moved. Thrusting deep, so deep that she cried out, so deep that she needed more, and she couldn’t breathe in the velvety darkness, trembling, shaking, fighting it, fighting him.
She wasn’t strong enough. Everything was gone now—only the darkness and their sweat-dampened bodies remaining, and she didn’t want this, didn’t want to…
The first wave hit her with such force that she cried out. He released her wrists, putting his hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, and she bit him again, tasting blood, as her entire body arched into a silent, endless scream of such intensity that everything exploded. No enemies, no boat, no bed in the middle of the ocean. Just elemental, hot, sweaty sex, and she couldn’t stop, as wave after wave of climax washed over her.
He rolled off her, and she could hear the hoarse roughness of his breathing.
She opened her eyes in the inky blackness, because it was safer that way, because bad things could hurt you if you closed your eyes.
Her face was wet, and she knew she was crying, but for some reason it didn’t matter. She lay next to the man she hated most in the world, a butcher, a monster, the man who had just destroyed her, and she tried to catch her breath. She had to find the knife. Now she had a reason to kill him. Nothing would stop her this time, no weakness that she hadn’t realized existed. She could kill him now, and the longer she delayed the worse it would be.
A final shudder racked her body, and she squeezed her legs together, arching her hips, and shame swept through her. The knife, she thought, letting her eyes drift closed once more. The knife…
He hadn’t climaxed. He lay beside her, listening to her as her murderous little soul relaxed into an exhausted sleep, and considered his rebellious body. It was pitch-dark in the room—she wouldn’t have been able to see he was still painfully erect, practically vibrating with need. But something had made him pull out at the last moment. Something had stopped him, and he wasn’t sure what.
He considered finishing then and there, lying beside her in the darkness, breathing in the rich scent of her arousal. He could probably do it without touching himself, but he wasn’t going to. He could head into the bathroom, into the tiny shower, and take care of it, but he wouldn’t do that, either. He was going to lie in the torn-up bed next to his worst enemy, and think about how he wanted to be inside her again. And again. And again.
He should have gotten rid of Mahmoud days ago. Another man, the man he used to be, would have. The man he used to be would have fucked Madame Lambert into a compliant stupor by now, or he might not have touched her at all. But Killian wasn’t the man he used to be. And he didn’t even know who that man was anymore.
He wanted to turn and wrap his arms around her, pull her close. She was asleep—he could tell by her breathing—and she wouldn’t fight him, at least not for long. And he could put his head in the crook of her neck, taste her skin, and erase all the deadly years that had come between them.
But he wasn’t going to. He was going to spend the rest of his goddamned life with a hard-on, but he wasn’t going to touch her again. She was bad for him, and always had been. Crazy and ba
d, making him think things he couldn’t afford to think, making him a little crazy, too. He’d watched her from afar the last eighteen years, always knowing where she was, waiting, listening. He’d squandered his employers’ money and intel-gathering resources keeping track of her. Not that it mattered—his employers had money to spare, and he surely wasn’t getting as rich as he deserved for all his hard work.
He was hoping he’d be able to leech some money away from this current job before it was over. Shutting down the Committee was a complicated business, but he was well on his way to success. He’d already broken the acting head, and after Toussaint’s defection and Madsen’s injury, they were sadly understaffed. It wouldn’t take that much to finish them off.
Frigid. He let out a silent snort of laughter. What exactly had she been doing with herself during the intervening years that she’d managed to convince herself of such an absurdity? She would have had training in sexual techniques as part of her initiation into the Committee. No undercover operative could afford to be squeamish about such an effective weapon. And Stephan Lambert would have been certain to have given her a workout. While he was openly gay, he was also broad-minded, and could count any number of beautiful women among his former lovers.
So what had turned Isobel off so completely that she’d shut down all her physical responses? The logical answer, absurd though it was, was that she’d been waiting for him.
He wasn’t sure how he was going to use that knowledge. It was a useful weapon, but for the time being he’d keep it in reserve. He’d done what he needed to do, thrown her so off balance that her effectiveness would be compromised. His first step to taking down the Committee. It was enough for now.
He got out of the bed, heading for the shower. She stirred in her sleep, making a soft, protesting noise, and it took all his determination not to finish what he started. The feel of her, the taste of her, hadn’t changed. The way he wanted her hadn’t changed.
His self-control hadn’t changed. She was still the means to an end. And he couldn’t afford to forget it.
Isobel was alone when she woke up. She pulled herself into a sitting position, looking at her hand. It was shaking. Her whole body was shaking.
She stiffened, forcing the trembling to vanish. It was late morning, and they were due to land in the early afternoon. It was time to get on with her life.