Honeymoon with a Stranger

by Frances Housden

  The combined force of their voices rattling off the pantry walls subsided into a whimper of pain as Yves stumbled backward, rocking the jars of dried goods on the shelves.

  The pantry had been crowded before Mac’s arrival, so the distance to the comforting bulk of his chest was nothing.

  The angry rumble of his voice swamped Yves’s moans. “Bastard. What did I tell you about touching my woman? Be thankful she’s already dealt with you and it wasn’t left to me.”

  “I’ll kill you!” Yves screamed his frustration, his humiliation at being beaten by a woman showing. “Just wait, I’ll kill you both, but first I’ll take her and make sure you watch.”

  With Mac’s arm round her, the vitriol Yves spewed at them couldn’t hurt her, so when Mac bent closer to ask, “Do you want me to take care of him now or later?” She shook her head.

  “Leave him, he’s not worth it.”

  A moment later she was out of the pantry, lifted up off the floor and held high against Mac’s broad chest as he returned to his chair. “I always knew those heels of yours were lethal. Remind me to teach you a few other tricks to play with them that will do as much damage as possible.”

  His hand slid over the crown of her brown curls once more, soothing. She closed her eyes, letting him press her into the curve of his shoulder, unperturbed by his offer to show her how to inflict even more violence on the loathsome Frenchman.

  His hand continued stroking, releasing her tension, diminishing the build-up of fear. “What you need, chérie, is a little TLC and I’m just the man to provide it. Jean-Luc can dish up the chicken, ’bout all he’s good for.”

  “Oh, God, don’t stir anymore. The other one just threatened to kill us. We don’t need two of them after our blood.”

  “Don’t worry, Jean-Luc knows his place in the pecking order. It probably did his heart good to hear the howl Yves let out. And he’s not likely to let Yves forget it in a hurry. So stop worrying, no one is going to kill us, not yet. I reckon we’re pretty safe until I’ve paid over the money.”

  “What do you mean we’re safe? You might be, but I don’t have any money, and what Yves wants, I’m not selling. I’d rather die.”

  Fate worse than death. The words were clichéd, but she didn’t intend hanging around to find out if they were correct. The incident had reinforced her decision to escape.

  It felt as though this had been inevitable from the moment she stepped over the threshold of Mac’s Le Sentier apartment.

  The steel skewer she’d tucked inside her sleeve felt like ice against her skin. Probably because her blood was running hot with excitement, knowing what she was going to do.

  Chapter 7

  Sometimes his edge—everything he knew that his enemy didn’t—was the only weapon of value an agent had left.

  And so it had been with Mac. He had a knife in his boot, a garrote hidden in a seam of his jacket, and his martial art skills. Today all of them had been redundant.

  And the irony?

  Twice now, Roxie had shown him up. Stepped up to the mark and put her life on the line while he, the way Mac remembered it, had been all threat and no action.

  Now she lay silent on the other side of the bed. Though, he could tell from her breathing, she wasn’t any more asleep than he pretended to be.

  Midnight. Boredom had set in at least an hour ago.

  Once you’ve seen one dark room you have seen them all, and not even the thought of Thierry waiting for his call could prevent his eyelids drooping.

  Each time he wakened with a start he was sure it took longer than the time before to lever his eyes open.

  Night was racing toward dawn at a snail’s pace.

  Mac’s last thought morphed into a dream of Roxie where there was no holding back. They were locked in each other’s arms, closer than wallpaper and paste when she dissolved and he was left holding air, his nose squashed against the feather pillow.

  Senses still clouded with dreams, he reached across the mattress to return her to his embrace, but apart from him, the bed was empty.

  That was the only wake-up call he needed.

  He rolled onto his back and listened for the sound of running water that would explain her absence. But there wasn’t a squeak from the bathroom, not even a crack of light creeping round the edges of the door.

  Where was she?

  He sat up.

  Somewhere a mouse was gnawing on the wainscoting. He focused on the noise. That mouse had metal teeth.

  What the hell was she up to?

  He swept the bedcovers behind him without disrupting the tension shimmering across the distance between him and Roxie at the attic door.

  He rolled off the bed, silent as a cat with its sights focused on its prey. No way could he let this naughty little mouse escape either the attic or him.

  Intent on picking the lock, Roxie didn’t hear him coming until he covered her mouth, suffocating her scream with one big hand while scooping her up with the other, hissing, “Silence.”

  Her skin felt icy cold and he cursed under his breath that it had taken him that long to realize she was gone.

  Where Roxie was concerned he was off his game in more ways than one. Not only had he let her sexy body and luscious-tasting mouth get under his skin, he’d let down his defenses in daylight.

  Fooled by her domestic skills and how sexy she looked wrapped in an apron, he was damned if she hadn’t crawled underneath them.

  She needed to be taught a lesson.

  Teeth that he preferred smiling at him clamped down on a slither of skin from the pad of his thumb.

  He’d had worse, one helluva lot worse. Knives hurt like the dickens and bullets felt worse coming out than going in.

  He rolled her body against his chest to ease them through the bathroom door, then heeled it shut and peeled her T-shirt up over her head, using the fine wool to clamp her arms.

  The lace of her camisole twisted the hairs on his lightly furred chest as she continued to struggle and heat leapt between them.

  The erection he’d been nursing when he woke sprang to life with a vengeance.

  His whisper reflected his feelings. “Not one word, hear me? Not one.” He took his hand from her mouth and almost slapped it back as she gasped loudly enough for it to ricochet round the hard fixtures as he dumped her on top of the counter.

  Anger surged in his gut. He took it out on the faucets, twisting them both together with a lack of restraint that sent water gushing into the basin and splashing up over the side onto his bare chest and abs.

  He made a grab for the towel, rubbing it over the dripping water before he dared glance Roxie’s way again.

  Bunching the towel in one fist, he let it hang in front of his aching flesh, hiding the power Roxie had over him.

  He didn’t want her getting the impression he couldn’t touch her without getting a woody, even if it were true.

  She had taken a chance tonight when she thought he was sleeping—dammit, he had been sleeping. What liberties might Roxie dare if she knew he only had to glance her way to want her?

  Their survival could depend on his refusal to let his libido twist him round her little finger.

  The only other woman who’d been able to do that really had stabbed him in the back.

  “Okay, hand it over.”

  Her fingers tightened around the edge of the marble counter. “Hand what over?”

  The stubborn pout tilting her mouth downward belied her question. She acted like a child who’d been caught out in mischief, but the sigh that lifted her breasts, tightening their lace covering, was all woman.

  “Whatever you were poking in the lock. Let me have it or I’ll take it off you by force.”

  Her eyes flashed silver sparks, inflicting freezer burns, cold and hot at the same time.

  After his most recent demonstration she obviously didn’t doubt his stated intent, since she promptly twisted her clenched hand out from under the folds of her T-shirt, opening it palm up.

&
nbsp; The small steel skewer glistened as it rolled, coming to rest where her fingers curved. It was four inches long.

  Mac’s first thought was how much damage she could have done to him while he’d carted her into the bathroom. More to the point, how much damage had she done to the lock?

  Damn, if she’d buggered it with that clumsy pointed steel, there went his chance of leaving the attic to contact Thierry.

  He lifted it from her hand and ran his thumb over the tip. It had lost its point and now he was dying to leave her sitting there while he checked if his lock pick could do the job it was intended for.

  Instead he set about convincing her that he was every bit as bad as she’d no doubt suspected. “What miracle did you think you were going to achieve with that piece of trash?” he growled.

  “I thought I could unlock the door with it.”

  “Then what?”

  She glanced to the left and he knew she was about to tell him a barefaced lie. “I was going to wake you up, then we could escape. Together.”

  Mac began tightening the thumbscrews. It was all she deserved after almost bringing his mission to an ignominious end. “And how were you going to get through the door downstairs? There are dead bolts top and bottom and the windows are wired.”

  Roxie looked down as she crossed her legs, then placed her hands on her knee. From where he was standing the view got better as her navel curved above the matching lace, little-boy shorts she wore.

  She was stalling for time, but what the hell, he was going nowhere and neither was she, now.

  “There’s a small window in the pantry. It isn’t wired.”

  “Small being the telling word. I’ve seen that window and I could never fit through it.” But Roxie could. Only there was no way he was letting her take off alone.

  He would keep it in mind, though; think of it as the escape pod science-fiction writers always built into their spaceships.

  If the situation became desperate, he would shove her through the blasted window himself. Until then, she wasn’t going anywhere without him.

  “I could have found help. Stopped a car and had them take me to the nearest gendarmerie.”

  It sounded so plausible when she said it, she’d obviously put a lot of thought into the plan. The biggest problem she had now was a case of differing points of view.

  “Chérie.” He let his tongue roll around the word, drawing it out. “You stop a car dressed like that and what you’ve got isn’t help, it’s trouble.”

  She tossed her head and fixed him with a stare, a big gray-eyed stare. “I’m not stupid. I was going to toss my clothes out the window first, then climb through it. It would have been easy, I know someone who escaped a house that way and let the rest of her friends out.”

  He read defiance in her eyes, and God help him, in a different situation he might have acted on the challenge. Instead, he tossed the towel he’d been holding on to the rail next to the basin and hitched one hip onto the other end of the counter.

  Not as effective as a cold shower, but it did cool his ardor some.

  “Sounds as if you’ve been associating with the wrong kind of people for a fashion designer. And that being the case, what makes my company so hard to take?”

  “Did we just skip a page here? Or are you not the guy who managed to get me taken hostage, transported—” she hesitated “—God knows where and thrown into an attic?”

  He could have told her where, but then she’d start asking how he’d discovered the location of the house.

  “Since then I’ve been forced to share a bed with you and cook for people who have the manners of a pig.”

  Had it occurred to Roxie that she knew exactly how to dangle bait in front of him? Sorry specimen that he was, Mac bit.

  “Hasn’t it registered that my saving your life used to be on top of that list? One day and you’ve forgotten what I did.” He felt like a jerk for laying it on the line when her actions with the ice had returned the favor and then some.

  “I haven’t forgotten. It’s still there. How grateful I ought to be has yet to be decided.” She huffed out a long breath and everything became clear to him.

  Her reasons for the aborted escape attempt and the time she’d chosen to begin looking for a way out.

  Sure, he’d gotten them out of the attic, but for his own ends, nothing to do with Roxie’s wishes. “Yves won’t hit on you again.”

  “You can’t guarantee that. No one can. He has guns, your guns, I might add, and you have your bare fists. Not what I’d call an equal-opportunity scenario.”

  Had she been reading his mind an hour ago while he tried to wait her out? This wasn’t the appropriate moment to mention he had other skills, other weapons, without making it sound like sour grapes.

  They both knew he had acquitted himself lamentably in that department to date.

  But only one of them knew why.

  Apart from a state-of-the-art lock pick that made the skewer she’d used look pitiful, his thin-bladed knife was small but deadly. And behind the double-stitched flap running the length of the zip on his leather jacket hid a thin unbreakable wire capable of taking off a man’s head.

  He couldn’t see any of those pieces of news making Roxie smile or feel safer.

  It didn’t matter that he had still to discover the true nature of her visit to his apartment. He only wanted to keep Roxie under his thumb, not scare her to death.

  It was too easy to imagine her expression as he explained to her about the garrote.

  Even for Mac, it was a weapon of last resort.

  And should she turn out to be an MI6 agent or, God forbid, a member of a terrorist cell as he’d first suspected, he’d be a fool to reveal the location of any weapon she could turn on him.

  “You coped pretty well today, but in future I’ll take care of you. Or perhaps I should I say, I’ll take care of Yves. The guy has fast hands but you don’t have to put up with them wandering where they shouldn’t. Got that?”

  She nodded as he stepped in front to her.

  “Good, no more escape attempts.” He held out a hand to her, saying, “C’mon, stand up and go to bed. You look beat.”

  One foot went out from under her as he pulled her down to the floor. She landed heavily against his knee. “Oops, my leg went to sleep without me.”

  They both stared at her hand on his thigh. Her skin looked pale and fragile, emphasized by the small blue veins running under it. With any other woman he would have suspected her of deliberate seduction, but not Roxie.

  She didn’t need to seduce him. She could have him anywhere, any way, any time she wanted. One touch and he was ready. With Roxie his body didn’t care if she was friend or foe.

  Did, he wondered, the blood race through her delicate veins, to pump through the chambers of her heart loud enough to hear in her head, the way his did?

  He cupped her nape, positioning her between his thighs. Seductress or innocent, her trust in him at that moment was paramount. Mac felt the tiny bones of her neck flex while she stretched out the kinks, unaware how easy they’d be to snap.

  Even as his thought took flight, he knew he could never be the one to do it.

  What the hell had come over him?

  He was one of IBIS’s top agents. How could he think that a knife wound in his back from this woman would be easier to live with than the guilt of having to hurt her?

  Mac reminded Roxie of a big bear; he growled a lot, and might cuff her—metaphorically—round the ear occasionally, but for her own good.

  So, her plan had been more impulsive than well-thought-out?

  It had worked for Grandmère. And at least Roxie had given it her best shot, which incidentally, was more than could be said for Mac. There was so much he wasn’t telling her.

  Earning his trust could take a lifetime, and she didn’t have that long.

  Her head felt heavy, filled with thoughts she couldn’t control. She eased onto her toes, leaning back and letting his hand support the weight of he
r neck when she felt she could hardly hold her head up.

  How her life had changed in twenty-four hours.

  When she’d left the Fortier workroom yesterday, sexually she’d been as pathetically innocent as a woman who’d only had one lover—and a cheating one at that—could be.

  Unlike Mac, who’d given her nothing more than gruff assurances that he’d take care of Yves for her, her lover had showered her with flattery and protestations of love.

  So how come she was as close to naked as she’d ever been with another man without being covered in blushes, or flustered by it?

  Did she actually trust the guy?

  What troubled her most, considering Mac played for the wrong team, was how natural it felt for him to hold her.

  His hand massaged her nape as he pushed the curls away from her face with his other hand and brushed the back of his knuckles down her cheek with a tenderness she’d never thought to find in such a huge man.

  A man of huge contrasts.

  “Why is it,” he asked, “in the midst of winter you smell like peach blossom and spring with the promise of summer to come?”

  Roxie had a struggle to believe her own ears, he sounded so romantic. “Are you talking about me?”

  “There’s no one else here but me and you.”

  He turned his head toward his shoulder and sniffed. “Nope, not even a mother could compare my scent to flowers.” His voice turned husky and added its power to the thumb teasing the hollow behind her ear.

  Before she knew it, her camisole felt too small, its lace scratchy as it scraped her protruding nipples.

  Heat built inside her until even the thin camisole felt suffocating. Lifting her head, she stared into his eyes. What she found there paralyzed her. Kept her still as a statue, frightened to move in case something compelled her to touch Mac, to feel the warmth of his skin under her fingertips.

  To lose all control.

  “Roxie.” The timbre of his voice sank lower, sent pinpricks of tension through her nervous system. “Did it never occur to you that I might have a reason for not trying to escape?”