Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [7]
But something, probably simply the shitty luck that had currently plagued him, made him turn around and head back into the alleyway in time to stop some of the street rats from raping some stupid tourist.
He’d shot one, just because he’d wanted to. He could have gotten rid of them without the gun, but the sight of those pathetic, evil hoodlums annoyed him. They’d scattered, including the one he’d winged, and he was even more annoyed he hadn’t killed him. And then he focused his attention on the woman.
He’d put on his best American student affability, reaching out a hand to pull her upright. She was slight, medium height, looking a bit shell-shocked. Just an idiot woman who’d wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time.
Pretty, too, if he’d been in the mood to consider such things. She had a mess of red hair, and he’d never particularly liked redheads. In the moonlight he could see she had unbelievably blue eyes—almost turquoise—and the kind of mouth that could distract most men.
It didn’t distract him. Maybe playing Sir Galahad hadn’t been such a stupid idea, after all. She’d provide the perfect cover—no one would be on the lookout for a couple of American students bumming around France.
He’d said all the right things, of course, and she’d taken him at face value. He couldn’t fault her for that; most people looked at him and failed to see the wolf that lurked beneath his calm exterior.
He wasn’t going to be able to take the easy route and sleep with her. The best way to get a woman to do what you wanted was to fuck her, but Mary Isobel Curwen had nearly been raped. She wasn’t going to want any man putting moves on her for quite a while. If he needed to seal the deal later, before he’d finished his assignment, then he would, but it was always better if he kept things simple. Sex tended to make a woman possessive, or at the very least, curious. Curiosity was a liability in his line of work.
But a platonic, protective friend was another matter, and she fell for it. It was child’s play—just the right amount of asexual charm and nonthreatening promise, and she was sitting next to him in the beater of a car that hid an engine that could outrun a Ferrari. She’d never know what hit her.
The wind was up and the ferry crossing was rough, but his newfound cover had a cast-iron stomach, and she stood up on deck, the wind whipping her wild red hair around her pale face, her eyes bright, lively. Another point in her favor—she wasn’t easily frightened, either by storms or gangs of rapacious teenagers. As long as she stayed docile she’d be just fine.
She wasn’t quite the perfect partner. If he’d been able to custom-order one he would have picked someone a little plainer, with dark hair, someone a little less complicated, who would enter into a sexual relationship without a lot of baggage. He liked sex, but he never let it get in the way of an assignment, and someone like Mary Curwen would definitely demand more than a vigorous workout. She’d get involved, making things a great deal more dangerous, so she was off-limits.
It would have been more convenient if she weren’t so smart. That was mistake number one—thinking a cooking student would be less of a threat than someone attending the Sorbonne. Just because she’d been foolish enough to wander out alone didn’t mean she couldn’t put two and two together. He’d have to be careful.
Thinking it would be easy to keep his hands off her was the second mistake. And he wasn’t sure which was worse.
But Killian was a man who took what was handed to him and worked with it. Mary Isobel Curwen, American student, had fallen into his lap quite nicely, and he had every intention of taking full advantage of her.
Two weeks until his rendezvous in Marseille. Two weeks to bum around France, setting up an innocent front for anyone who happened to be on the lookout for him, and there were doubtless any number of people who wanted to get to him before he could complete his assignment. He always worked alone—no one would ever expect him to have a woman in tow.