Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [46]
“Are you sure that’s safe? Someone can hack into your IP address and find where we are if they’re good enough.”
“No, they can’t. I know my way around computers.” It was a simple statement, one she believed, so she busied herself with the food he’d brought. Enough for both of them. Did he expect her to serve him like a good Japanese hausfrau, or whatever you’d call it in Japan? If so, he was going to wait a long time.
He was right, though. The hot miso soup was like a mother’s calming touch, not that Lianne had been much for nurturing, but the warmth spread through Jilly’s body like a shot of whiskey.
The other dish was made of chicken, rice and egg, bland and lovely. She glanced over at him while she shoveled the food into her mouth, but he seemed intent on the screen, totally oblivious to her.
For the first time she could watch him, really watch him. With the studied swagger, the mocking grin vanishing, the glittering eyes focused on something else, she could see glimpses of the somber young man in the photo. The red teardrops still danced across his high cheekbones, and his eyelashes were still absurdly long, but without the protective, outrageous persona he suddenly looked just a little bit like Hiromasa Shinoda.
It should have wiped out any last lingering trace of fantasy. There was no Reno, there was simply a bright young man with a bizarre and compelling protective shell wrapped around him. And she wondered what he would do if she untied the cotton robe.
He swiveled his head to look at her then, and his eyes narrowed. “Seen enough?” he drawled.
She didn’t even blink. “Why? Are you planning on showing me more?”
“I’m trying to save your life here. You might at least stop trying to distract me,” he growled, turning back to the computer screen and typing.
“Am I distracting you?” she said sweetly. “Tough shit. I don’t suppose you have any clean clothes that might fit me.”
“I’m making arrangements.”
“You mean, there’s someone we can trust who’s not out to kill us?”
“Someone I can trust. I don’t think I’d risk leaving you alone with him. Kyo makes me seem like a pussycat.”
“Kyo?”
“Five feet two inches of pure nastiness. Unfortunately he’s the only person who’s good enough to keep out of the way of Hitomi’s spies. I can’t guarantee you’ll like what he comes up with, but at least you’ll be decently covered.”
“Lovely,” she said, sarcastic. “And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, try to get some sleep. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”
“Sleep where?”
He glanced up at her. The cut on his cheekbone looked nasty, and she wondered if it would leave a scar. It would only make him even hotter, damn it. “You can open the futon. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to sleep. I’m not going to touch you again.”
The memory of the previous night came flooding back, his hands between her legs, her body arching in spasms of hot, breathless release. “Not if you want to keep your hands,” she said, calm.
He turned away, and she had no idea whether he believed her. In the end it didn’t matter. Whether she wanted him to or not, he wasn’t going to touch her again. And she was grateful. She didn’t want him touching her, didn’t want him kissing her, didn’t want anything at all from him except to get away.
And the sooner she believed that, the better off she’d be.
11
Reno pushed away from the computer, beyond frustrated. He had a headache—he’d taken out his contact lenses hours ago, but even that didn’t help. Hours on the computer with little or no sleep wasn’t doing him any good, and it wasn’t bringing him any closer to the answers he was seeking. Who the hell was Hitomi-san? Was he from another gang, like the all-powerful Yamaguchi-gumi family, or was he working on his own, trying to take control of an already established family? There was no record of him to be found, even through the various side alleyways of the Internet that he knew so well.
He looked