Page 28 of The Hunter
The kiss was brutal. Or, at least, Millie was certain he’d meant it to be. But for a man with such a stern mouth, his lips were surprisingly full against hers. Stunned and defenseless, Millie was unable to move, to deny her body’s unwanted reaction to the intimate flavor of him.
He locked her against his body, consuming her with unrepentant hunger. The bristle of his jaw abraded her skin as he explored her mouth with strong sweeps of his tongue. Millie became suddenly aware of how wet and slick everything was. Her skin, his tongue, her sex, the hand he moved to the nape of her neck to press her closer. To plunge deeper.
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 ifshehad astoundedhim.
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! Irefuseto 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. “Yourotheroffer.”
“But I haven’t made another—” Her breath caught. But she had.
She’d said she’d doanything.
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 likeyou.”
“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 theywon’tget 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.
