Cold as Ice (9 page)

She said nothing, feverishly thinking where she could try next. Behind the knee was always vulnerable, and there were various blows that she'd been warned could be lethal, blows she shouldn't hesitate trying.

And then he stepped back and she was no longer plastered against the paneled wall. He still had her wrists captive, but she wondered if she could kick backward again.

"I wouldn't try it if I were you," he said in his low, amused voice. "You telegraph every move ahead of time, and it takes no effort at all to stop you. And I warned you to stop aiming for my testicles. It annoys me."

Somehow he managed to spin her around so that she was facing him, her wrists still held tightly in one of his strong hands. She hadn't even realized he'd let go of them for a moment—she was doing a pretty pathetic job of trying to protect herself after being Master Tenchi's prize student. "I managed to hurt your friend," she said defiantly.

"So you did. But Renaud's a fool, and he underestimated you. I'm afraid he's the type to hold a grudge. I don't intend to give him a chance to pay you back, but if you annoy me enough I might change my mind."

She wanted to say something cutting, but in fact she preferred Peter Jensen to Renaud's unimaginative brutality, even if she stood a marginally better chance of getting away from the Frenchman.

Jensen wasn't even breathing hard. The eyes that she'd thought colorless were actually a very clear blue, which reminded her…

"Have you got any contact-lens solution?"

He stared at her, momentarily astounded. If she couldn't take him off balance with her amateur self-defense training she could at least sideswipe him with her words.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You must have been wearing tinted contacts before, which means you must have some wetting solution somewhere on this boat, and I need it. I've had my contacts in for almost forty-eight hours and they're killing me. I should have taken them out when I still had my purse, but I was more interested in getting out of here."

He didn't stay off balance for long. "Be honest, Ms. Spenser. You were more interested in your little pills," he said. "The stuff is in the head. And don't bother looking for a weapon, there's nothing in there you could use, and the window's too small for you to climb through."

"Is that another crack about my weight?"

His small grin was reluctant. "It's a porthole, Ms. Spenser. No one could get through it. Why are women so ridiculous about their weight, anyway? Ten or fifteen extra pounds don't make any difference. Except when I'm having to haul your unconscious body around."

He was still holding her wrists, or she would have hit him. Of course he knew exactly how much extra weight she was carrying, as well as what size clothes she really wore. "You know the answer to that, don't you?" she said with false sweetness. "Stop knocking me out."

"Then behave yourself." He released her, and for a moment she didn't move. They stood there for a long moment. He was probably watching to see what her next move would be, but since he'd already made it clear he'd counter it before she'd even tried, she gave up. For now.

"You want to move out of the way?" she asked. "Or am I supposed to go through you?"

He stepped back, out of her way but close enough to grab her again. It was an intensely uncomfortable feeling, being trapped with someone who could guess her every move. She stalked past him, though that was hard to manage in bare feet, and slammed the bathroom door behind her.

He was right, there was nothing the slightest bit lethal in there. She ran some cold water on her face, then stuck her tongue out at her reflection. Her hair was tangled down her back, and she braided it, tying the end with dental floss, before she took her contacts out. She had no idea where her purse was, and she realized her head was aching and her hands were shaking.

She opened the bathroom door and stuck her head out. He was back where she first saw him, reading once more, as if finishing his book was the only thing that mattered. It probably was—he was the one who was completely in control of the situation.

"Hey," she said. "I need my purse. I need my glasses and my pills."

"No pills," he said. "But I'll see if Hans can find your glasses. In the meantime there's a pile of clothes on the table—find something that fits you. Armani doesn't really work for being a hostage at sea."

Naturally he knew it was Armani, the son of a bitch. She scooped up the clothes and went back into the bathroom, reaching for the lock. It didn't work, of course. She bit back a snarl as she stripped off her ruined suit. She didn't even want to think about how much it had cost her. She had more important things on her mind than the loss of her wardrobe.

She pulled on a baggy pair of khakis and a loose white T-shirt. The pants hung down around her hips, and even with her long legs they were trailing on the floor, so she rolled them up several times. She didn't bother looking at her reflection in the mirror—her eyesight was problematic without the contacts or the glasses and besides, what she looked like was of no importance in the current scheme of things. She opened the door and nearly tripped over the hem of the pants as one leg came untucked.

He looked up, but she couldn't read the expression on his face. Not that her glasses would have made any difference—he was an expert at shielding his reactions. "Your pants are too long," he said.

"News flash—I'm not as tall as Harry," she said. She sat down on the sofa where he'd initially dumped her; she hadn't given up on the notion of trying to disable him and making another run for it, but she couldn't do it if she couldn't see.

"Here," he said, tossing something at her. "Cut them off."

She caught it, by sheer luck, realizing with astonishment that he'd given her the Swiss Army knife. She looked up at him, but it didn't need twenty-twenty to see his cool smile. "If you managed to hurt me with that little thing I'd deserve it," he said.

"You do deserve it," she muttered, leaning over and beginning to saw away at the heavy khaki at her ankle.

"I'd cut them higher if I were you. You'll have a better chance of landing a successful kick if your legs are bare. You'll be able to run faster, too."

It made sense, though why she should accept his help was a mystery. As well as why he should offer it.

She stabbed the short blade of the knife through the khaki halfway up her thigh, sawing and ripping, then followed suit with the other side. The legs were uneven, and she took another couple of inches off the first one, only to look up and find Peter watching her with great interest. She waited, expecting him to make some kind of insulting joke, but he merely nodded and returned to his book.

She folded up the knife and tucked it in her pocket, waiting to see if he remembered he'd given it to her and demand it back. "I want my tranquilizers," she said again.

" 'Fraid I can't help you there. Hans has never met a drug he didn't like, and he's already taken them."

"All of them? It would kill him!"

"Not Hans. Anyway, those pills of yours are pretty pathetic. Just mother's little helpers designed to get high-strung females through the day."

"I'm not particularly high-strung," she said. "And even you have to admit being kidnapped is stressful."

He glanced at her. "You'll survive."

"Will I? Survive, that is? I thought I was toast."

He hesitated, frowning. "I don't like collateral damage. It's inevitable if you don't do your job well, but I tend to do my job very well indeed."

"So if you're as good as you say, I won't have to die?" she asked brightly.

He didn't answer, which was somehow not encouraging. The silence lasted for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then he looked up again. "Better not let the others know you have the knife," he said calmly, dispelling her hope that he hadn't noticed. "I don't think you'd manage to do much harm with it, but you can never underestimate the element of surprise. If you hadn't made it so clear you were going to try to fight, you might have stood a better chance against me."

"You mean I could have escaped?" she demanded.

"No. I mean it wouldn't have been as insultingly easy for me to stop you. Next time, don't go for the obvious target. Even better, look at a part you're not planning on touching. If you're going to go for a man's eyes, look at his groin. If you're going to try a chop across the front of the throat then act like you're going to kick. That's one of your best targets, by the way. Landed properly, it can crush a larynx and a man can suffocate in his own blood."

"That's gross," she said automatically.

His smile was totally devoid of humor. "Death tends to be gross, Ms. Spenser. It's not neat, Hollywood-style fadeaways. It's a messy, smelly business."

"Is it? A business, I mean?"

"Sometimes."

"For you?"

"Sometimes."

He wasn't reassuring. Not that she expected him to be. "So what else?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"So polite," she murmured. "What else should I do to defend myself? Besides the chop across the neck? Maybe I just want to incapacitate someone, not make them drown in their own blood. Some of us are a bit more squeamish than others."

"Don't bother trying to sweep him with your leg. It's too common a trick, and you're not fast enough or practiced enough to get away with it. If you have a sharp object, like the pocketknife, a pencil or even a set of keys, jab them in the eyes. And don't say 'gross' again. If they can't see you they'll have a harder chance of getting you."

She didn't bother to point out that the likelihood of her having keys wasn't good if things were going to continue the way they had. "Okay," she said. "I'm still looking for something to stop them, not maim them for life. "

He put his book down and looked at her for a long, thoughtful moment. "Stand up," he said. He rose, standing over her. "Come on."

She had mixed feelings about it. She didn't like him looming over her, but she wasn't too eager to stand and be that close either. She should never have even brought up the subject.

But if she didn't stand he'd pull her up—she already knew that much, so she rose, and he was close, much too close. "Turn around," he said.

That was the last thing she wanted to do. "I don't intend to turn my back on any of you if I can help it."

"You won't have a choice." He put his hard hands on her shoulders and spun her around so that she was facing the wall. She could see Harry's body on the bed, drugged and unmoving, and she wondered if he was already dead. And what in the world the poor man could have done that someone thought would merit being murdered.

A moment later she was facedown on the floor, with him down beside her, his knee in the center of her back. "Would you get off me?" she said after a moment, though her voice was muffled by the carpet.

He released her, and she rolled over on her side, away from him. He was squatting beside her, completely unruffled. "You can't afford to get distracted, worry about things that are out of your control, like Harry over there. You won't stand a chance against Renaud or Hans or any of the others."

She'd given up resenting that he always seemed to read her mind, and concentrated on what mattered. "There are others?"

"Of course there are others. An operation this complex is hardly a small-time affair."

"You must be very well funded."

"We are. And I'm not about to enlighten you on the details. I'm just trying to teach you a few tricks that might help you if Hans or Renaud decide to have a little fun with you. If you come up against one of the others then you're shit out of luck."

"I don't think my luck's been running so hot lately anyway," she said.

"You're still alive, aren't you? That in itself is a surprising piece of luck. And you probably won't have to worry about Hans—he doesn't have much use for women in the first place."

"Wouldn't that make him more likely to kill me?"

He reached out his hand and she had no choice but to let him pull her to her feet. "I doubt he would care enough to bother. You're pretty small potatoes in his scale of things."

"And what about you?" He was still holding on to her arm, the one he'd twisted behind her back, and he was
absently stroking it with his thumb, just where it was most painful. She wondered whether he even knew he was doing it, and she pulled away from him, glaring at him.

"You're going to have a bruise there," he said.

"What do you want to do, kiss it and make it better?"

Silence between them. It was like another presence in the room, more intrusive than Harry's comatose body, and for a moment she was afraid to meet his eyes. But she did anyway, though his reaction was unreadable.

It was like Pandora's box—now that the word was out there was no turning back. And it would have been a waste of time pretending—he seemed to have a wicked ability to know what she was thinking.

"You kissed me," she said abruptly. "Last night."

There was no change in his grave expression, but she was certain he was finding her amusing. The thought was infuriating. "Yes," he said. "I did."

"Why?"

"Because it was the easiest way to get close enough to render you unconscious," he said. "Shall I demonstrate?"

"No!" she shrieked, trying to back away.

He did smile then. "I didn't mean the kiss part. I mean this." Before she knew what he was doing, he'd put his hand on her neck, cool against her heated skin. He'd feel her pulse pounding, but there was no way she could disguise that fact. He was probably used to it.

"Hold still," he said as she tried to squirm away. His long fingers were caressing the nape of her neck, his thumb dancing across her throat.

"Let go of me."

"Just press your thumb against this spot." He demonstrated, and she started to black out for a moment, before he released her. "And then you don't have to worry about someone drowning in their own blood. But you have to get it just right. That's why I kissed you. It shocked you into standing still long enough for me to do it."

"And what if you're trying to knock out another man," she said, sarcastic.