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“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 almost didn’t hear him.
“Instinct,” she muttered sleepily. “I certainly wasn’t about to save you.”
His laugh vibrated through his leg, through her body. “Of course not. Mahmoud’s grateful.”
She couldn’t be relaxed and hostile at the same time—that much multitasking was beyond her at the moment. “Sure he is,” she murmured. “I wouldn’t trust him not to thrust a knife in my ribs if I got between him and what he wanted.”
“True, but he’d feel bad about it.” Another piece gone. She’d lost count. She could open her eyes and look at the little pile of glass shards in front of her, but she didn’t want to. One thing she’d learned over the years was to give in when there was nothing she could do about a situation. Killian was heading to London—he’d have no reason to do otherwise, and self-preservation was his number one priority. She could let go of that responsibility for the time being. He was probably just picking the stuff out of her back because he needed her in good working order, in case someone else tried to hit him. That, and the fact that it humiliated her, were two strong motives.
And her only defense was not to feel humiliated. “Are you almost finished?” she asked in a deliberately caustic tone.
His fingertips danced across her abraded skin, as gently as a whisper. “I think we’ve got most of them. I have a suggestion while you’re in that position.”
“I’ll bet you do.” She tried to sit up, but his hand came down on her neck, no longer gentle at all.
“Stay put,” he ordered, his voice flat.
“If you think I’m—”
“Someone’s following us,” he said. “Right now it looks as if I’m alone in the car, and we’d better keep it that way.”
She couldn’t argue with his logic. He loosened the pressure on her scalp, and she lay still, listening as he spoke to Mahmoud. The first thing she was going to do when she got back to London was take an intensive training course in Arabic. It was maddening not to know what was going on. And given the state of the world, she had no doubt she’d be needing it sooner rather than later.
Assuming she continued to go out into the field. She’d had no choice in the last year or so. When Thomason had been in charge he’d simply delegated, probably due to the fact that he never liked to get his hands dirty. He had people to enforce his decrees, but he himself was no operative. He’d come in at an early age, a London bureaucrat with connections, and he’d never had to do anything more than give orders and exercise power.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. She wasn’t convinced that Sir Harry Thomason was, in fact, corrupt. It was a possibility, but a remote one. He cherished the life of an English gentleman a little too dearly. He was just a useless old man with nothing to do but harass Peter with petty annoyances. If that was the worst thing she had to deal with, then she could count herself lucky.
And now they’d lost another agent. Morrison had been one of the oldest and best operatives they had, and now he was gone. At least it had been quick for him. As soon as she got to London she’d have to make arrangements for his body to be collected and properly buried.
It was easier to think about Morrison than what she was doing at the moment, a fact that should have shamed her. But it didn’t. She could grieve Morrison’s loss, but her practical side forced her to consider how they were going to make do. Hiromasa was just going to have to come on board sooner than expected. She only hoped he had Taka’s ability to blend in.
Killian’s hand had moved from the back of her head to her neck, underneath her loose hair. The heat was on full blast, and even wearing nothing but her bra, she felt warm, almost drowsy. If she didn’t know better she’d suspect him of drugging her again. But he simply hadn’t had the chance.
No, it was just a matter of coming down from being on high alert. She knew she was safe, for at least a few moments. She was warm, and though her back felt raw, it would heal. The Committee had all sorts of expensive concoctions that could speed up the healing process. In general, she healed quickly anyway, but she needed to be at the top of her game until she finally managed to get rid of the man whose hard thigh lay beneath her head, whose long fingers were slowly, absently stroking the soft skin at the nape of her neck. He probably didn’t even realize what he was doing, she thought. He was concentrating on his driving, accepting the fact that she was momentarily quiet. She could be anyone beneath the slow, hypnotic stroke of his hand.
“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.
