Read A Taste of Ice for Free Online Page B

Absolutely no fear on her face. She opened her mouth to speak, and though he couldn’t hear her, he knew exactly what she said by the shape of her mouth.
    “Fuck. You.”
    And he smiled.
    Her eyes had burned dark before, but now they plunged into full black. Black and hard as coal.
    The woman slammed her hands against the box wall, her palms making pale prints in the coat of ash. The box jerked from the incredible force. She opened her mouth and screamed, the tendons in her throat jutting out.
    Michael just stood there. Staring. Lea had been right. He’d never seen anything like this woman…and he
loved
it.
    She stopped screaming. She stepped back, one side of her mouth twisting up, like she was queen of the world and knew all. Her clothes draped in burnt tatters across the muscular lines of her strong, firm body. She was beyond exotic, her skin deeply colored and smooth, her features a hodgepodge of Asian and Pacific Islander and European.
    “Guess what,” Michael whispered, “you’re mine now.”
    She drew a deep breath—so deep it seemed unnatural—her spectacular chest expanding up and out like her ribs were rubber. Her red lips parted and her mouth opened wide. There, in the back of her throat, sparked a flame. No more than a match strike, tiny and yellow. Her lips narrowed, the flame rolling in the depths of her mouth, her cheeks glowing from the interior heat and light. She lifted a hand and blew the flame onto a finger where it danced without being snuffed out. She rubbed her fingertips together and the flame grew into the size of a golf ball. Bringing her other hand into it, she rolled the fireball between her palms in slow, sensuous movements. The longer she worked it, the bigger it got.
    Jesus, he was getting hard watching this.
    She dropped one arm, cradling a fiery mass larger than herhead in her palm. That same arm fell back then launched forward. The fireball smashed against the inside of the box, leaving a new layer of char. Blocking his view.
    He couldn’t wait until Raymond saw this.
    As Michael turned back to the house, he was aware of Sean’s look of horror, of perpetual worry. But Michael was smiling. Exhilarated.
    Fucking
jacked
.

FOUR
    She walked into Shed at 8:03 p.m. Not that Xavier was watching. Or waiting. He saw everything from behind the wide pane of kitchen glass. It perfectly framed the way Cat wove sinuously between the black tables draped in white cloth, the way the low light seemed to catch and hold on to her. The hostess seated Cat and her companion—an older woman he swore he’d seen before—in the center of the dining room. No table near the busboy station for this last-minute reservation during high season. Thanks, Pam.
    The three seconds over, he returned his eyes to his station and tuned his ears to the beloved clatter and hiss of the kitchen at his back. Pam was making her station rounds. At the burners next to Xavier, she was talking to Jose about the sear on his chicken. With an encouraging clap on Jose’s shoulder, she came over to Xavier.
    “Did you do something to my Cabernet sauce, X?”
    The nickname made him shiver. In the Plant he’d only been known as 267X, but he couldn’t tell Pam that.
    His hand went instinctively—protectively?—to the wooden spoon in the pot holding the lovely crimson-colored, peppery sauce for the filet special. “Maybe. Why?”
    “Tastes different.”
    “What’s it taste like?” He cracked an egg for the béarnaise, passing the insides between shell halves to separate out the yolk.
    She drummed her short nails on the cutting board. “Like I want to roll around naked in it.”
    He hid his smile.
    She sighed. “I should fire you, you know.”
    He glanced over his shoulder at her pursed lips and raised eyebrows. “So fire me.”
    “Ah, fuck. You know I won’t.”
    “Good. ’Cause I don’t want to go anywhere.”
    “Double good. I’ll just keep taking advantage of you.”
    “As long as we understand each other.”
    She