Hot Ice

on the ground. Damp with perspiration, her blouse clung to her. The neat braid she’d fashioned while he’d watched that morning had loosened so that pale, silky hair escaped to tease her cheekbones. Her face was as cool and elegant as marble.
    “Let’s move.” Desire made him edgy. She wasn’t going to get to him, he promised himself. No way. Every time he let a woman get under his skin, he ended up losing. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get to her before they were finished, but there was no way this cool-eyed, skinny lady was going to shake his priorities. Money, the good life.
    He wondered what it would be like to have her under him, naked, hot, and completely vulnerable.
    Whitney leaned back against a rock and took another bite of fruit. A rare breeze moved hot air over her. Idly, she scratched the back of her knee. “Up yours, Lord,” she suggested in perfectly rounded tones.
    God, he’d like to make love with her until she was limp and slick and malleable. He’d like to murder her. “Listen, sugar, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover today. Since we’re on foot—”
    “Your doing,” she reminded him.
    He crouched down until they were at eye level. “It was my doing that kept your empty head on your sexy shoulders.” Full of fury and frustration, of unwanted needs, he gripped her chin in his hand. “Dimitri would just love to get his pudgy little hands on a classy number like you. Believe me, he’s got a unique imagination.”
    A quick thrill of fear went through her, but she kept her eyes level. “Dimitri’s your boogeyman, Doug, not mine.”
    “He won’t be selective.”
    “I won’t be intimidated.”
    “You’ll be dead,” he tossed back. “If you don’t do what you’re told.”
    Firmly, she pushed his hand away. Gracefully, she rose. Though the skirt was smudged with red dust and rent with a hole at the hip, it billowed around her like a cloak. The rough Malagasy shoes might have been glass slippers. He had to admire the way she pulled it off. It was innate, he was sure. No one could have taught her. If she’d been the peasant she looked like at that moment, she’d still have moved like a duchess.
    One brow rose as she dropped the banana peel into his hand. “I never do what I’m told. In fact, I often make a point not to. Do try to keep that in mind in the future.”
    “Keep it up, sugar, and you’re not going to have one.”
    Taking her time, she brushed some of the dust from her skirt. “Shall we go?”
    He tossed the peel into a ravine and tried to convince himself he’d have preferred a woman who whimpered and trembled. “If you’re sure you’re ready.”
    “Quite sure.”
    He took out his compass for another check. North. They’d keep heading north for a while yet. The sun might beat down unmercifully with no shade to fight it, and the ground might be misery itself to hike on, but the rocks and slopes offered some protection. Whether it was instinct or superstition, something was prickling at the back of his neck. He wouldn’t stop again until sundown.
    “You know, duchess, under different circumstances I’d admire that class of yours.” He began to walk in a steady, ground-eating pace. “Right now you’re in danger of becoming a pain in the ass.”
    Long legs and determination kept her abreast with him. “Breeding,” she corrected, “is admirable under any circumstances.” She sent him an amused glance. “And enviable.”
    “You keep your breeding, sister, I’ll keep mine.”
    With a laugh, she tucked her arm through his. “Oh, I intend to.”
    He looked down at her neat, manicured hand. He didn’t think there was another woman in the world who could make him feel as though he were escorting her to a ball when they were fighting their way up a rocky slope in the full afternoon sun. “Decided to be friendly again?”
    “I decided rather than sulk, I’d keep my eye open for the first opportunity to pay you back for the bruises. In the meantime, just how far are we going to walk?”
    “The train ride would’ve taken about twelve hours, and we’ve got to follow a less direct route. You figure it out.”
    “No need to be testy,” she said mildly. “Can’t we find a village and rent a car?”
    “Let me know when you see the first Hertz sign. It’ll be my treat.”
    “You really should eat something, Douglas. Lack of food always puts me in a bad mood.” Turning away from him, she offered her pack. “Go ahead, have a nice mango.”
    Fighting