“I ordered dinner.” His voice washed over her and sent ripples of awareness coursing over her.
She nodded in reply.
“I’ve also sent out an order for groceries.” His voice hardened, Risa nodded again.
“We need to talk about this, Risa. Now, while it’s safe to talk here. Ignoring the situation isn’t going to make it better.”
“I’m really good at ignoring things,” she muttered. “Trust me, it’s not that hard to do, and it really does make life easier.”
“Until you’re dead?” he asked coldly.
Her head lifted at that. “Fate’s a bitch, isn’t she?”
His lips tightened. “Get out of bed and get in here and talk to me, before I join you.”
She laughed at that. She was amazed that she could laugh without breaking into hysteria.
“Well, wouldn’t we just hate to make you do that?” she stated mockingly as she pulled herself from the bed and moved for the door. “I’d hate to put you out to that extent again.”
Electricity seemed to race over her body as she passed him at the doorway. It was all she could do to control the gasp that built in her throat, or the need to touch him.
“You ran out on me last night,” he stated as she moved to the couch and curled into the corner. “Why?”
She stared back at him in surprise. “That’s rather self-explanatory, wouldn’t you think?”
Why did he care? It wasn’t as though she had done anything for him.
“If you had waited, Risa, we could have fixed the problem.”
Looking away from him, she wondered rather mockingly exactly how they could have fixed that problem for him.
“There’s nothing to fix,” she pushed out between stiff lips. “We’re stuck together; I understand that. I’ll try to stay out of your way as much as possible.”
“Yeah, you do that,” he snarled back at her.
She looked away from him, concentrating instead on the small office area she had created in the corner of the room. The corner desk, file cabinet, and computer. She had work to do there, but she couldn’t seem to get a handle on actually doing the work. The accounting she did from home kept the bills paid; it kept her from having to dip into the small trust fund her mother had left her, and kept her grandmother from having to support her.
“Did we need to discuss anything else?” she asked. “I’m tired. I thought a shower and a nap—”
“I said I ordered dinner.” He sat down in the chair across from her. “And I said we needed to talk.”
“Just because you said it doesn’t mean I agree with your decision.” There was a chance she didn’t have much longer to live anyway; she wasn’t going to spend her last days on earth kowtowing to his arrogance. It was bad enough that now that he was here, she couldn’t seem to get a handle on her own arousal. She needed to change panties, she was so damned wet.
He ran his hand over his face, and for a second Risa saw the weariness that marked his expression. He must not have slept last night, she thought, then felt perversely glad. Because she hadn’t slept last night, either.
“Risa, we need to come to an understanding to make this work,” he warned her, his dark eyes flashing with frustration.
“We have an understanding,” she assured him. “I understand you have to stay here to catch a killer. There’s a spare bedroom and bathroom; make yourself at home. I’ll try to stay out of your way as much as possible.”
Something dark and dangerous flashed in his eyes. His expression became emotionless, cold. For a moment fear skated down her spine; then her shoulders straightened. It wasn’t as though he could kill her for talking back to him. And God, she was tired of putting her head down and simply trying not to antagonize fate.
Fate had slapped her so damned hard already that she was still reeling.
“Look.” She lifted her hand as he started to speak. “Last night was a mistake, and I apologize for dragging you into my problems. I…” She swallowed tightly. “Sometimes, you just need to be touched, you know? I shouldn’t have chosen you. I should have walked away and just picked up a damned drunk stranger or something.”
She wondered if Micah could have f**ked her drunk. She hated that he hadn’t found any pleasure with her. It sliced into her with a sharper pain than her own inability to find the satisfaction she had needed. It wasn’t his fault. He’d been dragged into this. He had probably felt that he had to go through with taking her because of this operation he was on. He appeared willing to do anything to catch Orion. Even f**k her.
“You amaze me.” His voice was cold; his eyes were like pits of black ice.
“Yeah, I amaze myself sometimes.” She held back the tears, the need to cry. She held back the need to curl into his arms and find some hint of comfort. She was tired, shaky, and terrified. And in her entire life she had never known a place as secure as she had felt when he had held her the night before.
“What else do we need to talk about?”
“Your inability to cl**ax.”
She flinched at the statement. Humiliation curled in the pit of her stomach.
She shrugged. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“I should have waited on your doctor’s report,” he said. “If I had known the Whore’s Dust wa ksqu>&ls still in your system, then I would have known what to do.”
She crossed her arms over her br**sts and stared away from him. Heat seared her face, her neck. She didn’t want to talk about this. She couldn’t bear to talk about this.
“Risa, the effect of the Whore’s Dust is frightening. We’ve been gathering reports for years on the men and women who survived the initial wave of that drug. You were given enough that it attached to the pleasure receptors in your brain. It leaves the body slowly, very slowly. To understand what’s going on when it kicks in, you need to understand the effects of it.”
No. She didn’t want to know. She swallowed convulsively, remembering last night all too well as the need for touch built inside her again.
“After the initial injection, it doesn’t make you want sex so much as it makes the need for sex stronger. It makes the sensations stronger.”
“I can’t talk about this.” She came to her feet as hysteria threatened to break through the fragile control holding it back.