Ice Blue - Anne Stuart [33]
He didn’t seem to notice or care. “These are slightly worse, but they shouldn’t slow you down.” He looked up into her face, not moving from his position, and his hands still cradled her ankles. And Summer couldn’t let her mind go any further in that direction. “So tell me where the urn really is and we’ll get the hell out of here before anyone shows up.”
“I don’t know.”
His hand shot out, wrapping around her neck, and his strength was unnerving. “I don’t want to hear that again,” he said calmly. “No more lies.”
“It’s not a lie.” Her voice was muffled from the pressure against her throat. “Micah made the copy for me in the first place. I thought he’d put the original back in the house somewhere.”
Taka loosened his grip slightly. “He hasn’t. Trust me, if the urn was here I would have found it. Where else would he have put it?”
“I don’t…” His grip tightened, and she let the words trail off. She swallowed nervously, feeling his palm against her throat. “He could have given it to someone else to hide.”
“He didn’t.”
“I’m having a hard time breathing,” she said tightly.
“Maybe you gave it to your baby sister,” Takashi said. “No one would think you’d put her in danger, but people can surprise you. Maybe you don’t care as much about her as you think, particularly when there’s three hundred thousand dollars on the line.”
“You’re disgusting,” Summer said.
“Then tell me where it is. Or am I going to have to ask your sister?”
Her eyes met his. They were cold, dark, implacable, and she wondered why she’d ever thought he was any kind of savior. If she wasn’t so tired and frightened—if she wasn’t sitting here in her underwear—she might be able to fight him. Right now she was no match, and the most important thing was to keep her sister out of it, at all costs.
And why the hell was she fighting him, anyway? She’d lost, and the stakes were much higher than she thought. This wasn’t just about preserving a simple bowl of almost unearthly beauty that was a gift from the person who’d loved and protected her most, but the safety of her baby sister. A thousand priceless porcelain bowls were nothing compared to something so precious.
“I can find it,” she said in a whisper.
He immediately loosened the pressure on her throat, then dropped his hand. “Do it,” he said.
“Can I get my clothes on first?”
He let his eyes drift down over her body. “If you wish.”
Of course he wasn’t going to leave her while she dressed. He wasn’t going to take those dark, unreadable eyes off her. She reached for her jeans and pulled them on, biting her lip rather than crying out when the soft denim rubbed against her burns. She yanked the T-shirt over her head—it was going to be cold, and she needed something warmer, but one look at his implacable face and she wasn’t going to ask.
He was blocking the doorway into her bedroom. Odd that a man so lean and elegant could take up so much space. “I need to get my shoes,” she said.
“Sneakers. We may have to run. And get a sweater. It’s cold outside.”
He never failed to surprise her. She could still feel his hand on her throat—for a moment she’d thought he could easily strangle her, and would if she’d fought him. And now he was worried about her getting cold.
Takashi moved out of the way, and she nodded, heading for the closet. She knew he’d searched there as well, even if he hadn’t left any sign. She grabbed an old pair of sneakers and a baggy sweater. Vanity, never one of her major character