Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [26]
“A little. You told whoever you were talking to that I was dead. That I’d died when my car went over the side of the mountain.”
“Shit,” he said, clearly annoyed. “And that was my grandfather. He’s not happy that I failed to protect a member of the family. Which you are, by default, whether I like it or not. And you don’t want to mess with my grandfather when he’s not happy.”
“You don’t trust your grandfather with the truth? Unless, of course, that was the truth, just a bit premature, and you’re planning to kill me.”
“I’m tempted, just to shut you up, but Taka wouldn’t like it, and disposing of your body would be a pain,” he said.
“Are you sure? I thought you said your grandfather’s men would wipe out all trace of your earlier bloodbath in Taka and Summer’s house. Disposing of one small American shouldn’t be that much of a challenge.”
“Small?” he echoed derisively. “You’re as tall as I am. And yes, they could dump you. But I have absolutely no interest in killing you. That’s more Taka’s style. I just want to get rid of you. Unless of course, you’d rather I strangle you. You could probably talk me into it.”
“You can strangle me if you want, as long as you feed me first. At this point food is more important than a long life.”
“Hold on.” Those weren’t words to inspire her with confidence, and his previously dangerous speed suddenly became suicidal as he bobbed and darted between the heavy traffic, narrowly missing pedestrians and cyclists as he clipped a curb and ran right over another.
“Where are we?” Jilly lifted her head to peer out into the neon-bright night.
Reno didn’t answer, of course. Why should she have expected him to? She’d spent the past two days asking him questions that he’d ignored. Why should it be any different? “If you don’t answer me, I’ll stab you with a chopstick again,” she warned him.
He glanced at her. “You don’t have any.”
“Point taken. I’m starving. Find me chopsticks and food to go with them and tell me what the plan is.”
“We’re going to a love hotel.”
“Right,” she drawled. “Right after hell freezes over.”
“Don’t jump to any conclusions. They’re anonymous—they have them all over Tokyo. You check in by machine—no witnesses. You’ll like it—there are theme rooms. Pirates and samurai and slave girls. Just the kind of fantasy young women like.”
“I have no deep-seated fantasy to be a slave girl,” she snapped. “And I hate to tell you, but you’re no Johnny Depp.”
“That leaves samurai,” he said. “You don’t get a choice.”
“Do they have two beds?”
“In a love hotel? Not likely. Don’t worry—they’re like a family theme park of sex. Everything clean and pretend.”
“I’m not having sex with you, even pretend sex.”
“I don’t remember that I asked you for sex. If I’d wanted it, we would have already done it.”
At some point she really was going to hit him. She already knew perfectly well that he didn’t find her to be anything more than a pain in the butt. He didn’t need to embarrass her, as well.
“No love hotel,” she said flatly, staying on point. “You’ll have to knock me out and…” She let the words trail off as she remembered he’d already done just that. “No love hotel,” she said.
“It’s that or a capsule hotel.”
She brightened. “Oh, cool! I’ve seen those on TV.”
“You won’t like that much better.”
“A capsule hotel sounds perfect.”
“And you think I’m going to do what you want?”
“I’m a lot less trouble if you do.”
He smiled. Just when she was thinking he never smiled, he did, and she almost wished he hadn’t. It was a smirk, as if he’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted and knew she wasn’t about to back down.
And she wasn’t. She might have to spend the night with him, as she’d had to spend every minute since he first walked into the back bedroom at Summer’s house, but she didn’t have to spend it in a place designed for illicit sex. She’d seen capsule hotels on TV—they were strictly utilitarian, for people who needed to sleep and nothing else before they went back to work the next day.
“No more arguments?