“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 positively exposed.
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.
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 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.