Ice Blue - Anne Stuart [34]
And he was beautiful. She hadn’t really had time to dwell on it while she’d been running for her life, but with his silky, straight black hair, his dark, unreadable eyes and full, luscious mouth, he was almost as gorgeous as the porcelain bowl he was so desperate to find. But there was something unsettling about his physical beauty. She’d been around Hollywood-handsome men for a great deal of her life, and good looks were nothing more than legal tender. Scott had been one of the best-looking men she’d ever met, and with her artist’s eye she’d chosen him as the logical man to sleep with, to get over her fears.
That plan had backfired, of course. She’d used him, hoping she could fall in love, and in the end all she’d discovered was that consenting, adult sex was highly overrated, no matter how gentle the partner. She could happily do without.
So why did she look at Takashi O’Brien’s starkly beautiful face and suddenly feel lost? In the end it didn’t matter; once he got the bowl he’d leave—with any luck—grateful to be done with her. And she’d forget all about the irrational stirrings that she wouldn’t have believed herself capable of.
She couldn’t wait until that happened. “It’s not in the house.”
He’d flicked off the lights, plunging them into a darkness lit only by the faint glow from the hallway. “You wouldn’t be thinking of a wild-goose chase, would you? It wouldn’t be a very wise move on your part.”
“I don’t know how wise I am. What are you going to do when I find the bowl for you?”
“I told you, take it to Japan.”
“And what are you going to do with me? Are you going to kill me?”
She’d managed to startle him. “Haven’t I been doing my best to keep you alive for the last twenty-four hours? Despite your best efforts to get yourself killed?”
She couldn’t argue with that. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Let’s go get your goddamn urn.”
He was going to have to kill her, of course. He’d known it all along, but he didn’t like the fact that she seemed to know it, too. He’d come close a couple of times, changing his mind at the last minute, but once he had his hands on the urn the safest thing to do would be to finish her. Quickly, painlessly, before she even knew what was happening.
Unfortunately, she already suspected him. Would she fight when the time came? He hoped not. Fighting would make it harder for her. She’d be better off just letting go. He could overpower her very easily—she was soft while he was hard and strong. He’d let himself get distracted in the bathroom for a moment, and he’d been a bit too rough because of it. He hadn’t needed to grip her throat that tightly.
His powers of observation were well out of the ordinary, and he’d taken in every inch of her exposed skin in the brief glance he’d allowed himself. The scars on her wrists were no surprise—he knew she’d attempted suicide when she was a teenager, soon after Hana Hayashi was killed. He was more distracted by Summer’s pale, creamy skin, smooth and soft. She had a mole above her left breast, and damn if he couldn’t see part of a tattoo peeking up from beneath the black cotton underwear that covered her hips. He never would have thought she was the type for a tattoo, and he found himself wondering what it was. He could look, of course. After she was dead.
The thought made him feel slightly queasy, uncharacteristically so. He could blame the last mission for the fact that he was having a hard time making his move. Maybe coming so close to death himself had given him a new respect for it, a new fear of it.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d already killed four men in the last twenty-four hours, and they’d barely registered on what was left of his soul. He hadn’t suddenly grown a conscience; they were dangerous animals who’d needed to die.
Summer Hawthorne was a different matter.