Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [73]
She was a practical, unemotional woman. He was right, and she was cold. She got in the front seat, closing the door behind her, and he took off into the twilight, driving fast and well.
She heard a rustling sound, and looked back to see Mahmoud already chowing down on a bag of crisps. “You stopped for food?”
“I stopped for supplies. Take off my jacket and lie down.”
“Fuck you.”
“Take off the jacket, Isobel,” Killian said. He didn’t sound patient.
“I’m not…” She leaned back against the seat, then jerked erect as fire spread through her.
“You heard me. Take off the jacket and lie down.”
“There isn’t room.”
“Put your fucking head in my lap,” he snapped. “And stop playing games. I need to get you cleaned up and we can’t afford to stop. Take off my jacket before you get any more blood on it, and lie down. Unless you have a damn good reason not to.”
She had a million reasons not to, and she wouldn’t admit to any of them. She pulled the jacket off gingerly, trying to ignore the tiny shards of pain that sped through her body, and put it in her lap. Even in the dusky interior of the car she could see the blood.
“The shirt, too,” he said.
It was the T-shirt he’d bought her on the ferry, the one with Ibiza Is for Lovers emblazoned on the front. She pulled it over her head, carefully, not making a sound as her flesh screamed in pain. The back of the shirt was shredded, stained with more blood.
“I haven’t lost that much,” she said, not moving closer. “I’ll be fine until we reach London.”
“You have a dozen or more tiny pieces of glass sticking out of your skin, Isobel. Put your face in my lap or I’ll make you.”
He was the man who’d fucked her and hadn’t come. He was the man who’d used her, tricked her, treated her as one more weapon in his destruction of the world. He wouldn’t give a damn if her face was in his crotch, and neither would she.
“You could have gone for a bench seat,” she muttered, lying down, putting her head on his thigh beneath the steering wheel. She could feel his heat, bone and muscle. She already knew how strong he was; he carried Mahmoud’s slight weight without seeming to notice, and he could probably haul her around as well. She lay there, balancing tentatively, ignoring the fact that she was wearing jeans and a bra and nothing else. He didn’t care.
Mahmoud chose that moment to lean over the seat and make an observation, and Killian laughed, damn him. “Don’t translate,” she said between clenched teeth. “Just get the damn glass out if you think it’s so important.”
He put his hand on her head, silencing her. It was getting darker, the roads were crowded and he couldn’t afford to watch—he had to keep his eyes on the road. One hand was on the steering wheel, the other left her head to drift gently down her raw back.
“Got one,” he murmured, and one tiny spike of pain lessened as he pulled the shard free, dropping it in the space usually used for coins. “Hold still.”
“Couldn’t Mahmoud do this?” she said. The hand moving across her back, so gentle, was worse than her face in his crotch. She didn’t want gentleness from him.
But then, he’d offered her violence last night and she’d taken it. Without argument.
“Stop thinking,” he said. “If you tense your muscles, it’ll be harder to pull the glass out.” Another piece gone. She was holding her breath, and she forced herself to let it out, concentrating on calming exercises. It wasn’t the pain, it was the position that was making her tense, but in the end the effect was the same. She knew how to slow her breathing, how to make herself relax no matter what the circumstances, and she brought all her resources into play, relaxing, softening her body, sinking into the seat. Sinking against his hard, hard thigh.
“That’s better,” he murmured. She could hear the steady swish of the windshield wipers, the hum of the tires, the sounds of traffic. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the dubious ministry of his hands as he plucked shards of glass from her skin.
“Why did you save Mahmoud?” Killian’s voice was so low she