The Hunter (11 page)

She could feel his arousal building, feel it pulsing against her like a heartbeat. Like a promise, or an inevitability. His other hand drifted down her back, finding the curve of her ass.

The intimate contact pulled her out of her astonished haze. With a strangled sound, she ripped her mouth from his, wrenching out of his grasp, as well.

He let her go, his lips slightly parted. He stood still but for the heaving of his powerful chest and regarded her as if
she
had astounded
him
.

For some reason, that confused and infuriated her all the more.

“You’re so cruel,” she accused, lifting her arms to cover her breasts and clenching her thighs together, desperately ignoring the brands of sensation his fingers had left on the back of her neck. His mouth looked fuller, and gleamed with the aftermath of their kiss.

“Why do you torture me like this? Why is it that every time you attempt to kill me, you kiss me instead? Is this some perverted game you play with your victims? Well, I refuse to be afraid of you! I
refuse
to be a plaything for your sick amusement.” Her voice rose and thickened like the steam in the air, and she cursed the shrill note of hysteria creeping into it. “If you’re going to kill me, do it and be damned!”

“I’m not going to kill you,” he informed her flatly, though his nostrils flared with each of his breaths.

“What?” She blinked. “Why not?” The questions felt absurd, but she’d been pushed beyond her abilities in regard to improvisational vocabulary.

“Because.” He met her eyes then. Almost. There was no cruelty in them. Instead, something completely unexpected lurked in their sapphire depths. That was, besides the smoldering lust. She couldn’t identify it, not exactly. Bemusement? Uncertainty?

“I’ve decided to take you up on your offer,” he informed her. “Tonight.”

Her heart thudded, hope and elation causing it to run like a stallion at full gallop. “I have a performance tonight,” she rushed, quite out of breath. “I can have the money by then, and give it to you afterward at the theater. Just tell me how much.”

“No.” His fingers slid up one shoulder, capturing the droplets of water that had yet to run down to the bath and creating a wet trail to her neck, where he caressed the pulse jumping beneath the thin flesh there. “Your
other
offer.”

“But I haven’t made another—” Her breath caught. But she had.

She’d said she’d do
anything
.

Dear God.

When he saw the dawning of understanding on her face, and the resulting fear, he dropped his hand. “I will protect you and your son from those who want you dead, in exchange for a night with you.”

Millie’s mouth went bone-dry, and she dare not look down at the arousal pulsing against his thin trousers beneath the surface of the water. She took an involuntary step back, her quivering legs encountering the ledge beneath the water.

“D-don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m never ridiculous.”

Somehow she didn’t doubt that. His mouth was set in such a grim line Millie would stake her livelihood on the certainty that it had never truly formed a smile.

“I don’t want protection from a man like
you
.”

“You won’t survive without a man like me.”

“I’ll go to the police,” she warned.

He closed the gap between them. “You’ve been to the police already. You hired a personal guard.” He glanced pointedly around the vacant room. “And yet, here I am.”

Here he is.
Large and strong and utterly lethal. The truth of this was more disturbing than she’d like to admit.

He folded his arms across his chest, looking very much like a statue of Poseidon rising from a fountain she’d once seen in Florence. All but for the beard.

“If I got to you, others will, too. But they
won’t
get past me. I’m the best at what I do.” He said this without bravado or pretension, and didn’t wait for her to argue or validate.

A new fear stabbed her in the gut. “How—how many others are after me? And you say they’re after Jakub, as well? Who wishes us harm? This Mr. Dashforth who hired you, I don’t know of him. Who does he work for?” Her head swam and began to pound, and she knew it wasn’t just the heat that made her dizzy.

The assassin in front of her was silent for a beat. “I didn’t think to ask.” He narrowed his eyes down at her. “You have
no
idea who would wish you dead?”

She could think of only one threat. One she’d thought had died with her dearest friend five years ago.

“Jakub’s father,” she whispered.

“And who is that?”

Millie closed her eyes, gathering her courage. “I … don’t know.”

Another of his now familiar pauses. “You don’t know?”

“There was a party I was paid to go to,” Millie lied. “One for the rich and the powerful. Everyone wore masks. Jakub’s father could have been … anyone there.” All right. So it made her sound like a prostitute, but of the two of them in this room, in this bath, hers would still be the lesser crime. Wouldn’t it?

The two oldest professions for hire. The two greatest sins.

Fornication and murder.

Gathering her courage, she glanced up at him and didn’t find the disgust or judgment she’d expected. Only a strong brow furrowed in thought. “I’ll have to find out from Dashforth just who his employer is.”

“Wait,” she cried. “But I haven’t acquiesced to your proposition—we haven’t come to an agreement.”

“But we will.
You
will.” His eyes traversed the length of her body again, and she abruptly sat on the ledge, seeking refuge in the water, crossing both arms over her breasts, just to be contrary if nothing else.

“You’re so certain of that, are you? So certain I’ll lie with you. So certain you’re the best. I can’t believe your arrogance.”

“It’s not arrogance if it’s accurate. You are the best actress on the London stage, and I’m the best—”

“Killer?” she interrupted.

“Yes. Among other things.”

She shuddered to think of just what those things were.
Wait,
had he just paid her a compliment? Millie put a hand to her head, as the room had yet to stop spinning.

He didn’t move. Not once. But somehow his voice seemed closer. “One night,” he repeated. “One night in your bed and I’ll keep you and your son alive until the threat has passed. Is that such a high price to pay?”

She couldn’t answer that. It was a higher price than he realized.

So why was she tempted? Why did the cold danger emanating from the hard man in front of her speak to that primal part of her soul? Who knew that desire and fear could feed each other in equal measure?

“Why?” she whispered. “When you could have stacks of money, why trade it for a night with me? It makes no sense.”

“I already have stacks of money,” he answered. “You said it yourself. I haven’t been able to keep my hands off you. Or my mouth. I can’t be in the same room as you without getting hard. Without wanting to take you.”

Millie’s head snapped back in shock, and she instantly knew it had been a mistake. His hips were at eye level, his erection just above the water in which he stood, pressing against his trousers as though to prove a point.

How could he deliver news like that so laconically? Had he no shame?

Of course he didn’t. He stood like a god, his arms still crossed over his deep chest, looking at her in his matter-of-fact way.

“I want you,” he said, with no inflection at all. “And before you found out what I am, you wanted me, too.”

Millie gasped. She hated him in that moment. Hated that he was right. She
had
wanted him. Had begged him to kiss her when he was Bentley Drummle. Had entertained all kinds of salacious fantasies about him.

She’d even pictured him in her bed.

Before she’d known that someone was after her. Before her world had spun out of her control.

The worst part was, her body wanted him still. A disquieting heat throbbed in her loins, pulsed against her lips where the pressure of his mouth had just been. Where she wanted it to be again, damn it all.

“You could have just … taken me. At any time. Why make this devil’s bargain?”

Lord, had she just put that thought into the head of a man who had no conscience? Was she daft?

“I’ve
never
raped a woman,” he said rather firmly. “And I never will.”

“But coercion is acceptable?” she spat.

“Yes.” His honesty was almost … horrific in its bluntness. It was disconcerting. And yet strangely comforting.

“Answer me this,” she said wearily. “Did you have anything to do with the five women recently killed in London, all mothers to missing sons?”

“No.” She wanted to look into his eyes, to ascertain his veracity. But it seemed to her that he avoided eye contact.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t. But I assure you that I would tell you if I had. I have nothing to hide. Though I’m not convinced those deaths aren’t related to your own predicament. That is something we’ll have to find out. If…” He let the thought trail into the steam. A hot, scandalous, unspoken ultimatum.

If she yielded. If she said yes.
If
she allowed him into her bed tonight.

There never really had been an
if,
had there? Not when Jakub’s safety was at stake.

“A-all right,” she forced around a heavy tongue and suddenly dry lips. “I’ll do it.”

His chin lowered in a nod, and she thought, for a moment, that she saw something flare in his eyes. Not heat, but … something deeper. Something that had no name because it was an amalgamation of so many different emotions.

Perhaps only present because she wished it there. Because she feared emotion wasn’t something Christopher Argent was afflicted with.

“I’m going to send for someone while you dress,” he informed her. “He’ll go with you to retrieve your son and accompany you and Ely McGivney to the theater while I interrogate Dashforth.” He placed his fingers under her chin, lifting her head. “Then I will return for you.”

Millie nodded, feeling alarmed, dizzy, relieved, and frightened all at the same time.

“Promise me something,” she said. “Promise me you won’t hurt me, or Jakub. That you’ll never come for us in the future.
Ever
. After this is done with, and we part ways, I never want to see you again.”

“I give you my word,” he said, releasing her.

Millie searched his face, so aware of her vulnerability. Aware of the sheer lethal power of the man towering over her. Entranced by it. Repelled by it.

Aroused by it.

Whatever she’d been looking for, she couldn’t find. His features were frustratingly blank.

“Does your word truly mean anything, Christopher Argent?”

He paused, then turned from her. “I suppose we’re both about to find out.”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

London was known for a great many things, not the least of which, in Argent’s opinion, was the legion of grubby, wiry errand boys ready to scamper through the city for a coin. He sent one to Hassan Ahmadi, to whom he’d entrust Millie’s safety for the afternoon. The Arab was a longtime employee of Blackwell’s, and would be a large, very visible deterrent to any possible threats.

The fact that the Mussulman was zealously celibate had no bearing on his decision to send for Mr. Ahmadi.

Whatsoever
.

Another boy scampered away to bring his butler, Welton, with a carriage and change of attire. Welton had arrived first, as Argent had known he would. While he dressed in dry clothing in the men’s private rooms at the House of the Julii, he instructed his butler that they were to entertain a woman and her son that night.

Welton blinked several times, which was akin to an all-out fit of vapors for him, and promptly took the hired hackney that Mr. Ahmadi arrived in to make the necessary preparations.

“I will keep your black-eyed woman and her son alive and untouched by the filthy, godless hands of any who would wish harm upon them,” the Mussulman promised.

Leaving his carriage to convey Millie to retrieve her son from his school and then to deposit her at Covent Garden for her performance, Argent strode away, confident that the only filthy, godless hands to touch her would be his own.

By the time he reached the white stone building where he would again find Gerald Dashforth’s offices, Argent’s fists clenched to keep from shaking. He conquered the three flights of stairs wishing there had been more, that buildings were taller and he could keep climbing. It would explain the thudding in his chest.

The hallway where Sir Dashforth’s office was located appeared longer than he remembered. For a man who filled any hall nearly to capacity, this passage still seemed remarkably small, and somehow shrinking as his steps echoed against the expensively papered walls. The floors pitched against his feet, like the planks of a ship tossed by the stormy English Channel, and Argent worked at not giving in to the impulse to run and kick open Dashforth’s door, shattering the expensive gold lettering on the tempered glass.

As it was, the door dashed off the wall as he opened it, and the glass rattled loudly, as though trying to decide whether or not to stay intact.

Dashforth made a ladylike sound of shock and lost what little color he had in his face to begin with.

“I have business to discuss with you,” Argent informed him, trying to squelch the strength of a strange emotion surging through him. Something murderous. Something dark. Something to do with the fact that this man was a threat to Millie.

“How interesting that you should come by today,” Dashforth remarked, scurrying to regain his composure. “I assume your charge is finally carried out and you’re here for your payment?”

Argent ignored the question, stalking closer to the wiry man. “Which of your clients wanted Millie LeCour dead?”

The corners of Dashforth’s mouth appeared beneath his mustache in a consternated frown. “I fail to see how that is relevant—” He made a choking sound as Argent’s hand almost encircled the entirety of his scrawny neck.