Cold as Ice (Ice 2)

“Then pour yourself a glass of wine in lieu of your precious little pills. I know you like good wine—I had to steer you toward your cabin that first night. I was afraid you were going to pass out without any help from me.”

“Afraid?”

“Because then I wouldn’t have had any excuse to kiss you.”

She took the wine. He was right, it was almost good enough to die for. Almost. But while he was so busy with his flashing knife she should be scouting the place, looking for a way to escape.

“Don’t bother, Sister,” he said, not looking up from his work. “I’m a very thorough man. There’s no way you’re getting out of this place, unless I let you. Drink your wine and relax.”

“You think I’ll just give up without a fight?”

“No. But I’d rather not spend the next few hours chasing you around this place. There are no weaknesses in my defenses, Ms. Spenser.” The knife flashed with deadly precision. “The sooner you accept that fact, the better. Why don’t we just pretend we’re two normal people, stranded on a beautiful island for a couple of days.”

“I’m not into imaginary games.”

“Make an effort.” The knife flashed and his voice was sharp and cold.

“Or what? You’ll kill me?”

He pushed his long hair back from his angular face, glancing at her out of flinty eyes. “You really are foolhardy, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be trying to charm me instead of pissing me off?”

“Would it make any difference?”

“Probably not.”

“Then I may as well get my kicks where I can, and annoying you seems to be one of the few pleasures left to me.”

“Not necessarily.” He looked up at her, and he was close enough that she thought she could read the expression in his cool blue eyes.

That was something she didn’t even want to think about. “I want my purse back,” she said, changing the subject. “I either need my glasses or my spare contact lenses.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to see what’s coming.”

Something snapped inside her, and she put the wineglass down, hard. Unfortunately Harry’s villa came equipped with granite countertops and the glass shattered in her hand.

“I think I’ve lost my appetite,” she said. “I’m going back to my room. Call me when it’s time to die.”

He ignored her flippant comment. “You’re bleeding,” he said.

She glanced down at her hand. The broken crystal had sliced through her skin, and blood was welling up. “Sorry—did you want to be the one to spill it?”

He ignored her jibe, setting the knife down and moving toward her. His calm approach was unnerving and she started to back away, but he caught her arm, pulling her toward him, so that the fabric of her caftan brushed up against his legs in a strangely intimate movement.

There was no pulling away from him, a reminder of how strong he really was. “You should have stitches,” he said.

“Too bad there’s no emergency room nearby. Guess I’ll have to bleed to death, and save you the pleasure.”

His small smile should have been infuriating. It was, and yet she was far from impervious. “It’s not that bad, Genevieve. You’ll live to bitch at me another day.”

And that was about it. One more day. He’d never said her name before—he wrapped his voice around it in a way that was unbearably intimate.

“I prefer Ms. Spenser.”

“And of course your preferences are my top priority.” He pulled her from the kitchen, and she gave up trying to fight him. He’d wrapped a linen dish towel around her hand to keep the blood from dripping onto Harry’s floors. The floors that would be gone soon—why did he bother?

She balked when he brought her into a huge bedroom, but he pulled her past the bed as if it didn’t exist, and into a separate bathroom, half the size of her apartment. He pushed her down on the toilet seat and began to rummage through one of the many cabinets.

She regretted the loss of her wine more than the pain in her hand. She regretted that he touched her, held on to her so that she wouldn’t escape, more than anything at all.