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And then it was over. He pulled back, and he looked down at her, his eyes flecked with chips of blue ice. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
She, on the other hand, couldn’t catch her breath. Her heart was slamming against her chest, and she blinked, trying to banish the illogical hot tears that had stung her eyes at his cold, empty kiss. “No,” he said softly. “You don’t want to know.” He stepped back, away from her, and it was like some kind of breath-sucking demon had departed.
And then the kiss might never have happened. “I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep,” he said. “You can wander around the place to your heart’s content, plan all the bloody revenges and daring escapes you can think of. Whatever makes you happy.”
She didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer. “Go away,” she said.
“Gone.” And he was.
She stayed sitting in the chair for a long time. It was no longer as comfortable as it had been before—he’d invaded it, as he’d invaded every part of her life. She’d learned to meditate after the attack, as well as defend herself, but recently the pills had been taking care of everything.
The pills were gone, and she had no place to turn for that calm inside her—it had vanished. She tried breathing, she tried conscious relaxation, starting at her toes and moving upward. It didn’t work, so she started with the crown of her head, trying to remember how she used to meditate, what she’d learned about chakras and the like.
She was shit out of luck. She could calm and control her limbs, but the feel of his mouth on hers came back with every deep measured breath. He’d gotten inside her, somehow, and she didn’t know how to exorcise him.
How many people got to look into the face of death? She had, twice. The first time she’d survived, just barely, and come through it a stronger person.
The odds weren’t so good this time. She wasn’t dealing with blind, bullying rage. This time, the danger was cold, calculating and fully as smart as she was. If she looked at the situation calmly, her chances weren’t good.
That didn’t mean she was going to give up. She’d be a fool not to believe Peter Jensen wouldn’t do exactly as he said he would, and she’d never been a fool. Just because he had the face of an angel didn’t mean his soul wasn’t empty.
He’d been a gray ghost before, now he was a fallen angel. The man was a chameleon, capable of turning into anything he wanted, and he assured her those persona were lethal. And she believed him.
She pushed away from the chair, reaching out for the sliding door, then pulling her hand back at the last minute. The only safe doors were the ones leading out to the pool, he’d said.
He could have lied to her, to try to scare her. But she didn’t think so. All she knew was if she stayed in his air-conditioned prison a moment longer she’d scream.
She wasn’t naive enough to believe he was attracted to her. There’d been a reason behind his kisses, cool and calculating, trying to incapacitate her, disarm her, overwhelm her. He’d succeeded the first time because she’d never seen it coming. She was marginally better prepared today, but only marginally. He was an expert at weapons, he’d said, and sex was one of them. It was no wonder that last kiss had left her shaken and confused, just the way he wanted her. Trapped and seemingly helpless.
Which reminded her of Harry. Where were they keeping him? There was no way she could take off and leave him to his fate, even if it looked as if she might have a chance to escape. But he was a big man, and if he was comatose she had no idea how she’d manage to move him.
Or where they could go. They were on a private island, and while she had her doubts about the place being surrounded by trained sharks, she wasn’t sure she was ready to disprove it. She’d seen Jaws as well when she was younger and she’d prefer a bullet through the head, thank you very much.
But it wasn’t going to come to that. She was going to get out of there. They both were. And if she had to feed Peter Jensen to the sharks, then so be it.
She found the most enveloping bathing suit, one that was unfortunately strapless, and headed for the pool, letting the cool, clear water wash the last of the drugs out of her system, along with the slowly building panic. She could do this. She could fight back— she’d learned not to be a victim.
She swam to the shallow end of the pool and stood up, yanking the shrinking top of the bathing suit up to a more demure level.
“That’s a shame,” Peter Jensen’s cool voice emerged from the shadows. “I was hoping gravity would win.”
He was lying on the chaise, off to one side, beneath a leafy canopy that kept him out of the glare of the sun.
She stopped tugging at the bathing suit. “How long have you been there?” She didn’t bother to keep the accusatory note out of her voice. “You said you were going to take a nap.”
“And so I did, until you started all that thrashing about. I hadn’t realized quite how energetic you could be.”
She could feel his eyes on her. They were hidden by sunglasses, and there was no way she could even begin to guess what he was looking at, what he was thinking. She just had the sudden wish that she was covered from head to toe.
But she wasn’t about to let him intimidate her. She met his mirrored gaze evenly. “I needed to clear my head,” she said.
“Should I be worried?”
If there was one thing she wanted to do it was wipe the amusement from his voice. “Yes,” she said flatly. “You should.”
He didn’t make the mistake of laughing at her this time, but she knew he wanted to. Score one for the good guys, she thought. Perhaps she was beginning to get a glimmer of how his mind worked behind his cool, impassive gaze. This mind-reading thing wasn’t quite as one-sided as it had been.
He expected her to run away like a scared rabbit, covering up her exposed body. But in fact, there was nothing wrong with her body—she was just curvier than she wished. Those extra fifteen pounds went straight to her hips, and the wretched truth was that clothes hung better on narrow hips and flat chests. But then she wasn’t wearing clothes at the moment, just a too-small bathing suit, and even if she felt a little exposed she wasn’t about to run away. It gave him an unfair advantage.
