Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [75]
“Mahmoud wouldn’t even notice,” he said in a low voice laced with amusement. “You could just unzip me….”
She put her hand on his thigh to shove herself up, and to hell with anyone who might be following. But he was too fast for her, grabbing her hand and placing it against the hard flesh straining against his zipper. He had an erection. Why? There was nothing he wanted from her, nothing he’d wanted last night except to humiliate her, to prove his mastery, to prove—
“Shut up,” he said.
The only way she could pull her hand free was to bite him, and that was one thing she wouldn’t do. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking.”
“That’s out of your control, Killian,” she said. “Sorry about your problem, but I’m not doing anything about it.”
“I don’t have a problem.”
“What’s this?” She couldn’t pull away, but she could move her fingers, and she brushed the length of him beneath the heavy denim. He didn’t react, but then, she hadn’t expected him to.
“Unfinished business. We’ll take care of it later. In the meantime, you can just lie still and be quiet. Look at it this way, you’ll be putting me through exquisite torment. Won’t you enjoy that?”
“I doubt it’s torment. I wasn’t fighting last night. You missed your chance.”
“There are always more chances, princess,” he whispered. “I had a crisis of conscience.”
“You have no conscience.”
“Not much of one, I’ll admit. But it does seem to appear when you’re around. I wasn’t going to kill you, you know. You didn’t have to shoot me.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“Oh, I did. Over and over again. You still are completely blind when it comes to me, aren’t you?”
“No. I see you far too clearly, as the sick, murderous bastard you are. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to be charming, I know you’re an ugly piece of work in pretty packaging. I won’t kill you, but I’ll dance on your grave when someone finally manages it.”
He laughed, sounding almost lighthearted. “How sweet. You still love me, don’t you? I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but you always were a stubborn woman. Lousy judge of character.”
“I can change my mind and kill you.”
“Of course you can. But you won’t. It doesn’t matter what you think I am, what you think I’ve done. You’re in love with me, and you will be until the day you die.”
She shoved at him, and he let out a small sound of pain as he released her. “Careful there, Isobel. You really wouldn’t want to damage me.”
She sat up. The highway was empty—no one was following them. Probably no one had been following them for the last hour; he’d just used it as an excuse to humiliate her.
She opened her mouth to tell him all the things she wanted to do to him—hurt him, kill him. But the words didn’t come.
Because he knew her too well. Better than she knew herself. She was the Ice Queen, the Iron Maiden, and she wasn’t going there.
“Shut up, Killian,” she said, reaching for her ripped shirt. In the darkness he wouldn’t know how rattled she was. He might guess, but there was no way he could know for certain he’d managed to get to her. “Shut up and drive.”
And he did.
17
Things were not going according to plan. Then again, things seldom did, and Killian was used to adjusting at an instant’s notice. But something wasn’t feeling right about this situation, even taking into account the expected complications and snafus.
He had a simple enough job. The Committee was to extract him from North Africa, bring him to London, where he would supposedly be debriefed on his years spent in the service of some of the world’s most notorious dictators, warlords and terrorist organizations. While he was feeding them false and useless