Black Ice (23 page)

He might be dead, but that was a small price to pay. Life and death had stopped mattering a long time ago.

He came back to the cluttered den, where Chloe lay in a deep sleep on the sofa. There was a brightly colored quilt tossed on a chair, and he picked it up and covered her with it. Her hair was longer now, but no one had given it any kind of professional styling. His trained eye knew it was still the same ragged cut she’d performed on herself while he’d watched from a distance. And damned if he didn’t still like it.

Then again, he’d accepted the fact that he liked far too much about her. Which was why coming back into her life was the last thing he’d wanted to do. But he’d had no choice.

He moved to the window, looking out through the gloomy afternoon. In his preliminary scouting he’d found she’d been staying at one of the guest houses off to the side. He’d turned on the lights, the television, closed the blinds and arranged a little surprise for them. It wouldn’t slow them down for long, but every extra minute of warning could make the difference between life and death.

They’d landed in Canada—five of them, including their leader. Jensen had managed to get that much information to him before he’d gone in, but now he was officially cut off. He was going to have to wing it from here on in.

There were countless computers all over the place, but he was wise enough not to touch them. Without the proper defenses in place anyone in the world could find him. His mobile phone was safer, though not completely, but after a few moments it looked reasonably certain that they weren’t going to arrive for another eight hours at the least. The kind of people he was fighting wouldn’t be deterred for long by the unexpected forces of nature.

Time enough to get her out of there? That was always the question—they were probably safer in this mini-fortress, particularly with his modifications to the security system. Out on the road was a different matter, and they could only run for so long. Her family would return sooner or later, and while he didn’t give a crap about
them, she did. So for her sake he had to keep them alive as well. And that meant dealing with the problem here and now.

The den was too vulnerable, and she was going to be out for hours on end. Maybe, with extreme luck, she’d stay unconscious until all this ended, and she’d never have to know a thing about it. By the time she came to he’d be long gone, the danger passed.

The only drawback was that he’d have to take the necklace, and for some reason it was important to him that she have it. But if she kept it, she’d always be wondering when he was going to show up again. Too much to risk on a sentimental gesture.

Their best spot was a second-floor bedroom near the back of the house. The windows on the sloping site were close enough to the ground if they had to jump, but it gave him a decent vantage point of the overgrown grounds surrounding the house. It was a slim advantage, but the only one they had. He picked her up off the sofa, marveling again at how damned light she was, and carried her upstairs. The light from the hallway illuminated his way, and set her down on the king-size bed before he went to open the window a crack. She looked pale, cold, even in the shapeless, bulky clothes no Frenchwoman would ever wear, and he pulled back the covers and slid her under them, tucking her in.

He stood there, staring down at her for a long moment. And then, on impulse, he pushed her tangled hair
away from her forehead. She looked the same—stubborn, pretty when there was no room in his life for pretty, and on impulse he leaned down and kissed her, softly, while she slept.

And then there was nothing he could do but keep watch. And wait.

Until Monique came to kill her.

W
hen she opened her eyes she was disoriented, confused. The room was dark, only bright moonlight coming through the uncurtained windows, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was. Slowly it came back to her…she was in the back guest room, the one her older brother and his wife usually used. She was tucked up in bed, in the darkness, and she’d dreamed she saw Bastien once more.

Someone was sitting in a chair by the window. She could only see his outline, but she knew it hadn’t been a dream.

She didn’t sit up, didn’t move. Her voice was very quiet when she spoke. “Why are you really here? It wasn’t the necklace, was it?”

He must have known she was awake. He always seemed to have an instinctive awareness of everything about her. Oh, God, she hoped not everything. She hoped he didn’t know the mixed, crazy tangle of emo
tions he brought out in her. For a moment he didn’t answer, and it was long enough for him to fantasize all sorts of things, that he couldn’t live without her, that he had to see her one more time, that he loved…

“Someone wants to kill you.” His voice was calm, dispassionate.

It was no more than she’d expected, and that one crazed moment of hope hadn’t lasted long enough to make it hurt. Much. “Of course they do,” she said. “Why should anything have changed? And you’re here to save my life? I thought you’d already done your duty. You got me safely out of France—the rest should be up to me. And presumably the American cops or CIA or whatever.”

He didn’t say anything, so she sat up, frustrated. “And why in hell would anyone want to kill me? You’re a much more likely target. I didn’t do anything to anybody—I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m no threat to any of your insane plans for world domination.”

“You’ve been watching too much television,” he said. He had less of an accent now, along with his different look. She wondered if he had a different name as well.

“Who wants to kill me and why? And why should you care?”
Please,
she thought.
Just say something, anything that I can keep with me. Something to let me know I’m more than a hindrance.

But she knew what he was going to say. He’d said it far too many times. He didn’t care—he simply felt responsible, and she didn’t want to hear it.

He rose, silhouetted against the moonlit window, and for a moment she was afraid someone would shoot him. But the light was much too murky—the snow must have picked up while she was unconscious, and even if she could see out, as long as the lights were out no one would see in. He moved toward her, out of range of the windows, and to her astonishment he sat down on the floor next to her bed.

“Monique survived,” he said softly.

“You told me she was dead. That she was shot in the face.”

“That’s what I saw. But the night was chaos—I must have been mistaken. All that I know is that she survived, and she’s coming after you.”

“Well, you can protect me from one single woman, can’t you? You’ve done it before.” The memory of Maureen’s body, facedown in the snow, leeching blood, was still etched in her brain, and she shuddered.

“She’s not coming alone.”

He was leaning against the bedside table, hands propped on his knees, seemingly at ease. “But why?” Chloe asked. “If she wanted to kill someone, why wouldn’t she want to kill you? I was just an innocent bystander.”

“You still are. And she has every intention of killing
me when she can find me. I’m just a little harder to track. So she’s having to make do with you.”

“Lucky me,” she muttered. “Always someone’s second choice.”

“I’m sorry, would you rather have half of Europe after you? It’s easy enough to arrange.”

“And how would you do that?”

“Simply by staying with you.”

She turned to look at him. He’d said the words offhandedly, and she knew he had no interest or intention of being around her a moment longer than he had to. If it had been up to him he wouldn’t have seen her again. Hadn’t he said that earlier?

“So why does she want to kill me? Apart from the fact that I think I called her a skanky bitch. Why should she bother, I don’t matter to her.”

“No,” he said, “you don’t.”

“Then why?”

“Because you matter to me.”

His face was hidden in the moonlight, his words without inflection, and she almost thought she’d misheard him. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s to understand? Monique knows me well enough to recognize that the best way to hurt me is to hurt you. Simple logic. She’ll be here in a few hours.”

“A few hours? Then why don’t we leave?”

“For one thing, the snow is piling up, shutting down the highways. It won’t stop Monique, but it might slow
her down a bit. Anyway, this is the safest place we can be, for now. I’ve improved the security system, and we have the advantage. They’re coming into unknown territory, whereas I’ve had time to check things out thoroughly. I’ve even managed to set a few surprises to welcome them. I was considering sneaking you out of here ahead of time, but you’re safer with me.”

“So you’ve always told me.”

“I have, haven’t I?” he said wearily. “Once Monique is finished you won’t have to see me again. Consider it a reward for following my orders.”

“Are you going to kill her? If you have to?”

“I’m going to kill her whether I have to or not,” he said. “And then I’ll be gone.”

“Where?”

He shrugged. “Where I belong, I suppose. Back to the Committee. It’s all I know how to do, and I’ve been well-trained to do it. It would be a shame to waste such expensive education and talent.” His voice was light.

“It would be a shame to waste you,” she said. “Don’t you think you matter more than a few highly specialized skills?”

He turned to look at her, and the murky light fell across his face, revealing his faintly ironic smile. “No,” he said. “Go back to sleep. I thought I gave you enough to knock you out for twelve hours at least, but you always were a stubborn woman.”

“You drugged me?”

“It wasn’t the first time. And I can do a lot worse if you annoy me. Be quiet and let me think. I’ll keep watch, and you’ll be safe enough. Believe me, they won’t come without warning.”

“When are they coming?”

“If it weren’t for the storm they would have been here by midnight. As it is, I expect they’ll be here sometime between four and five in the morning. It will still be dark enough to cover their movements. They’ve probably planned a simple assault—get in fast, complete their mission and out again in no more than twenty minutes. Monique would only hire the best.”

“And you’re enough to stop them?”

“Yes. Now go back to sleep.”

“What time is it now?”

“Just after eleven.”

“And they won’t be coming for another five hours?”

“Six if we’re lucky, four if we’re not.”

“Then why don’t you lie down and try to get some rest? It’s a huge bed. You won’t have to worry about accidentally touching me.” She hadn’t expected anything more than a cutting response, but without a word he rose, moving around to the other side of the huge bed, and lay down on it, kicking off his shoes. He didn’t get under the covers, but he was there, within reach.

“Have you been having trouble sleeping since you got back?” His voice was just a whisper on the night wind, closer than she realized.

“Yes. And you?”

“I never have trouble sleeping. I’ll sleep for exactly one hour now, and wake up feeling rested and alert. Don’t forget, what happened in Paris was nothing new for me.”

She was nothing new for him, she thought. And she was an idiot to be thinking about such things, when she could be dead in a matter of hours, but somehow the imminent possibility of dying only made living more important. Made loving more important. And all the psychobabble and rationalizations didn’t mean a thing when it came right down to it.

“It wasn’t Stockholm Syndrome,” she said in a muffled voice, turning her back on him in the vast expanse of the king-size bed. There might as well be an ocean between them.

“I know,” he said, and he sounded oddly gentle. “I told you, Stockholm Syndrome is a myth.”

She turned over to look at him, and he was much closer than she’d realized. So close she could reach out and touch him. “Then why do I still feel this way?” she whispered.

He said nothing, but for the first time his face looked unguarded in the moonlight. “Are we going to die in a few hours?” she asked.

“Quite possibly,” he said. “But not right now.” And he reached out and touched her face, his hand incredibly gentle. She stared at him, frozen, as he leaned over and kissed her with heartbreaking tenderness.

“What’s this?” she asked, trying to sound cynical and failing miserably. “My reward?”

“No,” he said. “It’s mine.” He caught her face with his hands, cradling it, looking down at her. The stillness was complete, magical, and she felt everything seem to fade away, the blood, the pain, the danger. For a moment there was just the two of them, alone in the night, and there was no barrier, no cool defenses in his dark eyes. She could see past the calm, dispassionate surface, to something deep and hard and frightening inside him. Something he felt for her.

She closed her eyes, reaching up to slide her arms around his neck. He moved over her, a heavy, warm weight that kept the monsters at bay, and began to kiss her, slowly seducing her with his mouth, his lips, his teeth, his tongue. She’d never been kissed like that, with such dedicated concentration, as if kissing her was all that mattered in the world, an end in itself, and she gave herself up to it, opening her mouth for him, kissing him back with single-minded concentration that was slowly turning into a kind of panicked fire. Then she reached for his shirt, her fingers fumbling at the buttons.

He caught her hands in one of his strong ones, holding her still. “Shh, Chloe. This time there’s no need for rush. No need for fear or pain. There’s all the time in the world to just enjoy yourself. Pleasure—that’s all you need to think about. Close your eyes and let me bring it to you.”

His voice was low, hypnotic, soothing her sudden uprush of tension, and she lay back against the pillows, staring up at him.

He held her hands, more as a reassurance than a restraint, as he brought his mouth down the side of her neck, and he was reaching under the baggy sweatshirt, to touch her skin, his fingers cool against her heated flesh. She was so lost in his kisses, the taste of his mouth, that she barely noticed when he pulled the sweatshirt over her shoulders and tossed it away, when he slid the baggy pants down her legs and off her. He’d left her underwear on—the French bra and lace panties that her well-meaning parents had gotten her for Christmas. She hadn’t even paid any attention when she’d put them on, but when his hand slid up her body to cover her breast she knew she’d done it on purpose. He followed with his mouth, sucking at her through the lace, and her body trembled as the need blossomed through her body in a rush of heat. He’d released her hands, and they lay beside her on the wide bed, where he’d placed them. She felt strange, filled with a dreamy lassitude, able to only lie there and let him touch her, kiss her. It must be the hangover from the drug, she thought dizzily, as he put his mouth on her hip bones, just above the lace band of the panties. That, or he’d managed to hypnotize her with his mouth, his eyes, her own longing.

She felt as if they were in a snow globe—roughly
shaken, but now all was still and silent with the flakes drifting down around them in their safe little glass jar. She could always try to fight her way out of that strange surrender, but she didn’t want to. He was right. They could be dead in a matter of hours. She could have what she wanted, needed, right now, and there might be no consequences to live with. No life to live with. And if she was going to die she wanted to spend the last hours of her life in bed with a man whose name she didn’t even know.

He unfastened the bra with a flick of his fingers, the same bra she’d struggled to fasten a short while ago, and he pulled it from her body and tossed it. He moved slowly, touching her nipple with his tongue, and she felt it stiffen immediately into a hard, tight knot that matched the hard, tight knot between her legs. She’d never thought her breasts were particularly sensitive, but he seemed to know just how to touch them, suck them, slide his tongue over them until she was shaking with reaction. Just when she thought she was going to climax simply from the feel of his mouth tugging at her breast, his tongue swirling around the tip, he moved down, his mouth dancing across her flat stomach, and his hands slid under the lace straps of the panties and pulled them down her long legs. His mouth followed—on her hips, her legs, the insides of her knees, moving up again, and when he put his mouth between her legs she trembled, reaching for him,
threading her hands through his long, thick hair as it fell over her hips.

He cupped her hips, pulling her thighs apart, and his mouth was like nothing she’d ever felt, an invasion, a branding, a claiming that felt so total and absolute that she could do nothing but let him touch her, lick her, bite her, using his mouth in ways she hadn’t imagined, until he slid his fingers inside her, and she arched off the bed in sudden, rigid climax that was fast and hard and like nothing she’d ever felt.