Throwing the thing open—
Assail recoiled and groaned at the onslaught, his weight weaving in his loafers: In spite of the fact that ninety-nine percent of his skin was covered by multiple layers of clothing, and even with the dark glasses, the fading light in the sky was enough to make him falter.
But there was no time to give in to biology.
Forcing himself to dematerialize into the woods behind his house, he set about tracking the woman in the near darkness. It was easy enough to locate her. She was on the retreat, moving with speed on those cross-country skis, winding her way through the fluffy pine boughs and the skeletal oaks and maples. Extrapolating from her trajectory, and applying the same internal logic she had demonstrated on the security tapes from the previous morning, he was soon out ahead of her, anticipating right where her…
Ah, yes. The black Audi from the gallery. Parked at the side of the plowed road about two miles from his property.
Assail was leaning against the driver’s-side door and puffing on a Cuban as she came out of the line of trees.
She stopped dead in the dual tracks she’d made, her poles at wide angles.
He smiled at her as he blew out a cloud of smoke into the gloaming. “Fine evening for exercise. Enjoying the view—of my house?”
Her breath was quick from the exertion, but not from any fear that he could sense—which was a turn-on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
He cut off the lie. “Well, I can tell you that at the moment, I’m enjoying my view.”
As his eyes went deliberately down her long, athletic legs in their form-fitting ski pants, she glared at him. “I find it hard to believe you can see anything with those glasses.”
“My eyes are very sensitive to light.”
She frowned and looked around. “There’s hardly any left in the sky.”
“There’s enough to see you.” He took another puff. “Would you like to know what I told Benloise last night?”
“Who?”
Now she annoyed him, and he sharpened his voice. “A piece of advice. Don’t play games with me—that will get you killed faster than any trespassing.”
Cold calculation narrowed her stare. “I wasn’t aware that property offenses carried a capital punishment.”
“With me, there’s a whole list of things that have mortal repercussions.”
She kicked up her chin. “Well. Aren’t you dangerous.”
As if he were a kitten pawing at a string and hissing.
Assail moved so fast, he knew damn well her eyes were incapable of tracking him—one moment he was yards away, the next he was standing on the tips of her skis, trapping her in place.
The woman shouted in alarm and tried to jump back, but, of course, her feet were stuck in their bindings. To keep her from falling over, he grabbed her arm with the hand that wasn’t holding his cigar.
Now her blood ran with fear, and as he inhaled the scent, he hardened. Jerking her forward, he stared down at her, tracing her face.
“Be careful,” he said in a low voice. “I take offense quite readily, and my temper is not easily assuaged.”
Although he could think of at least one thing she could give him that would calm him.
Leaning in, he inhaled deeply. God, he loved that scent of hers.
But now was not the time to get distracted by all that. “I told Benloise to send people to my home at his own risk—and theirs. I’m surprised he didn’t inform you of those, shall we say, very clear property boundaries….”
From the corner of his eye, he caught a subtle bunching of her shoulder. She was going to go for a weapon with her right hand.
Assail put his cigar between his teeth and caught that slender wrist. Applying pressure, and stopping only when pain deepened her breath, he bowed her body back so that she was completely, utterly aware of the power he had—over himself, over her. Over everything.
And that was when the arousal happened for the woman.
It had been so long, perhaps too long, since Sola had wanted a man.
It was not that she didn’t find them desirable as a rule, or that there had been no offers for horizontal encounters from members of the opposite sex. Nothing had seemed worth the aggravation. And maybe, after that one relationship that hadn’t worked out, she had regressed back to her strict Brazilian upbringing—which would be ironic, considering what she did for a living.
This man, however, got her attention. In a big way.
The holds on her arm and her wrist were nothing polite, and more than that, there was no quarter given because she was a woman, his hands squeezing to such a degree that pain funneled into her heart, making it pound. Likewise, the angle he’d forced her back into was testing the limits of her spine’s ability to bend, and her thighs were burning.
To be turned on was…a gross dereliction of self-preservation. In fact, staring up into those black glasses, she was acutely aware that he could kill her right here. Snap her neck. Break her arms just to see her scream before suffocating her in the snow. Or maybe knock her out and throw her in the river.
Her grandmother’s heavily accented voice came into her mind: Why can you not meet a nice boy? A Catholic boy from a family we know? Marisol, you break my heart with this.
“I can only assume,” that dark voice whispered with an accent and infliction she was unfamiliar with, “that the message was not passed on to you. Is that correct? Did Benloise simply fail to convey to you that information—and that is why, after I expressly indicated my intentions, you still showed up looking at my house? I think that’s what happened—mayhap a voice mail that has yet to be received. Or a text message—an e-mail. Yes, I believe that Benloise’s communication was lost, isn’t that right?”
The pressure on her was tightened even further, suggesting that he had strength to spare—which was a daunting prospect, to say the least.
“Isn’t that right,” he growled.
“Yes,” she bit out. “Yes, that’s right.”
“So I can expect not to find you on your skis around here anymore. Isn’t that right.”
He jerked her again, the pain making her eyes roll back a little. “Yes,” she choked.
The man relented enough so that she could grab some breaths. Then he kept speaking, that voice strangely seductive. “Now, there is something I need before I let you go. You will tell me what you know about me—all of it.”
Sola frowned, thinking that was silly. No doubt a man like this would be well aware of any information a third party could garner about him.
So it was a test.
Given that she very much wanted to see her grandmother again, Sola said, “I don’t know your name, but I can guess what you do, and also what you’ve done.”
“And what’s that?”
“I think you are the one who has been shooting all those penny-ante dealers in town to secure territory and control.”
“The papers and the news reports have labeled the deaths suicides.”
She just continued on—there was, after all, no reason to argue. “I know that you live alone, as far as I can tell—and that your house is outfitted with some very strange window treatments. Camouflage designed to appear as the interior of the home, but…they are something else above and beyond that. I just don’t know what.”
That face above her own remained utterly impassive. Calm. At peace. As if he wasn’t muscling her in place—or threatening bodily harm. The control was…erotic.
“And?” he prompted.
“That’s it.”
He inhaled on the cigar in his mouth, the fat orange circle on the end glowing more brightly. “I’m only going to let you go once. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
He moved so quickly she had to swing her arms out to regain her balance on her own, her poles digging into the snow. Wait, where did he—