Read Online A Taste of Ice by Hanna Martine - Free Book Online Page B

only one I couldn’t blackmail, Michael. I got the tip where she was, saw the opportunity, and took it.”
    “How’d you get her? I can’t even get near the cage. Sean feeds her through the trap door on top, just drops food down. She pees in a bucket, but we can’t empty it because she won’t let us near.”
    “What fights fire, Michael?” Lea asked dryly.
    “Water.” Michael scratched his chin. “Ah, so that’s why you brought Robert. You’re so good to me, Lea, getting me a pair.”
    “Who said they’re for you?”
    “What?” He didn’t like that. This wasn’t Lea’s show. And yet, he absolutely depended on her uncanny ability to sniff out the magic. If she wasn’t kept happy, she’d leave, and he couldn’t afford that.
    “Trust me. You’ll keep getting what you want. And now, so will I.”
    “Which is?”
    “Just trust me, baby. Have you informed good ol’ Daddy about your latest acquisition?”
    “Not yet.” Timing hadn’t been right. Michael should have been filming the garage that first day he’d awakened his prize. Now he just needed to piss her off again, make her call fire. Get it recorded. “Hurry up and get here.” Suddenly he needed one of those fucks. He’d been fantasizing about Cat too much. And the fire woman.
    “Just a few more days. Can’t rush these things or they’ll be on to me.”
    “Tell me you’re not worried about the cops.”
    She clucked her tongue. “Give me a little more credit, would you? The cops don’t know anything. This is our world. We don’t let in outsiders. Ever.”
    It wasn’t the first time she’d said that.
    “You’re welcome, by the way.”
    That made Michael smile. “I tell you thank you all the time. Now get over here and let me show you.”
    Deep down he knew Lea wasn’t doing any of this for him. She didn’t hunt down humans with weird powers for shits and giggles, or even to please him. She had her own agenda. He wasn’t stupid. As long as he kept her in his sights, he wasn’t worried.
    But ever since a living match had been stuffed into his garage, he wondered if maybe he should be.
    She showed up.
    Nine o’clock in the morning, and there Cat stood, leaning against the wall just beyond the Gold Rush Theater marquee. Waiting for
him
.
    Xavier didn’t know what surprised him more: that she’d willingly come after his disastrous exit from Fresh Powder, or that he had.
    The action on Waterleaf reminded him of a turbulent ocean—bodies and motion everywhere, never-ending, making him a little queasy—and him clinging to a life raft as the waves pounded around him. But he was going to go through with this, however the hell it went. The Burned Man could scream in his ear for three hours and he’d see it through. At least he could say he tried.
    He’d reached a pretty hefty decision around 3:00 a.m. After beating the boxing bag into submission and sprinting a few miles on the treadmill, and then slapping together three different kinds of herbed butter, he concluded that he would think of Cat as an experiment. Nothing more. He would meet her for the movie, think not one sexual thought about her, and learn how to
talk
. How to communicate.
    Yeah, right
, chuckled the Burned Man at his side.
You’re weak. All your kind are.
    Xavier stood there in the middle of the surging crowd, watching Cat without her seeing him. The red hat was back in place, long waves of her hair spilling out from underneath. She blew on her mittened hands. The urge to turn around, head back to his kitchen, and dice every vegetable in his refrigerator into atoms thrummed strong, but he held fast. Today he wouldn’t be weak.
    He walked toward her, crossing the red carpet, now brown and squishy with slush, that had been spread under the marquee. She saw him and pushed away from the wall, surprise evident on her face.
    “Hey.” He stopped a few feet from her, hands shoved into his pockets.
    “Hi.” One corner of her mouth twitched and he had to focus on a