Page 57

Told him it was all about the woman.
Nothing but the woman.
His damn woman.
Ice cursed out loud once more, forced his gaze away from that bathroom door. He snatched up a towel from the pile, folded it nice and tight, placed it on the sofa. Then he grabbed another towel from the carpet, did the same.
Soon the messy pile was transformed into a neat stack of perfectly folded towels on the sofa. The act of folding was an exercise in turning chaos into order, and Ice’s heart slowed and his breathing steadied and that coolness started to take over again, that switch flipping him from a raging hot mess to what was at least a semblance of controlled calmness.
Then came the knock at the door, and Ice’s blood rose again when he remembered that plastic bag outside the bathroom. He took a breath, held it in, moved silently towards the door, glanced through the spyhole.
It was a skinny older male staff member wearing the hotel’s brown uniform. He stood back away from the door to make sure he was clearly visible through the spyhole.
Ice sighed, vaguely disappointed that it wasn’t an assassin. Fighting for his life would be a welcome distraction right now. It would make the decision for him.
The decision not to enter that hot steamy bathroom.
“Just a minute,” Ice grumbled through the door. He turned and placed his hands on his hips, sighed again, then strode to the bedroom and snatched up the plastic laundry bag.
Before he turned to head back out, he glanced at the bathroom’s doorknob. It was big and brassy, shining like it was hot from the steam behind that door. Ice gulped back a fierce urge to see if the door was unlocked.
If that invitation was still open.
You know where to find me, she’d said to him.
Had it just slipped out or had she meant it that way?
Could Ice take the chance that it had in fact been an invitation?
No.
Because he might be wrong.
What happened earlier might not have meant what Ice thought it meant.
What Ice hoped it meant.
Stop it, you cock-brained beast, he told himself angrily as he stomped back out of the bedroom, that plastic bag clutched in his fist, swinging wildly by his side as the blood throbbed in his temples, that earlier coolness suddenly gone, that heat once again raging inside his tight body like a river gone wild.
It was only when he was halfway across the room that Ice realized the laundry bag felt a bit light. He turned, then groaned when he saw that he’d been holding it upside down as he stomped away from the bedroom like an angry gorilla. The drawstring had been loose, and now there was a trail of clothes leading all the way back to the bathroom door.
Leading all the way back to her.
Shaking his head with exasperated amusement, Ice snatched up Indy’s crumpled clothes one by one. The black stretch pants were first, then her top, followed by her bra, with the panties as the last stop.
And Ice’s heart almost stopped when he picked up those crumply rolled-up black panties. The scent rose up to him like sweet perfume, a flower in full bloom, a musk that made him swoon. He swallowed thick down his throat, stiffened hard down his pants, gritted his teeth until they squeaked, tightened his jaw until it twitched.
“You’re a pervert,” Ice muttered as he stared at the panties in his fist. The urge to bring them to his face was strong, and he swallowed heavily as a delicious sickness rippled through his body. He shot a quick glance at the bathroom door, wondered what Indy would think if she stepped out now and saw him standing there with her panties in his face, his nostrils flared like a bull in heat as he inhaled her sex like it was a drug, a secret potion. “Get a grip, you sick bastard.”
Ice gripped those panties so hard he could feel the wetness squeeze into his fingers. It took a supreme effort of will to not give in to that savage urge to sniff her sex, swallow her sweetness, taste her tang. With a snarl Ice managed to shove those honey-soaked panties into that plastic bag. He yanked the drawstring closed so hard it broke off in his hand.
A head-shake later Ice had managed to hand the bag to the patiently-waiting attendant. He watched the man walk briskly to the service elevator all the way down the empty hallway. Then Ice closed the room door and locked it with the deadbolt and the chain.
He leaned against the closed door, exhaled hard, wiped the beads of sweat that had pooled on his brow. He glanced at the air-conditioning controls. They were working just fine. The heat was coming from inside him.
“Your nickname is Ice,” he reminded himself with a forced chuckle. “Act like it.”
But the temperature stayed turned up inside Ice’s body. That unintentional encounter with Indy’s panties had gotten to him in a visceral, physical, primal way. He was dangerously erect in his pants now, hard like concrete, thick like a tree trunk. There was something building inside him, and it needed to get out.