Black Ice - Anne Stuart [107]
“We have to,” he said, pushing her hair away from her face. She reached up and caught his hand, bringing it to her mouth, her lips. He had bite marks on his wrist, where he’d had her use her teeth rather than make the noises he was drawing from her, and she’d drawn blood. It gave him a deep, strange satisfaction. “If we’re to have any chance of survival we need to be ready.”
“Any chance? How likely is it?”
He shrugged. “Stranger things have been known to happen.”
“You could always lie to me.”
“Why?”
She pushed away from him, sitting up in the bed. She looked beautiful in the moonlight, no longer self-conscious. He’d marked her as well—love bites at the side of her breast, the roughness of his beard scratching her thighs. It would heal. They would both heal.
“If we’re going to die there’s no harm in telling me pretty lies,” she said. “In the end it won’t matter, and I’ll die happy.”
“I have no intention of letting either of us die. And then where would the lies get us?”
“If you manage to keep us alive then I promise I’ll forget. Just tell me you care about me. If we’re going to die then how important is the truth?”
“It’s because we might die that the truth is particularly important,” he said, making no effort to touch her. “And telling you that I care about you is a waste of time. I wouldn’t have crossed the ocean, come out of hiding and tracked you down if you didn’t matter to me.”
Her smile was tentative, so sweet that if he had a heart it would have broken in it. “Then come up with a better lie. Tell me you love me.”
“You don’t need lies, Chloe,” he said. “I do love you.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in. And then, of course, she didn’t believe him—he could see it in the doubtful expression in her beautiful brown eyes.
“I shouldn’t have asked you,” she said unhappily, starting to move away. “Just forget it…”
He pulled her back, off balance so that she fell against him, and he took her face in his two hands and held it very still while his eyes looked down into hers. Somber, truthful, painfully honest. “I love you, Chloe,” he said. “Which is the most dangerous thing I could do.”
“I’m not the one who wants to kill you,” she whispered.
“Maybe not today,” he replied with a faint smile. “At least that’s a change from our usual relationship.” He kissed her, lightly, and then pushed her away.
He didn’t give her a chance to say anything more, to ask more questions. He couldn’t be sorry he told her—if he died he’d regret that he’d held that back from her. She didn’t believe him. He didn’t know if he was relieved or annoyed. She probably believed it was his soft heart that made him lie to her and tell her that he loved her. Even after the days they’d spent together, the things she’d seen him do, she still thought he was capable of kind lies. When kindness had no part of his being, and lies were only to get what he wanted.
They dressed quickly, in the dark. He couldn’t tell if the sky was beginning to turn light—sunrise was sometime after six, but before long it would soon be spreading over the hilly countryside. He wondered if the snow had stopped. Monique would want to be in and out before the full light of dawn, and he could tell they were nearby. Not by any kind of proof, just his instincts at full force.
He’d left the light on in the hall—the usual light an absent house owner would leave to scare off burglars. It went out, and a moment later he heard the muffled explosion with a kind of cold satisfaction.
“They’re here,” he said. “And they should be down one.”
“What do you mean?” He couldn’t see her in the newly minted darkness, but he recognized the faint thread of fear in her voice, one she was trying to hide from him.
“I sabotaged the security system. I knew they were going to try to cut the power, but whoever actually did it