Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [28]
“Come on,” he said when she opened the door. “We’re going the rest of the way on foot.”
“What about the truck?”
“Someone will find it and return it.”
“Don’t you think you ought to wipe it?”
“Wipe it?”
“Make sure your fingerprints aren’t all over it,” she elaborated. “You don’t want the police matching you with car theft.”
“They can’t. My fingerprints have never been taken.”
“They don’t fingerprint you here when they arrest you?”
“I’ve never been arrested.”
She climbed down out of the truck, holding on in case her legs were still unsteady. She didn’t want him touching her if she could help it. Signs of weakness were disastrous. “I’m disappointed,” she said. “I thought you were the quintessential bad boy. You’re just a poseur.”
She didn’t manage to rile him. “No, I’m good at not getting caught.” He pulled a cap from his back pocket. “Put this on and keep your head down. I don’t think anyone will see you, but I believe in being careful. I need to sleep, and I don’t want to have to find another place you’ll approve of.”
She took the hat, a slightly grubby baseball-style hat with a Hello Kitty samurai in pink camo, and put it on her head. “Don’t you want your jacket? You must be cold.”
He didn’t answer, reaching out and tucking her hair beneath the cap. The touch of his hand on her head was startling—he was surprisingly gentle as he pushed the hair up under the cap. “Follow me and don’t say anything. If anyone sees us, they’ll just assume we’re a couple of doseiaisha out for a good time.”
“A couple of what?”
“Gay men. Though they’d be more likely to go to a love hotel. And they’d be more comfortable.”
“Why do they…?”
“Capsule hotels are only for men.”
“Great,” she said. “So not only do I have to stay with you, I have to become a cross-dresser, as well.”
“It’s a good thing no one will look closely—you’d never pass. You’re going to have to keep from talking, which I know is almost impossible for you. No one was around when I checked in, but you never can tell who might be up and about. Most people who spend the night here are salarymen who are too drunk to make it home, and they sleep soundly, but I’ll need to guard the toilet if you need to use it.”
“I need to use it,” she said, her voice grim.
“Then do what I tell you.”
She was having to spend far too much time doing what he told her to do, but now was no time for a mutiny. She wasn’t used to being ordered around—she’d been living on her own in an adult world for so many years because of her freakish mind, and she’d never liked being told what to do.
The building was square and anonymous, and while she’d managed to become conversational in Japanese in record time, she’d barely attempted to learn kanji. That would take years of study, even for her usually lightning-fast brain. They were in luck—the only person they passed heading down the narrow hallway was someone so blind drunk she could have been wearing a prom dress and he wouldn’t have noticed.
It looked like some science-fiction beehive. Reno stopped before one column of capsules and slid the door up, exposing a small, narrow bed. There was a light overhead, a small shelf and what looked like a TV screen set into the wall.
“All the comforts of home,” she said.
“Climb in.”
Not that she had any choice. She could hear the faint snores from the capsules surrounding hers, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t wake up. She climbed up into the capsule, stretching out.
A moment later he followed her.
“What are you doing?” she shrieked. Or tried to. He slammed his hand over her mouth to silence her, and his face was next to hers, his body plastered full-length against hers in the tiny space.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you go anywhere alone, did you? You would have had more room in a love hotel, but you were too squeamish, so this is what you get, with me included. At least it’s too small to do much more than sleep, even if you’re feeling kinky. And you don’t strike me as the kinky sort.”
There was nothing she could say. For one thing, his hand still