Consumed by Fire (25 page)

“That’s not true. I know for a fact that there are at least five James Bishops in this country alone who are thirty-four, six feet one, and about one seventy-five. They have similar facial structures, and hair and eye color can be changed.”

“So it can,” she said. “But at one point I knew you very well, and I can tell the difference. Is that the reason you picked that name? Because you could have so many doppelgangers?”

He ignored her question. “So you didn’t learn anything, did you, Angel?”

Crap.
She hadn’t tried “Angel” as a second password. Then again, he said there were seven layers of encryption, and it wouldn’t have gotten her very far.

She smiled at him sweetly. “Not a thing. Until I decided to look up the tiny chapel of St. Anselmo in the mountains just outside the town of Cabrisi. You remember that, don’t you? It’s where we first met. And what do you think I discovered? That nice old man, Signore Dimitri Corsini, was murdered up there. I have a good memory for dates, and just imagine, it was the very day you and I were there!” she said in a mock innocent voice. “I must have missed seeing his murder by just a few minutes.”

His cool expression didn’t change. “Less than that,” he said. “Claudia had just finished with him and we were leaving when you popped up.”

“Oh, you’re telling me you’re not a murderer?” She batted her eyes at him. “I’m so relieved.”

“Didn’t your research tell you about the dead chauffeur found in the courtyard? He was my work.”

He said it so calmly, but for some crazy reason it hit her in the stomach like a blow. She could only hope she kept her face unreadable—she didn’t want him to know she cared. “Killing someone in church is a pretty rotten thing to do,” she said.

He shrugged. “Not necessarily. Think of
Hamlet
. Signore Corsini went to meet his maker in a state of prayer. He might have flown straight to heaven. Somehow I don’t think so, but you never can tell.”

“Hamlet was an asshole.” Apparently that was her word for the day. “If he’d killed his villainous uncle then and there, he would have saved a lot of lives, including his own.”

“But it would have made a very short bad play.”

“Why are we discussing Shakespeare?” she demanded.

He shrugged, then glanced over at the tiny kitchen counter and the food lying there. “You made me breakfast!” he said. “What a good little wife you are.”

“I’m not your wife!” she snapped, tired of this mock civility. “And I just happened to make too much.”

“Sure you did, Angel. Looks like you managed to get a shower too. I gather the plumbing facilities are adequate.”

“Adequate,” she agreed, not about to tell him how wonderful they were. “So what next?”

He was shoveling food in his mouth like someone needing fuel. He probably didn’t even taste it. “You mean, now that I’ve had my wicked way with you?” he said between mouthfuls.

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss it,” she said stiffly.

If he hadn’t been eating, he probably would have given her that infuriating grin, but he changed the subject. “Now,” he said, “we drive to New Orleans. We’ll take it in two stages—I need to be there by Thursday and it’s about twelve hundred miles, so we can go at a leisurely pace.”

Twelve hundred miles in a day and half was hardly a leisurely pace in Evangeline’s opinion, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think she was going to have any say in the matter. “And you’re not going to drop me off anywhere along the way, are you?”

“Nope.”

Okay, he’d be too busy driving to go for a repeat of last night, and if he tried she wouldn’t be so fucking needy that she’d respond. “Are you going to want me to drive?”

He laughed at that. “Not that I’m not impressed with your ability with the truck and camper . . .”

“Annabelle,” she broke in.

“With your ability with Annabelle, but the sad fact is, I don’t trust you. You’d probably ram us into the first solid object you came to.”

“If only that were you,” she said dreamily. “When do we leave?”

“Now.”

“May I take Merlin out for a moment before we go?” She hated asking him, but she needed fresh air even more than Merlin did.

“Are you stupid enough to think you can make a run for it?” he countered.

She shook her head. “You’re safe. You don’t have a willing hostage, but you’ve got one nonetheless, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She slid out of the booth, hiding her wince as sharp pain stabbed her calf. “Come on, baby.”

“Baby?” Bishop said in a pained voice. “You’ve ruined my dog.”

“My dog,” she said, and started the short pathway to the door.

“Hold it!” he said sharply.

She froze, careful to put her weight on her other foot. She turned her head. “What?” she said impatiently.

“You’re limping.”

“No, I’m not!” she said.

He stared at her for a long, thoughtful moment. “I should change your bandages.”

“No need. At least the first aid kit was easy to find. I put new ones on after my shower.” A sudden thought struck her, and her hostility vanished temporarily. “How are your stitches? I forgot all about them. Did you . . . I mean, did you . . .” Words failed her.

“You mean did I pop any stitches while we were fucking? I bled a little bit, but it was worth it.”

She felt her face flood with heat. “You are such a sleaze!” she snapped. “And you’re trying to distract me. I should check your stitches.”

“Tell you what. I’ll let you look at my stitches when you tell me why you’re limping. I need to look at your leg.”

“After I take Merlin out . . .” She let out a little whoop as he picked her up and deposited her on the narrow bunk, moving so fast she had no warning. She tried to squirm away but he put a hand in the middle of her chest, holding her still.

“Keep fighting me and I’ll put my hand on your tits to hold you still,” he growled.

She froze. “You’re crass.”

His smile was seraphic. “Yes, I am,” he agreed, releasing her to turn and examine her legs. She knew what the right one looked like, and she’d worn long pants to hide it, but all her pants were loose, and he had no trouble pushing up the cuff to her knee, exposing the swelling purple bruise.

He sat back, for a moment all artifice disappearing, and looked shocked. “How did that happen?”

For some stupid, stupid reason she didn’t want to tell him, to throw it in his face. “It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled, turning her face away.

But his hand caught her chin and drew it back, so she couldn’t avoid his gaze unless she closed her eyes, and she wasn’t that big a chicken. “Did I do this when I kicked you?”

Everything had shut down with him again, his face unreadable, but for some reason she still wanted to protect him. “It was a fluke. You didn’t mean to kick me that hard, and you just happened to hit me at the wrong place and . . .”

“I meant to kick you that hard.” There was a strange note of bitterness in his voice.

“Well, it worked.” What else could she say? “It’ll heal.”

“It’s a problem. You never know when you might have to make a run for it. This makes you a liability.”

So much for tender regret, she thought, wondering why she felt crushed. “Then just put a bullet in my brain and leave me behind. That way I can’t tattle on you.”

He shrugged dispassionately. “That’s protocol.”

“Is it? Then why didn’t you just kill me at the church and have done with it? Why go through an elaborate charade . . .”

He’d been examining the bruise, pressing against it, but at this he turned away. “It’s not broken,” he said, ignoring her question. “If you look hard enough, you’ll probably find ice. Put it on the bruise, keep your leg elevated, and it should be fine eventually. We’ll just have to hope we don’t run into any problems.”

It was a waste of time to glare at him—he wouldn’t even notice. She sat up and gave a long-suffering sigh. “All right. After I take Merlin out.”

“Merlin doesn’t need to go out. He can hold his bladder for hours. Find something to entertain yourself with while I drive.”

He started toward the driver’s seat, and she slid off the bunk, starting after him. “Look, just let me get some fresh air.” She hated the pleading sound in her voice.

She found herself talking to his back. He was ignoring her, of course, about to move between the two front seats to take his place behind the wheel, when she made the dire mistake of putting a hand on his shoulder.

He turned, in no particular hurry. “You can open a window,” he said callously. “Go ahead and play with the computer if you’re bored. You won’t find anything interesting.”

“The Internet is full of interesting things if you know how to look,” she said, which was patently stupid. She wanted access to that computer again. She had barely begun her research.

“Fine with me, Angel. Do your worst.” He reached over her and pushed one of the buttons over the door. She heard the locks click in, place, and she had no illusions that she’d have any way of getting out of this tin box without Bishop’s permission.

She glared up at him as he started past her, into the cockpit of the RV, when he paused. “Oh, and one more thing,” he said in a flat voice.

“What?”

His answer was to yank her into his arms, so fast and efficiently that she didn’t have time to react. He shoved her up against the locked door, his hips pushing against her, pinning her there, his hands holding her head, his long fingers cupping her face, tilting it up for his mouth.

His mouth. She was so surprised she didn’t try to close her lips against him. The feel of his body drained all her defiance, and she let herself mold to him as she opened her mouth for his kiss, her arms going around his waist to hold on, afraid she might fall.

He used his tongue, sweeping into her mouth, as if he wanted to taste everything, to suck the air out of her, and she sank into it, into the unbearable glory of his mouth, of his kiss, of his kisses. He pulled back and kissed her again, more gently this time, luring her, seducing her, and then he changed again, the kiss so hard she wanted to slide to the floor in a little puddle of desire. It was a good thing she had the door behind her. She released her hold on him a mere second later, putting her hands flat on the surface behind her, staring up at him, fighting her conflicting emotions. He moved away, a cocky grin on his face as he slid into the driver’s seat, and if she’d been anywhere else, she’d have thrown something at him. In the RV there were no loose articles she could fling, only her tongue.

“Asshole,” she said.

It was definitely the word for the day.

Chapter Thirteen

Bishop drove. He set the cruise control for a reasonable sixty-five, though that was unlikely for a Winnebago of its supposed age, and headed south until he hooked up with Interstate 40 and the broad, flat plains of Texas, where he pushed it up to seventy.

He hated Texas, at least most of it, and he’d considered changing his route. He had a couple of possibilities and he took this one that would bring him into Louisiana the quickest, or he would have headed through the wheat fields of Kansas. Either way, going from the Rocky Mountains to the delta would require a lot of flat landscape, and he was inured to it, even though he knew this seeming bucket of bolts could safely travel a hell of a lot faster and not have a problem. He was going to have to fill up the tanks eventually, have to let Evangeline get something to eat, though damn, that egg thing she’d made had been good.

He didn’t know if she’d be easier or harder to control after last night. He wasn’t going to think about it—driving across Texas with a hard-on wasn’t his idea of heaven. Thinking about that ugly bruise on Evangeline’s leg wasn’t much better. He wasn’t squeamish about hurting women—you did what you had to do, and there was no room for chivalry in a business where a sweet young thing could put a stiletto between your ribs, and in his case, had. But Evangeline was a different matter. Everything he’d done, he’d done to keep her safe from harm. And then he’d ended up being the one who hurt her.

He was being melodramatic, but the long straight line of the highway wasn’t doing much to distract him. Clement had hurt her a lot worse, though she was well on her way to healing. So was he, despite the way he’d ignored his stitches last night.

Last night again, he thought, just when his erection was just beginning to subside. He adjusted his jeans again, grimacing, then laughed to himself. So the little wife could cook and sew? He wondered what other talents she was hiding.

Of course he shouldn’t have kissed her this morning. He’d done an excellent job of making sure they were enemies again, but her presence had just been too tempting, and he’d wanted nothing more than to slam her against the wall and take her standing up. He didn’t, but he gave in to the temptation to kiss the shit out of her. She was still just as vulnerable to his kisses—he’d felt her body soften, relax against his, and if he’d reached between her legs, he was sure she would have been wet.

She’d always been incredibly responsive to everything he did, and he used to wonder how many ways he could make her come. With his mouth, of course, with straightforward fucking, with his hand on her clit. Her tits had never been that responsive, but he hadn’t had time to give them the attention they deserved, and he wondered whether she was one of those rare women who could come simply by having him play with her beautiful breasts. He wanted to catalogue her and their time together in the crudest possible terms. He liked to fuck her, he liked fucking. For some damned reason the term “making love” kept creeping in, and he ruthlessly shut it out, coming up with the rudest words he could think of, but he kept going back to her breasts, not her tits.

He wouldn’t have the chance to find out about them, he reminded himself. Last night had been bad enough—there would be no repeats or variations.

He’d never been able to talk her into going down on him, and he’d accepted her refusal easily enough. He could get a blow job anywhere.

That was before he knew about her ancient, molesting professor. She said she’d had to
help him
, and she’d had disgust in her voice. She would have used her mouth on the old bastard, and it was just one more reason it was a good thing the man was dead, or he’d rip him apart. He knew how to kill, quietly and efficiently, but he also knew how to make it hurt, make it last, and he would have outdone Claudia in inventiveness if he’d been able to get his hands on the old man.