Through her panic, Millie recognized the solid body pressed against her naked back. She’d been in quite this same position before.
Except then she hadn’t been aware of the true danger. This was no obsessed admirer. His hold was firm but painless. The hand cupped over her mouth bowed as though to spare her lips the pain of being ground against her teeth.
Though the sex pressed against her posterior caused tremors of terror violent enough to ripple the water.
“I made a promise to Mr. McGivney that I wouldn’t make you scream,” he rumbled against her ear. His breath was hot against the wet, sensitive skin of her neck, but his tone was flat and cold as the Thames. “If you make a liar out of me, you’ll regret it. Do we have an understanding?”
Millie swallowed a sob of terror, seeking composure. Panic served no purpose. She had to keep her wits about her.
She nodded and he released her mouth. When she licked her lips, she instantly regretted it. They tasted of salt and flesh that was not her own. A flavor she did not find repugnant.
And damned if it didn’t make her nipples tighten.
“What do you want with me? What have you done to Mr. McGivney?” she whispered, disgusted with her body’s reaction to his nearness.
Then another thought lanced through her, followed by a flash of hot rage. “If you’ve hurt Jakub, I’m going to—”
“I have not gone near your son, but he is in danger.”
Millie’s gasp brought her breasts closer to the arm encircling her waist like a steel vise. “Is that a threat?” she hissed.
“It’s a fact.”
Her throat clogged with alarm. “Don’t do this,” she rasped. Her fear evaporated, changing into equal parts determination and desperation. Her survival meant nothing in the face of Jakub’s safety. “I’ll do anything you want.”
He was quiet a long time, and still as the dead, but for the steady pulse of his manhood against the cleft of her ass.
“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? To kiss me? And then here you are again, in the middle of the blasted city, broad daylight even, in my bath with your bloody shirt and trousers still on, telling me you don’t kill children. That you don’t break a contract for the sake of your—industry reputation. I tell you, you’re mad. A lunatic.”
“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 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.
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.”
