Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [39]
No, maybe remembering wasn’t a good idea. Because not only was it making her skin warm, she was getting turned on, and that was one place she definitely didn’t want to go. Reno was out of her league, and it was a good thing. She had a hard-enough time dealing with the average American male. A wild card like Reno was more than she could handle.
Of course he’d take that moment to open the closet door, just as her face was flushed and her body tingling. Fortunately he was too intent on getting out of there to notice.
“Don’t say anything, don’t move unless I tell you to,” he said in a low voice. “If you do, you’ll get us both killed.”
She wasn’t about to come up with an argument. While the hallway was marginally lighter than the pitch-black closet, it was still almost impenetrable, and the only safety was the man in front of her, leading the way.
They passed one man on their trip through the maze of underground tunnels, and Reno moved so fast he was simply a blur in the darkness, and the man collapsed, unconscious, as Reno took her hand, pulling her deeper into the bowels of the building.
At first she didn’t realize when they emerged into the evening air—the cold that penetrated the old cement building was the same inside as out, and night had fallen. To her amazement they were outside the high walls of the cement-block compound that housed Ojiisan’s headquarters, on a dark and deserted side street. “Now’s the time to run, Jilly,” Reno said, and took off, dragging her along behind him.
It was a good thing she had long legs—if she’d been short, she never would have kept up with him, and chances were he’d either abandon her and drag her limp body in the dirt if she fell. She was in decent shape—she ran three times a week and didn’t smoke, but she wasn’t used to a flat-out sprint, and her chest was burning, her heart banging against her rib cage. Reno, goddamn him, seemed barely touched by the fast pace. He was probably running fast so she couldn’t argue with him.
It didn’t matter—there was no way she was going to fall behind or complain. If he could do it, then so could she. And the faster she ran, the more the scene retreated, the dead man, all the dead men that she’d seen in the past few days.
And then, just as suddenly, he stopped, catching her as she hurtled forward, pushing back against a building and holding her there while she struggled to catch her breath.
He wasn’t even winded. “We’ll get a taxi from here,” he said. “As soon as you stop sounding like an eighty-year-old man.”
“Go…to…hell,” she gasped, struggling for breath. They were on a side street, but the street-lights were on, and neon beckoned from around the corner. He just stood there, waiting while she brought her breathing under control. She shoved her sweat-damp hair away from her face with a shaking hand—at this rate she was going to get pneumonia and she didn’t care. She just wanted this all to end.
A moment later he took her hand, pulled her arm through his in a perfect parody of young lovers, and walked her into the neon, into the crowded streets of Tokyo.
It wasn’t until he’d gotten her ensconced in the backseat of a taxi that she noticed he’d covered his distinctive hair with a black kerchief emblazoned with kanji, and he’d tucked his bright red braid beneath the leather jacket. Except for his height, he could be any Tokyo hipster in shades, but there was no disguising Jilly. There weren’t that many almost six feet tall gaijin women around, and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.
She waited until Reno gave instructions, so detailed she couldn’t follow, and then she spoke.
“What next?” Her voice was hoarse from running.
He didn’t bother to look at her—he was busy watching out the back, probably looking for signs of pursuit. “Train station,” he said. “We’re taking the train to Osaka and I’m putting you on a plane at Kansai Airport.” He glanced at her then, just briefly. “You’ll be safe enough.”
“Why don’t you just let me go on my own? You don’t need to take the train—we’re probably better