Cold as Ice

by Anne Stuart

  Now he knew he should have. Because Takashi O’Brien, his right-hand man for the last three years, had betrayed him.

  And Genevieve Spenser was still alive.

  18

  “Let me up,” Genevieve gasped into the carpet fibers that held God knows what. “You’re hurting me.”

  Peter released her, stepping back and slamming the door behind him, locking them in. “Serves you right. When are you going to learn to trust me?”

  She sat up, pulling the sheet more snugly around her, leaning back against the foot of the bed and cradling her hand. “Never,” she said flatly. “But the fact is, I wasn’t trying to attack you. I was afraid you weren’t coming back, and I was relieved.”

  He stared down at her. “Never jump a man, no matter how relieved you are, unless you’re certain he’s not dangerous. And you know that I am.”

  Yes, she knew. She’d seen him kill a man not many hours ago, and knew he would do so, again and again, without a second thought. The idea should have horrified her.

  But she was way past that point. She was just grateful that he could kill to keep her safe. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  He’d been carrying a bunch of plastic bags and he’d dropped them on the floor when she’d jumped on him. He proceeded to pick them up again, not looking at her. “‘Sorry?’” he echoed. “You’re actually apologizing? What kind of drugs did Takashi feed you?”

  She should have known he’d mock her. “What’s in the bags?” she asked, changing the subject.

  He turned. She was sitting at his feet, not a good position, psychologically, and she tugged the sheet up higher.

  “Supplies. Including some clothes for you. There was an all-night Wal-Mart down the road. I know their clothes are not your usual style, but they’re more secure than that sheet. And what have you got on your foot?”

  She glanced down, having forgotten. “A pillowcase,” she said sheepishly, pulling it off.

  “Your feet were cold?”

  She shook her head. “I was trying to break the window.”

  He said nothing for a moment. “I assume that’s how you hurt your hand?”

  He was an observant bastard, she thought. “Just bruised it a bit,” she said, reaching her hand up and flexing her fingers. Or trying to. They felt stiff and swollen.

  “Get on the bed,” he said.

  There was a sudden uncomfortable silence in the room as both of them remembered the last time he’d said those words to her. And then he broke the spell.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” he added. “I just want to look at your hand.”

  She did get to her feet, but not on the bed. “You don’t need to look at my hand—it’ll be just fine. Where are the clothes?”

  He tossed one of the larger bags to her, and she made the mistake of trying to catch it with her bad hand. It dropped on the bed, but at least she’d managed to swallow her cry of pain.

  “I assume you’re going to take over the bathroom for another hour and a half,” he said, dropping the rest of the stuff on the other bed. His bed, presumably. She was nothing special, he’d said.

  “Just long enough to get dressed. I’m sure you’re just dying to primp.”

  “What I’m dying to do is get these clothes off me and clean my wound. It’s a lucky thing I managed to steal a jacket from the front office—I could hardly walk around Wal-Mart with a bullet wound. Though if I could anywhere, L.A. would be the place.”

  She’d forgotten all about his wound, and she felt conscience-stricken. “Do you need any help?”

  “No, thank you,” he said, sounding horrified. “I can manage a field dressing as well as anyone, and if the bullet hit anything vital the wound would be hurting a lot more and I’d be doing a lot less. Just go in the bathroom and change into your clothes so I can get on with it.”

  She wanted to call his bluff, strip off the sheet and take her time putting the new clothes on, but there were some things even she was afraid of. Whether she was afraid of what he’d do, or what he wouldn’t do, she couldn’t be certain.

  She grabbed the bag, holding the sheet around her, and marched to the bathroom, doing her best to ignore him as he sat on his own bed and began to peel off the stolen jacket gingerly.

  He’d shown a decided lack of imagination when he’d been at the discount store, and she could only be glad. Plain cotton underpants and bra, two sets, a pair of jeans, a couple of plain T-shirts and a zippered sweatshirt. Socks and sneakers as well. She hadn’t worn clothes like these since she’d lived in upstate New York. She’d forgotten how comfortable they could be, even starchy and brand new. For the first time in years she felt like herself.

  He’d even brought her a toothbrush, toothpaste and a comb and brush. She could almost be grateful, if she weren’t so busy being annoyed at how exact he’d been on guessing her measurements, including her size ten feet. She managed to get the comb through her tangles, and simply braided her hair once more. Long hair was great when you had a stylist on Park Avenue and time enough to fuss with it. Not so good when you were on the run for your life.

  She stepped back into the bedroom and stopped, frozen.

  He was sitting on his bed, shirtless, dabbing at the raw, bloody streak on his shoulder with cool efficiency, and Genevieve couldn’t move. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen him without his clothes on—he’d stripped down when they’d had sex on the island, and he’d had no particular modesty walking around when he’d dragged her from the swimming pool.

  Ah, but then she’d been distracted by what was below his waist.

  He had broad, slightly bony shoulders, with the kind of lean, muscled body that radiated health and strength. He was tanned from the tropical sun and undeniably gorgeous, and she was sorry as hell she had to see that.

  “Do you need help?” she asked. The last thing she wanted to do was touch him, touch that tanned, golden skin.

  “I can manage. I brought you some food. Saltines and ginger ale. I’ve heard it’s excellent for morning sickness.”

  “I’m not pregnant,” she snapped.

  “I’m delighted to hear that. I certainly didn’t think you were. However, it’s the cure for an upset stomach either way. And I got you a bucket of ice. Stick your hand in it and it’ll bring down the swelling.”

  “Then can I touch you?”

  He laughed. Her request seemed to surprise him, it certainly shocked her. “Don’t try it unless you have something extremely kinky in mind,” he said.

  That shut her up. She went back to her bed, plumping the limp pillows behind her, and sat down, shoving her hand into the plastic ice bucket. There were few things she hated more than putting ice on an injury, but she had more sense than to argue.

  “Serves you right,” he said, carefully applying a disinfectant to the furrow on his shoulder. He was having a hard time bandaging it, and her own fingers were icy, but she sat back and said nothing. When he was finished he stood up, and examined his handiwork in the mirror. She could see the trace of faint scratch marks along his beautiful back.

  “What happened to your back?” she asked. “An old wound? Scars from being tortured?”

  “You did,” he said.

  And she remembered. Holding on to him, digging her fingers into his skin as she arched into a frenzied, uncontrollable response, and she felt the color flood her face.

  “Oh, God,” she muttered weakly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said in his cool voice. “My fault. I was the one who made you come.”

  He wasn’t making the situation any better. She was nothing special, she reminded herself. Maybe he was used to having women claw his back, the marks still showing countless days later. The very idea made her sick with a kind of primitive rage that couldn’t have anything to do with jealousy.

  “How long do we have to stay here?” She could be proud of how unaffected her voice sounded, even though she could feel the heat on her cheeks.

  It wasn’t getting any easier. He stood u
p, unfastened his jeans and stepped out of them, totally oblivious to her reaction. At least he was wearing some kind of underwear—pale blue, a cross between boxers and briefs. His cock was also pushing against the fabric. He glanced down at his obvious erection, then back at her.

  “Does getting shot turn you on?” she said, struggling for a way to defuse the situation.

  “Not particularly,” he said, flipping the covers back on his bed and stretching out. He was just as pretty lying down as he was standing up, and Genevieve was not happy.

  “Can we turn out the light?” Her voice was caustic. “Now that you’ve finished parading your assets around I’d like to get some sleep.”

  Again that smile. “You really are the most annoying female I’ve ever met,” he murmured, switching off the light.

  “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.”

  “Sure you did. You just wanted to be talked into it.”

  “I really hate you,” she said fiercely. “I know why you decided to come after me. You weren’t through making my life a living hell and you wanted to add to my misery.”

  “That’s it,” he agreed in a pleasant voice. “Now, either shut up and go to sleep or I’ll find something to use as a gag. For some stupid-ass reason, I’ve decided to save your life, and I’ll do a better job of it if I get some sleep.”

  “I didn’t ask—”

  “Shut up, Genny. Or I’ll shut you up.”

  It wasn’t the threat that silenced her, a threat she knew he’d carry out. It was his calling her “Genny.” It shook her, it always shook her. After all these years he was the only one alive who called her that, a name she associated with tenderness and safety. He probably wouldn’t be alive that much longer, given his profession.

  And neither would she, if she didn’t let him sleep. So what if she was wide awake, obsessed by every little thing, including the man in the next bed? She wasn’t going to make sense of it, or him, no matter how hard she tried. All she could do was lie there, her eyes staring up at the stained ceiling and wait….

  She was asleep. Peter had been wondering whether she was going to stay awake, prattling at him, for the entire night. The woman could talk—probably part of the curse of her being a lawyer—and he was a man who didn’t want to talk. At least to her, right now.

  He didn’t know why the hell he told her it had been his choice to come after her. She was better off thinking he was there under duress. Which was, in fact, the truth. Something was forcing him to be there, to come after her, to pluck her from the jaws of danger. He just didn’t know what it was.

  He could rule out conscience. That was a luxury he couldn’t afford. And it wasn’t her sexual prowess, though he’d deliberately insulted her on that one. She was afraid of him, not that he’d hurt her, but that he’d have sex with her. Make her want him again, make her vulnerable. The only way to alleviate that nervousness was to assure her he had no interest in her curvy body, her long legs.

  He’d barely had her and he had to let go of her. It was one of those unpleasant facts of life, part of his penance. And he’d told her nothing more than the truth. The sex had been nothing special, just body parts behaving as they ought to. But she was something else.

  He glanced over at her in the darkness. She’d lost a little bit of weight in the two weeks, he could see it in her hips and breasts. It was a shame—he loved her unfashionable curves—but in the end it made it easier on him. She bothered him enough already, as in hot and bothered. He’d chosen plain, baggy clothes to make her look less appealing, and they’d had the opposite effect. He probably could have put her in a burka, as she’d sarcastically suggested, and he still would have wanted her.

  You can’t have her, he reminded himself. She’s off limits. You messed with her once and screwed things up. You made her life miserable—you have to leave her alone. You owe her that much.

  Unfortunately his conscience wasn’t listening. And he had no interest in sleeping—despite what he’d told her, he te
nded to work at peak efficiency with very little rest. He could make it till the end of the week, well past the twentieth of April, without more than a quick nap. He’d just wanted her to go to sleep and leave him alone.

  But even asleep she didn’t leave him alone. He could hear her breathing, sense her every movement, and he had to turn away so he wouldn’t watch the rise and fall of her breasts as she slept.

  He was getting her out tomorrow, to Canada, to a safe house he knew of. He’d considered taking her to his old friend’s place in North Carolina, but at the last minute he thought better of it. No one could protect Genevieve better than Bastien Toussaint, but he had a pregnant wife and in-laws surrounding him, and it wouldn’t be fair to put them in the danger that would come with Genevieve Spenser. Nor did he necessarily want Bastien to have to put up with the annoyance.

  No, he’d turn to people still in the life, who’d keep an eye on her and wouldn’t let anything get to her. While he kept his promise to Madame Lambert and stayed as far away from Harry Van Dorn as possible.

  At least Van Dorn was convinced he was dead. If he had any notion Peter had been off the boat before it had exploded, he would be moving heaven and earth to find him. Harry Van Dorn was an implacable enemy. Peter knew far too well some of the things he was capable of when his ire was aroused. For the kind of betrayal he’d perpetrated, Harry would be wanting a very special kind of revenge.

  But he’d had to look elsewhere, and it had only been Takashi’s quick thinking that had kept Genevieve safe. He’d read the reports on what Harry sometimes did to women, and it had turned even his cast-iron stomach.

  But they’d gotten her safely away, and the only way Harry would get to her now was over his dead body, as foolish and sentimental as that was. It didn’t matter if the fate of the world rested in his hands—he wasn’t going to let Genevieve Spenser be hurt.

  And he had absolutely no intention of examining why he felt that way. He didn’t have to answer to anyone, including himself. It was just the way it was.

  She was making sounds in her sleep, anxious little crying noises, like a lost kitten. She was moving restlessly, kicking out, but he could tell she was far from awake. He shouldn’t be surprised—given the drugs and the things she’d witnessed, it would be a miracle if she had a decent night’s sleep for months.