Black Ice - Anne Stuart [84]
“Dependent?”
There was no way she was going to get out of this gracefully, so she gave up waffling. He was trying to embarrass her, but she could give as good as she got. Her eyes met his, fearlessly, and she willed the heat away from her face. Unfortunately it moved down lower. “You’re my knight in shining armor,” she said lightly. “My hero, my savior, at least for the time being. I’ll get over it.”
The amusement had vanished from his face. “No, I’m not. No hero, no savior, no knight. I’m a killer, out for my own agenda and nothing else. You need to remember that. You’re nothing to me but an inconvenience.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because I can’t get rid of you.”
There was something going on, something she couldn’t quite understand, but it was making her bolder, less vulnerable to his cold, empty words. “Of course you can,” she said in a practical voice. “You can break my neck, cut my throat, shoot me. You don’t seem to have any particular issues about life and death—if you simply wanted to get rid of me then why do you keep saving me?”
“Because I’m desperately in love with you and I can’t help myself. I’m a prisoner to your charm and beauty, I can’t bear to part—”
“Shut up,” she said, stopping his mocking litany. “I’m not saying I matter to you. I know perfectly well that any…feeling between us is only on my side, and it’s the result of trauma-induced hysteria and nothing else. I’m just saying that you’re not the monster you think you are.”
“I’m not?” She was standing too close to him. He simply reached out and wrapped his long, elegant fingers around her exposed neck. He pulled her closer, exerting just the slightest amount of pressure. His fingertips were just under her jaw, his thumb stroking the soft flesh of her throat. “Maybe I feed on pain and terror. Maybe I just brought you this far to kill you the moment you begin to trust me.”
She swallowed. The touch of his hands on her throat was unnerving, and it took all her strength to keep from swaying against him. “And maybe you’re full of shit,” she said. “You may not want me but you don’t want to kill me either.”
His smile was wry. “Now that’s where you’re wrong.” The pressure of his fingers against her throat increased for just a moment, and she felt dizzy, disoriented, until she realized he’d pushed her up against the wall of the damask-paneled living room, his elegant body pressed up against hers, his fingers cradling her face as he looked down into her eyes in the gathering darkness. Wrong about what, she thought distantly. Wrong about killing, or wrong about wanting?
He was about to tell her. “If this were a different time, a different place, I would take you to bed with me and make love to you for days,” he said, his voice slow and deep and intent. “I would use my mouth on you, until no part of your skin went untouched, and I would make you come, over and over again until you could stand no more, and then I’d let you sleep in my arms until you were rested and then I would start all over again. I would kiss your wounds, I would drink your tears, I could make love to you in ways that haven’t even been invented yet. I would make love to you in fields of flowers and under starry skies, where there is no death or pain or sorrow. I would show you things you haven’t even dreamed of, and there would be no one in the world but you and me, between your legs, in your mouth, everywhere.”
She stared at him, eyes wide. “Breathe,” he said softly, with a self-deprecating smile, and she realized she’d been holding her breath.
“You would?” she gasped.
“I would. But I won’t. It wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be very good for you.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of what’s good for me?”
He laughed then, and she realized she’d never heard him laugh before. For a moment he looked beautiful, gilded by moonlight, a perfect man in a perfect place.
And then the shadows closed down around them once more. “You have Stockholm Syndrome, remember?” he said with gentle