Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [29]
After a moment she nodded, glaring at him, and he moved his hand. “Smart girl,” he said.
She wasn’t feeling particularly smart at that moment. She was feeling trapped, claustrophobic, hot and turned on, much as she hated to admit it. And there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.
“You can take off my jacket now,” he said.
“I’m not taking anything else off.”
He ignored her. She tried to move far enough away from him to reach the zipper, but the plastic wall was right there, he was crammed in front of her, and in order to get her hand up she would have to jab him with her elbow.
Which seemed like a good idea. He must have been expecting it, because he didn’t flinch, annoying her further. She unzipped the jacket, trying to wiggle out of it, but wiggling against Reno’s hard, hot body was a big mistake, and she froze, the jacket half on and half off.
He put his hands on her. Or course he would, pushing the jacket down her arms and off her, tossing it toward their feet. Before she realized what he was doing he’d caught the hem of her sweatshirt and began pulling that off, too, and fighting it would only bring him closer. At this point he was going to do what he wanted—skinny though he was, he seemed huge in the narrow plastic coffin and far too strong. The space was made for an average-size Japanese man, not for two people almost six feet tall.
She let the sweatshirt go the way of the jacket, waiting for him to just try touching the fly of her jeans, but he seemed to have stripped her enough. Another disheartening reminder of just how resistible she was.
He managed to sit up in the cramped space, barely, and looked at her. “Do you need to use the toilet? I’ll stand guard for you.”
It wasn’t as if she could tell him no. She nodded, and he slid out of the capsule with annoying grace, holding up a hand to stop her while he checked the corridor. Then he nodded, and she slid after him.
The toilet room was neat and utilitarian, with dividers between each urinal. Japanese men must be more modest than Western men. And she was not going to think about that.
She slipped into the stall and shut the door behind her, doing her business quickly. Listening with annoyance as Reno calmly did the same in the outer room.
He was leaning in the open doorway, waiting for her when she finally emerged. He gave her enough time to wash her hands before he hustled her back to the capsule, and to her relief he didn’t immediately follow her into the cramped space.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, pulling the shade down after her.
She let out her pent-up breath. Maybe he wasn’t really planning to sleep with her—it would be just like him to torment her like that when he’d already secured his own capsule. Asshole. She leaned back against the plastic wall, closing her eyes, trying to make the stress wash away from her. It encased her like a straightjacket.
The door slid up again, and Reno tossed something toward her. A thin cotton outfit that looked like a cross between surgeon’s scrubs and baby doll pajamas. “Put it on.”
He didn’t give her time to argue, sliding the door down again. She considered arguing, then began unbuttoning her shirt.
By the time he came back she was dressed in the dark blue pajamas, her clothes neatly folded with her sneakers resting on top of them. She was half afraid he’d be wearing the same thing, as he had in the ryokan, but he was still in his T-shirt and jeans.
He vaulted into the capsule, graceful and efficient, and slid the screen closed behind him. In the intervening minutes he hadn’t gotten any smaller—he filled the narrow space. He stretched out, taking up far too much room as she tried to make herself as small as possible in the far corner.
“You may as well lie down, Jilly. You’re not getting out of here past me, and I intend to sleep until they turf us out in the