Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [96]
It hadn’t changed—if anything it was dustier, but the mattress was still there, and he dropped her down on it, making no effort to cushion her fall.
“Goddamn it!” she said, furious. “I was just in a car accident. You might at least be a little gentle.”
“I’m not feeling gentle right now,” he growled. “If I stay around you a minute longer I’d probably strangle you. I’m going to check the house, see if your supposed yakuza is really dead. And then I’m going to have to find a way to get you out of here. You screwed up the front gate, big-time, and the service entrance has been locked from the house. We can’t get out that way, either, unless I disarm it.”
“I know how to turn it off,” she said, starting to get up, but he put his hands on her shoulders and shoved her back, hard.
“You’ll stay here or I’ll tie you up.”
“Promises, promises,” she muttered. “And you can just stop throwing me around and hurting me. I’m fragile.”
“Ha! You’re as fragile as a sumo wrestler. And trust me, I’m pulling my punches. I could hurt you a lot more.”
“If that’s what turns you on,” she snapped, grabbing at the loose jacket he was wearing.
He swore, foul and dirty, pulling out of the jacket and moving away. “Coward,” she said, mocking.
He froze. The dusty, deserted pool house was silent, the windows so dirty she could barely see the huge house beyond it. He turned to look back at her for a long, thoughtful moment, then headed for the door.
She was tempted to throw the jacket at his head, tempted to find something, anything, to hurl at him, but she simply sat there on the mattress, defeated.
He didn’t open the door. He locked it. And then he turned back to look at her in the dusty stillness.
“What do you want from me, Ji-chan?” He sounded older, tired, not the smart-ass, smirking punk she was used to. He sounded as wounded as she felt.
Your head on a platter? Never to see your face again? For you to be eaten by hungry tarantulas? Nothing was bad enough.
She looked up at him, opened her mouth to rip him a new one. But only one word came out. “You,” she said.
She wasn’t sure what she expected. Was he going to walk away from her? Bring the force he’d threatened? He moved across the deserted pool house to the mattress, squatting down beside it, close enough to touch her. “Someone is trying to kill you, Ji-chan,” he said softly. “I haven’t had sex in three weeks, not since you left, and I’m not the kind of man who goes without sex easily. You need to let me go and try to save your life, because otherwise I won’t be able to keep my hands off you.”
“Why haven’t you had sex in three weeks?”
“Because you weren’t there. And unfortunately I don’t want anyone but you. Now, let me go and find a way to keep you safe.”
She reached up her hand and touched his face. His skin was smooth, warm, and the new, shorter hair was in his eyes. She pushed it away. “Safety is overrated,” she said. And she leaned up and kissed him.
For a moment he didn’t move, and his mouth was hard, stubborn beneath hers. Then something seemed to break inside him, and he pulled her into his arms, his mouth open, devouring hers with a hunger that was both startling and just right. It didn’t matter that her body ached from the accident—she melted against his hard strength and warmth and wanted to sink into his bones, his skin, disappear inside him.
She pulled him down onto the mattress, the mattress where she’d daydreamed about her perfect lover. She pulled her demon prince down with her, pushing at his clothes, reaching for his zipper with fevered hands, and he was yanking her pants off, throwing them across the room. He pushed her trembling hands away and released himself, fully erect, and she wanted to touch him, to put her mouth on him.
“If we’re stupid enough