Black Knight, White Queen (7 page)

The expression of hurt on her face was sharp. “Yeah but a little ‘hey, I had a great time last night and you were fantastic’ would be nice.”

Another uncomfortable feeling began to mix with the anger. Guilt. It wasn’t a good mix.

He should have cleared this all up last night. Told her exactly what he was prepared to give and what he wasn’t. Told her what his expectations were. But he hadn’t. He’d fallen asleep in her arms instead.

Aleks turned abruptly away, grabbing a T-shirt from his bag. Felt her gaze boring into his back as he pulled it on.

She’d changed the rules on him again, messed them all up. And he didn’t like it.

“Don’t be a prick, Aleks,” she said into the silence.

“Telling you to go makes me a prick? How is that logical?”

“I’m not talking about logic. You and I shared something pretty damn good last night and now you’re ruining it.”

He turned back to her. “We had sex, Izzy, that’s it. And I’m not sure how me telling you to go ruins it.”

A burst of pain crossed her features. For a moment she just sat there, staring at him. Then suddenly she turned, pushing aside the sheet with a sharp movement, pad clutched in one hand, pencil in the other. Slipping off the bed she crossed the room and went out the doorway back into the lounge without even a glance in his direction.

Fuck. What was her problem? He didn’t understand his anger, still less hers, and now it looked like he’d hurt her. This whole situation was becoming more and more complicated, and that had never been part of his plan. Sex. That’s what he’d wanted. That’s all he’d wanted.

Out in the lounge he found her pulling on her clothes, her sketchbook and pencil dumped on the couch, her expression flinching a little as she drew on her underwear then reached for her black trousers.

“Those will still be wet,” he pointed out.

“No shit, Sherlock.” A stripe of angry colour burned on her cheekbones. “But don’t worry about it, okay? You wanted me gone so I’m going.”

Tension wound like a spring inside him. He didn’t like the hurt, angry note in her voice but couldn’t work out why it mattered so much to him or even why she was quite so mad.

“Izzy,” he began, not quite sure what he else he meant to say.

“What?”

“You can’t go out in wet clothes.”

“Sure I can. Watch me.” She began to put on the trousers, grimacing as she pulled the wet fabric up.

“Why are you so angry?” He couldn’t stop frustration from bleeding into the words. He really shouldn’t care why she was angry and yet he did.

“Why?” Her head came up in a wild tangle of pale curls, blue eyes glittering. She made no attempt to deny it or hide what she felt. It was all there on her face for him to see. “Why the hell do you think I’m angry? I thought we had a connection. I thought…I thought last night meant something.”
 

“It was just sex.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because that’s what it was. I don’t understand why you’re trying to make it more than that.”

Her mouth opened then shut. Abruptly she turned away from him, hauling her hair over her shoulder as she bent to pick up her tank top that was still on the floor. “Yeah, well, I don’t know why I’m trying to either.”

An uncomfortable silence fell, one he didn’t know how to break.

Izzy pulled the fabric of her top down, the damp material moulding to her small, round breasts. He could see goose bumps rising on her pale skin, nipples hardening, and lust caught him by the throat.

Did she really have to go? He still wanted her. Badly. Wanted her brightness, her colour. Wanted to hold the vibrant heat of her, let it warm the cold part of him.

Would that really be such a threat to his detachment? He’d sort out the rules and expectations a little better beforehand so there would be no complications. He’d manage himself better too. No more taking off her blindfold to see her face. No more looking into her eyes.

He’d revealed too much of himself last night, far too much. A mistake. A mistake he’d already made once in his life.

A scream of rage. A precious glass vase flung against a wall, narrowly missing the slender woman with the bright orange scarf in her hair. The woman who stared at him as if he’d turned into a monster. Mom.

No. He wouldn’t think of it. Wouldn’t remember it. He’d think of Izzy instead.

“Stay,” he said.

Izzy blinked at him, a crease between her brows. “Stay? Just like that?”

“Yes.” His hands clenched at his sides, and nothing he could do seemed to relax them.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Her jaw remained tight. “First you tell me to piss off like a stray dog. Next you’re ordering me to stay like you’re the freaking emperor of the world. Where the hell do you get off?”

“You were right.” The words came spilling out before he could stop them. “There are some things I need to escape.”

Izzy’s eyes glinted bright blue. “And you need me to escape from them, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s too bad.” She stepped up to him. Right up close. “You had your chance this morning, Aleks. And you fucking blew it.”

Then she turned around, picked up her bag and strode toward the door.

And went through it.

It took Izzy at least an hour to get back to the hostel and the one consolation she had was that she felt so angry she didn’t even notice the uncomfortable cling of her wet clothes.

As the tuk-tuk—expensive but the first mode of transport she’d come across as she’d stepped out of the hotel—wound through the heavy Bangkok traffic, Izzy sat in her damp trousers and top, and bit back the insane urge to burst into a flood of angry tears. Which totally made no sense at all.

He wasn’t a friend. He wasn’t even an acquaintance. He was just some stranger she’d met in a hotel and had spent one night with. That’s it. So there shouldn’t be any reason for her to feel so angry or hurt or betrayed.

And yet, that look in his eyes as he’d told her to go had been cold and dismissive and flat. As if she didn’t matter. As if what they’d shared the night before didn’t matter.

The scent of petrol, exhaust fumes and flowers filtered through the heavy, humid air of the city. Izzy swallowed against the lump in her throat and sat back on the cracked vinyl seat of the tuk-tuk.

God, she was so sick of people treating her that way. Especially him. He’d given her a gift the night before, made her feel free from of all that grief crap for the first time in months. Was it wrong to want an acknowledgement of that? Some sign that what they’d done together had meant something to him too?

She looked down, picking absently at the vinyl.

No, it wasn’t too much to ask, at least she didn’t think so. But all she’d gotten was a “I have things to do. Please leave.” Nice. At least up until the point where he’d suddenly changed his mind, and she’d responded by storming out like a stupid adolescent.

The hole in the vinyl widened while the anger inside her tightened into a small, hard knot.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have left. She hadn’t wanted to. She’d woken up that morning, watched his sleeping face, the vulnerability she saw there so unexpected she hadn’t been able to resist the urge to pick up her pencil and sketch him. And as he’d woken up, opened his eyes and she’d looked into them, she’d realized she wanted to stay.

The tuk-tuk veered suddenly, and she had to grab the side to stop from slipping out the doorless side of it.

Yeah. Stay. So why didn’t you?

Nose. Spite. Face.

Anger welled up inside her again. Maybe that was true. But Angie’s death had left one hell of an aftermath, and she was still dealing with the fallout from that. She wasn’t up for some hot-cold thing with a complete bloody stranger. She didn’t have the emotional energy for that kind of bullshit.

No, she’d had the escape she wanted and now it was time to move on with the rest of her Southeast Asian holiday.

Back at the hostel, a cheap little place near Khaosan Road, she sat on her bunk in the dorm she shared with a few other travellers and sorted herself out some dry clothes. But it was only as she put her bag down on the bed that she realized the bag was a whole lot emptier than it had been when she’d left the night before. On closer inspection she found out why—her sketchpad wasn’t in it.

“Oh fuck.” Izzy slumped on the bed, a large, hollow feeling opening up inside her. The sketchpad had been like a diary, a record of her trip. A far more personal record than photos. Sketches of people she’d met, buildings, scenes.

Sketches of Angie
.

She closed her eyes against the prick of tears. It was just a dumb book. Just a dumb book. And she must have left the dumb book with dumb Aleks, the Russian ice-man.

Shit. And now she had only two options: she either left her precious pad where it was and forgot about it and him. Or she wasted her grand exit by turning back up at his door and asking for it back.

Oh yeah, that would be great, wouldn’t it? Her grand exit ruined by a “Oh and by the way, sorry about before but you wouldn’t happen to have my sketchpad there, would you?”

That would be truly fabulous.

Still not sure what to do about it, Izzy gathered some fresh clothing and headed for the communal showers. As she peeled off her damp clothes, she could still smell sex on her skin. Sex and him. It made her throat close.

She stepped beneath the semi-warm water and scrubbed herself hard with the soap. Washing him away. Washing away what had happened between them.

So what if he’d made her feel good? So what if she’d felt a connection with him? Whatever that connection was, it wasn’t what she needed right now, that’s for sure. She had a feeling he’d be hard work. Massively hard work.

Yet when she reached up to turn the shower off, another memory ambushed her. The look in his eyes after he’d taken her blindfold off. As he’d pushed into her. The emotion burning there and the sense that he wanted something from her. Needed something from her.

Izzy cursed and turned off the water with a sudden, vicious movement.

Why was she thinking about him? Stupid. He was just a guy and a guy with a weird detachment thing going on. Some kind of cold reserve. Not someone she would ever want to be involved with. No, she liked men who were a little more in touch with their feelings and hers.

Drying herself off, she dressed in the piece of blue silk she’d found in the markets the day before, wrapping it tightly around her torso in a band, leaving her shoulders bare. Then she put on the dark blue, loose cotton trousers she’d got to go with them. The silver bracelets she hadn’t bothered to take off made a chiming sound as she collected her things and walked back to the bunkroom.

She had a small coil of elastic she’d been using as a washing line so she got it out, strung it up and hung her wet things on it. Then she sat back on the bed and stared at her bag, at the way the fabric had pulled so it gave the illusion of her sketchbook still being in it.

Izzy sighed. Goddammit. She was going to have to go back, wasn’t she?

Aleks prowled around the suite after Izzy had gone, full of frustrated anger that ate away at him like acid. Why the hell was he still thinking about her? She’d left and that should be that.

But he couldn’t get her face out of his head.

He’d let her go. Hadn’t gone after her. Let her disappear into the humid heart of the city without a protest. And that had been the most logical thing to do. Only one night, yet she’d gotten closer to him than anyone had ever done. Anyone except Viktor.

The thought of the old man threaded something raw and painful through his anger. Something that hadn’t been there before Izzy. Like she’d stripped him of a protective layer, undermined his defenses in some way.

Cursing, he went into the bedroom and began hauling out some gym gear. He’d go downstairs to the hotel gym, burn up some of this anger on the treadmill. Running had always been his exercise of choice. He preferred to go outside, but Bangkok was too crowded, too polluted and too noisy. He wanted silence. Some quiet to let his body take over and his brain shut down for a little while. Some space to get rid of the look on Izzy’s face as she’d stormed out of his suite.

Down in the gym, he ran. Pounding out the miles on the treadmill. Normally he had no problems with concentrating just on the physical, his pulse, the burn of his muscles, the mindless action of moving his legs. But Izzy had stuck in his brain on an endless loop. Her body beneath his, her cries in his ears, her arms around him. The look in her eyes as he’d moved inside her.

Escape with me…

Aleks bared his teeth, adjusted the program on the treadmill to make it harder. Pushed himself to go faster. Outrunning his memories. Outrunning Izzy.

But she wouldn’t let him go. For some reason he didn’t understand, he couldn’t stop thinking about her and when he finally stopped running, his muscles screaming with pain, all he could think about was the fact that he should have gone after her.

He should have fucking stopped her from walking away. Because he had no way of finding her. No way of knowing where she was staying. No way of contacting her at all.