Though there was no reason to compare her with the women he slept with. Because he wasn't going there. Not ever.
Night fell early, as they drove north, and the headlights speared weakly through the night as they climbed higher. The tiny commuter car wasn't made for steep inclines, and his booted foot was pressed all the way to the floor.
She hadn't said a word for the past few hours—he could be grateful for that much. He didn't need some gaijin yammering at him, making idiot demands.
Not that he had any reason to think Summer's sister was demanding. She was bearable so far, and with any luck he'd get rid of her before she turned shrewish.
He glanced over at her. She was looking out the window, and her reflection was mirrored in the glass. Pretty. It would be foolish to deny it—Jilly Lovitz was pretty. She had big brown eyes—round, baby eyes with thick lashes. Her mouth was a little too big, but he liked it, even if he couldn't stop thinking of things she could do with that mouth. Her hair was short, curling as it dried, a blond color that he knew was entirely natural. He just wished he could forget that part.
He drove over the rise and started down the steep little road that led to the sheltered summerhouse below. There were no lights at the end of the road—a surprise. His grandfather had told him he'd have the caretaker open up the place for them. It was getting colder, and there was the smell of snow in the air.
He stopped the car in the middle of their descent, so abruptly it skidded for a moment, and stared at the elaborate house through the misty darkness.
“We're walking?” Jilly said, reaching for her seat belt.
“Something's wrong,” he said. The road to the summerhouse was deliberately narrow, to keep the approach quiet and soothing, and he was damned if he could think of a place to turn around, even in this tiny car. He stared down at the bathhouse, then shoved the car into Reverse and began backing up the steep, winding road as fast as he could.
Lights flared on at the seemingly deserted house, and then he heard the pop, pop, pop of what could only be gunfire as the wheels spun. A moment later one shattered the windshield.
“Get down!”
Jilly was fumbling frantically with her seat belt, trying to refasten it, and he couldn't afford to give her even a moment of attention. “Forget about it,” he snarled, pushing her down into the well of the car as he turned to guide the car back up the incline as fast as the damned thing would go-
He could see headlights of another car now, down at the house. They were coming after them, and whatever they were driving was bound to be faster than the anonymous piece of shit he'd stolen. If he didn't figure a way out of this, they were going to die.
She was crouched down, and all he could see was the top of her blond head. He swore under his breath as he backed the car up, the tires spinning on the dirt road, faster, as the lights in front of him were getting brighter.
“When I tell you to, I want you to jump out of the car, roll into the bushes and stay there.”
“Do what?” Her voice was finally getting a panicky edge to it.
“I'll slow down. There's a curve up ahead, and we'll be out of sight for a few moments. You'll jump out of the car and hide in the woods until I come to get you.”
“And what if it's not you who finds me?”
“Then I'll already be dead,” he said. And you'll be on your own.”
“I don't want to leave you.”
If he had the time he'd think about the odd tone in her voice, the way it hit his stomach. Maybe later. If there was a later. “You don't have a choice. If you don't jump I'm shoving you. Be ready.”
They were almost at the curve. The car was gaining on them, fast, and it was going to be a close call. He rounded the curve, slammed the car into the turnaround, opened the passenger door and got ready to shove.
She was already out, diving into the bushes before he could touch her. He shoved the car into Drive, spinning the wheels as he headed up the winding road, going forward. A moment later the headlights appeared behind him as they rounded the corner, never slowing down. They didn't realize he'd dumped her.
The day he couldn't outdrive Russian mercenaries on his own turf was the day he deserved to die. Even in this piece of shit he outclassed them. He shoved his foot down harder on the accelerator, the cheap tires spun, and he was gone, the Russians trailing behind him.
Jilly scrambled into the bushes, flinging herself over a slight rise and then sliding down the other side into a narrow depression. She froze, barely breathing, as she heard the cars from up above. If they stopped she was screwed, if they kept going she was safe. Until Reno came and found her.
The sound of the car was heavier than the small car Reno had stolen, and she heard the heavy groan of the engine as it shifted into a lower gear. It sped up, the small amount of light fading, and she was suddenly alone. In a forest in Japan in the middle of winter, with nothing more than a sweatshirt for warmth and thin sneakers on her feet.
She let out her pent-up breath, leaning back against the outcropping behind her, and closed her eyes. He'd come back for her. As soon as he lost the Russians, or whoever they were, he'd come back. He said he would. He might find her a pain in the butt, an inconvenience disturbing his perfect life, but she couldn't doubt his sense of responsibility. Could she?
At the very least, she had no doubt that Reno's cousin, Taka, could be a very scary man indeed if crossed, and he wouldn't like it if Reno abandoned her. All she had to do was wait.
Unless the Russians caught up with him. The stolen car was underpowered, and even if Reno seemed frighteningly efficient, he was hardly immortal. The people of the world her sister married into were living dangerous lives—she'd seen that firsthand. What if Reno wasn't able to outrun them?
They'd come after her. It was that simple, that finite. If he didn't lose them, come back for her, then she'd die. All because she'd run off to Japan without thinking it through. She'd just wanted to put the embarrassment of her one lousy night of sex behind her, one stupid mistake with an un-caring jock who looked just the slightest bit like someone who was turning out to be a walking nightmare. She wanted her sister, she wanted to immerse herself in the magic-strewn Heian period of ancient Japan. And she'd wanted to get over any lingering fantasies about Reno, the ultimate bad boy.
She'd accomplished that much, and the unpleasant night with a graduate student should seem more like a comedy than a tragedy. As for the rest of it, she wasn't ready to die because she'd been impulsive. If she was going to die, she wanted it to mean something.
She opened her eyes. It was cold—the scent of snow was on the air and ice was sinking into her bones. She'd spent most of her life in Southern California—her blood was too thin for winter in the mountains.
Was he coming back for her? What if he didn't? What if the Russians killed him? Was she going to wait here and let them find her and kill her? Or was she going to sit here and freeze to death?
Neither seemed particularly pleasant. If she hadn't jumped out of the car, he would have pushed her—she had no doubt about that. He was entirely ruthless and unsentimental—a punk samurai with loyalty to his cousin and not much else.
So why had she thought he was so deliciously romantic? He was unlike anyone she'd ever known. Edgy, absurd, exotic and beautiful, and every man or boy she'd met since she first saw him had always paled in comparison. Even Duke had been a quarter Chinese—probably why she'd chosen him in the first place.
She'd been an idiot, but then her experience with men was pretty pathetic. She'd always been the odd one out. It was no wonder she'd never had a real boyfriend. There'd been no prom, no parties, no group of girls to giggle with. On top of being freakishly smart, she was too tall. If she had to be so smart, couldn't she have at least looked small and helpless, instead of being a strapping almost-six-foot tall?
And the depressing truth was, she was likely to die a virgin. A twenty-year-old virgin with the mind of a scientist and the experience of a twelve-year-old. And the sappy romantic longings of an adolescent.
The worst mistake had been to try to remedy that particular problem. With another graduate student, albeit someone ten years older than she was. She'd had enough sense to keep her distance from the predatory professors, who seemed to take pride in going through the female population of their classes.
Duke had been just as big a mistake. She should have known that from his name. She'd waited too long to tell him she was a virgin, which he'd found both a turnoff and a joke, and even now she wasn't sure if his rough, fumbling attempt at intercourse had actually de-virginized her. She'd bled, and he'd spilled all over her, leaving her covered with blood and goo, and then he'd walked out, not even kissing her. And she'd been too stupid to realize the story would be halfway across campus by the next morning. It was no wonder she'd run.
Any lingering romantic fantasies should have been wiped out by the harsh reality of Reno. He wasn't the stuff of her daydreams, he was a man who killed when he had to. A man who clearly found her—a huge, gawky, inconvenient female—less than charming.
Maybe she'd rather freeze to death in the woods than face him again.
No, that was being melodramatic. At least he had no idea she'd once had a mad crush on him. One that was vanishing swiftly, the colder she got. She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to hug some heat into her, and tucked her hands in her armpits. If she started shivering, she wasn't going to stop. She gritted her teeth, tensing her body so she wouldn't shake. Cold, it was so damned cold. Where the hell was Reno?
Maybe she should try to make it out of the woods on her own. Shed made such a mess of her life she should probably want to die, but she wasn't that far gone yet.
She had every intention of living a long, vigorous, probably celibate life.
They'd passed through several small towns on their way up the mountain—if she managed to reach civilization, she'd be able to find help. They wouldn't like that she had no money or identification—both those things were in her backpack in Reno's stolen car—but they'd probably help her anyway. And if worse came to worst, a Japanese prison was probably a lot warmer than a mountainside in winter, and her powerful father would be more than able to extricate her quickly. Ralph Lovitz was a force of nature, a self-made man, a billionaire and full of sheer protective rage where his family was concerned. He had more money than God, and he'd always make sure nothing bad happened to her. She'd be perfectly fine, she told herself.
The first flake of snow drifted down and settled on her nose. She'd lost feeling in her feet, her hands, her butt on the cold, hard ground. She'd given up the fight to keep from shivering, and she sat huddled in a ball, her arms around her knees, shaking with the cold. Snow began drifting down rapidly, covering everything, and the bright winter moon made the landscape look like a fairy-tale setting. A fairy tale of death.
***
She was crying. Good thing Reno was either dead or had given up on her—he already found her annoying enough. If she kept crying, and that seemed more than likely, he'd probably want to strangle her himself.
She let out a tiny sob, followed by a hiccup. Tears never helped anything—her sister would have told her that. No, she wouldn't. Summer would put her arms around her and tell her everything would be all right.
But Summer had disappeared. Maybe she was dead, as well. Maybe Lianne Lovitz was going to lose both her daughters. And no one would ever find her body—she'd just freeze to death and maybe twenty years from now a hiker would come across her corpse
....
She let out another sob. At least freezing to death didn't hurt. You just went to sleep; everything got numb and then you slept and then it was over.
But she didn't want it to be over. Where the hell was Reno? It didn't matter how much of an asshole he was, it didn't matter what a pain he thought she was, she wanted him to come back and save her. How could he have abandoned her like this?
He'd be back. The only reason he wouldn't be back was if he'd been killed. One man in a cheap car against an SUV-load of mercenaries who already held a grudge. She was an idiot to think he had a chance in hell of making it.
She should get to her feet. Try to walk out of here, but her feet were numb and she was shivering too badly to get to her feet. She needed to stop crying—the tears would be freezing to her face before long. She rubbed them away with her sleeve. He was dead, she was abandoned, and she didn't know which was worse.
“Are you crying?”
The voice was annoyed, impatient, and came from the hill below her, as Reno appeared from a thick stand of trees.
She didn't stop to think, she simply flew from her huddled spot and leapt on him, knocking him flat as she wept all over him.
“I thought you were dead!” she sobbed. “I thought they'd caught you and killed you and I was going to die alone in the woods.”
He lay still beneath her for a moment, then pulled her arms away from his neck, pushing her up so he could look at her. “I'm hard to kill,” he said. There was an odd expression in his eyes, one she couldn't read. But she could guess. Annoyance.
“Sorry,” she said, scrambling to her feet, slipping a bit on the icy ground. He jumped up, effortlessly, catching her arm as she slid, holding her upright.
“Come on,” he said after a long, awkward moment. “The trucks down below.”
“The truck? Where'd you get a truck?” “I stole it.”
She sighed, the sound shaky as she pulled herself together. “You 're lucky your grandfather's a gangster or they'd throw your ass in jail so fast. Unless stealing cars is considered a minor crime.”
“I wouldn't call Ojiisan a gangster,” he said, starting down the steep hill, one hand clasped on her hand. “And I'm not sure I'd call myself lucky. I think he's got a traitor in his organization. Your Russians have had inside information—there's no way they'd know about the summerhouse unless someone told them.”
She skidded, and his hand tightened on her arm. She was going to have bruises, she thought. Unless her flesh was too frozen to show them. “You said he owned the place. Maybe they just made an educated guess. And they're not my Russians. They're after you now, too.”
“I don't believe in educated guesses.” He tugged at her. “Hurry up. We need to get out of here before the snow gets deeper.”
“I'm t-t-trying,” she said, unable to control her shivers.
He halted. “Idiot gaijin” he muttered under his breath, stripping off his leather jacket. “You could have told me you were cold.”
She didn't want to accept it, but he wasn't giving her any choice. She felt the warmth wrap around her, his body warmth, as he shoved her arms inside and pulled it tight. He was skinny, she had boobs, but at least he managed to zip it up, cursing the whole time. And even if she felt the accidental brush of his hand across her breast, he didn't notice.
Aren't you cold?” she asked, her teeth still chattering as the warmth sank into her bones. He was only wearing a dark T-shirt, and somehow, in these dire circumstances, she managed to notice that for a skinny punk he certainly filled out the T-shirt well. She also saw the dragon tattoo snaking down his arm. How fitting.
“I'll survive,” he said, starting the steep descent once more, dragging her after him.
The hike down seemed endless, but at least she'd stopped shivering. Her sneakers kept slipping in the thin layer of snow, but Reno, in his smooth-soled cowboy boots, seemed to be having no trouble at all. His bright red hair was a beacon in the moonlit night—probably keeping him warm, she thought grumpily. When they finally came out onto the deserted mountain road, the small, narrow delivery van was waiting.
“Thank God,” she breathed, heading for the passenger door.
Only to have him catch her, hauling her back. “Right-hand drive,” he reminded her, opening the door.
Now that they'd finally reached their destination, her muscles decided not to work. She tried to climb up into the van, but her legs refused to obey her, and her hands were too numb to haul herself in.
He picked her up effortlessly, which was a shock, and put her in the seat, closing the door before coming around the other side. He reached beneath the dashboard and the engine roared to life, the headlights spearing through the darkness down the long, narrow road ahead.
“Aren't you afraid the Russians are going to find us?” She fumbled with the seat belt, finally managing to fasten it.
“No.”
“Why?”
He shot her a look. “You don't want to know.”
“You killed them? How many people have you killed?” she demanded, shocked.
“Their car went off the road. I don't know whether they're dead, and I don't care. At least they're not a problem right now. And as for how many people I 've killed, you don't want to know that, either.”
She should feel sick. Horrified, stunned. But the horrible truth was, she felt fine. He killed. He killed to protect her. And some ancient, atavistic streak inside her wanted to preen and purr. She was one sick puppy.
To cover the silence she leaned forward, fiddling with the knobs. “Is there any way to turn up the heat?”
“Probably not. Stop bitching. I gave you my jacket.”
“I didn't ask you to. And I'm not bitching. I'm just not used to winters.”
“I forgot—you're a California girl.” He made it sound one step removed from the village idiot.
She started to unzip the jacket. “Take your goddamn coat...”
His arm slammed out, stopping her. “Leave it on,” he said. “I don't need it, and you do.”
As a matter of fact, she wished he would put it back on. She could see him too well in the reflection of the dashboard lights, and his muscled arms were...disturbing.
Get over him, Jilly
, she told herself sternly.
He thinks you're a pain in the ass.
“Okay, I give up,” she said. “Take me to the airport and I'll get the first plane out. I won't fight you.”
“It wouldn't do you any good if you did fight me. You're getting out as soon as it's safe. Until I find out what's going on we're on our own, and I'm not going to let you walk into a trap.”
“I'd be grateful you're looking out for me if I didn't think you were simply afraid of your cousin.”
A faint smile curved his mouth. “I can hold my own against. Taka. Remember, I grew up with him. But you're right, I don't want to piss him off unnecessarily. Besides, I like your sister.”
“You do?” She was astonished. “My sister told me you hated all American worn-en.
“There are exceptions.” He didn't look at her this time, and his voice was cool. While she sincerely doubted she was one of the exceptions, she wasn't going to push it.
“So you're not taking me to the airport?” No.
Staying in Japan was hazardous to her health. Staying with Reno was asking for trouble. So why was she relieved?
Because she'd gone out of her freaking mind, that's why.
“Why are you shaking your head?”
She jerked, startled. He must have been watching her. How often had he watched her when she hadn't realized it? And what had she given away?
“Just disbelief about this stupid situation,” she said in all honesty. He wouldn't know that the stupidity was her reaction to him.
“You walked into it. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
Are you always this sympathetic?”
To her surprise he laughed. She wasn't sure if she'd ever heard him laugh before. She certainly hadn't seen him smile. Are you always such a pussy?” he said.
She almost choked. “Believe it or not, I'm not used to running for my life.”
“You managed once before.”
“Isobel was a lot nicer.”
“True enough. I'm not very nice.”
“I noticed,” she grumbled.
He laughed again. If she didn't know better she'd think he was enjoying this. But he couldn't be. He was saddled with a major irritation, and they were on the run for their lives. He could hardly be having a good time.
She settled back into her seat, folding her arms across her chest. Hugging the jacket around her, as if it were his arms around her, protecting her. At least he wouldn't realize what she was doing.
Maybe, when she finally got on a plane back to California, he'd let her keep the jacket. It probably had American female cooties on it. Maybe it would remind her of what an idiot she'd been.
Or maybe it would remind her of how his warm, hard body had felt beneath hers when she'd knocked him over in hysterical relief.
Even without the jacket she was going to have a hard time forgetting.
She needed to get laid. It was that simple, and it was only her ridiculously semi-virginal state that was making her crazy. Obsessed with Reno. She needed to get back to California, choose the first nice, good-looking man she could find and get it over with. Someone with more discretion, patience and sympathy than the wretched Duke. And then she'd be completely immune.
Because there was no room in her life for a Yakuza punk samurai.
Or to be honest, there was no room in his life for her. And the sooner she accepted that fact the better off she'd be.
She hugged herself anyway, snuggling deeper into the leather. If that was the only kind of embrace she was going to get she might as well enjoy it. It was going to be over soon enough.
The crazy, fucked-up thing
was, he was enjoying himself. On the run for his life, with a gaijin tagging along, and he was feeling more alive than he had in a long time. Taka would kill him.
Reno looked over at her. She was huddled into his jacket, her face turned away, and he knew a moment's regret. He would have much rather been the one to wrap around her, but he had too much regard for his life to risk Taka's wrath. He was going to keep her in one piece, unmolested, no matter how tempting she was. It wasn't as if there weren't a thousand other women in the world.
Besides, even worse than Taka, he didn't want to upset Su-chan. Women were like that—able to make you feel like a total shit with just a look, and he'd made a promise. He'd prefer it if Taka took a swing at him.
No, things would be much better all around if he just left her alone. Taka and Su-chan would be happier, Grandfather would be happier, he and Jilly would be happier. If she'd just stop looking at him when she thought he didn't notice.
If he could just stop thinking about the erotic possibilities of her mouth and her long, curved body.
He needed to concentrate on the business at hand. Who had told the Russians where to find them? Someone close to his grandfather, someone the old man trusted, and the old man didn't trust many people.
At least the Russians were taken care of, in a twisted heap of metal at the bottom of a cliff, and instinct told him that was the last of them.
Unless someone decided to take the two of them out for the fun of it, and mercenaries kept business and pleasure far apart. If they kept coming it meant that someone else was paying the bills.
He glanced over at her. No one was getting to her, no one was going to hurt her. He wasn't sure why he felt so strongly about an irritating stranger, but he did. No one was going to hurt her.
Not even him.