Cold as Ice (Ice 2)
“Same goes double for you,” she muttered.
“In case you hadn’t been looking that closely, I’m not a female.”
“It was hard to avoid,” she said, her voice muffled.
The room was dark, only a faint light from outside coming through a crack in the heavy curtains. She didn’t like lying here in the dark with him; it felt too intimate. Then again, she had no place else to go.
“I’m going to sleep,” she announced.
“So you said.” He stretched out, putting his hands behind his head, perfectly at peace.
She turned her back on him, flouncing over in the bed, and closed her eyes. Five minutes later she flipped back, only to find he was still awake, staring at the ceiling. Still aroused.
“I know what it is,” she said in the quiet, shadowed room. “It’s the danger that excites you. You’re an adrenaline junkie, and running for your life gives you a hard-on.”
“Such talk, Ms. Spenser,” he mockingly chided her. “Why are you so obsessed with my erection?”
She considered dumping the melting bucket of ice on him, then wisely reconsidered the notion. “Just curious. Since I was ‘nothing special’ it seems odd that you’d be…er…”
“Hard? You said it before—you’re brave enough about other things.”
“I don’t feel particularly brave. Too many people trying to kill me, I guess. I just want to go home.”
“So you said. And I’m here to see to just that. Get you tucked safely back in that elegant apartment on Seventy-second Street where you can curl up on your white leather furniture and forget all about this.”
She wasn’t likely to forget about anything, but she had the sense not to say so. They had ways of making people forget, he’d told her, and she wasn’t in the mood to be a guinea pig. “How do you know what my apartment looks like?”
“I was just there. It’s been searched at least once, by Harry’s people, and they’re watching it pretty closely, just to make certain you don’t show up. Harry trusts Takashi as much as he trusts anyone, which means not at all, and he doesn’t leave things to chance. Which is why you’re not going back there until Harry is dead.”
“Why you? Why did they send you to rescue me?”
“I’m the one who botched the initial mission. It was my responsibility.”
“Punishment for screwing up?”
“You could say so.” He rolled on his side to look at her through the shadows. “You know, this isn’t a girls’ sleepover where we can gossip all night. I need to get some sleep.”
“Just figure it’s part of your penance. I know if you had any choice in the matter you’d be half a world away. Tell them to send someone to relieve you. Tell them I hate you and I can’t stand being around you and they need to send someone else to babysit me.”
“They don’t care what you want or don’t want, Genevieve,” he said wearily. “And there’s no one to send.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they didn’t send me. As far as the Committee is concerned, you’re collateral damage, just part of the fortunes of war, and they don’t waste manpower on unimportant details like you.”
She swallowed. “If you’re not manpower then what are you?”
“On vacation. My time is my own, and I can do what I want with it. Even killers get time off. We get excellent benefits as well, if you ever think you might want to change careers.”
She felt as if the ground had shifted beneath her feet and everything she believed was suddenly in question. “The only person I’ve ever wanted to kill was you,” she said.
“Was? You no longer want to kill me? Things are progressing.”
“You came after me on your own? Why? Don’t tell me true love—you already said I was nothing special.”
He lay back on the bed, and she could see the faint smile at his mouth. “That rankled, didn’t it? It was meant to. Where have you spent the last three years—in a convent? You have the sexual inventiveness of a nun.”
“I didn’t want to sleep with you.”