her gaze away from his, feeling fluttery and stupid, and felt them dragged back to his by force. Damn him. That had never happened to her before.
“I want you,” he said quietly. “You want me. Why is it so shameful to you to acknowledge this? Why must you always fight it so hard?”
Her hands flew up to cover her hot cheeks, a hatefully femmy gesture that she regretted instantly. “Because you’re using me,” she said, her voice raw. “It’s shameful to let myself be used.”
He did not deny it. He was silent for a very long moment. “I am sorry,” he said finally. His voice was muted. “I wish that I was not.”
Well. Miracle of miracles. At least he was honest about that.
She couldn’t say anything snide about it, though. Her voice was stuck behind a stone wall in her throat. Her lips shook. Heat rose in her face. He moved closer, so slowly it was almost imperceptible, but all at once he was right behind her. She craved the heat his body generated.
Needed it, to warm the bone-deep cold inside her. Against the icy room, the red chemise. The snowflakes fluttering down onto the carpet.
She choreographed the words carefully. “Do not…wake up…Rachel. Understand?”
A brief smile touched his lips. “Try not to make so much noise this time, then.”
He shrugged off his jacket, hung it on the door behind him. Stripped off the tight black T-shirt underneath.
She would not let herself gasp or ogle. He thought well enough of himself as it was. But oh, God, it was difficult not to. Wow.
His body was startling. Big, broad, but every muscle sinewy and cut. From hard practical use, not from pumping iron. She’d felt coiled power vibrating when she touched him, she’d experienced the incredible reflexes when he wrestled her in Shibumi. Intelligent muscles, flexible and ready. They knew what to do without being asked twice.
She liked muscles like that. She liked power like that.
A triangle of dark hair on his chest arrowed toward his groin, lost in the low waistband of his jeans. He stood patiently, giving her time to check him out at her leisure. The thick, uptilted slash of his eyebrows, the sharp hollow of his cheekbones. The olive tinge of his skin, the thick bulge of his shoulders. Tendons snaked over his sinewy forearms. Blue veins formed subtle, pleasing patterns beneath his golden skin. She wanted to trace them with her fingertips. Memorize them.
And scars, more than she had imagined. He’d seen some rough use, and recently, too. He had scabs, scrapes. Green and yellow bruises. The bloodstained bandage on his upper arm. A reminder of the injury he’d sustained that morning, fighting to save them. His face was stark in the harsh glare from the lamp embedded in the bathroom mirror. It showed every mark. In this profound silence, the masks had fallen: the smooth businessman, the slick gigolo. He was all warrior now, hard and battered and deadly dangerous.
His eyes were black, his mouth a flat line. No dimples, no grin. He appeared to be taking this seriously. As well he should, considering what he risked, being intimate with someone like her.
He gathered her hair into a thick bunch, lifting it up to bury his nose in it. He kissed the back of her neck. His lips were so hot. So soft.
The contact made her flinch and shudder. Too much.
He hesitated and pressed his scorching heat against her to melt the ice. She had to squeeze her eyes shut, breathe slowly. Deliberately relaxing, accepting his energy into herself.
He did not move, his breath hot against her shoulder, his hands clasped around her upper arms. Minutes crawled by. Time was measured by her frantic heartbeats.
Then he hooked the shoulders of her dress and tugged the stretchy fabric downward, until the edge snagged against the jut of her nipples. He stared at that intently for a long moment, and wrenched the thing down. It dropped around her ankles.
She was naked but for the whorish garter belt and stockings. She was not a short woman, but she looked so small, so delicate, in front of him. She hated feeling delicate. Ghost pale, too, and too young, somehow with all that tangled hair hanging down. A big-eyed innocent. Tarted up in slutty, inappropriate lingerie.
His hands slid up to cup her breasts, and her body rippled in his hands. She stifled a whimper. Her skin almost hurt, it was so sensitive to every tiny touch. Vulnerable.
“Why did you do that to me?” she asked, her voice muted.
He nuzzled her shoulder, toying with her nipples with his thumbs. “Do what? The drug, you mean?”
She twisted in his grasp to meet his eyes. “What else?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You dare to be indignant, after what you did to me in the hotel room?”
She waved her hand, irritated. “That’s different. I asked nicely for you to fuck off. Then I asked not nicely. You didn’t respond, so I had to put you down. Too bad. Very simple. Nothing personal. But drugging me to seduce me is completely different. That’s extremely personal.”
His hands dropped from her breasts and gripped her waist, stroking the curve of her belly. His eyes slid away from hers.
“I needed to get close to you,” he admitted. “And your defenses are so strong. It is practically impossible to get through them. I think that I could have done so, given time—”
“You think very well of yourself,” she cut in, stung.
“Given time,” he repeated firmly, “I could have done so. I did, at Shibumi. But Imre does not have time, and I do not have time.”
“So it was all about Imre, then? Just as I thought.” She felt an irrational urge to weep, scream, shove him away. “Not about me.”
“No.” His face contracted. His arms circled her, wrapping around her and dragging her close against his chest. She felt the bulge of his erection, prodding her buttocks. “God, no. I want you. Do not doubt it.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Of course, he had to say that. She would be a boneheaded bimbo to let herself believe it. But still, she stood there, wrapped in his warmth, her mind melting down.
He felt so good. Every cell of her body was thirstily sucking up his hot energy. There was so much of it. So much of him. He was delicious.
“It still doesn’t track,” she said stubbornly. “What does sex have to do with Imre? We won’t be fucking our way into Novak’s stronghold.”
He dropped his face to her shoulder and started kissing her again. “You found me out,” he said. “I wanted you, I could not melt you, and I could not bear to wait. Forgive me. I am a filthy porcone. The truth is out.”
“Stop using that word,” she snapped.
He lifted his head, eyes narrowed. “What word?”
“Truth,” she clarified, her voice cutting. “It bugs me.”
His face went somber. “Of course it does. It is the thing you need, above all else, no? The thing you long for, whether you know it or not.”
She
