Hot Ice

worth something. On the spot, Doug decided the papers were his and his fortune was made. All he had to do was live to claim it.
    In reflex he touched his arm now. Stiff, yes, but already healing. He had to admit crazy Whitney MacAllister had done a good job there. He blew smoke between his teeth before he crushed out the cigarette. She’d probably charge him for it.
    He needed her for the moment, at least until they were out of the country. Once he got to Madagascar, he’d ditch her. A slow, lazy grin covered his face. He’d had some experience in outmaneuvering women. Sometimes he succeeded. His only regret was that he wouldn’t get to see her stomp and swear when she realized he’d given her the slip. Picturing those clouds of pale, sunlit hair he thought it was almost too bad he had to double-cross her. He couldn’t deny he owed her. Even as he sighed and began to think kindly of her, the connecting door burst open.
    “Still in bed?” Whitney crossed to the window and pulled open the drapes. She waved a hand fussily in front of her face in an attempt to clear the haze of smoke. He’d been up for a while, she decided. Smoking and plotting. Well, she’d been doing some figuring herself. When Doug swore and squinted, she merely shook her head. “You look terrible.”
    He was vain enough to scowl. His chin was rough with a night’s coarse growth of beard, his hair was unruly, and he’d have killed for a toothbrush. She, on the other hand, looked as though she’d just walked out of Elizabeth Arden’s. Naked in the bed with the sheet up to his waist, Doug felt at a disadvantage. He didn’t care for that sensation.
    “You ever knock?”
    “Not when I’m paying for the room,” she said easily. She stepped over the tangle of jeans on the floor. “Breakfast is on its way up.”
    “Great.”
    Ignoring his sarcasm, Whitney made herself at home by sitting on the bottom of the bed and stretching out her legs.
    “Make yourself comfortable,” Doug said expansively.
    Whitney only smiled and shook back her hair. “I got in touch with Uncle Maxie.”
    “Who?”
    “Uncle Maxie,” Whitney repeated, giving her nails a quick check. She really needed a manicure before they left town. “Actually, he’s not my uncle, I just call him my uncle.”
    “Oh, that kind of uncle,” Doug said, a half sneer on his face.
    Whitney spared him a mild glance. “Don’t be crude, Douglas. He’s a dear friend of the family’s. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. Maximillian Teebury.”
    “Senator Teebury?”
    She spread her fingers for a last examination. “You do keep up with current events.”
    “Look, smartass.” Doug grabbed her arm so that she tumbled half into his lap. Whitney only smiled up at him, knowing she still held all the aces. “Just what does Senator Teebury have to do with anything?”
    “Connections.” She ran a finger down his cheek, clucking her tongue at the roughness. But roughness, she discovered, had its own primitive appeal. “My father always says you can do without sex in a pinch, but you can’t do without connections.”
    “Yeah?” Grinning, he lifted her up so that her face was close to his and her hair streamed down to the sheets. Again he caught the drift of her scent that meant wealth and class. “Everybody has different priorities.”
    “Indeed.” She wanted to kiss him. He looked rough and restless and disheveled, the way a man might after a night of wild sex. Just what kind of a lover would Douglas Lord be? Ruthless. She felt her heart thud a little faster at the thought. He smelled of tobacco and sweat. He looked like a man who lived on the edge and enjoyed it. She’d like to feel that clever, interesting mouth on hers—but not yet. Once she’d kissed him she might forget that she had to stay one step ahead of him. “The thing is,” she murmured, letting her hands stray into his hair when their lips were only a breath apart, “Uncle Maxie can get a passport for you and two thirty-day visas to Madagascar within twenty-four hours.”
    “How?”
    Whitney noted with amused annoyance just how quickly his seducing tone became businesslike. “Connections, Douglas,” she said blithely. “What’re partners for?”
    He shot her a considering look. Damn if she wasn’t becoming handy. If he wasn’t careful, she’d be indispensable. The last thing a smart man needed was an indispensable woman who had eyes like whiskey and skin like the underside of petals. Then it hit him that