Snow (6 page)

Liliana looked from the cuffs to him. “You’re serious about this?”

He blinked back at her impassively, no longer angry and not amused either. “Your bed or mine?”

Asshole
. She twisted from him and kicked off her shoes, then stripped off all the layers of socks only to leave them in a wet pile on the carpet. She sat on the bed he’d occupied last night and sure enough he sat next to her, both of them leaning against the headboard. Rather than go for the TV this time, he pulled out his cell phone and thumbed through it. Their linked hands remained on the bed between them.

“What about when I have to shower or go to the bathroom?” she said. “You joining me for that?”

“If I think you’re a threat to your own safety, maybe,” he said without looking up from his phone. “But unless you’ve dug a tunnel through the tile in there, you can use the facilities cuffed by yourself.”

He was serious.

It seemed like her options, then, were to behave herself and convince him she could be trusted so he’d take the cuffs off her—and they might very well be long past that now—or just drive him insane until he gave up and quit.

The silence was driving her nuts, making her antsy. Her toes were cold, skin puckered from being stuck in wet socks for so long. The coffee from the breakfast tray was likely stone cold by now. Maybe if they were going to be here a while, he’d get someone to bring a coffeemaker up permanently.

“What if I just started screaming and someone called hotel security, and they found I was being kept here against my will?”

“I get arrested, you get taken in as well, they take your name and statement, and everyone will know where you are. But I’m doubtful anyone will hear you scream.”

“You booked the rooms on either side of us, didn’t you?”

“And across the hall.”

Goddamn
. Wouldn’t surprise her if he’d already paid off hotel security or something. He wouldn’t have to pull the “I’m protecting a witness” thing—he could play cop with a criminal, rich guy with a girl in bed who liked to scream. Endless possibilities he could be planning for.

Of course, that didn’t mean she’d eliminated the possibility of screaming. Just that she was putting it off for now. “So you said you knew I was on the bus—how?” she asked at last.

“You weren’t going to pick a city one, you’d try to get as far as you could,” he said. “Bus station was logical. That was the first one heading away from the city leaving during the window you’d left the hotel.”

“And you didn’t think I’d get off it and take another?”

“Eventually. You’d get as far as you could on your bus fare first.”

And of course he wasn’t telling her this to be smug. No, he’d keep the information of how he found her if he thought it would be more useful to him, she had no doubt. He was telling her to discourage her from trying to outsmart him again.

“Do you
know
who Jimmy Hartley is? What he’ll do if he finds me?”

“Yes and that’s why you’re not leaving my side.”

“And what happens when he cuts through you to get to me? At least I have a fighting chance on my own.”

“You are
extremely
naive if you think that.”

Well, maybe he was right. Not like someone had provided her with the guy’s resume.

She flexed the fingers of her left hand, the chain between his cuff and hers creaking restlessly. “Can you get some more coffee brought up?”

In answer, he set down his cell and instead lifted the room’s landline phone from its cradle, hit the number for room service. “Hello, this is room—”

Liliana screamed at the top of her lungs.

She launched herself at him, clawed and kicked, working up her heartrate and shouting until she was out of breath.

Then he had her wrists in just one of his hands, pinning them to the pillow over her head. She twisted, fought against him, but couldn’t budge him.

His other hand disappeared out of view, rooted around something by the bed, and a moment later her screaming was muffled as he shoved a hunk of fabric in her mouth.

O’Hara didn’t even meet her eyes, just firmly held her in place while sitting on the edge of the bed, and lifted the phone again. He wedged the receiver between his ear and shoulder, and hit a button on the phone again to dial.

“Can I get coffee sent up to room 342?” he asked. “Yes. And a coffeemaker, if possible.” O’Hara chuckled, the sound warm and entirely fake in Liliana’s opinion. “Long hours working, I’ll need it. If you can leave it outside the door and I’ll get to it...if it’s not too much trouble... Thank you.”

He hung up the phone and at last gave a long, steady look down at her.

She glared in response, the cloth drying her mouth out and nearly choking her. She tried to mumble “fuck you” but it came out “mmmph phff”.

“I didn’t actually call the first time.” He kept that bruising grip on her wrists even though she was silent and still now. “If I think you’re going to try that again when they leave the tray at the door, I will delay getting it, and then you’ll have
cold
coffee.”

If she could make his head explode with her eyes, his skull would be popping right about now. She didn’t agree verbally, didn’t even nod, but he seemed satisfied with whatever he saw in her expression—at last he peeled his fingers back from her wrists.

She jerked her uncuffed hand down and pulled the wad of fabric from her mouth, glancing down at it. “My
panties
? You used my
panties
as a gag?”

“Your bag was nearest to the bed. Be glad mine wasn’t.” He plucked the damp, thankfully-clean underwear from her fingers and deposited it beside the bed again, then shifted to sit as he had been, back against the headboard. Once more O’Hara grabbed his phone and continued calmly reading whatever he’d been looking at before.

Liliana didn’t move, just lay there staring up at the ceiling in frustration, until a moment later when the television controller thumped on the bed between them. She cast a look at him, then grabbed it and flipped on the TV to see what was on while she waited for the coffee.

****

Things worked as Mike had told her, allowing her in the bathroom by herself with both of her hands cuffed, and then cuffing her back to him again when they were in the main hotel room. Food came, they ate. There was little on television. They basically didn’t speak at all, unless it was for her to ask him if she could use the bathroom. When he had to go—and he drank four cups of coffee and waited eight hours before making a move to do so—he cuffed her to one of the chairs so she wouldn’t be going anywhere without dragging it with her.

She didn’t complain. Scowled periodically, seemed to resent him every time she had to ask permission for anything, but she had the sense to know she’d put herself in that position instead of blaming him for it.

Despite the coffee, Mike figured he’d sleep. Once again in his clothes, on top of the blankets, while Liliana curled up under the bedspread at his side, facing him by necessity as they were still locked at the wrist. She’d stripped out of her jeans again, left them cast on one of the chairs, and he’d avoided watching her while she did so as best as he could. Privacy was nearly nonexistent in a cramped hotel room to start with; cuffed together like this, what remained rapidly dissipated. Tonight the hall light was off, as he was no longer concerned she’d be trying to sneak out without him knowing. The cuff key sat on the table across the room, impossible to reach unless they both went to it together.

“If I’m going to be stuck with you in a room for weeks, we should probably start talking or something,” she said at last. “It might pass the time better.”

He’d almost thought she’d gone to sleep; she’d been lying there in the dark for over twenty minutes in silence, eyes closed, breathing even. “What would you like to talk about?”

She shifted and the mattress dipped under her. Mike lay on his back, his free arm under his head, staring up at the ceiling where bluish light filtered between the curtains. Snow continued to pile up outside and pattered softly against the windows.

“You still won’t tell me who hired you?”

“Not my information to give,” he said simply.

She was on her side still but watching him now. Her arm moved in the space between their bodies, slightly tugging his with it.

Oddly, he appreciated the silence, or what he suspected it meant from her. Despite her willingness to run her mouth off or stubbornly argue, she paused to think, to consider, enough that he knew there was more going on in her head than was apparent at first glance. She was smarter, craftier than she let on. Sure, every time she tried to run, she was stupid to do so, but that was born from desperation. If she actually took time to plan something, his work might be cut out for him.

“Then why did you take the job?” she asked after clearly debating it.

That caught him off guard.

What’s more, he wasn’t sure he had an answer for it. To help out Jann, sure—they’d both done one another favors over the years, and this job was personal for his friend. And because it was a well-paying gig. Seven Security did extremely well already, of course, but when a good job came up, they invariably took them to help cover expenses when business was slow. Further, this was what he was trained for, after all. Keeping a witness safe, anticipating threats—he was good at this. Enjoyed the work.

But there was more too it as well. “Because you need the help I can provide, even if you don’t want it.”

He could all but feel the air bristle around her at that and she gave a soft, skeptical snort at his words.

“Right,” she said. “Purely altruistic motives and not financial ones.”

“You realize I am not short for work,” he replied. “I pick and choose clients. I wasn’t forced to be here. My decisions are based on more than money.”

“Aren’t you just Prince Charming, O’Hara.”

“I’m in the unique position of being able to help you, and I’m being paid for it. There’s nothing princely about it. I realize you’re...” He had to phrase this delicately and wasn’t certain he could. “Likely used to people—men—taking an angle with you, wanting something from you.”

“Excuse me?” she snapped, but he ignored her.

“I have no ulterior motives. I require absolutely nothing from you but your cooperation while I keep you safe. When the police complete their investigation and get their evidence, I will turn you over to them as a material witness, they will put the Hartleys in prison, and you will go on your way.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know your distrust of police and authority figures likely came from your years spent in foster care and group homes. I know from your police report that you used to date Jimmy Hartley and that is why you’re scared of what he’ll do to you when he finds you. I know you expect me to either abandon you to Jimmy at some point or somehow ultimately lead to your death because I’m keeping you in one place. Correction—you don’t ‘expect’, you’re
certain
I will. However—”

And he tilted his head so he could face her, the blue light from outside gently tracing the side of her face, making her soft curls glow. Her features were delicate but her expression strong, those eyes just as fiery as when he first saw them despite how beaten down she’d been, tracked down and handcuffed to him. Scant inches separated them and for a moment he forgot what he was saying.

“However,” he continued, “those issues are yours to deal with. I’m not going anywhere. I will not let your ex-boyfriend or anyone else near you. There is nowhere safer you can be at the moment than right here.”

Her lips pursed as she stared at him. Clearly she still didn’t believe a word he said. Likely wouldn’t, even after he delivered her to the police for safekeeping when the trial came up.

She bent her left arm, folded it so her hand was under her pillow, dragged his arm up with her. He didn’t fight it, moving passively with her, and his fingertips brushed her forearm. Her skin was soft and warm, requiring conscious effort on his part not to deliberately touch her.

“I think you believe that,” she said at last, her voice soft and quiet. Defeated. “But you’re so sure you don’t have a weakness or a blind spot, that you’re too smart to get taken by someone like him, and that’s exactly what makes you a perfect victim.”

Like her
. No, Liliana was far from stupid. And she’d described exactly how a smart woman would’ve ended up with Jimmy Hartley and men like him.

“I’m aware of my weakness and blind spots,” he said instead.

“Are you?” Her lips quirked into a grin, that saucy half-smile from her photo. The one that promised depths he immediately wanted to dive into.

“I plan for them. I can’t do my job without that awareness.”

“Awareness seems like a bit of a curse. Always planning, always anticipating, running a couple dozen scenarios at once, right?”

His gaze was locked on hers. He simply nodded.

“Must be exhausting.”

“I manage.”

She shifted again, the sheet slipping from her shoulder as she reached for him with her free hand.

Mike tensed, steadying his breath with effort, watching while she ran her fingertips up his forearm, feather-light. Her gaze traced the trail her fingers did, staring at him with a curiosity he couldn’t entirely decipher. He focused on his breathing, on keeping his heartrate down even as his pulse leapt with her touch and his body stirred again.

It could be another con, another attempt at wiggling free of her captivity, he knew. So he didn’t read much into it and tried to clamp down on any pleasant feelings her touch elicited as she traced her fingers along the dip in his calloused palm.

“And what about when you deliver me as promised, and the trial goes forward, and Jimmy’s mother kills me anyway?” She lifted her gaze to meet his again, fingers curling so now her nails dragged over his palm, more of a bite than the delicate touch from before but just as maddening. “They have money. They’ll hire someone. And even if everything they have is caught in bail and lawyers, they have friends. I testify, I’m dead. Doesn’t matter what other evidence they have—they’ll do it out of spite.”