Page 27 of The Hunter
“Anything?”he finally breathed against her ear.
The full weight of her offer hit her between the eyes with enough force to make her knees weak. “Who are you?” she demanded with a bravado she didn’t come close to feeling. “I know the name Bentley Drummle was a cover.”
“We all have our characters we play,” he said cryptically, his hand falling to her shoulder and pressing her closer against him. “But be assured, your son was never in danger from me. I don’t kill children. My name is Christopher Argent. I have been employed by the solicitor Gerald Dashforth to assassinate you.”
Millie could scarcely believe it. He sounded like a gentleman making introductions in the parlor. He may as well have said, “Hello, I’m Lord So-and-So, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Are you a murderer or a mercenary?” she asked, calling upon all her skills to keep her voice modulated, so as not to excite him to violence.
“Both. Either.”
All right. That revealed nothing. “You say this man, this Gerald Dashforth, he’s paying you to kill me?”
“Yes.”
Cold. His voice was so cold she shivered.
“I’m a woman of means, Mr. Argent. I can pay you double the price of the contract for my life.” There, that didn’t sound so desperate. She could be like him. Businesslike, terse, logical.
“That would be… unprecedented.” He paused. “It couldn’t be known that I would turn coat for a rate increase. Then every one of my marks would barter for their lives thusly. They’d have seen my face. They’d know who I work for. It’s an excellent way to get caught.”
As hope died, fury took its place. For a reason beyond her, his tone, more than the words, sent her temper rushing to her head with such force her ears burned and her mouth opened. If he was going to kill her, he’d get a piece of her mind first. “You. Are.Insane,” she gritted through her clenched jaw.
He paused again, and she had the distinct feeling she’d bemused him. “What?”
“You heard me.” Heedless of her nudity, she began to squirm in that limp, boneless way Jakub had done as a toddler when he’d wanted to escape her clutches. “Lying your way into my after party, using that ridiculous Dickensian name. Risking your life to sneak into my apartments in the middle of the freezing night. To what purpose? To toy with me, terrorize me? Tokissme? And then here you areagain,in the middle of the blasted city, broad daylight even, in mybathwith your bloodyshirt and trousersstill on, telling me you don’tkillchildren. That you don’t break a contract for the sake of your—industry reputation. I tell you, you’re mad. Alunatic.”
“You would rather I were naked?”
“No!God! That’s not—I just—” Her struggles were getting her nowhere except closer to that intimidating arousal behind his wet trousers. “Turn me around, blast you! I at least deserve to look my murderer in the eyes.”
To her complete shock, he complied.
But he didn’t meet her eyes. As he held her at arm’s length, his gaze touched her everywhere else but. The column of her neck, her breasts, the planes and hollows of her stomach, the nest of curls between her thighs.
Millie remembered what he looked like, but hadn’t been thoroughly prepared to see him again. Not like this. Standing as they were, in shafts of brilliant sunlight, his appearance was more evocative of an archangel than a murderer-for-hire, and the paradox again took her breath away.
There was no denying that he was beautiful. Beautiful in that way that a lightning storm was beautiful, or a tidal wave. Awe-inspiring and utterly dangerous. Standing in front of him like this was akin to unexpectedly coming face-to-face with a wolf or a bear in the wild. Terrifying, and yet one had the indefinable understanding that this predator was a rare and exquisite creature. Every muscle, every sinew carefully crafted for hunting.
For killing.
The sun ignited embers of gold in his auburn hair. The water turned his white shirt iridescent, molded as it was to a body better suited to a barbarian than—well—a suit. The swells of his chest and the thickness of his arms killed any thoughts of escape, but awakened something else, altogether. Something primal and distressing. This was a man who would defeat all other men. One who, in some other time, would have fought legions and laid siege to tyrants.
Or might have been one.
There is no fighting him, she thought with a terrible acceptance. No escape. No denying the absolute power in those muscular arms. She could sense it in the rough hands gripping her shoulders.
He continued to watch her. Inspect her was more like it, with those pale, remote eyes. If Millie had felt naked before, now she was positivelyexposed.
And just like a lightning storm, just like that heart-stopping moment before a wild animal tore out one’s throat, the dreadful anticipation tightened her nerves until they snapped.
“Do it,”she dared. “What are you waiting for?”
He struck without warning, but not with a lethal blow.
Instead, his mouth surged against hers.
Too shocked to resist, Millie gasped involuntarily, which parted her lips for the invasion of his tongue.
