Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [50]
“That was what I was suggesting.”
She should’ve run while she still had the chance. For a smart woman she was being astonishingly stupid. Either that, or she liked playing with fire. “You’re joking,” she said in a flat voice.
But they both knew he wasn’t joking. He didn’t know why he was doing it. He wanted her, that was a given, but he’d wanted other women and having a hard dick didn’t mean he had to do anything about it.
Maybe he wanted to play with fire as well. Maybe he thought it would make things easier if he just fucked her and got it over with. Or maybe he was looking for a reason to save her.
But even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. Run away, he thought.
“Come here,” he said.
10
Genevieve stood frozen in the middle of the room, her bare feet planted on the cool tile. The night was still and quiet around them, and somewhere out there a helpless man was bound and drugged and awaiting certain death at the hands of the man sitting so casually in the leather chair. Peter Jensen’s face was all planes and angles, eerily beautiful in the twilit room, and she couldn’t forget what that full, mobile mouth tasted like. Even his cold blue eyes seemed warmer, more like a still lake than an Arctic sea.
Oh, yes, he was beautiful—there was no denying that. And she’d never realized how sick she could be, to want him, to want an excuse to let him put his hands on her.
“How stupid do you think I am?” she said, barely keeping the fury from her voice.
He leaned back in the chair, his long, linen-clad legs stretched out in front of him. He was barefoot as well, and she couldn’t help but notice he had long, beautiful feet. What else was beautiful?
“We both know you’re a very smart woman,” he said. He began unbuttoning his loose white linen shirt, his hands tanned and graceful and deadly. “You won’t miss an opportunity to gain some sort of advantage over me, either emotionally or physically, and you’d never accept the fact that it was hopeless. Since I have no emotions, that leaves the physical.”
“And you’ve assured me that your body is simply a well-trained machine, able to function regardless of the circumstances. How would that help me?”
“Don’t be so unimaginative, Genevieve. Do you really think everything I tell you is the truth? Lying is one of the three things I’m best at. And you know the other two.”
She looked down at her uneaten meal. “Cooking?” she said hopefully.
“Killing. And sex.”
“But if you’re such a good liar, how do I know it’s true?”
“You aren’t going to know about the killing part until it’s too late, and I’m hoping you won’t even be aware of what’s going on. As for the sex…” He stretched out his hands. “That’s up to you.”
“I’m going to bed. Without you.” But she didn’t, couldn’t move.
“That’s what you said before, and you’re still here. I don’t think that’s what you want. If you can’t soften my heart, you could always try to overpower me when my attention is otherwise engaged. I might even fall asleep afterward—don’t men often do that?”
“Not my men,” she said loftily.
He smiled. “You don’t have a man, Genevieve. And you haven’t in more than three years, not since you moved to New York. Do you think I don’t have complete files on you? I know where you went to school, how you lost your virginity, what you eat for breakfast. I know you have a weakness for Hong Kong action movies, and French rock ’n’ roll. You graduated third in your class at Harvard Law and it drove you crazy that you weren’t first. I know you like it missionary style, don’t want to go down on anyone, and you seldom come. And you’re lactose intolerant. Come on, Ms. Spenser. I bet I can make you scream with pleasure.”
She felt hot and cold at the same time. His intimate knowledge of her was horrifying and inexplicable. His resources extended past the simple procurement of a rare soda pop on a Caribbean island. If he’d already committed that much about her to memory, was there anything left to hide?
“No, you can’t,” she said, her voice shaky.
He rose, a mistake on his part. When he lounged in a chair he might almost