Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [39]
“Are there pleasant ways to die? Don’t answer that—you’d probably know all too well. Anyway, I don’t think you had a mother. You were hatched from an egg like the snake you are.”
“Someone has to lay the eggs, Ms. Spenser,” he said mildly. “But trust me, my mother had a lot in common with a viper.” He turned away, dismissing her.
“That’s it?” she said. “You come in here to tell me all the ways I could die and then you just walk away?”
He paused by the door. “I’m warning you of all the ways you could die prematurely. You may as well fight it for as long as you can.”
“Why? Do you get turned on when your victims struggle?”
She’d gone too far, but then she’d been trying to goad him since he’d walked through her locked door. He moved so fast she had no warning—one moment he was standing by the door, in the next he was leaning over her as she sat, his hands on the arms of the chair, trapping her, his face dangerously close to hers, a blatant invasion as his legs straddled hers.
“You don’t want to know what turns me on, Ms. Spenser.” How could a voice be seductive and deadly at the same time? She looked up into his undeniably beautiful face, trying not to show any reaction at all. Was he even human, or simply a block of ice in the hot tropical sun?
But she’d forgotten his genius for reading her mind. “Or maybe you think you do,” he said in a soft, dangerous voice. And the softness was even more terrifying with everything else about him so hard and cold and merciless.
“No, I…”
He kissed her. Not the seductive caress before he rendered her unconscious, this was strange, different, angry. His mouth covered hers, and it had nothing to do with seduction. His kiss was full of anger and desperation and there was nothing she could do but let him. She clutched the arms of the chair, her fingers digging into the upholstery so that she wouldn’t lift them to touch him, as some crazy part of her so desperately wanted to. She let him kiss her, shocked at the feelings that went swirling through the pit of her stomach. She could stop herself from kissing him back, but she couldn’t keep her eyes from closing, and she couldn’t understand the hot sting of tears behind her eyelids. Was she crying for him? For her? What the hell was wrong with her?
And then it was over. He pulled back, and he looked down at her, his eyes flecked with chips of blue ice. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
She, on the other hand, couldn’t catch her breath. Her heart was slamming against her chest, and she blinked, trying to banish the illogical hot tears that had stung her eyes at his cold, empty kiss. “No,” he said softly. “You don’t want to know.” He stepped back, away from her, and it was like some kind of breath-sucking demon had departed.
And then the kiss might never have happened. “I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep,” he said. “You can wander around the place to your heart’s content, plan all the bloody revenges and daring escapes you can think of. Whatever makes you happy.”
She didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer. “Go away,” she said.
“Gone.” And he was.
She stayed sitting in the chair for a long time. It was no longer as comfortable as it had been before—he’d invaded it, as he’d invaded every part of her life. She’d learned to meditate after the attack, as well as defend herself, but recently the pills had been taking care of everything.
The pills were gone, and she had no place to turn for that calm inside her—it had vanished. She tried breathing, she tried conscious relaxation, starting at her toes and moving upward. It didn’t work, so she started with the crown of her head, trying to remember how she used to meditate, what she’d learned about chakras and the like.
She was shit out of luck. She could calm and control her limbs, but the feel of his mouth on hers came back with every deep measured breath. He’d gotten inside her, somehow, and she didn’t know how to exorcise him.
How many people got to look into the face of death? She had, twice. The first time she’d survived, just barely, and come through it a stronger person.