Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [66]
“He’s going to try. However, she’s well out of reach, and I don’t think she’s stupid enough to get her feelings hurt and go running out into the streets, straight into the arms of people who’ve been trying to kill her.”
“Feelings hurt?” she echoed, sitting up, her rage more powerful than her pain. “That’s what you call it? You miserable rat bastard, it was leave or kill you myself, and it’s not like I haven’t killed anyone before.” Her voice only wavered slightly.
He leaned his head back against the wall, and she could see a dark bruise forming on his chest beneath the ripped shirt. “You’re still an idiot. Why didn’t you keep your mouth shut in there?”
“Would it have made a difference? Would they have let us leave?”
“No. But at least you wouldn’t have a headache.”
“Thanks for the concern,” she said. “Give me a couple of aspirin and I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“You’ll be dead in the morning.”
“Aren’t you a bundle of laughs?” she said.
He pushed himself off the floor, carefully, and moved over to the bed. She scrambled out of the way, but on such a small surface there wasn’t far to go, and she wasn’t about to go for the floor.
He sat down, leaning back against the wall and letting out a sound halfway between frustration and exhaustion. “Just be quiet for a moment, Ji-chan,” he said. “I need to think.”
“You don’t need to think,” she said. “You need to get out of here and find out if your grandfather is still alive. You need to warn him about Hitomi.”
“He already knows about Hitomi-san. And he’s still alive—I would know if he wasn’t. My grandfather is not going down easily. But Kobayashi may not have had the chance to tell him that Hitomi’s made his move.”
“So?” she said. “Make some daring escape. Get us out of here, warn your grandfather and save the day.”
“You’ve been out for a while. I’ve been trying. The door is locked and bolted from the outside, the windows are barred and I have nothing to use as a weapon.”
“What about all those boxes? Maybe there’s something in there….”
“The boxes are filled with fake Chanel handbags. I don’t think we can beat someone senseless with a purse.”
“In every box?” she said, looking at the huge pile. Each one was almost four feet square, which made for a hell of a lot of fake Chanel.
“I dumped a couple while you were still out. We can always try hiding, but I don’t think that would buy us more than a few minutes. And it’s not my style to hide.”
“And it’s mine?” she said, insulted.
“You’re not going to have any say in the matter.”
“Now, why does that sound familiar?” she said. They were back to scrapping—she could almost forget the dark, hot hours in the king-size bed. Almost forget the casual cruelty of his words just a few hours ago.
“They beat the shit out of you,” she said after a moment, quieter.
“Yes. But Azuki’s in the hospital.”
“Who’s Azuki?”
“The kid who hit you.”
Silence. “Isn’t that a little extreme?” she said.
“He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”
Another silence. “Why?”
He closed his eyes. “Why what?”
“Why did you want to kill him? Why did you come here when you knew you were walking into a trap? Why did you spend the night in bed with me and then tell me I was lousy at sex? What the hell is going on?”
He opened one eye to look at her. “I thought we agreed you weren’t stupid, Ji-chan. Figure it out.”
The problem was that the room was dark—the bare lightbulb barely penetrated the cavernous space. And darkness made everything more intimate.
She tried to retreat farther on the narrow cot, but there was nowhere else to go, and she’d inadvertently gotten his attention.
“Are you trying to melt into the wall, Ji-chan? I don’t think that’s a reasonable way out of here.”
“So we just wait?”
He gave her a long, considering look. “If you’re bored, I can offer a suggestion.”
“No!” she said, her voice a nervous little squeak.
He laughed then. Rat bastard, indeed. “You can only be a virgin once, you know. It would pass the time.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking of.” He had a lazy half smile, and